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Speaker 1: It's the Ray Appleton Podcast from KMJ and kmjnow dot com.

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Speaker 2: Throughout the two thousands, I feel like, growing up here

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Speaker 2: in the San Joaquin Valley, you were constantly hearing about

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Speaker 2: drought conditions and drought in the central Valley of California.

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Speaker 2: So heavily reliant as we are on agriculture, egg is

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Speaker 2: the cornerstone of everything we do here in the San

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Speaker 2: Joaquin Valley. How we were going to have to make

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Speaker 2: do with less because of environmental changes and drought and

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Speaker 2: that as such has had such an impact on all

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Speaker 2: of us in California. But has it been bad based

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Speaker 2: on maybe not the best science. Joining me to discuss

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Speaker 2: this is Mark Joffe. He's a visiting fellow at the

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Speaker 2: California Policy Center. He's the president of the CONTRACSTA Taxpayers Association. Mark,

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ray Appleton Show. Good have you on.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. John.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so I want to I'll give you the floor here.

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Speaker 2: So basically, you and one of your colleagues at California

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Speaker 2: Policy Center, Edward Ring, have released this review looking at

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Speaker 2: the United States Drought Monitor and you guys are coming

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Speaker 2: to some pretty surprising like frankly, if this is true,

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Speaker 2: like scandalous. I would say, findings that maybe we haven't

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Speaker 2: really been experiencing as bad drought conditions as has been

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Speaker 2: claimed in California, and that that has had a really

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Speaker 2: adverse impact on agriculture. And I'll give you the floor,

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Speaker 2: so go for it.

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Speaker 1: This can get really down in the detail, so please

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Speaker 1: stop me if I'm going too faster, getting confusing. Sure,

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Speaker 1: So we looked at the published methodology from the US

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Speaker 1: Drought Monitor, which is the agency that since two thousand

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Speaker 1: has been assigning drought designations throughout the United States, and

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Speaker 1: they use a scale of D zero through D four.

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Speaker 1: D zero is abnormally dry and D four is a

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Speaker 1: really bad drought. According to their documentation, in thirty percent

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Speaker 1: of the cases, typically you would have one of those

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Speaker 1: values assigned D zero through D four, and that was

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Speaker 1: based on their analysis of historical data. But when Edward

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Speaker 1: and I looked at the drought designations that have occurred

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Speaker 1: in California between the inception of the US Drought Monitor

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Speaker 1: in January of two thousand and September of twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 1: when we cut off, we found that it was closer

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Speaker 1: to sixty one percent. So instead of the stated methodology

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Speaker 1: of thirty percent drought conditions sixty one percent of the

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Speaker 1: time they found they found that we were in some

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Speaker 1: part of this eight or other experiencing a drought. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I can explain why they would come up

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Speaker 1: with a number that's fired in thirty percent, but I

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Speaker 1: can't explain how they could get all the way up

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Speaker 1: to sixty one percent. Right.

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Speaker 2: So at the end, at the end of it, you've

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Speaker 2: got this federal agency saying that there is more drought

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Speaker 2: than you think actually exists. How does that impact? And

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Speaker 2: you know, we those of us who are familiar with

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Speaker 2: water water policy in California, we know water goes to

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Speaker 2: one of three places. It goes to farms, it goes

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Speaker 2: to personal use, where it goes to quote environment quo

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Speaker 2: environmental use, i e. Into the ocean. So has that

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Speaker 2: impacted you know, we've been hearing over the last twenty

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Speaker 2: years in California less we have to have less for AG,

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Speaker 2: less for AG, less for AG more for environmental Are

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Speaker 2: these sort of artificially high drought numbers leading to this

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Speaker 2: less and less water for AG sort of trend?

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Speaker 1: Yes? So, unfortunately, the US DRAW monitor designations have become

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Speaker 1: part of a larger narrative saying that we're in a

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Speaker 1: climate catastrophe. Part of the climate catastrophe means that we're

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Speaker 1: going to have longer and more severe droughts, and the

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Speaker 1: only way to deal with that is extreme conservation measures. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, an urban person like me, it means not

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Speaker 1: being able to water the lawn and taking a three

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Speaker 1: minute shower. But you know, for a lot of your listeners,

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Speaker 1: it's much more severe because it means the difference between

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Speaker 1: harvesting a full crop and not. So, you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't want to trivialize the problems that happened in the

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Speaker 1: Central Valley compared to you know, having to take a

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Speaker 1: short shower, but it's a state wide, you know, the

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Speaker 1: state wide over emphasis on conservation because we have this,

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Speaker 1: I believe false idea that we're in an existential crisis

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Speaker 1: to the climate change.

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Speaker 2: So one of the things in your one of the

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Speaker 2: things we've been dealing with are the these different biological

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Speaker 2: assessments that are tied to different waterways in California. So

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Speaker 2: there's the federally funded California Water System that provides a

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Speaker 2: lot of water for agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley

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Speaker 2: and those have sort of those biological assessments have kind

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Speaker 2: of pingpong from these assessments under the Obama administration that

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Speaker 2: were very harsh and very restrictive to under the Trump

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Speaker 2: administration they were looser and were allowing more water to flow.

