The Legislature’s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, says Brown’s proposal is “violating the spirit of Proposition 4.” He describes the $22 billion in school-related spending Brown wants to exempt as “nowhere money” and is telling legislators that “the plan would be highly vulnerable to legal challenges.
Although automakers had agreed to a 50-state standard, Trump’s unexpected victory last year gave them an opening to plead that the 2022-25 rules are unrealistic. During an era of historically low fuel costs, motorists are opting for SUVs and other relatively low-mileage vehicles, which also are the most profitable to produce and sell.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice saying it plans to review greenhouse gas standards for cars and light trucks sold between 2022 and 2025. President Donald Trump has signaled he wants to roll back the regulations amid complaints from U.S. automakers that the standards are too costly and cumbersome, and was expected to announce the review in Detroit on Wednesday.
About 2.5 million people living close to the official poverty line left California for other states from 2005 through 2015, while 1.7 million people at that income level moved in from other states – for a net loss of 800,000. During the same period, the state experienced a net gain of about 20,000 residents earning at least five times the poverty rate – or $100,000 for a family of three.
“California’s job growth continued its sluggish pace in January, although the Golden State’s unemployment rate did fall a tenth of a percentage point to 5.1 percent. The state Employment Development Department’s monthly report, released Friday, said California added 9,700 jobs in January.”
The California Supreme Court says the public has the right to access emails and text messages about government business sent on California officials’ private accounts. . . The use of private email accounts by public officials has faced scrutiny in recent years, with some using it as a way to avoid disclosure. Many states treat those emails as public records.
The ARB was offering 43.7 million tons of state-owned emission allowances, but sold just 602,340 tons of advance 2020 allowances, which means the state will see only $8.2 million, rather than the nearly $600 million it could have received from a sellout.
The hits from CalPERS and CalSTRS will cost school districts $1 billion more next year, the Legislature’s budget analyst has calculated, markedly more than the $744 million in additional state and local revenue Brown’s budget proposes.
“However, recriminations about Oroville, even if deserved, should not obscure the larger lesson that we must be willing to do – and pay for – the maintenance and enhancement of our vital public facilities. That’s obviously true of dams and other hydrologic systems that supply water and protect us from floods, but also applies to the electric power grid, our roadway network and everything else that a modern civilization needs to function.”
California merchandise exports closed out a strong second half of last year with an exceptional December, pushing the state’s 2016 total to nearly $164 billion.
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.
How L.A. Unified’s headache was relieved is an eye-opening exercise in creative political accounting. . . The district simply recategorized a number of previous expenditures as qualifying for the LCFF grants, enabling it to declare it “will enable the district’s estimated ending balance to revert back to pre-CDE decision levels.” . . . Nothing changed, in other words, except some computer codes. And L.A. Unified still has an immense achievement gap.
The vote came after UC President Janet Napolitano called for the annual tuition increase of $282 and a bump in fees by $54 for the 2017-18 school year.
California faces a $76.67 billion cost to provide healthcare and dental benefits to retired state employees, state Controller Betty Yee reported Wednesday, an increase of $2.49 billion over the previous year’s estimate.
It would take even more – much more – to make up for lack of construction in the last decade – a dearth that’s driven housing costs to sky-high levels and given us the nation’s highest level of poverty. . . Two new proposals, one imposing a new tax on real estate transactions and another abolishing state income tax deductions for second home mortgage interest, would generate perhaps $600 million a year for affordable housing – enough for around 1,800 units, or just 1 percent of the state’s overall need.