California’s next governor — Republican Steve Hilton or Democrat Xavier Becerra — will inherit a state defined by severe weather extremes, groundwater overuse, sinking land in the agricultural heartland, and hundreds of thousands of residents lacking access to safe, affordable water. While Hilton proposes an aggressive building and regulatory overhaul strategy, Becerra offers no specific proposals on water.
From this shared reality, the two candidates’ approaches diverge sharply. Hilton leans into an outspoken plan to clearcut environmental regulations in order to build more ways to store and move water to farms and cities. Conversely, Becerra leans on his history as attorney general, serving as the legal arm in California’s first-term fights against President Donald Trump, but provides no detailed plans ahead of the election.
What is Steve Hilton’s plan for water abundance?
Republican Steve Hilton’s strategy focuses on more water for farms, more storage, more desalination, more water recycling, and more state spending to cut expensive water bills and build infrastructure. His approach also relies on reducing rulebooks that protect endangered species from California’s water delivery systems, which he argues get in the way of increasing supply.
In 2024, Hilton wrote a water policy strategy titled “Achieving Water Abundance” with Edward Ring of the libertarian think tank California Policy Center. The plan estimates that making abundant water a reality could cost as much as $150 billion, assuming regulatory reforms are met. To fund it, Hilton and Ring proposed a combination of funding sources, including a 2% allocation from the state’s general fund gleaned by cutting wasteful and ineffective programs. Hilton is also bullish on building projects such as the Sites Reservoir, a Northern California project expected to cost between $6.2 and $6.8 billion to store Sacramento River water to send south.
Why does Xavier Becerra have no specific water proposals?
According to Max Gomberg, an independent water consultant and former climate and conservation manager for the State Water Resources Control Board, Becerra offers no specific proposals because he knows there is not a whole lot of upside in coming out with detailed plans ahead of the election. Gomberg noted that no matter what Becerra says, someone will pop up to criticize it.