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Speaker 2: And of course California than immediately sues the Trump administration

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Speaker 2: to stop it. Is this drought monitor, this US Drought Monitor,

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Speaker 2: which started its work in two thousand, is this kind

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Speaker 2: of what's fueling that It's fueling this like assessment by

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Speaker 2: you know, starting in the Obama administration, I guess that no,

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Speaker 2: we cannot allocate this much watered farming and that this

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Speaker 2: is hurting the environment.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, it's part of a larger narrative. You know,

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Speaker 1: we could in say that if there was no US

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Speaker 1: job Monitor, this wouldn't be happening. However, you know, it

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Speaker 1: provides sort of a pseudo scientific way of justifying these

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Speaker 1: kinds of harsh conservation policies.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So tangibly speaking, if we had, let's say we

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Speaker 2: live in a universe where we have a fairer assessment

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Speaker 2: of drought conditions, what do you think I mean? And

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Speaker 2: maybe you're only starting to scratch the surface of this,

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Speaker 2: and you're not able to say, like, you know, these

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Speaker 2: outcomes resulted because of these overly restrictive policies, but like,

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Speaker 2: can you give us some sense of like if we

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Speaker 2: had had a more accurate assessment of drought conditions, what

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Speaker 2: would have resulted differently? Would we have would we have

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Speaker 2: had sort of the loss in agriculture that we've seen

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Speaker 2: over the last twenty years in social California, Or how

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Speaker 2: do you think this has impacted things tangibly?

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Speaker 1: Well, well, I think you know, there's probably two complementary factors.

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Speaker 1: There's this huh exaggerate its sense of drought and then

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Speaker 1: hyper environmentalism, where you know, certain species are deemed more

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Speaker 1: important than you know, human thriving. So between those two things,

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Speaker 1: we get this regime of resistance to you know, channeling

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Speaker 1: water away from the Pacific Ocean, you know, and towards

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Speaker 1: the Central Valley. And we also get a lot of

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Speaker 1: resistance to building more water storage. I mean, it's it's

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Speaker 1: great news now that we see that finally the governor

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Speaker 1: and the President agree that we should have the site's reservoir.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's many many many years too late, but

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Speaker 1: at least we're headed in the right direction, but those

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Speaker 1: two things that really held us back in terms of

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Speaker 1: just let's do what we need to accommodate a growing

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Speaker 1: population and uh, you know, a very active agricultural step

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Speaker 1: during the Central and Central Valley to make sure that

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Speaker 1: everyone gets the water that that they need to accomplish

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Speaker 1: their objectives. And there's there's so many options besides turning

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Speaker 1: off the spigott that we could have been using, and

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Speaker 1: yet we've been very reluctant to do that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the high drought conditions, I mean, one of

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Speaker 2: the things you point out in your peace on this,

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Speaker 2: and if, by the way, Mark Joffe from California Policy Center,

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Speaker 2: you can go to California Policycenter dot org to read

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Speaker 2: his piece on this, that local water districts have had

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Speaker 2: to spend allocate a lot of their money on staff

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Speaker 2: and equipment for water restrictions, which has taken away capital

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Speaker 2: for water storage. And so I mean that you know

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Speaker 2: you read that. I mean, conservatives in agriculture areas in

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Speaker 2: California have been screaming for water storage for years, for decades,

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Speaker 2: and so that that's infuriating to read. I mean, what

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Speaker 2: kinds of stuff have they been allocating for drought conditions.

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Speaker 1: I mean, as someone who comes from an urban area,

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Speaker 1: so I can speak to that. I'm amazed by how

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Speaker 1: much our local water agencies spend on conservation and restriction.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you think about a water utility as

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Speaker 1: a business, you know, since they want you to use

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Speaker 1: more water so they can charge you more money, but

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Speaker 1: instead what they do is they try to stop you

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Speaker 1: from using water, and then they just increase the rate

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Speaker 1: so that they become more and more unaffordable. So while

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Speaker 1: I can't speak to the policies and specifically in water

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Speaker 1: agencies in Central Valley, I suspect it probably rhymes with

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Speaker 1: with what I just told you.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's I think this could potentially just be kind

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Speaker 2: of explosive, and boy, I hope that folks in Washington,

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Speaker 2: d C. I mean, I'm certainly going to send this

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Speaker 2: to my Congress. I'll send this to Vince Fong probably

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Speaker 2: after this show is over. I just think, wow, like,

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Speaker 2: if you've got you know, not to paint all federal

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Speaker 2: employees with too broad of a brush, but we know

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Speaker 2: a lot of them are very r left leaning, and

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Speaker 2: if this drought monitor has been sort of dominated by

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Speaker 2: people who kind of buy into the sort of standard

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Speaker 2: left wing messaging about climate issues and stuff like that

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Speaker 2: to overinflate our drought conditions to hurt valley farm in

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Speaker 2: a way that has hurt valley farmers. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: think this could be an explosive thing. So Mark, I

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Speaker 2: really credit you for this work.

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Speaker 1: Mark.

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Speaker 2: Let people know where they can find you and your

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Speaker 2: work and all the stuff you're doing at California Policy Center.

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Speaker 1: So people should go over to Californiapolicycenter dot org. You'll

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Speaker 1: find a press release and you'll also find the full

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Speaker 1: study in a pdf.

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Speaker 2: All right, wonderful. All right, well, Mark, thank you so

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Speaker 2: much again. It's always a pleasure to have you on.

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Speaker 2: Say hi to Will Swim and all the guys at

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Speaker 2: California Policy Center for me.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Mark, thanks a lot.

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Speaker 2: All right, all right, well we will be back. We'll

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Speaker 2: have Phil Teresci in to give the update a little

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Speaker 2: preview for his show, and we will be wrapping things up.

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Speaker 2: This is John Girardi filling in for the Ray Appleton

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Speaker 2: on The Ray Appleton Show on news DALC five eighty

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Speaker 2: and one oh five nine Cam j

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Speaker 1: M