Posts Tagged: fuel

News

Paying by the mile for California roads, infrastructure

Traffic on the Harbor Freeway in downtown Los Angeles. (Photo: Jose Luis Stephens, via Shutterstock)

Keeping roads pothole free has been a challenge in California for decades. But an unusual solution has emerged — a per-mile-driven fee on motorists, called a Road Use Charge, with the money going to build and maintain infrastructure, including roads and highways.

News

Rural areas, counties ask for help as California fire season heats up

The remains of a home and nearby house in the Glen Ellen area of Sonoma County, following a 2017 fire.(Photo: RebeccaJaneCall, via Shutterstock)

Representatives of California’s counties are urging improved measures to cut wildfire risks in the state’s less populated areas, but questioned plans to impose widespread building restrictions.

News

California’s fight over fuel economy standards

Rush-hour traffic in downtown Los Angeles. (Photo: TierneyMJ, via Shutterstock)

Top law enforcement officials in California and New York are leading 10 other states in an attempt to retain tougher penalties for automakers that violate fuel economy standards. They filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the federal government’s decision to block a scheduled increase in the penalties for those who fail to meet fuel economy standards.

News

Unprecedented highway money okayed — now what?

Motorists along the Ventura Freeway in Sherman Oaks. (Photo: Oscity, via Shutterstock)

A California transportation plan of historic proportions has been approved – but what happens next? First, is the 12-cent increase in the fuel tax, starting in November. Then, other taxes and fees will kick in to help finance the $52 billion package in Senate Bill 1, which includes $34 billion over the next 10 years for repair and maintenance of roads, highways, bridges and culverts.

News

California’s bumpy path to road repairs

A mid-1930s truck on a Kern County highway. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, Shutterstock)

California’s already poor roads deteriorated to a whole new level of disrepair this winter. Sinkholes have popped up throughout the state and major roads have closed because of damage. To cite just a few major examples: Portions of Interstate 80 and Highways 50 and 49 were closed due to mudslides. Parts of Highway 1 remain closed because of storm damage. Numerous local roads were battered severely.

News

California poverty: The high cost of just about everything

Workers in Los Angeles demonstrate in support of a $15 minimum wage. (Photo: Dan Holm, Shutterstock)

High housing costs, electricity and gas prices are the main reasons California has the highest poverty rate in the nation, according to state Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes. The Yucca Valley legislator has made alleviating poverty his top priority. “I think increasing the quality of life for people we serve is the overall goal,” he said. “If you have poverty as a measuring stick, California is failing worse than every other state in the country.”

News

Hawaii, California lead fight for renewable energy

A sugar factory , Puunene, Maui, Hawaii. (Photo: Mike Brake)

Hawaii last month became the first state to establish a goal of relying 100 percent on renewable energy, setting 2045 as the year to reach this ambitious target. Meanwhile, legislation moved forward in California that would significantly expand its pioneering efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. The Golden State has an economy larger than all but six nations in the world, and almost anything it does has the potential of having global impact.

News

Special session: Fixing the potholes

Downtown Los Angeles, as traffic zips along. (Photo: Sean Pavone)

Gov. Brown’s call for a special legislative session to fix California’s crumbling roads, highways and bridges comes as music to the ears of those who build big projects. For months, groups representing labor, contractors, local governments, transportation interests and others worked on legislation to revamp the state’s roads and ease the movement of freight at the state’s ports. That legislation may serve as the centerpiece of the special session.

Opinion

Indirect land use change: ARB needs evidence, not theory

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).

News

Lawmakers sworn in. What now?

Newly elected Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a former Assembly speaker, gives a kiss to fellow Democratic Sen. Cathleen Galgiani. Both, along with other lawmakers, were officially sworn in Monday. (Photo: Steve Yeater/Associated Press)

California lawmakers, many elected by razor-thin margins in districts where the turnout was historically low, were formally sworn in Monday for the two-year session. Even on the first day, the battle lines were being drawn for the 2015-16 session.

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