[Source: Bloomberg Law] California enacted a slate of new laws on worker classification, Covid-19, family leave, and court issues that will affect how employment lawyers advise their clients on workplace compliance and litigate disputes. The measures come as the state grapples with a global pandemic, devastating wildfires, and a swelling racial justice movement, and employers Read More…
Newsroom
Governor Newsom announces California will phase out gasoline-powered cars
[Source: Office of the Governor] Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that he will aggressively move the state further away from its reliance on climate change-causing fossil fuels while retaining and creating jobs and spurring economic growth – he issued an executive order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035 and Read More…
Debunking the green energy illusion
[Source: Dalia Maeroff] Climate change is at the center of everyone’s attention nowadays, with California’s sky burning orange. One solution is dominating the conversation of fixing our planet’s climate — green energy. Green energy means to transition away from fossil fuels and rely on cleaner ways of generating energy without releasing greenhouse gases into the Read More…
Death throes for AB 5?
[Source: Fox and Hounds Daily] The exemption arrows have found their mark in the Achilles heel of AB 5, the controversial and highly contested worker classification law. On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2257 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez adding many more exemptions to the law that now total over 100. Ironically, it was Gonzalez Read More…
California has a new clean air rule: what it costs and how it works
[Source: Sacramento Bee] The California Air Resources Board last week voted to enact a sweeping, complicated series of rules aimed at reducing the pollution output of heavy-duty diesel trucks. It’s air board’s second rule this year aimed at such vehicles, after the board voted in June to require manufacturers of diesel trucks and vans to transition Read More…
White House speeds environmental rollbacks ahead of election
[Source: Forbes] The Wall Street Journal reports the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to finalize new rules this week rescinding Obama-era regulations of methane gas emissions for oil-and-gas producers, as the Trump administration continues its systematic rollback of environmental regulations—which is reportedly speeding up ahead of November before a Democratic administration potentially takes over. The Read More…
Analysis of renewable energy points policy makers to path toward more affordable and reliable carbon-free electricity
[Source: Caltech News] As more states in the U.S. push for increased reliance on variable renewable energy in the form of wind or solar power, long-term energy storage may play an important role in assuring reliability and reducing electricity costs, according to a new paper published by Caltech researchers. Graduate student Jackie Dowling, who works Read More…
Extremist proposals will not help California’s economy get back on its feet
[Source: Fox&Hounds] It doesn’t take long reading this site to see how our society is absorbing three crises: COVID-19, the economic meltdown and the long-overdue move for racial equality. What those crises have wrought is job loss, overriding fear, educational disruption and in some cases, overblown rhetoric. We see that rhetoric surrounding radical environmental change Read More…
COVID-19 and a new hire’s expired identity document
[Source: CalChamber] We just hired an employee who doesn’t have a current identity document. Her driver license expired on April 1, and she says that she hasn’t been able to renew it due to COVID-19. Can we hire her? Yes. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a temporary policy beginning on May 1, 2020, that Read More…