Posts Tagged: goals

News

CalPERS steps up on climate change

CalPERS headquarters, downtown Sacramento. (Photo: CalPERS)

CalPERS is a leader in forming a first-ever global alliance of large investors that would use its combined shareholder clout to engage companies with the most carbon emissions, believed by scientists to contribute to climate change. The CalPERS board was told last week that its staff is working with others to complete the plan in time for an introduction at a United Nations investor meeting next month in Berlin, followed by a public launch in November at a UN climate change meeting in Bonn.

News

Death penalty: Ron Briggs’ odyssey

The execution chamber at San Quentin Prison

Ron Briggs was always an ardent supporter of the death penalty. His father John Briggs, former state assemblyman and senator, was a driving force behind a 1978 initiative that expanded the list of special circumstances required for a death sentence. But today, Ron Briggs is one the biggest opponents of capital punishment. He campaigned for Proposition 62, which would have ended the state’s death penalty and was rejected by voters this month.

Opinion

ZEV program running out of gas?

The state Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: David Monniaux)

OPINION: With the clock ticking down to the end of this year’s legislative session, our leaders in Sacramento are debating initiatives that will put more clean cars on the road, boost air quality and innovation, and improve the health of our residents. We must take advantage of this brief window of opportunity to recalibrate the state’s primary mechanism for encouraging electric vehicle adoption – the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) credit system.

News

A Capitol dispute over disclosure

A photo illustration of an ad campaign program on a laptop. (Photo: Tashatuvango, via Shutterstock)

California’s political watchdog, which fights to reveal the political money trail, is opposing legislation that appears to do exactly that. The Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces campaign rules, has come out against two bills aimed at disclosure.

Opinion

Tax debate must get beyond politics

The California state Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Shutterstock)

OPINION: With more than a dozen major tax measures moving through the Legislature or toward the November 2016 ballot, California’s perennial debate about taxes is set to begin anew — with millions of dollars in political campaigns preparing to shape how the state will raise billions of dollars in revenue, and provide public services, for years to come.

News

Schools closely eye CalSTRS rate hike

The push back from schools hit with a huge CalSTRS rate increase, expected to be an additional $3.7 billion a year when fully phased in, is not that it’s unaffordable and will hurt students or unfairly lets the state and teachers off the hook. Instead, a coalition of school districts, including the giant Los Angeles Unified School District, wants a separate budget item for the CalSTRS rate increase within Proposition 98.

Opinion

First things first: Protect the mountain watersheds

The Mokulumne River. Photo: Mountain Counties Water Resources Association)

OPINION: Mountain watersheds can survive without the Delta, but the Delta cannot survive without the watersheds. In focusing on conditions in the statutory Delta, the California Legislature left out any consideration of the mountain watersheds and the ecosystems that provide the water to the Delta.

News

Cap-and-trade funds fuel bullet train

A computer-generated image of the proposed California bullet train. (Photo: High Speed Rail Authority)

Hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s auctions of carbon emission credits are being tapped to help finance the $68 billion bullet train project. In subsequent years, a fourth of the auction money will go to the train. The budget requires the governor’s signature to take effect.

Support for Capitol Weekly is Provided by: