
California lawmakers are proposing a tax on water bills - prostoalex
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/08/31/sacramento-sets-its-eye-on-taxing-our-drinking-water/
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hyperion2010
Of course they don't bother trying to, you know, lift the giant subsidies on
water for agriculture when farmers are still using 10000 year old irrigation
practices that result in most of the water evaporating into the air ....

~~~
brownbat
More info from WashPo, "Agriculture is 80 percent of water use in California.
Why aren’t farmers being forced to cut back?":

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/03/a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/03/agriculture-
is-80-percent-of-water-use-in-california-why-arent-farmers-being-forced-to-
cut-back/)

Lays out some on both sides, but still seems jarring to me that a state that
sometimes contends with droughts is fighting to maintain so many water hungry
crops.

Good discussion here of what might shift if agricultural water had a price, or
some kind of pigouvian tax: [http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/11/cows-
not-almonds-...](http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/11/cows-not-almonds-
are-biggest-water-users/)

Like rice, that both consumes a lot of water and doesn't even produce that
great of returns.

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dbcurtis
Yes, it always amazes me that we grow rice in a desert. But you might say the
same for cotton, but in the case of cotton, long-staple cottons derived from
ancient Egyptian cottons make superior cloth because of the longer fibers, but
are susceptable to boll rot if it gets rain at the wrong time. It isn't always
a simple analysis. If you want to give up growing cotton in California, be
prepared for the quality of your shirts to go down.

The bottom line is it isn't the farmers who are the ultimate consumers of the
water. We all use ag water when we buy food at the grocery store. We eat the
water. You can't make an impact on ag water without impacting the consumer
also, and that connection needs to be acknowledged. The farmers use the water,
but they don't consume the water. We do.

~~~
ameliaquining
This doesn't have to mean an across-the-board increase in food prices, though.
Prices that consumers pay for goods should reflect the cost of the resources
consumed in their production. If almonds in particular become more expensive
at the grocery store (it takes a gallon of water to grow one almond), and this
causes people to buy fewer almonds relative to other foods, and water is
conserved as a result, then this seems like the right outcome. (If we did see
an across-the-board increase in food prices, that could be fixed with
government subsidies, if that were necessary to prevent the change from being
a regressive tax.)

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gedy
> "California is the fifth largest economy in the world, with a $183 billion
> state budget and $125 billion general fund that is intended to fund
> essential government services such as education, health and public safety.
> The taxpayers of our state have already provided the necessary funding for
> our Legislature to solve any challenge that impacts our communities."

Sums it up well. I know new challenges come up but California does/should
already have a enough money to cover basic infrastructure.

~~~
mrgordon
Investment now saves money later in many cases. For example, climate change
denying Florida will be halfway under water by the time the people give up on
their state government and elect some people who will install pumps, barrier
islands, etc. to mitigate the effects. The water is already noticeably higher
in coastal areas.

Another good example is trains. They cost a ton upfront but they will shape
entire communities for generations.

~~~
tomcam
> Another good example is trains. They cost a ton upfront but they will shape
> entire communities for generations.

In California? Which entire communities? I lived there for 30 years and know
of only a few very, very narrow definitions of community for which that is
true. A strip in downtown LA and some of the BART constituency. California
does not have the density of NYC or Paris. I do not understand how the trains
will affect more than .05% or so of the population.

~~~
FooHentai
Chicken/Egg conundrum. LA's low-density sprawl exists for three (maybe
four/five) reasons: Geological (quake shake = low rise makes sense),
availability of land, and lack of suitable transport infrastructure. (Possible
forth reason is the overall history of the place, maybe we're just at the apex
of that time when various disparate towns come together to form the city and
we're not quite done with that process yet). I guess there's a tenuous fifth
reason which is LA's road infrastructure is at the extreme end of feasibility,
including but not limited to the inhabitant's seemingly infinite patience for
rush-hour gridlock.

If you believe the earthquake risk, land area, and roading are reasons enough
that urban intensification has not occurred, then adding (more) rail doesn't
really make sense. On the other hand, you could regard lack of rail as being
the only thing holding back urban intensification, and the lack of it being
the very reason for LA's current sprawl. Providing you don't regard the other
factors as hard limiters, of course.

So in one school of thought: there's nothing really stopping the rest of LA
intensifying in the same way as downtown (and the airport area), other than a
lack of suitable transport infrastructure to facilitate it. So assuming
intensification is a thing you want, there is the argument to invest and
deploy the trains; in a few years you should see a great intensification of
the new corridor areas of LA where it previously didn't make sense.

Personally, I'm not on board with the idea - The quake hazard alone is reason
enough to keep things flat and wide. I might be somewhat conservative in that
regard of course - Continually echoing in my mind is that statement from 'the
really big one' article a few years back that said 'everything west of
Interstate 5 will be toast', as far as how I judge LA's realism on earthquake
risk.

