The State of California

Lawsuit: Researcher behind climate plan hid utility funding - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Opinion: Dept. of Industrial Relations Learns How Difficult it Is to Do Business in California - Times of San Diego

California keeps sending toxic soil to out-of-state landfills — Newsom and legislators are slow to change course | KPBS Public Media

Biden's antitrust push moves to courts as Google, Big Tech fight back - The Washington Post washingtonpost.com Biden finds breaking up Big Tech is hard to do Will Oremus, Cat Zakrzewski, Naomi Nix 11–13 minutes Google has been quietly assembling a phalanx of former Justice Department lawyers as the tech titan gears up for the regulatory fight of its life against the attorneys’ former employer. The Department of Justice offensive, a pair of lawsuits aimed at breaking up the search giant’s dominance, will play out in the courts — reflecting a new phase in the Biden administration’s years-long effort to rein in Big Tech, after a sweeping antitrust package stalled in Congress. When President Biden took office, he picked trustbusters to lead key agencies amid bipartisan calls to curtail the largest internet firms’ power over the digital economy. But halfway through his term, the movem...

Silicon Valley versus the feds. Who should California side with? sfchronicle.com Silicon Valley versus the feds. Who should California side with? Joe Mathews 5–7 minutes Which side should California be on in the coming federal war against Silicon Valley? The question feels less hypothetical after the State of the Union address when President Biden blasted Big Tech and promised new restrictions on the lifeblood of Silicon Valley businesses — their ability to collect and use our data. Republicans in Congress, while rudely heckling the president in other parts of his speech, stood and applauded these threats, which makes it even more likely that Californians soon will be in a conundrum. Because Silicon Valley is the place that exposes our state’s hypocrisy; California likes to see itself as both a public-spirited, progressive force for the future and a seat of global powe...

D.C. must stand with SoCal fishermen in fight against fish farms vcstar.com D.C. must stand with SoCal fishermen in fight against industrial fish farms 4–5 minutes When you fish in the Santa Barbara Channel every day you get a sense of everything that’s there: the stoic northern Channel Islands, migrating humpback whales, and countless rockfish that are sold to make a living. You also get a sense of what doesn’t belong, and massive finfish farms directly off the coast of Ventura do not belong in our waters. Offshore finfish aquaculture is a type of factory farming that uses massive net pens to raise fish in tight quarters. This allows disease and pests such as sea lice to spread rapidly which, if the fish escape, can be devastating to local fish populations. These cages also allow excess feed, untreated fish waste, antibiotics, and other chemicals to flow into the surrounding ocean w...

Storm Closes I-5 in Grapevine, Leaves 85,000 Without Power in LA - Times of San Diego timesofsandiego.com Storm Closes I-5 in Grapevine, Leaves 85,000 Without Power in LA Reuters ~3 minutes Snow closes Interstate 5 in Grapevine north of Los Angeles. Courtesy Caltrans Nearly 85,000 households and businesses were without power in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, as storms continued to pummel parts of California, bringing snow to higher elevations and dumping rain and hail in the flatlands. Interstate 5, the largest highway leading north out of the city, remained closed at the steep grade known as the Grapevine due to heavy snow, while several more southern points of the freeway in and around Los Angeles were closed due to flooding, Caltrans said. In Northern California, San Francisco was expected to experience record cold temperatures o...

Snow falls in Los Angeles area, 1,000s still without power | AP News apnews.com Snow falls in Los Angeles area, 1,000s still without power By JOHN ANTCZAK and KEN KUSMER 6–8 minutes LOS ANGELES (AP) — A powerful winter storm that swept down the West Coast with flooding and frigid temperatures shifted its focus to southern California on Saturday, swelling rivers to dangerous levels and dropping snow in even low-lying areas around Los Angeles. The National Weather Service said it was one of the strongest storms to ever hit southwest California and even as the volume of wind and rain dropped, it continued to have significant impact including snowfall down to elevations as low as 1,000 feet (305 meters). Hills around suburban Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, were blanketed in white, and snow also surprised inland suburbs to the east. Blizzard warnings continued in the mountains and fl...

Opinion: California Remains the Mecca for Cutting-Edge Business Investment - Times of San Diego timesofsandiego.com Opinion: California Remains the Mecca for Cutting-Edge Business Investment Chris Jennewein ~3 minutes Gov. Gavin Newsom (left) and Elon Musk outside the building that will be Tesla’s global engineering headquarters. Image from livestream If you watch Fox News or read the editorials in the Wall Street Journal, you might conclude that California has lost its luster as a global center for technology and innovation. The conservative narrative is that businesses are flocking to Texas and Florida because there is no state income tax and less regulation. Supposedly running a business is all about being able to pay your workers a bit less and cut a few corners on safety. But two developments this month tell a very different story....

Birth rates are declining in California. Here’s why experts think it's happening. - capradio.org capradio.org Birth rates are declining in California. Here’s why experts think it's happening. Vicki Gonzalez 7–9 minutes California’s birth rate is at its lowest level in roughly 100 years, according to a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California.  According to the January report , the number of births hit a peak in 1992 at roughly 613,000 children born. Now, more than 30 years later, that number dropped by nearly a third to 420,000. Authors called the trend “a new baby bust.” The report also found that birth and marriage rates have taken an “especially sharp” decline among young people. Teen births also dropped, but authors noted they were not frequent enough to affect larger trends.  The numbers may not seem significant now, but in the decades to come, the de...

Calls grow for stronger California groundwater regulation - Los Angeles Times latimes.com Calls grow for stronger California groundwater regulation - Los Angeles Times Ian James 10–12 minutes In 2014, California adopted a landmark law aimed at combating excessive groundwater pumping, especially in farming areas of the San Joaquin Valley where many families were seeing their wells sputter and run dry. More than eight years later, many local agencies are still working on long-term groundwater sustainability plans. Water levels have continued to decline, and in many areas household wells have continued to dry up — including some that have failed since torrential rains soaked the state in January. Now, with more wells at risk of running dry, activists are urging the state to intervene in five Central Valley areas where they say plans are inadequate to combat chronic overpumping. “At this ...

‘Help us fight’: California farmers ask for more aid after deadly storms | California | The Guardian theguardian.com ‘Help us fight’: California farmers ask for more aid after deadly storms 8–10 minutes A s a series of deadly storms whipped through California’s wine country, liquefying fields and turning vineyards into wading pools, thousands of farm workers in the region were forced to stay home. Though the power has been long since restored and roads reopened – many of them are still confronting an economic catastrophe. For Isidro Rodriguez, the storms caused him to lose half his monthly income – about $1,100. For nearly two weeks, it was too wet and windy to safely prune the pinot noir vines at the estate vineyard where he worked. Even still, he risked the roads to drive over there during lulls in the storms, just in case. “The storms were ugly,” he said. “And still, we had to find a...

What’s Going on with California’s Rooftop Solar Battle? - Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly nonprofitquarterly.org What’s Going on with California’s Rooftop Solar Battle? - Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly Iris Crawford 8–10 minutes Image Credit: Daoudi Aissa on  unsplash.com Late last year, the California Public Utilities Commission passed a new iteration of the state’s net energy policy, which determines what happens with excess energy. Dubbed NEM3, this policy significantly lowers the number of credits ratepayers with rooftop solar receive when they send excess energy back to the grid. Climate justice advocates believe that this policy adoption will have long-standing impacts as solar incentives continue to diminish across the country. And while advocates are sounding the alarm on what is now at stake for California’s clean energy future, NEM3 is just one example of h...