Edward Ring is the director of energy and water policy with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the National Review and the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Orange County Register, and other media outlets.
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Debunking the Allegedly Prohibitive Cost of Desalination
/by Edward RingEarlier this summer a guest op-ed appeared in the Orange County Register, “Learning the right lesson from San Diego’s desal water surplus.” But the “lesson” presented was only partly accurate. What the authors, both affiliated with the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), got right was the need to change regulations that restrict the ability for farmers to […]
California Needs Steve Hilton’s Allegedly “Zany Ideas”
/by Edward RingVeteran political strategist Garry South has just published a guest commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle in which he asks the question, “Is Steve Hilton a serious candidate?” South then launches a series of attacks to make clear he doesn’t think Hilton is gubernatorial material. But only a serious contender could have survived California’s so-called “jungle primary,” where […]
A Fact-Based Appraisal of California’s Net Zero Strategy
/by Edward RingThe Statistical Review of World Energy is arguably the most authoritative and comprehensive source publicly available for national and global energy statistics. And a funny thing happened between the report issued in 2024 and the report issued in 2025. “Renewables” as a percent of total energy consumed in 2023 was quietly lowered from 9.3 in the U.S. […]
Global and US Reliance on Fossil Fuel Unchanged in 25 Years
/by Edward RingSo far this century, worldwide energy use is up nearly 60 percent, and, as anyone living in Western industrialized nations knows all too well, we have spent trillions of dollars to “decarbonize” our economy. And guess what? Our dependence on fossil fuels is unchanged. To make this assertion, we may cite the world’s most authoritative […]
Large Scale Desalination Could Help Resolve Colorado River Shortage
/by Edward RingThe operating agreements that govern Colorado River allocations expire at the end of this year, and negotiations between the seven states that share the water are stalled. With the federal government poised to step in and impose an agreement it formulates, the states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming in the upper basin, and Arizona, […]