Posts Tagged: consumer

Opinion

For water conservation, lawmakers should okay ‘decoupling’

Amid a drought, a leaking hose in Scotts Valley, a Santa Cruz County area south of San Jose. (Photo: Michael Barajas, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: With climate change, our boom and bust cycle of rainy vs dry years will mean fewer rainy years and longer, more frequent dry years. We’ve all been doing our part to conserve water during this drought, but according to figures provided by state water regulators, it’s not enough.

Opinion

A good thing: CA’s new consumer financial protection setup

A woman balancing her books with the help of a calculator. (Photo: fizkes, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: Oversight can protect and level the playing field for both parties, as we will see soon in California with the state’s recent decision to “modernize” its lead financial regulatory agency, the Department of Business Oversight, into the new Department of Financial Protection & Innovation (DPFI).

Opinion

Needed: Affordable insurance in fire-prone areas

Homeowners watch the billowing smoke of the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Southern California. (Photo: BrittanyNY, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: As currently amended —after months of compromise and negotiations— this bill would create a new Insurance Market Action Plan, or IMAP, designed to increase home insurance availability with better coverage and lower rates, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire damage through home hardening and community mitigation. For many homeowners in high-risk areas, the FAIR Plan is currently the only option for fire insurance.

Analysis

Developer, business interests crowd Trump housing council

An aerial view of housing density in a Los Angeles suburb. (Photo: trekandshoot, via Shutterstock)

ANALYSIS: A new presidential panel aimed at easing the affordable housing crisis is top heavy with business and developer interests, and does little to get at the roots of the problem. President Trump’s executive order created the “White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing” in June.

Opinion

Should California’s privacy law be modified?

Illustration of a privacy law text in a courtroom. (Image: hafakot, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which takes effect next January, was intended to protect the privacy of personal consumer information by limiting the sale of information between organizations that use data to reach customers, and it provided consumers with certain rights. To achieve these consumer-focused goals, the CCPA imposes significant requirements and burdens on businesses.

News

New privacy law takes center stage

Developer Alastair Mactaggart, center, gets a hug from Sen. Bob Hertzberg, left, while Assemblymember Ed Chau looks on. Chau and Hertzberg pushed Mactaggart's privacy bill through the Legislature. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)

The new law gives consumers the right to access their personal information collected by big businesses. It gives them the right to delete it, the right to know what information is being sold and the right to stop businesses from selling their information. It also prohibits businesses from selling the personal information of youth under 16 unless they opt in.

News

‘Split roll,’ the ghost of Prop. 13, haunts 2018

The late Paul Gann, center, and Howard Jarvis clasp their hands in victory as their ballot initiative, Proposition 13, takes a commanding lead on election night, June 7, 1978. (AP Photo)

Months after President Trump slashed corporations’ federal tax rate, a coalition of progressive California groups is hoping to raise their property taxes. The Schools and Communities First Coalition, which includes the League of Women Voters, Evolve California and other organizations, is seeking signatures to put an initiative on the ballot that would institute a “split roll” property tax system.

News

Absent fed action, SF, other locals target menthol smokes

A photo illustration of menthol cigarettes and peppermint leaves, from which menthol is synthesized. (Photo: Miriam Doerr Martin Frommherz)

FairWarning: Anti-smoking groups, frustrated by federal inaction on restricting menthol cigarettes, are taking matters into their own hands. In recent months, cities ranging from Oakland and Los Gatos, Calif., to Minneapolis and St. Paul have passed laws limiting the availability of menthol cigarettes, which health advocates say have a particular appeal to beginning smokers.

News

Court victory for Johnson & Johnson in talc cancer case

Talc from a container spilled across a table. (Photo: MIA Studio)

A California jury has rejected claims that Johnson & Johnson and its talc supplier were responsible for the deadly cancer of a woman who blamed her illness on breathing asbestos fibers from contaminated body powders. On a 9-3 vote, the jury Thursday in Pasadena absolved J&J of negligence in the sale of Johnson’s Baby Powder and another talc product, Shower to Shower.

Opinion

On BPA, California contradicts global health experts

Photo: Monticello, via Shutterstock

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued shocking assertions about the dangers of Bisphenol-A (BPA). In one sense they are right, their research findings are shocking – but only because they contradict the published scientific literature on BPA safety as well as the opinions of credible global health experts, including our own United State Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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