If there’s an award for environmental virtue signaling, California would win the prize. Yet for all the constant self-promotion, shameless grandstanding and endless moralizing, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the impact, and failures, of our current green obsessions. Take the recent fires that Gov. Jerry Brown, predictably and with little evidence, blamed squarely on climate […]
California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, spends billions of dollars every year to support its dozens of climate-change programs but has trouble demonstrating whether the promise of the law that spawned them has been kept. Though a separate state law requires economic analysis of major regulations, there is no requirement for a retrospective review. Environmental authorities […]
Germany, the nation that did more than any other to unleash the modern renewable-energy industry, is likely to fall short of its goals for reducing harmful carbon-dioxide emissions even after spending over 500 billion euros ($580 billion) by 2025 to overhaul its energy system. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is grappling with the implications of failing […]
Electric vehicles offer the promise of reduced environmental externalities relative to their gasoline counterparts. We combine a theoretical discrete-choice model of new vehicle purchases, an econometric analysis of the marginal emissions from electricity, and the AP2 air pollution model to estimate the environmental benefit of electric vehicles. First, we find considerable variation in the environmental […]
Construction on a massive Sacramento corporate center believed to be the West Coast headquarters of a Fortune 500 health care company will likely start in a few weeks after a construction workers’ union dropped its appeal of the project Monday. LIUNA Local 185 had appealed the planning commission’s approval of the corporate center at East […]
The state agency in charge of regulating harmful chemicals in food and other products recently stated that coffee poses no significant risk of cancer. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has proposed updating California regulations accordingly following a public hearing in Sacramento on Thursday. The move would constitute a reversal of a court […]
Across the Bay Area, recycling companies are in a crunch to find places overseas where they can sell plastic yogurt cups and junk mail flyers. China had been a big buyer of reclaimed refuse but recently tightened its rules on the products it accepts, requiring the various materials to be rigorously separated and much cleaner […]
California’s energy regulators effectively cooked the books to justify their recent command that all homes built in the Golden State after 2020 be equipped with solar panels. Far from a boon to homeowners, the costs to builders and home buyers will likely far exceed the benefits to the state. The California Energy Commission, which approved […]
Last weekend, the Los Angeles Times reported that before being appointed as Los Angeles’ new police chief, Michael Moore “took a brief, highly unusual retirement” that allowed him to rejoin the police department while claiming “a financial windfall: a lump sum retirement payment of $1.27 million from the city.” That’s because of Moore’s enrollment in […]
Inside you will find the Capitol office of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, an unlisted branch where elected officials can register their cars, renew their driver’s licenses – or apply for the new federally-mandated Real ID card that has been driving up wait times at DMV field offices across the state. From 8 a.m. […]
Despite complaints about escalating wait times for thousands of customers at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, state lawmakers sided with the Brown administration Wednesday and refused to order an official audit into its management. The audit request needed at least eight supporters from the Joint Legislative Audit Committee — four from the Assembly and four […]
California struck back at the Trump administration over air pollution Tuesday, unveiling a proposal that would force automakers to comply with the state’s strict standards for tailpipe emissions even as the federal government moves to weaken the rules. The proposal, released by the California Air Resources Board, sharpens the conflict between the state and President […]
Currently, there are about 369,000 electric cars on California roads, and Gov. Jerry Brown hopes to bring that number up to 5 million by 2030. That might appear to put electric cars on a collision course with a fragile power grid. But a report released Thursday by San Francisco-based think tank Next 10 suggests that […]
The rev of combustion engines will be around for a while if patents are any indication of staying power. Automakers were granted more protection last year on innovations to the 140-year-old technology than for electric cars, according to analytics platform Cipher. While the gap is narrowing, closing it will take another decade. . . . […]
The Trump administration is seeking to reopen some of the most sensitive and sought-after public lands in the state not just for timber production, but also for potential solar, wind, broadband infrastructure, mining, off-road vehicle and grazing uses. When it comes to timber, the justification is fire prevention. Environmental groups have long argued that the […]