California's Human Right to Water Law at 10 Years
The Limits of Narrative Aspiration and Policy Incrementalism
This article originally appeared in California Lawyers Association
by Max Gomberg[1]
California’s Human Right to Water Law HRTW law, passed in 2012, marked the first successful state statute to define water as a human right and ushered in subsequent legal and policy actions that materially improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.[2] The HRTW law itself, however, created no requirements for action and no local responsibility for its implementation.[3] Rather, the law, like many human rights frameworks, is aspirational.[4] The law uses universal language and includes a broad range of goal categories but does not include any language regarding transparency and accountability. As a result, there is no narrative foundation for understanding violations of the enumerated rights. This article examines the narrative and legal framework of human rights violation and assesses whether it could be applied to the HRTW law to accelerate its implementation.
Background on California’s Human Right to Water Law
Several international and California specific reports from 2002-2012 laid the groundwork for the HRTW law. In 2002, the United Nations held the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was a milestone in the lead up to the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015.[5] On July 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 64/292, recognizing a human right to water and sanitation.[6] In California, both research and advocacy organizations were sounding the alarm about unsafe drinking water for residents living near agricultural and industrial contamination. Different organizations published reports about the impacts of nitrates in drinking water,[7]and the Community Water Center, an advocacy organization founded in 2006 began organizing residents in the San Joaquin Valley to advocate for safe drinking water solutions.[8] Drawing from the international framework, California advocates drafted legislation that enumerated safe, accessible, and affordable water as human rights and directed relevant state government agencies to consider how to advance them in agency decisions, such as regulatory and funding actions.[9]
Intellectual and Legal Antecedents to Contemporary Human Rights Statutes
The concept of human rights and their violations has been part of different world cultures for millennia.[10] After World War II, through the United Nations, the language of human rights was more explicitly codified in declarative documents such as the universal declaration of human rights.[11] Moreover, legal accountability regimes were developed for the worst human rights violations (e.g., genocide).[12] Perhaps the most important precedent emerged through the Nuremberg trials; namely, that soldiers were responsible for their crimes even if they were following orders.
Through the 1960s, as many former European colonies achieved independence and sought to establish democratic governments, the narrative of human rights was widely used and seen as a way to expand individual and collective freedoms.[13] However, in recent decades, legal regimes meant to provide people with safe harbor against human rights violations (i.e., asylum) have faced significant backlash from people and politicians invested in white supremacy. Nevertheless, curing human rights violations continues to be the pretext for international interventions and after the-fact tribunals, in places such as the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.[14]
While the worst human rights violations (e.g., mass killings, forced displacement) are most often carried out by national governments, the more mundane day-to-day violations take place through power dynamics at the local level. These normalized violations manifest as direct and institutionalized discrimination and violence against Black, Indigenous, and communities of color (BIPOC), women, and other marginalized groups, such as religious minorities and people who are not heteronormative (e.g., people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer). Institutional human rights violations include those perpetrated by law enforcement agencies, local governments (i.e., housing policy and industrial zoning with disproportionate negative impacts on BIPOC communities), private enterprise (i.e., banks through redlining), and all levels of government through due process violations such as cash bail.
HTRW Violations in California
In California, HRTW violations are characterized as policy failures. They include living without access to safe or reliable drinking water and losing access to drinking water through the accumulation of debt and service disconnection. While the perpetrators of these violations are often identifiable,[15] the establishment narrative[16] is not one of violation, but rather one of unmet need and a societal necessity to weigh violations (impacts) against public and private institutional interests. For example, in establishment discussions around Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) implementation, domestic wells that go dry due to nearby agricultural well use are not the result of human rights violations but rather a side effect of private enterprise that can be mitigated through provision of water from alternative sources.[17] In the affordability and access context, service disconnections for unpaid bills are not human rights violations, but rather necessary actions to preserve institutional finances and authority. In these instances, we see the clear gap between an aspirational statute enumerating human rights and the political narrative and legal frameworks governing land and resource management that do not recognize those rights.
Without a narrative of violation, government officials face relatively little pressure to devote enforcement resources towards upholding the law. Absent enforcement, institutional and private actors who wield power (i.e., water and agricultural agencies) focus their resources on securing public monies to “socialize the losses” stemming from their actions.[18] Moreover, when governments face pressure to cure highly visible impacts, such as water contamination and empty taps, they focus on use of existing resources to treat symptoms rather than causes.[19] In effect, as administrative, funding, and legal processes drag out over years, the results in marginalized communities are a variation on the phrase “justice delayed is justice denied.”
