Arizona Senate Bill 1611 (SB1611), signed into law during the 2025 legislative session, introduces sweeping changes to Arizona’s groundwater and land use framework that could significantly benefit real estate developers...more
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Commission (“NRC”) has released the 2024 Groundwater Protection and Management Report (“Report”)...more
California stands at a pivotal juncture in 2025, confronting an array of environmental and housing challenges. As usual, the California State Legislature is considering numerous strategies to address these issues. This year’s...more
Beginning January 1, 2025, the “Making Conservation a California Way of Life” regulatory framework requires urban retail water suppliers — not individual households or businesses — to adopt a series of “urban water use...more
On March 25, 2025, the University of Southern California’s (USC’s) Public Exchange and independent advisor Solar Aquagrid announced the California Solar Canal Initiative, a seven-university project to assess the...more
Stakeholders should stay informed as state and federal officials advance plans and policies for water conservation, water quality, and climate resilience in California....more
In 2024, after years of deliberation, California water officials adopted landmark rules that will guide future water use and conservation in the state. The “Making Conservation a California Way of Life” framework went into...more
North Carolina has joined more than 35 states across the country to adopt a new form of financing for commercial real estate owners and developers. Known as Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing, the...more
Traditional sources of freshwater are dwindling as a result of increased demand, reduced natural replenishment, volatile weather patterns, and extended-duration droughts. Desalination, the industrial-scale removal of salt...more
The city of Fresno announced this week that Shell USA, Dow Chemical, and other oil and chemical companies have agreed to pay the city $230 million to settle the city’s 2007 lawsuit against them for allegedly contaminating...more
On July 8, 2024, the California Supreme Court issued its opinion in Golden State Water Company v. Public Utilities Commission. The petitioners, California Water Association, California-American Water Company, California Water...more
A judge has temporarily blocked a plan by a California state water board to take over monitoring groundwater use in a portion of the crop-rich San Joaquin Valley, according to a copy of the decision obtained on July 16. Kings...more
On May 29, 2024, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) posted updated program guidelines along with draft supplemental guidelines for the Garden State Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) program. ...more
Like much of the western and southwestern U.S., California has experienced drought conditions on and off for decades. Fortunately, the regulatory landscape is starting to catch up with water treatment technology, paving the...more
The Alberta government has identified, and is taking proactive steps to address, the looming threat of a severe drought this year. As negotiations unfold to secure water-sharing agreements, a cascade of legal and economic...more
In response to critics who said that proposed new statewide water conservation rules — aimed at cutting urban water use even in years when California is not in a drought — were too complicated and costly, the State Water...more
A coalition of conservation groups filed a petition on Tuesday asking the California Fish and Game Commission to protect burrowing owl populations in five parts of the state including parts of the Bay Area and the Central...more
State and federal officials move forward plans and policies for water conservation, conveyance, and climate resilience. The winter of 2022-23 brought historic levels of precipitation to California after years of deep...more
Top water officials for the seven Colorado River Basin states met in December 2023 at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference to resume negotiating a new compromise for how they will share — and cut back on —...more
On December 21, 2023, I published a post on the Center for California Water Resources Policy and Management’s DeltaCurrents blog discussing integration of resource optimization into endangered species policy to improve...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday proposed banning the cancer-causing chemical trichloroethylene (TCE), which can be found in consumer products including automobile brake cleaners, furniture care, and...more
The California 2023 Legislative Session ended on September 14, 2023, and presented the Governor with several important changes to California’s water-related statutes. The Governor had until October 14, 2023, to sign all...more
With California facing a hotter and drier future punctuated by bouts of extreme weather, state officials are moving forward with a new framework for urban water use that could require some suppliers to make cuts of 20% or...more
While demand for new housing in the United States is strong, the ability to meet this demand is hampered by lack of water resources. This is especially true in states experiencing population growth such as Florida and Texas....more
The drought years leading up to 2023 in the western U.S. saw unprecedented drops in storage in places like Lake Mead and Lake Powell when these reservoirs reached record lows. As a result, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation told...more