New Directions for U.S. Water Policy

On October 20th, 2014, The Hamilton Project at Brookings and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment hosted a forum, "New Directions for U.S. Water Policy," at Stanford University.  This forum highlighted opportunities for improving water management in the United States in the face of scarce water supplies, with a keynote speech from California Governor Jerry Brown followed by three panels on water innovation, water markets, and climate change. Panel discussions focused on three recently released papers, including The Path to Water Innovation, co-authored by Newsha Ajami, Urban Water Policy Director at Water in the West, Barton "Buzz" Thompson, Co-Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Stanford Law Professor, and David Victor of the University of California, San Diego. 

The Path to Water Innovation by Newsha K. Ajami, Barton H. Thompson, David G. Victor

This paper proposes a set of forward-looking policies to promote innovation in the water sector. The authors call for fundamental reforms in utilities' pricing of water, systematic reviews of regulatory practices, and a new mechanism for utilities to raise revenue to finance new infrastructure investment. 

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Shopping for Water: How the Market Can Mitigate Water Shortages in the American West by Peter W. Culp, Robert Glennon, and Gary Libecap 

The authors propose the establishment and use of market mechanisms to encourage reallocation and trading of water resources and to provide new tools for risk management. Together, the reforms would build resilience into our country's water management systems and mitigate the water-supply challenges that plague many areas of the West. 

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In Times of Drought: Nine Economic Facts about Water in the United States by Melissa S. Kearney, Benjamin H. Harris, Brad Hershbein, Elisa Jacome, and Gregory Nantz

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Read more about New Directions for U.S. Water Policy here.