You can imagine my feelings on the “federal government … actively purchasing water rights for the environment.” Of course my preferences are to reserve generous environmental water (instream flows, etc) before any shares are distributed.
This does seem like a way to achieve Dr. Lund’s proposal, of letting urban users dedicate conserved water to the environment.
The final paragraph of this section is clever.
On the public record 
You may not like the feds doing it, but per the eight different initiative versions Jerry Meral just filed, he seems to think it’s fine for the state to do it some. These are for a ~ $5 billion water bond (the “Water Supply Reliability and Drought Protection Act of 2016′) which on its face seems to be an aquatic cornucopia for all. I didn’t read through carefully, but I have a sneaking suspicion this is mainly aimed at funding the restoration projects ancillary to the tunnels, plus enough other largesse to keep everyone happy (although apparently not for dams of any size or the tunnel project itself). But maybe I’m being paranoid. Differences between the versions seem mainly in the distribution of funds.
November 2016 will be the mother of all ballots in California, even lacking a competitive presidential race.