~~~
kalleboo
Although I wouldn't be surprised if large, expensive buildings held up better
to earthquakes than low-density homes people build as cheap as they can and
where inspections are more lax. For instance Japan holds up very well to
earthquakes.

~~~
rangibaby
Re: Japan all houses built since 1981 are earthquake safe. Before then houses
were built with heavy roof tiles which would not blow off in a typhoon. Tiles
falling off or the roof causing the entire building to collapse were
responsible for many deaths in the Kobe earthquake.

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sethammons
I read through the bill. There is a lot of talk on what fees they are imposing
and on who. There is not much on what the money will be used for aside from
mapping at risk water for contamination. A blurb about infrastructure
consulting and potential help. Very light on details. And a section on how
farms that discharge a lot of nitrates will be in compliance as long as they
pay their fees within 90 days. Sounds like a charge of $1 per month to
residents to have a new program around that can raise the fees later to keep
the program around. I did not catch much of anything in the text about
actually helping communities with unhealthy water.

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dmoy
$370B/yr - It seems a bit useless to call out the total tax number of all the
bills put forth. What percentage of those typically pass? That would be
relevant info to actually evaluate that number, without it, it's kind of
meaningless. $183B/yr is the number given below for total budget. So what,
they're going to triple the state budget in one year? No, that's insane, so
why the hell bother pointing that out?

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whyenot
There is something a little intellectually lazy about taking an editorial from
a republican representative in the OC Register and then treating it and
commenting on it as if it is a news article that is not implicitly biased.
Many news articles have been published on this bill. Here is one that the
Mercury News did.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/23/first-ever-tax-on-
cali...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/23/first-ever-tax-on-california-
drinking-water-proposed-for-contaminated-groundwater-clean-up/)

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rayiner
Additional taxes on water are sorely needed for safety as well as
environmental reasons:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finding...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finding-
the-right-price-for-water/388246).

On average, water rates in the US are about half of what they are in say
France. In many cases, not only are rates too low to discourage inefficient
water use, they’re too low to even adequately maintain the water/sewer
infrastructure:
[http://www.asce.org/water_and_wastewater_report/](http://www.asce.org/water_and_wastewater_report/)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Does that apply to California though? It has some of the highest water rates
in the country.

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matt_wulfeck
Honestly why? We have one of the highest tax burdens in the entire USA. We
already pay more for water and more for electricity than almost anywhere else.

~~~
jonathankoren
Why? Because of the initiative process. Budgeting in California needlessly
complicated and hamstrung due to the people of California. Prop 13 famously
underfunds schools and the like. Also, Prop 98 (which is notoriously complex)
hamstrings the budget process so that about half of the budget _must_ be spent
on education, which in effect can make everything that's not for K-14 twice as
expensive.

When I ascend to the throne, I'd make the legislature unicameral (really,
what's the point of a state Senate anyway?) and eliminate the initiative
process.

~~~
ScottBurson
I wouldn't eliminate the initiative process entirely, but there definitely
needs to be a higher vote threshold for laws the legislature can't modify.

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l3m0ndr0p
This sounds like they are going to sell the water management, water rights to
a for-profit company, once the taxes are in place. Guaranteed income &
increases for years to come.

It's sad that most of our resources of necessity are in the hands of for-
profit companies.

~~~
nine_k
When they are not, you have a real risk of the tragedy of commons.

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klondike_
I'm guessing this doesn't apply to the many companies who take groundwater
practically for free and then bottle and sell it.

Regular consumers shouldn't be punished for the misuse of water by companies
and farmers.

~~~
labster
Nope. Modifying pre-1914 water rights in California would constitute a taking,
and the state government would have to reimburse that. As for the sweetheart
deals that Nestlé gets from the federal government, that's another matter
entirely.

~~~
oh_sigh
Can't they just tax the water? Or put a tax on crops which use high amounts of
water?

~~~
dnautics
they don't even need to tax the water. They could hold proper auctions of the
water, and that alone would lead to massive savings and conservation.

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dsfyu404ed
There's an old adage about hammers, a lack of other available tools and nail.
Now replace hammer with taxes...

They're tripping over a $20 to pick up a quarter by taxing consumers. As
others have mentioned consumers aren't the problem.

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chewbacha
Public drinking water helps the poor, taxing it would hurt them. Correct? The
wealthy drink bottles artisanal water anyhow.

I like the idea of a safe drinking water commission, but perhaps we fund it
with taxes on chemical waste, mining, and fossil fuels. Things that
contaminate the drinking water. That way the tax itself helps improve the
water safety.

This seems as misguided as when we added a sales tax to help homelessness.

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trapperkeeper74
All these taxes to pay for:

\- $1+ B Side-deals to raise the gas tax $50+ B.

\- $10+ B Mass-incarceration.

\- $80+ B High-Speed Monorail boondoggle orders of magnitude more expensive
than Hyperloop.

~~~
jonathankoren
1) It's not a monorail. It's normal high speed rail system that's been
successful deployed the world over.

2) Hyperloop doesn't exist.

~~~
true_religion
Also, monorails have been successfully deployed around the world. They've been
available since the early 20th century. It isn't fantastical technology to use
one gigantic rail instead of two smaller rails.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There are, as of yet, no high speed monorails that I'm aware of.

~~~
jonathankoren
30 kilometers.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train)

Then they apparently scrapped the idea of extending it beyond the airport.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Is a maglev really a monorail? I've taken it to pudong airport before. It
isn't very practical, because of the transfer a taxi is still faster.

~~~
jonathankoren
"'Mono' means 'one', and 'rail' means 'rail'", and to paraphrase Zaphod
Beeblebrox, "Count the rails kid." ;)

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cobookman
why not raise the price of water...vs adding a tax?

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unlmtd1
Dictators are proposing more dictatorship.

