[Source: Los Angeles Times] Small business owners could avoid a new federal limit on state and local tax deductions after the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that rules it released last month to prevent efforts in California and other states to circumvent the cap apply only to individuals. Businesses will be allowed to claim a Read More…
Newsroom
State Supreme Court ruling protects employers, preserves workers’ comp exclusivity
[Source: CalChamber] The California State Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of employers finding that an employee’s tort claims against a doctor who reviewed workers’ compensation cases is preempted by the workers’ compensation law. In December 2016, the California Chamber of Commerce filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of King v. CompPartners, Inc. (S232197), arguing Read More…
Electric trucks facing long road to unseat diesel engines
[Source: Bloomberg] The next battleground for replacing fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles will be U.S. interstate highways, where long-haul trucks keep the economy moving. Electric trucks are coming, and they’ll be cleaner and cheaper to operate than conventional models that burn diesel, according to Tesla Inc., which already has prototypes on the road. Diesel advocates say range Read More…
California takes the prize for environmental virtue signaling — but not much else
[Source: Los Angeles Daily News] If there’s an award for environmental virtue signaling, California would win the prize. Yet for all the constant self-promotion, shameless grandstanding and endless moralizing, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the impact, and failures, of our current green obsessions. Take the recent fires that Gov. Jerry Brown, predictably and with little Read More…
California drivers pay growing cost for climate program
[Source: San Francisco Chronicle] A California program to fight climate change may now add more to the cost of gasoline than the state gas-tax increase that many voters want to repeal. The Low Carbon Fuel Standard designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from fuel, now adds 12 to 14 cents per gallon to the cost of gasoline Read More…
Is micromanagement of emissions beneficial to the California economy?
[Source: foxandhoundsdaily.com] Looking back, California’s flagship climate change policy Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Initiative was signed into law in 2006 when California was a miniscule contributor to the world’s greenhouse gases. Statistically, the World is generating about 46,000 million metric tons of GHG’s, while California has been generating about 440 million metric tons, Read More…
New Proposition 65 regulations take effect August 30
[Source: CalChamber] WARNING: Beginning August 30, 2018, new Proposition 65 regulations will take effect that significantly overhaul longstanding warning regulations and depart from the rules that businesses have relied on for decades. Accordingly, it is imperative that businesses operating or selling into California reassess and potentially overhaul their long-established Proposition 65 compliance programs before the effective Read More…
New EPA chief makes clear: the easing of environmental rules will continue
[Source: Inside Climate News] Former energy lobbyist Andrew Wheeler said he will continue the deregulatory course set by Scott Pruitt, without the scandals that plagued his predecessor. In his first Congressional testimony since taking over the Environmental Protection Agency’s leadership in July, Andrew Wheeler tried to reassure lawmakers that the scandal-scarred agency will get a fresh Read More…
Why Trump attacks California’s anti-pollution powers
[Source: Bloomberg] When U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in 1970, he recognized a simple truth about his home state of California: When tens of millions of people drive around constantly in a desert, they generate lots of pollution. The law gave California special authority to write tailpipe emission limits that can be tougher Read More…