The slow and incremental pace of change to redress causal factors (contamination, groundwater depletion, and unaffordability) is evident in the laws and policies adopted to advance HRTW. Resources dedicated to safe drinking water have been allocated to temporary (interim) solutions, including delivery of clean water and support for operations and maintenance, rather than permanent solutions that require governance, financial, and enforcement actions. For example, despite the passage of legislation (SB 552, 2016) granting the State Water Resources Control Board (Board) additional authority to mandate system consolidations in disadvantaged communities, the Board has only exercised that authority in a handful of cases.[20] Moreover, the Board has not attempted to assert authority over groundwater pumping relating to the common law doctrine of public trust protection and the doctrine of reasonable use enshrined in the state Constitution.[21]
As a result, dozens of communities are years (if not decades) away from having clean and reliable drinking water while there is no guarantee of funding for long-term solutions after 2030. In addition, while water affordability received significant attention during the initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic, political will to establish a low-income water assistance program is still lacking.[22] Thus, for the foreseeable future, HRTW outcomes will remain a function of local willingness to prioritize the HRTW goals. At the state government level, the narrative is no longer about solving an unacceptable injustice with haste, but rather about making progress.[23]
The Narrative of Local Control
In California, institutional actors wary of HRTW requirements benefit from another narrative advantage: the narrative of local control. The local control narrative is a relative of the federalism narrative that animated the U.S. Constitution. The premise for federalism is that too much centralized power (such as a monarchy) leads to the worst outcomes.[24] (Of course, that reasoning was also used as a pretext to allow for the worst outcome for Black people (slavery) in the Southern states, proving that its assertion should always be viewed as suspect.)[25] Under the narrative of local control, state governments cede significant authority over land use, law enforcement, housing production, transportation systems, and water management (groundwater pumping, drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater) to local governments (including agricultural water districts). Local governments, backed by powerful business interests and property owners, have successfully framed the situation as one of allowing for variation due to community character and preventing state government overreach.[26] As a result, the state cannot easily cure human rights violations perpetrated by local governments.
There are, however, two significant contemporary instances of local control losing out to state policy goals: housing production and redevelopment agencies. Over the past decade, as California’s housing costs and population of unhoused people have grown and received increasing public ire and media visibility, the state has responded with financial resources and laws seeking to increase housing supply by limiting and overriding local control.[27] Concurrently, the housing narrative has shifted to include discussion of various actions local governments take to frustrate state housing goals. Moreover, local governments that have blatantly attempted to circumvent state requirements have received sharp rebuke from state officials.[28]
For the redevelopment agencies, concern over misuse was widespread, leading to scrutiny from state officials.[29] Anger at the misuse of public funds amidst a state budget deficit overwhelmed the lobbying efforts of local governments to maintain control over redevelopment agencies. Moreover, their legal arguments as to why they could not be subject to state control fell on deaf ears. As the California Supreme Court affirmed in its decision to uphold the Legislature’s action to dissolve the redevelopment agencies:
The constitutionalization of a political subdivision— the alteration of a local government entity from a statutory creation existing only at the pleasure of the sovereign state to a constitutional creation with life and powers of independent origin and standing—would represent a profound change in the structure of state government. Municipal corporations, though of far more ancient standing than redevelopment agencies, have never achieved such status.[30]
These examples demonstrate that there are limits to the narrative power of local control, and thus raise the question of what those limits are in the water space. One key difference between the housing sector and the water sector is broad visibility (to the middle and upper classes) of negative outcomes. People experiencing homelessness live in major metropolitan areas and often interact with the middle and upper class people who live and work in proximity.[31] Moreover, even suburban homeowners are broadly aware of housing supply shortages and cost pressures and often have opinions regarding where housing should (and should not) be built.[32] In contrast, the impacts of water contamination and access are concentrated in less visible rural areas and low-income urban neighborhoods.[33] Through years of tenacious advocacy, water justice advocates were able to secure funding for addressing the most egregious drinking water quality violations.[34] Nevertheless, local control has mostly prevailed as evidenced by the architecture of SGMA, statutory limits on mandatory consolidation authority, and court decisions limiting the use of state regulatory authority outside of declared emergencies.[35]
