Top air-quality regulators at the state Capitol may be on a collision course with local power players when it comes to how frequently Californians should drive their cars in the state’s internationally lauded fight against climate change. Many regional lawmakers and other officials have started pushing back on the notion that commuters need to limit […]
Lawmakers are working on the biggest changes to U.S. retirement savings in more than a decade, exploring several proposals that could make it easier for small companies to offer 401(k) plans and for workers to guarantee themselves an annual income after they retire. The efforts start with a bipartisan Senate bill and House Republicans’ plan […]
Late last month, the Legislature enacted a 9,900-word bill purporting to protect Californians’ personal and financial information from being revealed without their permission. This legislation was hastily drafted to persuade San Francisco developer and privacy advocate Alastair Mactaggart to drop an initiative ballot measure on the same issue that he had qualified for the November […]
Californians dutifully load up their recycling bins and feel good about themselves. They’re helping the environment and being good citizens. But their glow might turn to gloom if they realized that much of the stuff is headed to a landfill. That’s because there’s no longer a recycling market for a lot of the paper, cardboard, […]
The push toward wind is playing out in a high-rise office building 100 miles south of Wyoming’s capital in Denver. There, TransWest Express is laying out plans to build a 730-mile transmission line across the American West. CEO Bill Miller points to a map and the start of the project — 1,000 wind turbines to […]
Thousands of Los Angeles residents were left without power Saturday morning after a heat wave prompted high electricity demand throughout the city. “Friday’s record-setting heat led to unprecedented peak electricity demand,” according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). High demand caused power outages throughout city and left 34,500 customers in the […]
In many ways, the oil business in the U.S. has never been better, with domestic producers in a growing number of states churning out barrels of crude in record numbers. But California’s output is going in the opposite direction — part of a larger, steady decline that began in the mid-1980s. For all of its […]
For critics of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, this case is a poster child for the need for reform. Signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970 and often referred to as “see-kwuh,” the law calls for “preventing environmental damage, while providing a decent home and satisfying living environment for every Californian.” Environmentalists say […]
California’s ballot initiative process, created 107 years ago to bypass a corrupt state government in Sacramento, is a form of “direct democracy” by which voters make policy themselves, at the ballot box. In recent years, however, it has also become a playground for enormously wealthy people, who use their personal resources to promote their preferred […]
California lawmakers on Tuesday revived a long-stalled proposal to set a goal of generating 100 percent of the state’s energy from carbon-free sources. With other controversial and high-stakes energy legislation also moving forward, California lawmakers face an array of decisions with vast implications for the Western energy grid, the future of renewable power and consumers’ […]
A huge housing/multi-use project proposed for Silicon Valley faced strong opposition. Nearby residents hated it and blocked smaller versions of the project that were on the 2016 ballot. The mayor called it out of place and sniped at outsiders who criticized his city’s history in adding housing stock. The building trades unions which sometimes come […]
Businesses across the U.S. panned California’s new consumer-privacy legislation, saying it risked far-reaching damage to everything from retailers’ customer-loyalty programs to data gathering by Silicon Valley tech giants. The bill, which was introduced one week before it was passed and was largely sold as a way to rein in big tech firms, sweeps up a […]
A far-reaching online privacy bill that got next-to-no vetting or legislative debate was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last Thursday – the product of a quickly hammered-out agreement among state legislators, privacy advocates, tech firms and a real estate tycoon whose qualifying of an even more sweeping privacy measure for the November ballot […]
Many of California’s “green” policies may make matters worse. California, for example, does not encourage biomass energy use, though the state’s vast forested areas—some 33 million acres— could provide renewable energy and reduce the excessive emissions from wildfires caused by years of forest mismanagement. Similarly, California greens have been adamant in shutting down nuclear power […]
Gas power plants are mushrooming all over the country, with almost a 20 percent gas capacity gain of 90,000 megawatts from 2017–2020 alone. Bolstered by rising efficiency, the more that we have turned to natural gas, the more our CO2 emissions have plummeted. Our power emissions are now the lowest they have been since 1985. […]