Despite billions in borrowing and spending approved by voters over the past twenty years, the State of California has severely neglected its water infrastructure.

Facing multi-year droughts and potentially catastrophic climate change, instead of making big investments in water projects, California’s legislators are now imposing water rationing on urban consumers and drastically cutting back water deliveries to farmers.

The Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022 takes a new approach. First, it allocates billions of dollars to projects to increase California’s annual, sustainable supply of water. Equally important, it replaces the impossible bureaucratic obstacles to building water infrastructure with procedures that are reasonable and safe.

Here’s what this initiative does:

• Instead of increasing taxes, it forces state legislators to prioritize long neglected water infrastructure by allocating two percent of the state general fund, every year, to invest in increasing California’s annual water supply.
• This funding does not expire until new water projects supply five million acre feet of new water to California’s farms and cities each year.
• Defines “beneficial use” of water to include deliveries to cities and farms.
• Fully funds and prioritizes the water storage projects approved by voters in Prop. 1 (2014) and already approved by the California Water Commission.
• Unlocks hundreds of millions of Prop. 1 funding for environmental projects. This money cannot be released until the related storage projects are fully funded and under construction.
• Streamlines the process for judicial review if water projects are challenged under the California Environmental Quality Act.
• Enacts reasonable revisions to the Coastal Act to prevent unnecessary delays in the project approval process.
• Provides funding for legal defense of projects approved by the California Water Commission and other water agencies against frivolous lawsuits designed to delay the completion of projects.

Californians need More Water Now.
Support this initiative and eliminate water scarcity forever.