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CalRecycle did not establish goals for the mattress program in three critical areas: increasing convenience for consumers, reducing illegal dumping of mattresses, and ensuring consistency with the State’s overall approach to waste management, which prioritizes source reduction. Although required to develop state goals for mattress recycling by January 2018, CalRecycle set goals that focus on […]

Every election, politicians talk about the need for more job training programs. What they don’t tell voters is that the government already spends billions on job training. Most of it is wasted. Every election, politicians talk about the need for more job training programs. What they don’t tell voters is that the government already spends […]

Historically, liberals advocated helping the middle class achieve greater independence, notably by owning houses and starting companies. But the tech oligarchy — the people who run the five most capitalized firms on Wall Street — have a far less egalitarian vision. Greg Fehrenstein, who interviewed 147 digital company founders, says most believe that “an increasingly […]

The 2016-18 legislative session, which ended last week, provided more proof of the symbiotic relationship between California’s labor unions and the Legislature’s Democratic majority. While they didn’t get everything they wanted from the Legislature, unions – particularly those representing state and local government workers – won far more skirmishes than they lost. The record was […]

California’s booming economy is pouring many billions of additional tax dollars into state and local government treasuries. Nevertheless, the locals – cities and school districts, especially – find themselves in an ever-tightening fiscal vise because mandatory payments into public employee pension funds are growing much faster than revenues. That’s why dozens of them are asking […]

State lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on Friday to make it just a little bit easier for the Oakland A’s to build a new ballpark at the Howard Terminal site near the Port of Oakland. AB 734 would streamline the process for reviewing environmental lawsuits filed against the site. The Howard Terminal location is one of two […]

Owners of properties in use fewer than 50 days per year would be taxed as much as $6,000 per parcel annually, if two-thirds of voters approve the measure in November. Two weeks after the Oakland City Council voted 6-2 to place the tax on the ballot, officials in the neighboring city of Richmond greenlighted a […]

The state’s solar plants, for example, often pump out more electricity at midday than the grid needs. California still relies on natural gas power plants to supply electricity in the morning and evening, as the sun sets. But low wholesale electricity prices, caused in part by that daily flood of solar production, are making many […]

The state accounts for less than 1% of global emissions, so its climate heroism can have no serious effect on climate change, which the state’s politicians blame for wildfires and rising sea levels. Plus its cuts are partly illusory since they drive manufacturing jobs to other states, which then produce greenhouse emissions on California’s behalf. […]

A bill that would penalize retailers that hire trucking companies which have legal judgments against them for labor law violations is now a signature away becoming law after it was passed by the California legislature on Friday, Aug. 31. Senate Bill 1402, authored by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), was passed by a majority […]

The 2004 measure was Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The campaign to pass it was led by a Palo Alto real estate developer whose son suffered from an incurable illness that he believed stem cells, the keystones of human biology, could heal. Other supporters included preeminent scientists, Hollywood celebrities, business […]

California looks a lot different than it did a generation ago. Its residents are far more diverse, and they live in a far more expensive state. There’s way more renters and proportionately way fewer Republicans. Yet today’s Californians have at least one thing in common with their late 1970s forebears: They still really like Proposition […]

An effort to impose a “voluntary” water tax on residents to pay for safe drinking water projects died in the Legislature on Friday. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said “a piecemeal funding approach” to the problem “won’t work.” . . . State lawmakers are hesitant to support any new tax increase after Republicans successfully recalled Sen. […]

A new surcharge on landlines, cellphones and data plans meant to bolster 911 operations sputtered in the Legislature on Friday, even as lawmakers cited the need for an improved system in the wake of the state’s deadly wildfires. “The current system is based on technology from the 1980s,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), […]

Cannella read a list of the projects, most of them professional sports venues, that have received such favored treatment recently, to wit: “A Rams stadium in LA that never materialized; Farmer’s Field in downtown LA that never materialized; the Golden1 Center for the Kings basketball team in Sacramento; a Chargers / Raiders football stadium in […]