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: Floating Offshore Wind – A Financial and Environmental Catastrophe

April 9, 2026 8:00 amApril 9, 2026 8:01 am

Earlier this year, the California Coastal Commission released a report titled “Statewide Strategy for the Coexistence of California Fishing Communities and Offshore Wind Energy.” In addition to providing a “guiding framework” to protect California’s fishing communities, it “presents a roadmap for...

Ringside: Federal Options for Large Scale Seawater Desalination

April 2, 2026 4:30 amApril 2, 2026 4:31 am

The Carlsbad desalination plant is reportedly operating at half-capacity, basically because it’s less expensive to import water from the Colorado River. That is likely to change, as Arizona’s Department of Water Resources is negotiating with the San Diego County Water...

Ringside: The Economics of Managing Mono Lake

March 26, 2026 9:00 amMarch 26, 2026 9:01 am

Along with the California Condor, one of our state’s most magnificent environmental success stories of the 20th century is how Mono Lake was saved. In the early 1980s, after decades of unsustainable water withdrawals from the Owens River into the...

Ringside: The Many Benefits of Dredging the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

March 19, 2026 12:00 pmMarch 19, 2026 12:01 pm

The salmon decline in the delta has been attributed to the impact of water withdrawals into the California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal. But something else happened at the same time as the pumps were began operating; dredging in...

Ringside: Why Data Centers Will Create Electricity Abundance

March 12, 2026 4:00 amMarch 12, 2026 4:01 am

There is concern that the energy requirements of data centers will consume so much electricity that demand will overwhelm supply. While this is certainly a possible outcome, the actual impact may have the opposite effect. For starters, while the total...

Ringside – Building the Abundant Water Coalition

March 5, 2026 5:00 amMarch 5, 2026 5:01 am

If enough people in California agreed on a state water strategy, the political obstacles would be overcome. If every major water agency, every farming association, and a critical mass of environmental groups were all committed to a specific set of...

Ringside: Can Energy and Water Interests Find a Common Agenda?

February 26, 2026 7:00 amFebruary 26, 2026 7:03 am

It’s a risk to promote an agenda that calls for practical water projects, and at the same time, calls for practical energy projects. To begin with, the word “practical,” in both cases, is a matter of bitter debate. Equally challenging...