In the legal realm, courts have upheld basic human rights in the housing context but have not extended that protection to access to water and sanitation. When local governments have attempted to deprive unhoused people of their chosen places to sleep and maintain their belongings, courts have ruled that they have exceeded their authority; for example, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision (and subsequent En Banc ruling) in Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (2019), found that people experiencing homelessness cannot be criminally punished for sleeping outside if there are no available alternatives, relying upon the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, whose prohibitions on excessive criminalization through financial penalties (bail amounts and fines) and cruel and unusual punishment are a vivid example of how human rights are a centerpiece of U.S. law. Moreover, as argued in a Harvard Law Review article about the case, its main impact was to galvanize policy reform; the legal precedent was secondary.[36]
Two Necessary Shifts for Actualizing the HRTW Statute
California’s HRTW statute does not reference any federal or state constitutionally protected rights. As such, there have been no court cases alleging violations of the law, and the state government has been loath to assert authority based on the statute’s wording.[37] However, the existence of the statute is nearly certain to underpin disputes over other statutory provisions. In the groundwater management context, for example, the state is proceeding to assume authority over groundwater basin management from local agencies that have failed to submit adequate groundwater sustainability plans.[38] One of the key deficiencies in those plans is their inability to maintain supplies for domestic wells[39]–the access component of the HRTW law. If any of the local agencies challenge the state takeover in court, the issue of access for domestic uses will likely take center stage. Nevertheless, the judicial branch will not be the locus of fights over the minimal authority granted by the HRTW statute unless and until two complementary shifts occur: a narrative shift from aspiration to violation; and, a policy shift towards greater state control and responsibility for curing violations.
The narrative shift is a challenge based on the way we understand crime and the conceptual ease of understanding crime with direct physical and property impact versus indirect/less visible impacts through institutional actions. Our criminal justice system is highly punitive against crimes committed by BIPOC individuals and non-institutional organizations (e.g., gangs); while the same system is highly permissive against institutional crimes such as wage theft, corporate tax evasion, monopoly/monopsony rent seeking, and environmental contamination.[40] Although recent police killings of Black people have reopened public debate around accountability, public safety, and local government resource allocation decisions, most elected officials have called for police reform and continued (or increased funding) while steering clear of calls to defund and abolish policing as currently practiced.[41]
There are multiple factors involved, including the power of police unions, the economic winners in the current system of policing and incarceration (i.e., local governments like Ferguson, Missouri, along with companies that issue bail bonds, provide police with military and surveillance technology, and operate private prisons). Another factor is that the general public seems to appreciated the psychological comfort of the devil we know (police) instead of less tested approaches to public safety in a society where economic inequality, violence, and guns are rampant. Also, there are fewer local and independent media with journalists devoted to thorough investigation instead of parroting police propaganda.[42] Thus, advocates for police abolition face strong headwinds.[43] However, the narrative shift towards understanding police forces as (semi) rogue agents whose function is to violently (and extrajudicially) uphold racial and class hierarchy (i.e., to violate human rights) has clearly taken hold, as evidenced by the amount of ink spilled by police defenders.[44]
A similar narrative shift is unlikely in the water sector because the conditions that made it possible in housing (a growing homelessness crisis) and policing (a spotlight on systemic abuse) do not exist. Nevertheless, advocacy and strong media coverage has brought HRTW issues into the public eye in a way that is forcing defensive posturing from agricultural and urban power players.[45] Just as in the policing debate, even the whiff of accountability generates major pushback from vested water interests.[46] If a narrative of violation by water agencies takes hold, the opportunity for rapid and more expansive structural change could arise.
A policy shift absent a narrative change is also unlikely. However, the policy shifts occurring in the housing sector along with the increasing imperatives for additional state action in response to accelerating climate change impacts are creating a space for additional state legislative and regulatory requirements. For example, in the energy sector, the impacts from large wildfires (with greater destructive capacity due to climate change) forced a policy change whereby customers in vulnerable areas now face power shutoffs to protect public safety.[47] If greater numbers of people begin to face water insecurity (whether due to unaffordable bills, shortages during extended dry periods, or both), it could force policy shifts in existing legal regimes, such as surface water rights and groundwater well permitting authority.
