The majority leader of the California State Assembly has introduced a bill that would, as written, impose jail sentences of up to six months if a restaurant worker hands out a single unsolicited plastic straw. . . . But repercussions have already spread beyond California, complicating a national movement to eliminate drinking straws. A report […]
Environmental advocates in California who successfully pushed for a ban on single-use plastic bags have expanded their fight against plastic waste, targeting straws and bottle caps and calling on the state to increase the amount of recycled material in plastic water and soda bottles. The efforts face stiff opposition from the beverage and plastic industries, […]
A judge in California is going to determine whether or not coffee causes cancer. Think about that. We live in a society where judges and lawyers — not medical doctors, scientists, or even a group of really clever AP biology high school students — get to determine the credibility of biomedical research. The stakes are […]
The Long Beach Container Terminal, which opened in April 2016, is an exception. It requires two-thirds fewer workers than traditional terminals. And that frightens the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which controls all the jobs at the docks. But viewed from another perspective, automation is part of the solution to one of Southern California’s most […]
If you’re still steaming about L.A.’s new trash system – which so far has resulted in poorer service and much higher costs – just wait. The state is hitting businesses with a different plan next year: A new recycling mandate that calls on businesses to sort food waste and landscape trimmings from the rest of […]
If water levels keep falling, Cape Town will declare Day Zero in less than three months. Taps in homes and businesses will be turned off until the rains come. The city’s four million residents will have to line up for water rations at 200 collection points. The city is bracing for the impact on public health and social order.
Technology alone isn’t going to be enough to save the world from the very real dangers of climate change, Gov. Jerry Brown told an audience of environmentalists in San Francisco on Wednesday night.
In fact, expect to hear more political chatter of all kinds as Californians gear up to select a governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and other statewide constitutional officers; new Assembly members (all of them) and state senators (just half); members of Congress including a U.S. senator; and a yet-to-be-determined number of ballot propositions that may claim to remedy the housing crisis, fix healthcare policy and repeal the new gas tax, for starters.
Millions of Americans are shut out of jobs they could do because of occupational licensing laws. They have the ability and desire, but can’t overcome the high cost of getting the governmental license that’s required before they can legally work in a job field.
Wildfires continue to ravage California, and the bravery of firefighters trying to prevent damage to homes and property has been inspiring. But this being 2017 in America, the state’s progressive politicians are blaming the fires on humanity’s sins of carbon emission. To the contrary, the conflagrations should be a wake-up call to regulators and politicians who have emphasized acts of climate piety over fire prevention.
When the authors of the Affordable Care Act promised to “bend the cost curve” in health care, it was typical Washington doublespeak. Voters likely heard those words as a promise that costs would go down, but the intended meaning was merely that they would rise more slowly than before. Yet even by that meager standard, ObamaCare is a failure. Costs are rising faster than before, and there’s no real prospect of a reversal. The key provisions of the law that were supposed to produce savings and efficiencies either haven’t worked or will never be implemented. ObamaCare’s Failed Cost Controls Photo: iStock/Getty Images America’s health-care spending rose 4.3% in 2016, according to federal data released earlier this month. That is the third straight year it outpaced economic growth. Total health spending last year was 17.9% of gross domestic product, up from 17.2% in 2013.
In the waning hours of the legislative session, Democrats pushed through new labor requirements widely viewed as retaliation against Tesla, the electric car maker embroiled in a union-organizing campaign at its Fremont plant. Labor unions got lawmakers to insert two sentences into a cap-and-trade funding bill requiring automakers to be certified “as fair and responsible in the the treatment of their workers” before their customers can obtain up to $2,500 from California’s clean vehicle rebate program. At the time, Democrats openly wrestled with the concern that the United Automobile Workers, which is trying to maintain its role as the auto industry makes big bets on electric vehicles—was expanding its unionization campaign from the factory floor to the Senate floor. Sen. Steve Glazer of Orinda said the state should not “hold our environmental projects hostage to a fight with one progressive employer.” Sen. Connie Leyva of Chino countered that California shouldn’t want companies to succeed at the expense of workers.
In July 2017, the Legislature passed AB 398, extending the state’s cap‑and‑trade program through 2030. The program is one of the state’s key strategies intended to ensure GHG emissions are 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Cap‑and‑trade is a complex program that requires many different design decisions that could affect both emissions and costs to businesses and households. In this report, we identify key CARB implementation decisions and major trade‑offs associated with those decisions. We also identify potential opportunities to improve Legislative oversight and future policy decisions to ensure that the administration is implementing the program in a way that is consistent with legislative intent and priorities.
Despite the State’s efforts, we identified certain weaknesses in its processes for detecting workers’ compensation fraud. For example, although state law requires insurers to refer to CDI and district attorneys’ offices any claims that show reasonable evidence of fraud, insurers vary significantly in the number of fraud referrals they submit. We calculated the referral rates for 21 insurers that each had more than $150 million in earned workers’ compensation premiums for 2015 and 2016.
Occupational licensure, one of the most significant labor market regulations in the United States, may restrict the interstate movement of workers. We analyze the interstate migration of 22 licensed occupations. Using an empirical strategy that controls or unobservable characteristics that drive long-distance moves, we find that the between-state migration rate for individuals in occupations with state-specific licensing exam requirements is 36 percent lower relative to members of other occupations. embers of licensed occupations with national licensing exams show no evidence of limited interstate migration.