Capitol Ideas/Watering the Chips
Bethell, Tom
WATERING THE CHIPS by Tom Bethel! Stanford, California Thomas Graff is a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund and a graduate of Harvard Law School, with offices in Oakland right...
...Local governments impose rationing schemes on Bay Area residents...
...Oakeshott's account is only now coming into its own...
...Their budgets no doubt would suffer too...
...So it's easy to see that there is a serious distortion...
...In Silicon Valley, the director of the Santa Clara Manufacturing Group says: "Facilities that were in the planning stage have been put on hold or curtailed because of the lack of available water...
...Agriculture in the state used to be proportionately far more important than it is today, and the water used to be cheap enough that farms were the best place to put it...
...Jerry Brown's transition team...
...They worry that once they give up the water, they won't be able to get it back again...
...If there is unappropriated water left on the stream, the law says you get it...
...must have been pretty much uninhabitable before the arrival of civilization...
...Farmers do pay for the structures that they might need to divert the water, or to use it or store it, he added...
...True, such ideas have been supported by the free-market Political Economy Research Center in Montana...
...Department H101 7440 N. Shadeland Ave...
...Not much is likely to change as long as the farmers receive subsidies both for their water and their crops...
...The point is that by halting the construction of new projects, the environmentalists have put a great strain on the existing way of distributing water in the state...
...Hardcover $24.00 0-86597-094-7 Paperback $ 7.50 0-86597-095-5 LibertyPress, 1991 POLITICAL SERMONS OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDING ERA: 1730-1805 Edited by Ellis Sandoz "Professor Sandoz has provided a superb collection of sermons bearing on the politics of the era of the American Revolution and the early Republic...
...I have to go back to the end of the line if I want to divert water my way again...
...Therefore, the system will have to change—as it should...
...No, no, it's free," Graff said...
...I now have a right to use the water—and my permit specifies how I must use it...
...The farmers are better off because their water is put to a higher valued use and they capture that higher return...
...Zach Willey, the EDF economist who first introduced Graff to these market ideas, calls this a "win-win" solution...
...Maybe (I began to ruminate) he really is one of those people whose word is law within months . . . How did he feel about free marketsolutions to other environmental problems...
...Preface to the 1st Edition, foreword, bibliography, index...
...The genius of these witty and profound essays is in revealing the misconceptions of rationalism which underlie such doctrines...
...It may be that environmentalists worry needlessly about the frailty of ecosystems, and try unnecessarily to keep variables constant...
...Of water in California, Howitt said: "As its scarcity increased, and the economy using it shifted, the advantage of markets suddenly became clear...
...In 1974 he worked on Gov...
...With the state's population growing rapidly (by 6 million in the 1980s), and most of the water being poured into the ground for farming, theagencies that manage the water (primarily the State Department of Water Resources and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation) have a burning desire to build more dams and canals...
...But for fifteen years now they have been prevented from doing so, primarily by environmentalists...
...The California Farm Bureau, normally a supporter of markets, is therefore opposed to the proposed changes...
...The state of California owns the water," Graff told me...
...And the environmentalists are better off because the system will deliver water where it's wanted without having to build new projects...
...One day state officials show up at my door and offer me good money if they can divert my water to the cities...
...C hange how...
...We're only talking about transferring 8 to 10 percent [of the farmers' water]," he said...
...Streams that used to flow into this lonely lake have been diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and thence 225 miles south into the wicked city itself...
...10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1991 "Apart from the fact that bureaucrats don't like it," Graff added, "even among the interest groups it's very hard to persuade some environmentalists that were going to have to pay for these things...
...It takes a lot of water to turn silicon into microchips...
...finally, one day someone said: "Why don't we buy it and sell it as we do elsewhere...
...He laughed...
...558 + xxvi pages...
...If the farmers are given the water, so that they can sell it for a profit to the highest bidders, they cease being farmers and become water entrepreneurs...
...As the Metropolitan Water District (Southern California) recently sold water for $230 per acre foot, and farmers have been delivered water for $5, this would be profitable for farmers...
...That would be sufficient to bring the system into balance with all the urban growth...
...When Al Driver, who grows rice on a 2,400-acre farm north of Sacramento, was asked this question a few months ago he said: "None of us want to be knot-headed about it, but we don't care for it and we're not going to do it...
...As full owners, the farmers then can sell it, or lose a good financial opportunity by failing to do so...
...Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery...
...This means, incidentally, that most of California, including the coast, ibm Bethel...
...One of the things Graff is concerned about is the reduced flow of fresh water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers into the San Francisco Bay...
...In the course of a year the state receives a lot of rain and snow—about 193 million acre feet...
...George Miller of California, chairman of the House Interior Committee since the resignation of Rep...
...He pointed out a problem I hadn't thought of...
...Finally, he has written a very useful bibliographical note to assist interested readers...
...We think of them sometimes as ivory-tower," Graff said...
...Mo Udall, is supporting a bill by Rep...
...Let's talk about things that are in the realm of possibility...
...Of the remainder, 30 million acre feet are diverted into the state's 13,000 reservoirs and many aqueducts...
...He doesn't quite fit the stereotype...
...Indianapolis, IN 46250 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1991 11...
...Graff would like to keep it that way...
...dollars...
...S o what does all this have to do with Tom Graff 's concerns about the environment...
...Partly it's a matter of gauging public opinion...
...A mere 6 million acre feet is used for everything else: industry, cities, sprinkling on lawns, showers, toilets, washing machines, swimming pools, and so on...
...It's fair to say that we have not endorsed that...
...The story of California water can get very complicated...
...In the early nineteenth century San Francisco was barren hills and sand dunes...
...Please send me a copy of your current catalogue...
...Whether you need it or not...
...Let's say I'm a farmer and I want water for my fields...
...When he arrived in the state in 1971 he was "a New Deal liberal if there ever was one," he told me...
...And the approach he is taking is a sensible one...
...Correct in theory, but the fact is the public is not going to stand for Yellowstone being turned over to anyone else, be it Disney or Nature Conservancy...
...Recently he has devoted much time to the water problem in California...
...Hardcover $38.00 0-86597-090-4 Paperback $12.00 0-86597-091-2 LibertyPress, 1991 Please send me: Quantit Title Edition Price Amount Rationalism in Politics Hardcover $24.00 Paperback $ 7.50 Political Sermons of the Hardcover $38.00 American Founding Era Paperback $12.00 Prepayment required on all orders not for resale...
...They want the rivers and streams to go on flowing into the sea and into the lakes prettymuch the way they did before man built aqueducts...
...The Environmental Defense Fund looks at these ideas case by case...
...He does want to protect the environment, particularly California's, which is where he has lived for twenty years...
...Transfers would be needed only in the dry years—say two out of five...
...Enclosed is my check or money order made payable to Liberty Fund, Inc...
...This edition also arranges the essays thematically so that the reader will be better able to grasp the relation between the arguments of these essays and Oakeshott's other major works...
...the cities are better off because, when they can buy water from the farmers, they are assured of ample supplies...
...Richard Howitt, a professor of agricultural economics at U.C...
...These will capture more water and fatten up their budgets nicely...
...in particular, allow them to sell it to cities for whatever price they can get...
...In fact "it's likely," he said...
...Therefore," Graff added, "your incentive is to keep using it...
...He is promoting market solutions to environmental problems...
...They would clearly be losers...
...Kenneth Minogue, London School of Economics and Political Science Rationalism in Politics has established Michael Oakeshott as the greatest British philosopher of conservative disposition...
...But my right depends on my exercising it...
...About 80 percent (24 million acre feet) of the diverted water—the "developed supply," so called—goes to agriculture...
...Name Address City State/Zip Mail to: LIBERTY FUND, INC...
...Now," Howitt said, "perhaps we're better off making microchips out of it...
...If the water can be shunted around the state without their permission—and there are enough culverts and aqueducts to channel the water wherever it's needed—they would lose power...
...Foreword, acknowledgments, editor's note, bibliography, chronology...
...But as "public choice" economics tells us, there is a fourth group, consisting of those employed by the relevant government agencies...
...Los Angeles was desert...
...But the bill "could pass the House this year...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1991 9 Rice growers actually use more water than all the households of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined...
...This is said to be perilous for gulls and migratory grebes...
...NEW FROM LIBERTY FUND RATIONALISM IN POLITICS AND OTHER ESSAYS By Michael Oakeshott Foreword by Timothy Fuller "Socialism and communism are now plausibly thought to be dead...
...Plainly, many of them believe that the plan is to take the water from them—that is how the issue is frequently framed in the press—when the idea is to give them property rights in the water...
...Tom Graff said there were legislative difficulties because two autonomous committees are involved—Agriculture and Interior...
...30 million more acre feet run into the ocean...
...He wants to use it to change the system...
...We pay book rate postage on prepaid orders...
...Land in the west started off being common property, he added, then there were rules regulating its allocation...
...rationalism seems more alive than ever before...
...This is the simplified version...
...And then I probably won't get any...
...But the actual water is given away by the state...
...Do I pay for the water...