Conclusion
Much of the commentary around the 10-year anniversary of the HRTW law can be summarized as: “progress has been made, but more work remains.” While this is both true and unobjectionable on its face, it avoids the politically uncomfortable question of why more work remains. Why, in 2023, is it too difficult to immediately and permanently provide safe drinking water to 2.5% of the state’s population (1 million out of 40 million)" Why is it too difficult to ensure that domestic wells don’t go dry every time precipitation levels are low" Why is it too difficult to provide financial assistance to people struggling to pay their water bills when the state helps with every other basic necessity? Why is it beyond the state’s capacity to provide adequate water and sanitation to people living on the street?
In 10 or 15 years, someone will be asked to write the next retrospective on the HRTW statute. Perhaps by then agricultural foxes will no longer be guarding fish houses. Perhaps the state and federal governments will have stepped up with meaningful and sustained funding for water equity. Perhaps state and federal regulators will have boldly asserted authority to mandate HRTW outcomes and fought to enshrine them through the courts. Perhaps foundations will have funded a campaign by water justice advocates to establish HRTW as a constitutional right. None of these outcomes will be possible without sustained political advocacy.
Water justice advocates have been fighting these battles for well over a decade, and they will continue to do so. The question for the rest of us is, whose interests are we going to defend?
1 Max Gomberg is an independent consultant for equitable and climate resilient water policy. He works with advocacy organizations on both federal and California water issues. Prior to becoming a consultant, he spent 15 years in state government, working for the State Water Resources Control Board and the ratepayer advocate at the California Public Utilities Commission.
2 After the passage of the HRTW law, multiple policy bills and funding measures were passed that substantially increased the ability of the state to respond to the drinking water crisis. They included two bond measures (Prop 1 in 2014 and Prop 68 in 2018), the transfer of the state’s drinking water program from its Department of Public Health to its State Water Resources Control Board (AB 1531 (2015)), additional authority to administer and consolidate failing systems (SB 552 (2016)), and a fund to provide emergency drinking water and operations and maintenance support to failing systems (SB 200 (2019)). In addition, legislation was passed to regulate groundwater pumping (AB 1739, SB 1168, and SB 1319 (2014)), provide drought mitigation resources to small and rural water systems (SB 552 (2021), and to provide due process prior to shutoffs (SB 998 (2018)).
3 Indeed, the statutory language specifically absolves local water districts of responsibility. Water Code section 106.3(e) states that, “The implementation of this section shall not infringe on the rights or responsibilities of any public water system.”
4 The United Nations recognized the aspirational nature of achieving human rights gains for its 75th anniversary in 2020. See Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, “The Highest Aspiration – A Call to Action for Human Rights,” UNITED NATIONS (2020), https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/2020_sg_call_to_action_for _hr_the_highest_aspiration.pdf (accessed Feb. 23, 2023). This article deliberately chooses to contrast aspiration and violation as opposed to positive and negative rights to explore the roles of different levels of government in violating and upholding rights.
5 See https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/milesstones/wssd, (accessed May 27, 2023).
6 See https://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/human_right_to_water.shtml, (accessed May 27, 2023).
7 See Carolina Balazs et al., Social Disparities in Nitrate Contaminated Water in California’s San Joaquin Valley, 119 Envtl. Health Persp. 1273 (2011), Pacific Institute, The Human Costs of Nitrate-contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley (2011), available at http://www.pacinst.org/reports/nitrate_contamination/ nitrate_contamination.pdf, and University of California, Davis, Center for Watershed Sciences, Addressing Nitrate in California’s Drinking Water (2012), available at http://groundwaternitrate.ucdavis.edu/files/138956.pdf, (accessed May 28, 2023).
8 See https://www.communitywatercenter.org/history, (accessed May 28, 2023).
9 Cal. Water Code § 106.3(b).
10 Lauren, Paul Gordon (2003). "Philosophical Visions: Human Nature, Natural Law, and Natural Rights". The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 081221854X.
11 See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNITED NATIONS, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal declaration-of-human-rights (accessed Jan. 16, 2023).
12 The Nuremberg trials, for example, were used to prosecute the leaders of Nazi Germany for their crimes. 13 See, e.g., McWhinney, Edward, “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples,” Audiovisual Library of International Law, New York (Dec. 14, 1960), available at https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/dicc/dicc.html.
14 See, e.g., Winfield, Nicole, “UN Failed Rwanda,” Global Policy Forum, Associated Press/Nando Media (Dec. 16, 1999), available at https://archive.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/201-rwanda/39240.html.
15 Service disconnections, for example, are performed by the utility service provider. Dry domestic wells are sometimes caused by pumping from nearby deeper wells for agricultural irrigation. In the case of contaminated drinking water, there is often more than one person or entity to blame, and in some instances, the contaminants are naturally occurring.
16 By establishment narrative, I mean the narrative commonly provided by establishment actors in government, media, business, and research institutions. In California’s water space, establishment actors include the state government, water and agricultural districts, and ostensibly “non-partisan” research institutes, such as the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). These actors have a strong status quo bias, and a preference for market mechanisms, such as water trading, over government regulations and taxation. I make this claim based on my professional experience working with leaders of these institutions and in conversation with their critics.
17 See, for example, PPIC’s reports on SGMA and San Joaquin Valley agriculture, located at: https://www.ppic.org/water/ (accessed Feb. 26, 2023).
18 The “socialize the losses” approach includes the various and ongoing attempts of agricultural water districts to secure public monies to repair infrastructure they damaged (i.e., the Friant-Kern canal) and contamination they caused (i.e., Westlands Water District).
19 The current state water policy document, the “Water Resilience Portfolio,” does not emphasize additional water quality enforcement actions, accelerating SGMA implementation, or proactive policy to reduce shut offs, while the state’s Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund continues to allocate significant resources towards provision of safe drinking water (e.g., “interim solutions”).
20 See “Mandatory Consolidation or Extension of Service for Disadvantaged Communities,” STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/programs/compliance/ (accessed Mar. 30, 2023).
21 Article X, Section II of the state constitution prohibits the wasteful and unreasonable use of water.
22 In 2022, Governor Newsom vetoed a bill to establish a low-income water assistance program. See Governor Gavin Newson, Letter to Members of the California State Senate on Senate Bill 222 (Sept. 28, 2022), available at https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SB-222-VETO.pdf?emrc=00d97d.
23 See remarks made at the State Water Board informational item on the 10th Anniversary of the Human Right to Water law, October 3, 2022. Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/embed/tqeFZUf0dH8 (accessed Feb. 26, 2023).
24 See, e.g., Lynn D. Wardle, Tyranny, Federalism, and the Federal Marriage Amendment, 17 YALE J.L.& FEMINISM 221, 224 (2005).
25 See, e.g., Paul Finkelman, States' Rights, Southern Hypocrisy, and the Crisis of the Union, 45 AKRON L. REV. 449, 451 (2012).
26 See https://www.calcities.org/about-us/mission-history-core-beliefs, (accessed July 11, 2023).
27 Under the current round of Regional Housing Needs Assessments, local governments whose housing plans fail to meet state criteria are subject to mandatory expedited permits for new housing. See Brundy, Deborah, et al., “’Builder’s Remedy’: Bay Area Will Soon Face a Powerful Housing Tool,” Holland & Knight Alert (Oct. 21, 2022), https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/10/builders-remedy-bay-area-will-soon-face-a-powerful housing-tool (accessed Feb. 26, 2023), for an explanation of the so-called “builders remedy.”
28 See Press Release, “Attorney General Bonta: Memorandum Declaring Woodside a Mountain Lion Sanctuary Does Not Exempt Town From State Housing Laws,” STATE OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (Feb. 6, 2022), https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-memorandum-declaring-woodside-mountain-lion-sanctuary (accessed Feb. 26, 2023), as an example of how state officials are using the media and legal authority to force additional housing development in unwilling cities and towns.
29 See https://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis/2011/realignment/redevelopment_020911.aspx, (accessed July 11, 2023), and https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/Redevelopment_WhitePaper.pdf, (accessed July 11, 2023).
30 Cal. Redevelopment Ass’n v. Matosantos, 53 Cal. 4th 231, 244-245 (2011).
31 In Los Angeles, for example, middle and upper income professionals work downtown near large encampments (e.g., skid row), and the homeless population is growing on the Westside, which is generally wealthier than other parts of the city. See https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-29/la-county-homelessness-unhoused-population-count-jumps-increase (accessed July 11, 2023).
32 See https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sn293xs, (accessed July 11, 2023).
33 Most of the drinking water quality violations are concentrated in rural areas. See https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/saferdashboard.html, (accessed July 11, 2023).
34 SB 200 (2019) provides dedicated revenue from the state’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction fund for drinking water quality improvements. See https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/safer/docs/safer_program_legislative_history.pdf, (accessed July 11, 2023).
35 SGMA gives local groundwater agencies a long timeline and multiple chances to fail before state control kicks in. A recent decision from the 6th District Court of Appeal limits the State Water Board’s authority over pre-1914 surface water diversions. California Water Curtailment Cases, 83 Cal. App. 5th 164 (2022).
36 See “Eighth Amendment-Criminalization of Homelessness- Ninth Circuit Refuses to Reconsider Invalidation of Ordinances Completely Banning Sleeping and Camping in Public. - Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2019)” (2019) 133 HARV. L. REV. 699, available at https://harvardlawreview.org/2019/12/martin-v-city-of-boise/.
37 When, as an employee of the State Water Board, I recommended that the Board use the HRTW statute as the basis for requiring municipal governments to provide drinking water and sanitation to unhoused populations, I was told by Board attorneys that such a requirement would be unlikely to hold up if challenged in court.
38 See, e.g., Cal. Dep’t of Water Resources, News Release (Mar. 23, 2023) https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2023/March-23/California-Advances-Groundwater-Sustainability-with-Release-of-Decisions-for-Management-Plans (accessed July 10, 2023); Cal. State Water Resources Control Board, Groundwater Plans Deemed Inadequate, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/sgma/groundwater_basins/ (accessed July 10, 2023).
39 In comments on problematic groundwater sustainability plans, the State Water Board staff focused heavily on impacts to domestic wells. See “Program Staff Comment Letters Provided to the Department of Water Resources,” STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/sgma/gsp-comment-letters.html (accessed Feb. 26, 2023). The California Department of Water Resources affirmed those critiques in its public statement regarding deficiencies of six basins whose plans were found to be inadequate. See “California Advances Groundwater Sustainability with Release of Decisions for Management Plans in Critically Overdrafted Basins,” California Department of Water Resources (Mar. 2, 2023), https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2023/March-23/California-Advances-Groundwater-Sustainability-with-Release-of-Decisions-for-Management-Plans (accessed Mar. 30, 2023).
40 See https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2017/20171114_Demographics.pdf, (accessed July 11, 2023) for an analysis of racial disparities in sentencing, and https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2020/how-should-we-punish-criminal-corporations, (accessed July 11, 2023), for a description of lenient prosecution of institutional crime.
41 See https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/960883916/most-u-s-mayors-do-not-support-reallocating-police resources-survey-finds, accessed (July 11, 2023).
42 See https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/06/newspapers-close-decline-in-local-journalism/, (accessed July 11, 2023), and https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-bar-foundation-research-journal/article/abs/police-accountability-and-the-media/FF4E0FB4F334DD3B2982B67F978E4E59, (accessed July 11, 2023).
43 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_abolition_movement (accessed March 30, 2023), for an overview of arguments made by those in favor of defunding and abolishing policing as currently practiced in the U.S.
44 See https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-went-defund-refund-police-rcna14796, (accessed July 12, 2023). Both President Biden and former President Obama have also indicated their opposition to defunding the police. See https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57589416, (accessed July 12, 2023), and https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/02/barack-obama-criticizes-defund-the-police-slogan-backlash, (accessed July 12, 2023).
45 Dry wells and groundwater overdraft have received significant media attention, putting farmers on the defensive. See https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/08/california-groundwater-dry/, (accessed July 12, 2023). In addition, California’s largest water industry lobbying association, the Association of California Water Agencies, opposed 2022 bills aimed at reducing shutoffs for nonpayment of bills and creating water bill subsidies for low-income households. See https://scwd.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=2485&meta_id=162248, (accessed July 12, 2023).
46 For example, the Imperial Irrigation District, which is facing scrutiny as the biggest user of Colorado River water, has defended its farming practices. See Los Angeles Times Staff, “Colorado River in Crisis: A Times series on the Southwest’s shrinking water lifeline,” https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/colorado-river-in-crisis (accessed Feb. 26, 2023), for an overview.
47 See “Utility Public Safety Power Shutoff Plans (De-Energization),” California Public Utilities Commission, https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PSPS/ (accessed Feb. 26, 2023).