The power plant in El Segundo, Calif. (Photo: Don Solomon, via Shutterstock)Nearly a decade after California’s landmark law curbing greenhouse gases was signed, a key author of AB 32 wants to dramatically boost the crackdown on climate-changing carbon emissions over the next 35 years.
Shasta Lake, 170 miles north of Sacramento. (Photo: Mavensnotebook.com)There may be lack of water, but there’s no dearth of printer’s ink: Here’s a quick rundown of reports from key government agencies.
OPINION: By accelerating the development and deployment of alternatives to oil, California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard—which the Air Resources Board will consider this week —helps untangle us from regimes that do not share our values. It helps make our nation stronger by weakening regimes that use oil to pay for their murderous acts, and makes the world a little bit safer.
As rush hour approaches, traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo: Frontpage)Permission slips covering an array of fuels used in California – and which account for nearly 40 percent of the state’s carbon emissions – will be put on the auction block as part of the state’s landmark law to curb climate-changing greenhouse gases.
Islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an aerial view. The Delta is home to about half of California's drinking water. (Photo: Worldislandinfo.comJohn O’Hagan of the Division of Water Rights told the board that the state’s snow water equivalent — which is the amount of water that the Sierra snow pack will produce — is only 14% of average. He added the states reservoirs are only 50 percent of capacity. Both figures elicited a gasp from those present.
The apparent suicide last week of Alfred Villalobos, who faced a bribery trial next month, is a sad end for a former CalPERS board member paid more than $50 million by firms seeking money from the big pension fund. Most of his fees came from private equity firms during the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. Some call the period private equity’s “golden years,” when leveraged buyouts of corporations yielded huge profits.
Three seats on the powerful board that governs California’s multibillion-dollar health insurance exchange are up for grabs, giving the Brown administration – whose allies already comprise a majority on the five-member board — an opportunity to name two new directors. Two seats held by appointees of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expired last week. A third became vacant following the resignation last month of Robert Ross, the president of the nonprofit California Endowment.
OPINION: When the Greek philosopher Aristotle presented fellow scholars with empirical evidence and scientific proof that the world was round—not flat—around 330 BC, he was called a lunatic and a charlatan. More than two millennia later, Sacramento has its own version of the Flat Earth Society — the California Air Resources Board (ARB). Only this time, the debate isn’t over the shape of the Earth; it’s over an obscure regulatory concept known as Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), a component of the state’s Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS).
Calpensions: In a few years CalPERS retirees are expected to outnumber active workers, a national trend among public pension funds that makes them more vulnerable to big employer rate increases. The growing number of retirees, partly due to aging baby boomers, is one reason a staff report last week argues that CalPERS has too much “risk.”
The UC Board of Regents’ decision to increase tuition over the next five years brought a swift – and negative – reaction from Sacramento, signaling a fiscal showdown when the state budget is unveiled in January. “To UC students and their families, please know that the fight over this nearly 28% fee increase is not over,” said Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins.