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: Can Oil Industry Lawsuits Compel Rational Energy Policy?

May 7, 2026 7:00 amMay 7, 2026 7:01 am

When asked in a recent interview why California has the highest gasoline prices in the nation, Jodie Muller, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, began by stating the following: “You can’t point a finger at one particular person, because,...

Ringside: California’s Self-Destructive War on Oil

April 29, 2026 2:30 pmApril 29, 2026 2:36 pm

California’s state legislature may succeed in destroying its own oil industry, but it won’t change anything in the world. It will only export jobs and raise the cost-of-living here at home. Here’s a reality check. According to the Statistical Review of...

Ringside: The Abundance Alliance

April 23, 2026 4:25 pmApril 23, 2026 4:25 pm

Abundance, and its political twin, affordability, are now bipartisan mantras, but cannot be realized if the only permissible avenues are via urban infill, renewable energy, and water rationing. California is uniquely positioned to do much more. Breakthrough technologies and big...

Ringside: Why Producing More Oil In California HELPS the Environment

April 15, 2026 4:00 pmApril 15, 2026 4:01 pm

With war in the Middle East disrupting shipments of crude oil, we have another reason to question policies that are driving our in-state oil industry into terminal decline. To briefly recap, Californians consumed 484 million barrels of oil in 2025, with...

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...