Positive Liberty

I found this interesting bit on my brother’s blog. Apparently John McCain told a newspaper in Peublo, Colorado, that the Colorado River Compact should be renegotiated to give the southwestern members–Arizona, Nevada, and California–a larger share of the Colorado River’s water.

A little background for those who don’t follow western water issues, which are among the most contentious and fascinating but little known politics in the country. (The Eastern media don’t cover it much, because it mostly plays out in flyover country–places where news execs go to rent a fancy cabin and do a little flyfishing while interacting with the locals as little as possible.) The Colorado River Compact was created to deal with the issues of using the water in the Colorado River. It’s a classic collective action problem: no one state has an incentive to conserve the water, but collectively their incautious use is destructive. Mexico is also a partner to the Colorado River, but not to the Compact, and often so much water gets taken out that the river dries up before reaching Mexico, and what does get there is a sludge of agricultural pesticide runoff. (In contrast, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec are Associate Members of the Great Lakes Compact, so Canada’s voce is heard in those matters.)

But traditionally California has gotten the lion’s share of the water, and Arizona, with an ever-growing Phoenix, keeps claiming more and more. Recognizing that a long-established use of water is harder to reverse than a new claim to more water, the more northerly states in the Compact, particularly Colorado, which is also ever-growing, have been fighting tooth and nail to prevent California and Arizona from getting rights to more water, which would limit how much Colorado could use.

So McCain’s comments, if played up by Obama, could easily cost him Colorado’s electoral votes. Colorado, having had an influx of Californians in the ’90s and ’00s, keeps edging closer to going into the Democratic column. Had it done so in either 2000 or 2004, the Democrats would have won the presidency. McCain’s odds of winning the presidency without Colorado–slimmer than Kate Moss’s ass.