[Source: The Business Journal] The first line in a recent alert from the California Chamber of Commerce is tongue-in-cheek, but clearly represents how things are in the Golden State when it comes to business regulation. “WARNING: Everything in California May Cause Cancer.” The CalChamber alert is about a proposed change to Prop. 65 Warning Rules, Read More…
Newsroom
Why the Texas power grid is struggling to cope with the extreme cold
[Source: VOX] Winter Storm Uri chilled large areas of the western, central, and southern US over the weekend, straining the power grid in some places so badly that millions of Americans have had to go without power in temperatures below freezing. The National Weather Service on Monday reported that 150 million Americans were under various winter Read More…
Opinion: ‘Hero pay’ proposals will lead to unintended consequences
[Source: The Orange County Register] We’re not sure why people were shocked by the predictable outcome of Long Beach’s decision to dramatically boost the hourly pay of grocery workers during the pandemic. After the vote, Kroger announced the shuttering of “long-struggling” Ralphs and Food 4 Less locations. That mandate ends up hurting hourly workers and Read More…
Joe Biden wants 100% clean energy. Will California show that it’s possible?
[Source: Los Angeles Times] The undersea power line would run south from San Luis Obispo County, hugging the California coast for 200 miles before making landfall in or near Los Angeles. It would be able to carry electricity from a fleet of offshore wind turbines, providing Southern California with clean power after sundown and helping Read More…
As state attorney general job morphs post-Trump, who will be Newsom’s pick?
[Source: POLITICO] The last time a California governor chose a new attorney general, Donald Trump had just been elected president. As Democrats geared up to make California the “Resistance State,” newly appointed state attorney general Xavier Becerra quickly went to work suing the Trump administration. He kept it up at a mind-boggling clip, filing 110 lawsuits over Read More…
Fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere
[Source: OilPrice.com] “There is no scenario where hydrocarbons disappear,” the chief executive of Baker Hughes, Lorenzo Simonelli, said during his keynote speech at this year’s annual meeting in the company. Like other executives from the industry, Simonelli acknowledged and welcomed the energy transition, but he noted that a 100-percent renewable energy scenario was simply not Read More…
California Supreme Court rejects challenge to Proposition 22
[Source: CalChamber] California voters passed Proposition 22 in November by a 59% majority. The ballot measure classified app-based drivers for companies such as Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and DoorDash as independent contractors and mandated that those companies provide certain benefits including guaranteeing at least 120% minimum wage during engaged time, payment per mile, health care coverage Read More…
Legislature and governor must act to prevent California employers from paying for EDD’s mistakes
[Source: CalChamber] Whenever something goes wrong – whenever something is lost or damaged – the question is always the same: who gets stuck holding the bag? And we all know the answer should be simple: the person who made the mistake should bear the costs of that mistake. But with California’s UI Fund, it appears Read More…
California bill would require corporations to report and cut down carbon emissions
[Source: The Sacramento Bee] Large California corporations would be required to publicly disclose their carbon footprint and take active steps to reduce emissions, under a proposed law announced Wednesday morning. The bill, Senate Bill 260, would apply to any business that reports more than $1 billion in gross annual revenue. It would give the California Read More…