Author: Edward Ring

Edward Ring is the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. The California Policy Center is an educational non-profit focused on public policies that aim to improve California’s democracy and economy. He is also a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness. Ring is the author of two books: "Fixing California - Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism" (2021), and "The Abundance Choice - Our Fight for More Water in California" (2022).

Ringside: EVs and California’s Future Demand for Electricity

December 4, 2025 3:10 amDecember 4, 2025 3:11 am

When it comes to the achievement of “carbon neutrality” and the requisite energy policies to get there, few choices carry with them more consequences than the planned, nearly total electrification of our economy. And when it comes to electrification, few...

Ringside: Politically Viable Water Supply Projects

November 27, 2025 6:30 amNovember 27, 2025 6:31 am

A few years ago I was involved in an effort to qualify a ballot initiative, the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act.” While we failed to gather sufficient signatures to get it onto the November 2022 state ballot, if it had been...

Ringside: Shifting Costs Does Not Solve California’s Electricity Shortages

November 20, 2025 2:55 amNovember 20, 2025 2:56 am

California’s Little Hoover Commission was created in 1962 “as an independent and bipartisan state agency charged with making recommendations to the governor and Legislature on ways to make state programs more efficient.” Funded by taxpayers, officially nonpartisan, they’ve just released a set of...

Ringside: The Regulatory Burden that Prevents Abundance

November 13, 2025 2:55 amNovember 13, 2025 2:56 am

The cost-of-living has become a national issue, a favored topic of partisan debate. The debate is governed by emotions, ideology, and widely divergent economic theories, probably in that order. Our contribution to this debate, drawing on all three of those...

Ringside: Lines for Gas Coming to California

November 6, 2025 2:45 amNovember 6, 2025 2:46 am

Achieving California’s goal of net zero by 2045 requires rapidly transitioning away from combustible fuel. It’s a risky strategy. If the transition happens too fast, Californians confront energy shortages and high prices. When it comes to electricity, Newsom has so...

Ringside: Large Scale Desalination Could Transform California

October 30, 2025 2:45 amOctober 30, 2025 2:46 am

Why is it axiomatic among California’s water agencies and policymakers that large scale desalination is inconceivable in California? That certainly isn’t the case in other arid locales. In 2024, an estimated 30 million acre feet of fresh water was produced by desalination...

Ringside: Oil Extraction Reduces Methane Seepage

October 23, 2025 4:29 pmOctober 23, 2025 5:42 pm

An opinion piece in the Santa Barbara Independent, published last week, heralded the decision by the Santa Barbara County board of supervisors to phase out oil drilling, which as the authors put it, “will save lives, reduce air pollution, and help...