As it turns out, the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), known popularly as “Obamacare,” could be a boon to the California budget. Given how the ACA is structured, the state could end up spending less on an unlikely source – prison inmates. The ACA is designed to expand healthcare coverage to low-income
For the third time in five years, California lawmakers have rejected an attempt to give the California Coastal Commission, which has jurisdiction over 1,100 miles of coastline, authority to impose fines on those who violate coastal protection laws. Opponents of the plan were led by business, farm, petroleum and construction interests, and the measure failed after Assembly Democrats who backed it earlier withdrew their support.
Science and common sense, not ideology, needed in hydraulic fracturing discussion
Science and common sense are in a pitched battle against ideology here in California, where activists are pressuring state and local officials to ignore science and common sense and ban a hydraulic fracturing — a safe and proven technology that’s been used to
Nearly two years before voters go to the polls to decide the fate of a long-delayed plan to borrow $11.1 billion for water projects, the clock is ticking on negotiations over the potential proceeds and the size of the borrowing.
“This bond will have many of the elements of the measure certified more than
California’s core environmental protection law, a 43-year-old statute frequently denounced by developers and business interests as a tangle of red tape, is on a Capitol hit list once again.
But the political dynamic this year is unusual: Those pushing hard for change are Democrats, including Gov. Brown, the Senate and Assembly leaders and a
Like many of her colleagues, state Sen. Lois Wolk, a Democrat, found herself this year in a totally new election environment.
During her initial four-year term, she represented the 5th Senate District, a Delta-flanking district where she built a reputation as an advocate for water and environmental protections. Now, she is the senator from the