CalWatchdog Morning Read – January 13

13 Jan, 2017 by CalWatchdog Staff

Lawmaker targets Uber’s self-driving vehicles in new legislation
Scientists rebuke Coastal Commission over desalination
Does Consumer Watchdog actually help lower insurance rates?
Brown cuts doctors out of tobacco tax money
Democratic lawmakers pushing for cap-and-trade extension

Good morning! TGIF. One lesson for the day: If you want to do something in the state, don’t try to get around the permitting process.

It’s not enough that Uber killed its unpermitted, self-driving-vehicle pilot program in San Francisco just a week after it started; an assemblyman wants to squash any further attempts to test vehicles without a permit as well.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, introduced legislation requiring the DMV to revoke registrations for self-driving vehicles in violation of the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. The bill is a response to Uber, which last year began testing its vehicles without a permit, even picking up passengers, violating state regulations. And one of the vehicles ran a red light.

Under Ting’s bill, law enforcement would have the authority to impound violating vehicles and the DMV could fine as much as $25,000 per vehicle per day.

“I applaud our innovation economy and all the companies developing autonomous vehicle technology, but no community should face what we did in San Francisco,” Ting said in a statement. “The pursuit of innovation does not include a license to put innocent lives at risk.”

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

“The Coastal Commission’s stated concern that a proposed Huntington Beach desalination plant’s intake pipes pose a threat to small and microscopic plankton has been rebutted in a letter from three prominent California marine biologists.” CalWatchdog has more.
“Consumer Watchdog collects millions, but does it lower your insurance rates?” The Sacramento Bee has the story.
“Jerry Brown doesn’t want to give doctors a cut of the new tobacco tax money,” writes The Sacramento Bee.
“Days after Governor Jerry Brown called for an extension of California’s signature greenhouse gas reduction program and threatened to withhold money it generates until that happens, Assembly Democrats introduced legislation.” Capital Public Radio has more.