Washing Away Conflict: Why “Abundance” is the Wrong Framework for California Water
By Max Gomberg
Abundance theory, the latest iteration of an ideological project that prioritizes unconstrained economic development, has recently been re-popularized by the publication of Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The book argues that some of the most acute problems in liberal cities (e.g., lack of sufficient housing) are the product of policies that have placed too many limits on development. The authors envision a future where everyone has access to necessities – housing, utilities, transit, and food – due to government policies that promote more widespread access.
Critics, however, have asserted that the book’s proposals lack a foundation of racial and social equity, including wealth redistribution. And without such grounding, the authors’ proposals to limit public process and pro-social regulatory requirements (i.e., environmental review, union labor, etc.) ring hollow.[1]
In California, researchers affiliated with UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab (UCB Lab) have engaged with these critiques and are attempting to develop an alternative Abundance narrative that focuses on “a holistic vision of supply-side policymaking that builds with people, not just for them.” (Abundance Policy Report Series, 2026). The researchers have published California-focused policy briefs on 12 different policy areas, including water.
While the goal of providing universal access to essential needs is laudable, using the frame of abundance across diverse economic sectors encourages the use of a single tool to address all problems.[2] Abundance framing is particularly ill-suited to environmental issues, where “abundance”[3] is provided by the Earth and not by human endeavors. Our greatest environmental challenges stem from the need to balance our use of the planet’s resources to create vibrant societies with the destructive impacts of those uses. However, an abundance framework by definition favors growth over balance because it is premised on the need for more; more housing, more healthcare and childcare, more employment, etc.
In the environmental context, scarcity and trade-offs cannot be solved by expanding infrastructure and social services. Even in the energy sector, where renewables, electric vehicle infrastructure, and building decarbonization require infrastructure development, there are affordability and equity concerns that are inseparable from rules for where, when, and how projects are constructed.[4]
In the water sector, the disconnect between “building for abundance” and “managing for equity” is even more acute. California’s byzantine physical and legal architecture for water management has succeeded at creating abundant agricultural production and continuous access to high-quality water for domestic and industrial uses for almost all the population.[5] It has also decimated ecosystems, depleted aquifers, and polluted water sources for hundreds of thousands of people. In a very real sense, the state’s water policies epitomize the pitfalls of an abundance approach that devalues equity and environmental protection.
Moreover, they showcase how the very concept of abundance is just another iteration in the ongoing debate over the prioritization of goods and services, that is, politics. In the current discourse, the environment is accorded low priority. But we cannot have abundant ecosystems without freshwater flows in our rivers. The volume of river flow that should be diverted for agricultural production will always be a contested – and contentious – issue. Furthermore, water allocation tradeoffs cannot be “solved”[6] via the application of technology or the loosening of development regulations. We cannot create new water, and the technologies for creating additional freshwater supplies (i.e., desalination) are cost-prohibitive even without environmental mitigation requirements.
Despite recognizing this reality (e.g., the discussion of Environment on pages 9-10), the UCB Lab brief attempts to shoehorn water policy into the abundance discourse by leaving agricultural production out of the equation (“Defining Water Abundance for California”, page 10), focusing instead on “low-hanging fruit,” and pointing out that “true abundance” requires addressing “third-rail” issues, such as the water rights system (page 17). While the equity focus for water access is laudable, there are no meaningful policy prescriptions for the identified shortcomings in groundwater management that have prevented low-income communities from accessing safe and affordable water. The paper references the need for standards and accountability (page 17) without offering ideas for overcoming the political resistance that has stymied the minimal measures imposed under existing law.
Moreover, the policy areas identified as “low-hanging fruit” – specifically programmatic permits to allow for more widespread development of water recycling and groundwater recharge, funding and capacity-building for small water systems struggling to meet water quality standards, and managing our forests to promote healthy native ecosystems – are contested on environmental and equity grounds similar to surface water allocations.
Groundwater recharge permits, for example, create multiple political minefields, including the timing of permitted river diversions for recharge, determining who sets permissible diversions, and how and when stored groundwater can be used, by whom, and for whose benefit.
Likewise, forest management policies raise challenging debates around the number and extent of allowable prescribed burns, how to regulate the insurance industry, electric utility fire liability, and fuel reduction policies – all set amid a complex patchwork of federal, state, tribal, and private landholders.
Water recycling and small system support require high levels of sustained funding and a willingness to confront difficult affordability and governance topics. The major water recycling projects currently under consideration in Los Angeles County alone have a combined price tag of more than $13 billion[7], a sum that is impossible to raise without blowing up the existing affordability crisis or massive federal subsidies. Providing safe, reliable, and affordable water to the hundreds of thousands of people who lack it receives steady funding and support[8]; yet some effective solutions remain far beyond the reach of current funding and political will.[9]
In short, there simply is no “low-hanging fruit” when it comes to water management. Moreover, any attempt to establish equity in water decision making means taking on the “third-rail” of political power exercised by entrenched agricultural and urban water interests, from the water rights system to the unceasing plans to develop additional supply and obtain government subsidies for the consequences of overconsumption (e.g., land subsidence).
Current water industry supply-side lobbying includes: plans to build a gigantic tunnel to siphon more freshwater out of the state’s major rivers, a new reservoir to store and transfer water, multiple desalination facilities, and desert groundwater extraction.[10] These projects are billed as necessary for water supply security, and their proponents generally dismiss cost or environmental impact considerations.[11] They also claim, as the abundance boosters do, that they are also guardians of the environment.[12] Nevertheless, debates over species extinction, ecosystem protection, tribal culture, the commercial fishing industry, harmful algal blooms, and unaffordable bills cannot be dismissed as selfish people blocking development using procedural levers.
