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After increasing in 2013 and in 2014, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell in 2015. In 2015, U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were 12% below the 2005 levels, mostly because of changes in the electric power sector. . . Many of the changes in energy-related CO2 emissions in recent history have occurred in the electric power sector because of the decreased use of coal and the increased use of natural gas for electricity generation.

Impact fees are just one of the ways that local government regulations have artificially raised the cost of housing in recent years. Such restrictions have benefitted the wealthy—suppressing new construction enhances the property value of people who already own real estate—while making it harder for young people and working families to start building home equity. They have also probably dulled the (sluggish) economic recovery by swallowing up a big chunk of wage growth that has taken place since the Great Recession.

But the Sacramento Children’s Home operates on a very modest budget, and we do not charge for any of the services that we provide to the more than 6,200 children and 4,600 families that we serve each year. We cannot simply raise the cost of our services – since they are free – to meet this gap.

To assess AB 32’s primary goal of reducing California’s emissions, we need to assess the Golden State’s emission reduction relative to the other 49 states, which have been slow to implement anti-climate change actions. Over the course of the last decade, California hasn’t done much better at reducing emissions, but this data only incorporates two years of AB 32 being truly in action. But even looking at just 2012 and 2013, California still isn’t performing much better than the rest of the country. In absolute terms, CO2 emissions increased in California by an average of 1.2% while they dropped by an average of 0.8% per year in the rest of the nation.

When did Americans decide that 1% or 2% economic growth is acceptable, that puny wage increases are inevitable, and that we should all merely shrug and get used to the country’s diminished expectations? Those questions come to mind watching the desultory reactions to Thursday’s report that the U.S. economy grew by a meager 0.5% in the first quarter of 2016.

Indeed, our state government seems designed with the opposite of one-stop shopping as its guiding principle. California has more permitting agencies than most other states, all sorts of strange regional bodies, huge incentives for endless litigation, a divide between local governments that oversee land use and state agencies that regulate what you can do on the land, and the California Environmental Quality Act, which can kill almost any worthwhile project.

But rising energy costs are not the only cost increases we are seeing in the state. California businesses on average already pay 19% higher operating costs per job than the rest of the country in addition to paying 53% more in workers’ compensation. Corporate income tax is 43% higher than the national average and per employee is the ninth highest in the nation.  Meanwhile, California has a poverty rate of 23.5%, the highest in the nation.

Fuller cited damning stats: CNBC ranked California the 5th most expensive state to live in the country in 2015, average monthly rent is 50 percent higher here than in the rest of the country, 40 percent of Californians are living at or near the poverty line and Californians have one of the highest tax burdens in the country. 

But rather than adding to the rules governing Uber and Lyft, an effort that has seen limited success in Sacramento in recent years, Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) wants to deregulate the taxi industry.

Growth has been so anemic for so long, we’re now being told that this is the “new normal.” As the Bureau of Labor Statistics put it, “annual U.S. GDP growth exceeding 3% … is not expected to be attainable over the coming decade.” It lists everything as a cause, except for one thing: federal regulations.

A new study for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University uses an economic model that examines regulation’s effect on firms’ investment choices. Using a 22-industry dataset that covers 1977 through 2012, the study finds that regulation—by distorting the investment choices that lead to innovation—has created a considerable drag on the economy, amounting to an average reduction in the annual growth rate of the US gross domestic product (GDP) of 0.8 percent.

California lawmakers continue to pass legislation that ultimately has unintentional consequences that continues to burden the small business owner. The cost of compliance is not equal to large/mega institutions; it costs much more. Moreover, finding professionals who fully grasp and can channel the labyrinth of laws and regulations is difficult. So many businesses die by a thousand paper cuts.

Sacramento politicians cannot resist the urge to “regulate” the “gig economy” to impose arduous work rules, regulations, and a whole host of bureaucratic red tape on one of the most successful economic enterprises to surface in the past few years.

These young adults who face long spells of unemployment now are at a long-term disadvantage relative to their employed counterparts. One study released by the Employment Policies Institute found that high-school seniors with part-time work experience earned 20% more per year on average, 6-9 years after graduating, relative to their fellow students who didn’t work. Ironically, today’s minimum wage mandate for higher pay will be condemning young adults to lower-paid and less-successful futures.

Recent discussions within Los Angeles labor groups reveal inherent hypocrisy within the “Fight for $15” campaign. Unions paid plenty of lip service toward this effort, which would raise the minimum wage to $15. . . It seems that unions should be celebrating this supposed win for workers – yet union leaders are currently seeking an exemption to the $15-an-hour minimum wage for union members.