InfrastructureThe tangled web of High-speed spendingMonday, June 11th, 2012 June 11, 2012 By Katy Grimes SACRAMENTO -- With the looming state budget deadline of June 15, most lawmakers are at least pretending to have budget issues in their sights at the moment. But there are still thousands of bills churning through the Capitol bill mill, many of which would cause eve... Space: Next California frontierFriday, May 18th, 2012 May 18, 2012 By Joseph Perkins The dawning of the commercial space age begins Tuesday. That’s when SpaceX is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida for a rendevous with the International Space Station -- the first time a private spacecraft will do so. A Saturday launch was cancele... How to save state parks from closureFriday, May 11th, 2012 May 11, 2012 By Joseph Perkins A pair of Northern California lawmakers unveiled a proposal this week to avert the scheduled July 1 closure of 70 state’s 278 parks, casualties of last year’s budget-cutting by the Legislature. “The notion of closing 70 parks is ill-conceived,” said st... A welcome bow to telecom deregulationFriday, April 20th, 2012 April 20, 2012 By Joseph Perkins The California Public Utilities Commission is displeased. In a meeting April 17 in San Francisco, four of its five members sharply criticized a state Senate bill which, they claimed, would strip the commission of its power to regulate basic phone service. Wh... Consequences of ConservationFriday, March 23rd, 2012 March 23, 2012 Palo Alto residents have responded admirably to the city’s “Zero Waste” campaign, which aims to divert almost all the city’s trash from landfills to recycling centers by 2021. In fact, residents have done such a good job of recycling -- the city’s diversion rate has r... CA Motorists Pay Through the HoseFriday, February 17th, 2012Feb. 17, 2012 Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential candidate, was in California this week to attend a series of campaign fund-raisers. He was provocative as usual as he spoke to supporters. He called for the impeachment or replacement of the activist U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in ... Ding, Dong, Redevelopment Is DeadMonday, February 6th, 2012 Feb. 6, 2012 The California Redevelopment Association's website this week was still up and running and featuring job postings for redevelopment jobs, although the site does report that the association's annual convention and expo has been canceled. It's just a matter of time before the news reach... Will Enviros Bend on CEQA Reform?Saturday, January 28th, 2012 Jan. 28, 2012 CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, has long been the third rail of politics here in theGoldenState. If a politician dare touch it, he or she is dead to the state’s powerful environmental lobby. Gov. Jerry Brown this week placed environmentalists in a quandary. He r... Delta Science Remains in QuestionFriday, January 6th, 2012JAN. 6, 2011 A federal judge opened up a can of whoop ass last fall on two government biologists, accusing them of mendacity in making their case for stricter environmental regulations in the Delta. This week, a report by a supposedly “independent panel of experts” cleared the pair of wron... |