...Some environmentalists, he admits, do want to use the water shortage to shut off economic growth once and for all...
...Would I sign on the dotted line...
...He has chosen these sermons carefully and avoided, for the most part, sermons available in modern editions in other collections...
...Farmers, environmentalists, and cities are said to be the three main contenders for California water...
...Once the state has given you the permit, he said, "the last thing you want to do is let them know that you won't be using the water anymore...
...This is called the "use it or lose it" system...
...All orders from outside the United States must be prepaid in U.S...
...In a way, I suspect, environmentalists are very conservative people...
...He also realizes that they don't use much water compared to the amount wasted on low-valued crops...
...Crops are then sold at prices propped up by Agriculture Department subsidies...
...Farmers who applied first have priority over later applicants...
...Property rights in African elephants...
...I don't know whether these are real problems or not...
...In Colorado and Arizona, by contrast, towns bought 100 percent of the water rights in some cases, leaving valleys parched, sugar beet plants closed down, the surrounding communities out of business...
...Stanford, California Thomas Graff is a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund and a graduate of Harvard Law School, with offices in Oakland right next to Berkeley...
...Which of course makes sense, because it's so scarce...
...Giving the national parks to environmental groups...
...Some of it is also effectively owned by the federal government...
...Like watering the chips...
...that is, before aqueducts and reservoirs could be built...
...Most of this (121 million acre feet) evaporates...
...Another concern is Mono Lake, home to flies and brine shrimp, on the eastern side of the Sierras...
...An acre foot is about 330,000 gallons...
...It did rain in March, but as a matter of course there is little or no rain, year after year, between April and November...
...We were active in promoting the acid-rain tradeable emissions idea," he said...
...W ho owns the water, that it should be used so strangely...
...Meanwhile, millions of gallons are poured onto arid fields to grow rice, alfalfa (sold as hay), and cotton...
...Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut that would force farmersto choose between their subsidies: water or crops, but they can't have both...
...They might do quite well out of it, but the farming communities would suffer...
...Maybe I just flood the land and grow nothing—as a result getting $260 per idle acre from the Feds...
...If at some point I stop doing so, I lose it...
...Except in northern coastal areas, virtually all the water is now allocated...
...But he realizes that the cities must havewater...
...The water is quite plentiful, but it is distributed irrationally...
...He means: Some think they can use their political clout to get everything they want without compromise...
...The solution preferred by Graff and the Environmental Defense Fund is to give the farmers clear title to the water and allow them to do what they like with it...
...The dams and aqueducts were built by government agencies...
...is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent and a media fellow at the Hoover Institution...
...on his shelves Paul Ehrlich's End of Affluence and E. F. Shumaker's Small Is Beautiful, along with a lot of intimidating tomes on environmental law—no doubt, you are probably thinking, Graff is one of those unacknowledged oligarchs whose word will be law tomorrow and who can stop economic development whenever he feels like it by pronouncing some new species endangered...
...Abig problem at the moment is that farmers regard their existing subsidies and benefits as preferable to the vagaries of change...
...You go to the State Water Resources Control Board and say, 'Please give me a permit to divert water from stream X,' " Graff said...
...But suppose I'm lucky and I get a permit...
...Agriculture gets the lion's share—and yet contributes surprisingly little to the state's gross product: a mere 2.5 percent...
...On his desk are piles of legal briefs...
...He has also provided short, crisp introductions to each sermon and important biographical information about their authors...
...Water in western states is free...
...What do I do...
...The bay, and the delta inland from it, are becoming saltier as a result...
...Robert Middlekauff, The Huntington Library 1598 + xxxviii pages...
...This is satisfactory for some kinds of fish but unsatisfactory for others (salmon and striped bass, for example...
...In Riverside County, there's a moratorium onwater connections to new houses...
...And that's what they still would be today if we had had the form of government common in Third World countries (and blithely supported by the foreign aid bureaucracies...
...All in all, this is one of the most useful collections of sources available for the study of the young United States...
...Now I am in business as a rice farmer, with cheap water and government subsidies that bring the price up to $10.70 for 100 pounds of rice...
...Davis, said he thought this could be resolved without too much hardship...
...First published in 1962, it is now published in a new and expanded edition, including six additional essays (one previously unpublished), a full index, and a foreword and bibliography by Timothy Fuller...
...Or perhaps the problems are real...
...The level of the lake has dropped by twenty-five feet, its area has shrunk to sixty square miles from eighty...
...The system works in a "first-in-time, first-in-right" manner...
...No doubt you heard about the drought...
...We have not endorsed that," he said...
...Communism may well be dead...
Vol. 24 • July 1991 • No. 7
