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: Final Legislative Session is Engineered Chaos

September 21, 2024 9:00 amSeptember 22, 2024 12:33 pm

How legislation is enacted in any democratic institution is inherently chaotic. That’s a feature of democracy, not a defect. It’s part of what separates us from authoritarian regimes where the legislature, such as it is, obediently passes whatever legislation they’re...

Ringside: Congress Comes to Santa Nella to Talk About Water

September 19, 2024 6:42 amSeptember 19, 2024 6:42 am

The Great Valley of California, one of “the more notable structural depressions in the world,” covers an area of 20,000 square miles. More than half of it, about 6.7 million acres, or over 10,000 square miles, is irrigated farmland. If you...

Ringside: AB 460 Hands Water Bureaucrats Even More Power

September 12, 2024 2:55 amSeptember 12, 2024 6:26 am

Siskiyou and Modoc counties have a combined population of 52,700 people and combined area of 10,227 miles. That’s less than the population of Yucaipa in a territory the size of Massachusetts. It’s a big place with almost no political clout. That’s why back...

Ringside: More Water Supply Requires Industry Unity

September 4, 2024 2:30 pmSeptember 4, 2024 2:37 pm

Probably the most consequential and controversial water policy decisions in California involve how much water to pump out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and into southbound aqueducts, and we’re in the middle of another one right now. For the last...

Ringside: The Numbers Behind CARB’s Goal of ‘Net Zero’

August 30, 2024 6:00 amAugust 30, 2024 6:43 am

Nearly every analysis of energy policy in California, to the extent it delves into the numbers, tends to focus on one variable, CO2. But if you’re just trying to figure out how much energy we use today, where it’s coming...

Ringside: Floating Offshore Wind – An Environmental Catastrophe

August 22, 2024 4:00 pmAugust 22, 2024 4:23 pm

Last week we examined California’s plans to install between 2,500 and 10,000 floating offshore wind turbines approximately 20 miles off the coast of San Luis Obispo and Humboldt counties. The estimated cost to install 25 gigawatts of capacity, which equates...

Ringside: Floating Offshore Wind – A Financial Catastrophe

August 15, 2024 2:08 pmAugust 15, 2024 2:08 pm

When it comes to looming financial and environmental catastrophes, nothing can compare to floating offshore wind. It is energy policy at its worst. In an analysis earlier this year (WC #36), using cost estimates published by a European energy consulting firm, I...