Video

Todd Holmes, a Center researcher and historian, discussed the formative years of the California Coastal Commission and the important roles that Chairman Mel Lane and other key staff members played in this state agency after its creation in 1972. 

Scarcity — across the West and elsewhere increasingly — the issue about water is whether there is enough of it. Some suggest California could be “out of water” in 12 months. How threatening is the current drought? And what do we do about it? David M. Kennedy, Noah Diffenbaugh, Barton "Buzz" Thompson, Jay Famiglietti, Patricia Mulroy, Pete McBride and others in a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival, June 2015.

On March 4, 2014, Water in the West convened three experts to discuss the causes, policy implications and possible responses to California’s ongoing drought, including what a fourth year of drought will mean for the state.

The Bill Lane Center for the American West and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research co-hosted the fourth annual State of the West Symposium on November 13. The symposium included panels on water in the West, and a keynote address by the Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval.