(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20230525-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
The foci of this week’s report is: First, the agreement among California, Arizona and Nevada to cut back their withdraws from the Colorado River by three million acre feet over three years. My introduction to that section is quite thorough, and I will not repeat it here.
I will add, as I have reported previously, the crisis on the Colorado River is a national crisis. For those in the rest of the nation who do wish to have vegetables in the winter, it is the Imperial Valley that grows 75% of your winter vegetables.
The second topic covered is governor Gavin Newsom is once again pissing off his environmentalist supporters as he positions himself for a presidential run in case Biden withdraws. This time, in order to speed up the building of water and other infrastructure, he is out to change the California law on Environmental Impact Statements, and limiting law suits against projects to just nine months. The introduction to that section provides a brief history of his actions to so position himself.
The Feature this week is an article by my colleague Robert Ingraham: “The mind-boggling Incompetence of the Debt Ceiling debate: If a Default scares you, what about a Depression?” It is a thorough discussion of the insanity of the present debate on the debt ceiling with a history of how we got to this idiocy, and what must be done instead.
