Policy wonks are abuzz with debate about not whether, but how, the California Environmental Quality Act should be reformed. A full-scale effort is underway to paint this landmark environmental law as broken. Implications abound through selective sampling and anecdotes that CEQA does more harm than good. Our experience, and that of our constituents, tells a
California businesses and the public at large are beginning to reap the substantial rewards of our state’s landmark clean air and energy policies. Unfortunately, this progress is in significant jeopardy thanks to the oil industry and other dirty energy companies that continue to do everything possible to undermine these laws. It is important to remember
The great health care reform countdown has begun, with nearly every American required to have some level of health insurance by the end of this year. That much we know for certain. What remains to be seen, however, is whether simply adding more people to the insurance pool will translate into better health for policyholders.
In the wake of a tragedy like Newtown, there’s an understandable impulse to fight fire with fire. To fortify schools with fences, barbed wire and metal detectors. To call for more police officers and even suggest that teachers and principals should carry weapons alongside their lesson plans. To do anything that could protect our
Big Soda spent big bucks. That’s how it defeated ballot measures to create soda taxes in two California towns.
In Richmond, in the Bay Area, and in El Monte, east of Los Angeles, the measures would have added a penny-an-ounce tax on soda. Had the taxes passed, they were projected to raise millions of
I want to answer Gov. Jerry Brown’s very good question about the “non-TV voter,” posed about two weeks before Election Day – but first, I ought to address the handful of victory-lap news stories in the national media detailing a number of President Barack Obama’s political campaign staffers’ and consultants’ use of social media, big
Many Californians are suffering from politics and election fatigue. Tired of partisanship, they are looking for action from politicians on the issues they care most about: the economy, schools and health care.
We keep hearing that the U.S. is more polarized now than it has been for some time. This polarization is promoting gridlock,