Infrastructure

Water bond drowns in Legislature

A $10.5 billion water bond apparently drowned in the California Senate this past week for the third time since 2010, even though the Central Valley faces a dire drought this summer. But the Legislature still might perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and waive the

De Leon hammers away at key idiocy of CA bullet-train plan

Chris Reed June 28, 2014

Over the years, in conversations with friends unfamiliar with California politics and with people I’ve met while traveling or at events or doing talk radio, I’m often asked about the state’s bullet-train project. When folks hear that the cost is

Brown cuts down size, scope of water bond

Wayne Lusvardi June 26, 2014

Would half a water bond sell better to voters than the full $11 billion bond scheduled to be on the ballot in November? That’s what’s now before the California Legislature in a new proposal from Gov. Jerry Brown. In 2009

GOP wants water conveyance in bond

Wayne Lusvardi June 24, 2014

Will Gov. Jerry Brown’s Twin Tunnels project for the California Delta still make it into the $11 billion water bond projected for the November election? It’s still possible. The bond has been postponed twice already because legislators didn’t think it would

New suit filed against high-speed rail

Kathy Hamilton June 24, 2014

On June 23, the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund filed a new lawsuit against California’s high-speed rail project. TRANSDEF supports the project, but not the current planning. In a statement explaining the suit, TRANSDEF challenged “the Governor’s fallback funding scheme

Amtrak, CA high-speed rail cancel joint train agreement

John Seiler June 22, 2014

It’s another blow to California’s high-speed rail project. AP reported: SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Amtrak and the California High-Speed Rail Authority said Friday that they canceled a joint agreement seeking companies to build high-speed trains for them, a proposal billed as a way

Green hypocrisy: ‘The problem is it’s going to be visible’

Chris Reed June 21, 2014

For years, the hypocrisy of environmentalists has been on display with the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound, near Cape Cod, Mass. The project has finally begun construction but only after a 13-year campaign by rich liberals to block the

CA hydropower advances

Wayne Lusvardi June 20, 2014

To service California’s electricity market, hydropower finally is advancing. Currently, California needs to import cheap, water-based electricity hydropower from nearby states to bail out its power grid when solar power fades out at the sunset hours of each day. So

More money, problems for CA high-speed rail

James Poulos June 18, 2014

Proponents of California’s much-ballyhooed high-speed rail got a big boost in the state’s new budget. But in every other area where the struggle for its fate is playing out, the project is facing an array of daunting roadblocks. Thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown’s

CA added just 5 dams since 1959

Wayne Lusvardi June 17, 2014

Has California built any dams in the past 55 years as its population has more than doubled – and as a drought rages? Yes – but not by the state. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Water Institute recently stirred the