Texas GOP water platform

The Texas Republican Party has renewed their election platform. In addition to opposing oral sex, a single world currency and membership in the UN, they have a few things to say about water:

“We believe that … groundwater is a vested ownership right;…”

That is to say, groundwater is a property right, and any groundwater that passes through your property is yours. This is in contrast, in the Texas context, with community-based management, where irrigation districts are able to set pumping limits as a means of sustainable management. Recall the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics?

Which segues nicely into Texas GOP’s desire to…

“Create a free market for water to help meet future demand”… using “the relatively light-handed regulation of the oil and gas industry as a model for the state’s water market.”

That is to say, to let the efficiency of the market maintain sustainable water supplies. Perhaps like in Chile. After all, light-handed regulation of the oil industry hasn’t caused any problems, has it?