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State auditor dings CPUC on passenger carriers
The California Public Utilities Commission is supposed to look out for consumers. But the California Auditor just found they have done a bad job regulating “passenger carriers” — such as limousines. The CPUC does this through its Transformation Enforcement Branch.
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Sick leave bill could kill jobs, cut hours
An Assembly bill requiring employers to provide paid sick leave could result in nearly a million California workers either losing their jobs or having their hours cut. Assembly Bill 1522, which passed the Assembly and is making its way
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Water conservation success backfires on policy-makers
A longstanding truism when it comes to needed goods such as water systems, flood control or catastrophic earthquake insurance is that the public wants them but does not want to pay for them. This was confirmed anew by a
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6 stories out of 317: LAT, Bee, Chronicle hide Obama fracking views
I have been whining about how the media cover big issues for decades, but there is something uniquely strange about the decision of the California media — in the midst of a sharp state debate over fracking — to not
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How Obama energy rules hurt, help CA
On June 2, President Barack Obama announced his new rules to mothball “dirty” coal power plants so as to reduce carbon-dioxide power plant emissions by 30 percent from their 2005 level. He also set voluntary targets for the percentage of
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CA oil industry celebrates defeat of fracking moratorium
California’s oil industry is celebrating the defeat of a bill that would have placed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing — but warned that the fracking war is far from over. Senate Bill 1132 by Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles,
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Sweeping new legal challenge to bullet train
A massive California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit was filed June 4 in Sacramento Superior Court over the newly certified environmental impact report (EIR) for the bullet-train project segment linking Fresno to Bakersfield. This EIR is supposed to have far more
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CA innovators lead on tech surveillance
Some of California’s lesser-known players in tech have seized the initiative in shaping the nation’s surveillance culture. Many Americans are familiar with the Taser, a nonlethal device used by law enforcement to shock and immobilize. Fewer are aware that the Taser
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CA air board may invalidate 1.3 million pollution-offset credits
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s repeated punishment of an Arkansas waste disposal firm has led the California Air Resources Board to consider invalidating 1.3 million environmental offset credits bought from the Arkansas company by California firms to offset the effects
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Light-rail love affair: CA pols, media stuck in 1980s
Californians with a green streak are in love with mass transit — at least when it involves rail. Buses are far better at helping people, especially poor people, to and from work. But there’s something about rail and how it
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