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Tag "Central Valley"

High costs plague embattled high-speed rail

Despite a major shift in its construction strategy, newly anticipated budget overruns hit California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project, as citizens and lawmakers mounted fresh challenges to the scheme. “California High-Speed Rail Authority employees are warning of possible cost overruns on the

Democratic Party faces restive CA activists

James Poulos February 8, 2016

Disgruntled Democratic activists in California have begun to buck the national party in key races this election year. After a string of failures in several central valley campaigns, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has come in for scorn by increasingly independent party members

Water woes bring uneven fines and regulations

James Poulos November 29, 2015

California’s ongoing water crisis promised to extend the controversy over fines and regulations well into the next year — if not beyond. While some areas suffer, others flourish, and fines — in some instances aggressively applied — have been meted

Brown gets bipartisan rebuke on drought policies

Chris Reed September 16, 2015

The reporters who cover state government have paid plenty of attention to Gov. Jerry Brown’s failures on big initiatives in the Legislature this month, in which the governor got nowhere with his agenda in special sessions on health funding and

Brown vows tighter groundwater regulations

James Poulos August 26, 2015

Laboring to strengthen his aggressive anti-drought policies, Gov. Jerry Brown vowed that the historic groundwater management rules he pushed into law will be ratcheted up in coming years. In an interview on Meet the Press, Brown cautioned that he did not “rule

Yet another in wave of CA DMV bribery scandals

Chris Reed August 16, 2015

The state Department of Motor Vehicles used to be a symbol of bureaucratic inefficiency, the subject of decades of jokes by Jay Leno and other California-based comedians. But then something unexpected happened: The DMV adopted to the computer era better

House legislation targets environmental laws

Josephine Djuhana July 2, 2015

Last week, House Republicans introduced legislation to revise water policies in California and the rest of the West Coast, improving water reliability and making environmental laws more flexible. H.R. 2898, authored by California Congressman David Valadao, is backed by the

Congress still divided on how to address CA drought

Chris Reed May 21, 2015

California’s leaders have faced sharp criticism over their perceived failure to prepare the state for the current severe drought. But if criticism of the state government is warranted, Congress may deserve some blame as well. House members from the Central

Bullet train dead in water — yet state to proceed with eminent domain

Chris Reed November 27, 2013

Eminent domain is one of the greatest government assaults on individual rights that one sees on a regular basis in the United States. Even in its purer form, in which land is seized for projects with broad general public benefit,

Vidak warns: Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink

Katy Grimes November 21, 2013

The California Department of Water Resources announced this week that the Central Valley may only get five percent of the water it needs next year. The Central Valley, the heart of California, is the state’s top agricultural producing region, often called