Glennon and Zetland on the Radio

Here and Now, a program from Phoenix public radio station KJZZ, hosted Dr. Robert Glennon today and also had a short interview piece with David. Audio is here (water discussion starts about 20 minutes into the program), comments to the show here.

It was an interesting show, although I wish Dr. Glennon spoke a little less sparkly and a little more accurately. For example, David mentions raising prices, and Glennon mentions he agrees. However, he retorts that raising prices is a third rail and somewhat hopeless to pursue as a strategy for reducing demand. The example he gives? Tucson, AZ, which he claims raised prices in 1976-77 and subsequently saw its council members that supported the increase recalled in a referendum. What he fails to mention, however, is that the replacement council members, elected on a repeal-the-increase platform, ended up agreeing with the original price increases, and actually ended up raising them more, within 6 weeks of the recall election. They were not recalled.

Furthermore, as David always says, his proposal to increase prices for profligate use usually comes hand in hand with cheap prices for necessary use. So if leaders educate voters and bring them price increases that make economic sense, there is no need to assume that a price increase will automatically result in job loss.

And of course, given that Dr. Glennon is not a libertarian (at least as far as I can tell), I am bound to disagree on other points too. For example, he said "What do we think water is for?" That kind of language annoys me because it indicates that one person's use ought to be judged as if society/politicians know what uses of the resource are best for individuals (Hayekian problem...). This came up when a caller mentioned an employee of McDonald's washing their parking lot everyday. The caller was bewildered, but it is a perfectly rational thing to do given McDonald's desire for cleanliness and the price of water in Phoenix. Dr. Glennon and others seem to prefer to keep water cheap, and then choose rules to govern which activities are allowed (watering driveways only in the evening, but not if they are larger than 1000 square feet, and not if they are owned by an entity based in another state, etc.)

Bottom Line: More water discussions on the radio are good, even if they are imperfect.

Addendum: Here's the 1:35 MP3 of David's bit...