However, savvy business operatives are using the state’s housing crisis – for which stringent development restrictions bear some responsibility – to undermine substantive environmental review for a wide range of projects.[13] This year, California’s largest businesses are investing millions in a ballot initiative designed to let them build just about anything anywhere without substantive evaluation.[14] Such anti-regulatory attacks are the natural outgrowth of a flawed abundance ideology, and evidence that the UCB Lab’s attempt to align abundance and equity, though perhaps well-intentioned, will not bear fruit.
Governing from the left on environmental issues requires taking strong positions on politically charged topics. Climate change is creating dire and disastrous consequences. Over the past decade, every part of the state has experienced some combination of fire, severe drought, extreme heat, and flooding. At the same time, gas exports have increased[15], utility rates are generating a widespread affordability crisis[16], tech companies are foisting AI with damaging social and environmental effects, and environmental regulations have been weakened. In addition, at both the state and national levels, wealth inequality is creating increasingly corrosive effects.
In Minneapolis and beyond, people are standing up to evil people tearing families apart because they believe in fairness and justice, not because they are adherents to “data-driven decision making.” Rigorous policy analysis is not meaningful inside a political vacuum. US residents have been subject to decades of propaganda inveighing against intellectual inquiry in science, the humanities, and institutionally-run journalism; consequently, everything from vaccines to climate science is under attack. Abundance theory, even with an equity focus, provides no insight or means for addressing this existential crisis.
Recommendations for an incoming Governor
The actions below all require political capital and the willingness to take on powerful industries. They are part of an agenda based not on “abundance,” but on justice and equity—public policy qualities millions of Californians desperately need and deserve.
Convene a blue-ribbon panel led by environmental justice practitioners to develop options for orderly, equitable and significant reductions in irrigated agriculture.
Work with the legislature to promote ballot initiatives that:
• Reform the water rights system
• Make wealthy corporations and individuals pay their fair share
Provide sustained funding for universal water access
• Modify property taxes (Prop 13 reform)
• Modify water rate rules (Props 218 & 26 reform)
Take action to reign in the power of Big Tech
• Tax & regulate AI
Limit data center water and energy use
Fund independent media
• Stand against technofascism
[1] https://www.compactmag.com/article/abundance-requires-redistribution/, https://cosmonautmag.com/2025/09/abundance-liberalism-or-social-efficiency/
[2] The shortcomings of this approach are understood to result from cognitive bias. See: Maslow, Abraham Harold (1966). The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance. Harper & Row. p. 15-16. ISBN 978-0-8092-6130-7.
[3] Here I refer to any environmental good, such as clean air, clean water, and healthy ecosystems.
[4] See, for example, the thinking of Rihana Gunn-Wright on the Green New Deal: https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/green-new-deal-rhiana-gunn-wright/
[5] California’s agricultural production includes a diverse array of crops and is valued at over $60 billion annually. See: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/, accessed February 20, 2026. For drinking water access, roughly 98% of the state’s population has access to safe & reliable supplies. See: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/needs/2025/2025-needs-factsheet.pdf, accessed February 20, 2026.
[6] There are strong arguments that technological advancement and streamlined development rules will not equitably address fundamental problems in other economic sectors (e.g., housing, healthcare, etc.) as well, hence the use of “solve” in quotes.
[7] The Metropolitan Water District’s Pure Water Project alone has a cost estimate of over $12 billion. See: https://d1q0afiq12ywwq.cloudfront.net/media/lklcriey/pure-water-cost-estimate-public-hearing-september-2025.pdf, accessed February 20, 2026. The City of Los Angeles is also embarking on a water recycling project estimated at $740 million. See: https://www.constructionowners.com/news/jacobs-breaks-ground-on-740m-water-recycling-plant-in-la, accessed February 20, 2026.
[8] The state’s “SAFER” program receives $130 million/year in funding that can be used for solutions such as operations & maintenance assistance, provision of interim water supplies, and governance changes, such as consolidations. See: https://waterboards.ca.gov/safer/background.html, accessed February 20, 2026.
[9] See the discussion of Small Water System Challenges on pages 25-26 of the 2025 Drinking Water Needs Assessment, https://waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/documents/needs/2025needsassessment.pdf, accessed February 20, 2026.
[10] These projects are, respectively, the Delta Conveyance Project, Sites Reservoir, multiple desalination projects (see: https://water.ca.gov/-/media/DWR-Website/Web-Pages/Work-With-Us/Grants-And-Loans/Desalination/Files/Water-Supply-Strategy-Brackish-Desalination-Projects_02-16-24_v2.pdf, accessed February 20, 2026), and the Cadiz groundwater project.
[11] See, for example, https://socalwater.org/scwc-january-meeting-highlights-urgent-need-for-delta-conveyance-project-and-community-engagement-in-water-management/, accessed February 20, 2026.
[12] See, for example, https://cadizinc.com/environment/, accessed February 20, 2026.
[13] See, for example the CEQA exemptions list in SB 131, one of the state’s 2025 budget bills. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB131, accessed February 20, 2026.
[14] See https://advocacy.calchamber.com/ceqa/, accessed February 20, 2026.
[15] See: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/NG_SUM_LSUM_DCU_SCA_A.htm, accessed February 20, 2026.
[16] See: https://www.ppic.org/blog/a-closer-look-at-californias-surging-electricity-rates/, accessed February 20, 2026.