News

The battle lines are being drawn in the upcoming legislative fight over California’s environmental review laws.

During his State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown laid out his vision of investing in public infrastructure, reinvesting in public schools and universities, assuring a safe and reliable water supply, and shifting toward cleaner energy. To accomplish these goals, the governor called on state leaders to engage in a number of necessary actions including meaningful regulatory reform, with particular focus on modernizing the 40-year-old California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.

More than two-thirds of California business leaders see the state as an extraordinarily difficult state in which to operate, a new survey by the California Business Roundtable has found.

Comparing California to other states has become a common exercise among politicians, academicians and in the media.

Manufacturing is staging a big comeback in the United States, according to a new U.S. Commerce Department report, but a new state employment report indicates that manufacturing is continuing its years-long slide in California.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who has occasionally been prickled by claims that Texas is a better place to do business than California, was asked on Marketplace Morning Report today if the Golden State was falling behind.

Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the California Environmental Quality Act in 1970, a monumental year for the nation’s environmental movement. That was the year the nation first celebrated Earth Day and that President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

“A Census Bureau poverty report and another from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,released simultaneously last week, should remove any lingering doubt about California’s stratification.”