The 13 percent increase in natural gas rates took effect in August, but consumers didn’t feel the pinch until December, when residents turned up their thermostats in the face of a particularly cold and wet season. Electricity rates were raised three times in the past year. Combined, electricity and gas rates for PG&E customers are an average of 21 percent higher than they were a year ago, said utility spokesman Donald Cutler.
High energy costs then translate into high costs of food and supply since suppliers have to buy electricity and gas, Mayes said. Because of the high costs, companies that offer good-paying marketing jobs don’t want to expand into California. This makes it hard for people with limited education to find high enough wages. “We don’t have the jobs that pay for those who didn’t go to Stanford or UCLA or didn’t go to Berkeley or didn’t get a degree in computer science and life science,” he said.
The Trump order aims to prevent such waste by requiring the agencies to repeal two old rules for every new one they publish. . . the text of the order suggests that for every dollar of new cost imposed on the private economy, each agency will have to find two dollars of burden to relieve. . . many civilized countries use such budgets to manage the regulatory state and stay competitive. Canada requires every rule that creates another hour of paperwork for business compliance to be offset one for one. The United Kingdom and Australia have harder versions that require the costs of new rules to be offset by deregulation of comparable net value.
Officials at The Utility Reform Network (TURN), a consumer advocacy group that monitors the state’s utilities and the CPUC, said the proposals represent “laudable goals” but the group doesn’t like the prospect of customers getting billed for projects that may not necessarily lead to “clear and direct benefits” to all ratepayers, especially in low-income communities.
The funds, to be collected from ratepayers over a five-year period, would increase customers’ electricity bills by up to 0.5 percent. The money would support several programs to promote electric vehicle transportation . . .
“Two years ago, California Senate leader Kevin de León pushed through a law requiring the state to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. On Thursday, he said there was a mistake in the legislation, SB 350 — it didn’t go far enough.”
To date, there are two common errors when thinking about Orange County’s future. One maintains that Orange County, rejecting the dispersed model suggested by its origins, ought to mimic Los Angeles (which, in turn, thinks IT should be mimicking San Francisco or New York) and become more “city like” — code for high density housing, mass transit and a centralized downtown. Although this strategy works in older, downtown-centric “legacy cities”, it has proven far less successful elsewhere. This is most evident in neighboring Los Angeles, OC’s closest relative. The determined drive there to become “city-like” may have benefitted some, such as developers and beneficiaries of public contracts, but has demonstrably failed to improve economic conditions across the metropolis
Orange County’s future prosperity depends on its ability to attract well-paying jobs, but its efforts are woefully inadequate when compared with those of other regions. . . “We have high housing costs,” Kotkin said. “But we are not generating the jobs to support those costs. As long as we have this real estate-driven economy, we are going to be in trouble. Orange County was once the belle of the ball. That era is over.”
We estimate that California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015. Our analysis is based on a review of federal, state and local financial disclosures. The total includes bonds, loans and other debt instruments as well as unfunded pension and other post-employment benefits promised to public sector employees. Our estimate of California government debt represents about 52% of California’s Gross State Product of $2.48 trillion. When added to the state’s share of the national debt, we find that California taxpayers are shouldering debt burdens on a par with residents of peripheral Eurozone states.
Home is the foundation for life. It’s where we raise families, feel safe and secure, rest and recharge. Our options for where we live have far-reaching impacts in our lives – from our job opportunities to our physical and mental health, from our children’s success in school to our environmental footprint. With California’s desirable climate, diverse economy, and many of the nation’s top colleges, the State continues to experience strong housing demand; however, housing construction is constrained by regulatory barriers, high costs, and fewer public resources.
“What the report tries to get at is that the facts on the ground for a typical California family are really as bad as they’ve ever been in the state’s history,” said Ben Metcalf, director of the Department of Housing and Community Development.
Several plans have been floated to put more money into housing – such as a tax on real estate transactions or eliminating the income tax deduction for interest on second homes – but even if Democrats can muster two-thirds votes for these tax changes, they’d have no more than a marginal effect on the crisis.
The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area was $2.719 a gallon as of Thursday, a 17-cent drop from a year earlier, the Auto Club said in its weekly fuel report.
The new monthly charge and interconnection fee kick in whenever the growing amount of rooftop solar power in a utility’s territory reaches a specific threshold, equal to 5 percent of the utility’s peak electricity demand. San Diego Gas and Electric Co. was the first utility to hit that mark, reaching it in June.
Germany is at risk of missing its 2020 target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990, an environment ministry report showed on Wednesday. . . The action plan was expected to save between 62 million and 78 million tonnes of carbon dioxide but now the government expects savings of just 58 million tonnes, the report said.