Environment
Blog
Gallup Survey: Americans Push Back on Government Activism
It was 35 years ago when Ronald Reagan said at a press conference, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” And for most of the last three decades, a majority of Americans agreed with the Gipper. Last year marked only ...
Blog
Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment Ban Another Major Burden on Minority Entrepreneurs
Not surprisingly, Gov. Newsom signed controversial legislation (Assembly Bill 1346) to ban the sale of gas-powered lawn equipment. The new law will be another costly burden on the estimated nearly 8,300 landscaping businesses in the state, many of whom are minority entrepreneurs. It’s the latest in a series of taxes, ...
Blog
Biden Response to Supply Chain Shortages
This week, President Joe Biden announced that California ports will operate non-stop to relieve the container ship bottleneck. Major companies like FedEx, UPS, Walmart, and The Home Depot, among others, also announced they will expand their hours unloading shipments at ports. I always thought that the doom and gloom of ...
Blog
Two Years After Voters Said No, Special Interests Try Again to Pass Split Roll
Not quite a year ago, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have partially unwound Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that set off an “entrepreneurial and commercial explosion” and “a second California gold rush.” Supporters of the “split roll,” a tax regime in which residential properties retain their Prop. ...
Blog
Growing a Tree Infrastructure Makes Sense
In Pres. Biden’s $3.5 trillion pork reconciliation package, there’s a line item that even we limited government-types can get behind — planting trees. The question is, should the Federal government really be taking the lead? The New York Post article recently uncovered that Biden’s mega-spending bill provides for $3 billion ...
Blog
Goats: The Greatest-Of-All-Time Firefighters?
The New York Times calls them an “unconventional weapon against future wildfires.” Some are known as “Fire Grazers.” To most of us, though, they’re just goats. But they provide a valuable service: eating the “type of vegetation (that) is known as the fire fuel ladder and (which) leads to wider ...
California
How to slow, reverse the California exodus
An unwritten rule of journalism says, “if it bleeds, it leads.” When it comes to the exodus from the Golden State, this rule isn’t being applied. California had been the dream destination for generations and became the most populous state in 1964. But California’s share of the U.S. population peaked ...
Blog
California Promotes Wind Energy, Ignores Market Forces
Windmills on the water. Get ready for them. They’re on their way, thanks to a recently signed bill. The new law requires the state’s Energy Commission “to evaluate and quantify the maximum feasible capacity of” offshore wind energy in federal waters, which “if developed and deployed at scale … can ...
Agriculture
Are Mandatory California Water Cutbacks Coming Soon?
Back in 2014, when I was in my past life working for elected officials, I found myself engaged in one of the more annoying parts of the job – “volunteering” on political campaigns. One day, my volunteer efforts took me to a neighborhood in San Bernardino. Knocking on doors, it ...
Blog
Afghan Refugees Are Being Steered Away From California – It’s Just Too Expensive to Live Here
Thousands of Afghans who escaped as the Taliban was overtaking their country are being relocated in the U.S. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, “proud,” he said, “of the fact that, over the last decade, the state has taken in more refugees than any other state in America,” announced in August ...
Gallup Survey: Americans Push Back on Government Activism
It was 35 years ago when Ronald Reagan said at a press conference, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” And for most of the last three decades, a majority of Americans agreed with the Gipper. Last year marked only ...
Gas-Powered Lawn Equipment Ban Another Major Burden on Minority Entrepreneurs
Not surprisingly, Gov. Newsom signed controversial legislation (Assembly Bill 1346) to ban the sale of gas-powered lawn equipment. The new law will be another costly burden on the estimated nearly 8,300 landscaping businesses in the state, many of whom are minority entrepreneurs. It’s the latest in a series of taxes, ...
Biden Response to Supply Chain Shortages
This week, President Joe Biden announced that California ports will operate non-stop to relieve the container ship bottleneck. Major companies like FedEx, UPS, Walmart, and The Home Depot, among others, also announced they will expand their hours unloading shipments at ports. I always thought that the doom and gloom of ...
Two Years After Voters Said No, Special Interests Try Again to Pass Split Roll
Not quite a year ago, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have partially unwound Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that set off an “entrepreneurial and commercial explosion” and “a second California gold rush.” Supporters of the “split roll,” a tax regime in which residential properties retain their Prop. ...
Growing a Tree Infrastructure Makes Sense
In Pres. Biden’s $3.5 trillion pork reconciliation package, there’s a line item that even we limited government-types can get behind — planting trees. The question is, should the Federal government really be taking the lead? The New York Post article recently uncovered that Biden’s mega-spending bill provides for $3 billion ...
Goats: The Greatest-Of-All-Time Firefighters?
The New York Times calls them an “unconventional weapon against future wildfires.” Some are known as “Fire Grazers.” To most of us, though, they’re just goats. But they provide a valuable service: eating the “type of vegetation (that) is known as the fire fuel ladder and (which) leads to wider ...
How to slow, reverse the California exodus
An unwritten rule of journalism says, “if it bleeds, it leads.” When it comes to the exodus from the Golden State, this rule isn’t being applied. California had been the dream destination for generations and became the most populous state in 1964. But California’s share of the U.S. population peaked ...
California Promotes Wind Energy, Ignores Market Forces
Windmills on the water. Get ready for them. They’re on their way, thanks to a recently signed bill. The new law requires the state’s Energy Commission “to evaluate and quantify the maximum feasible capacity of” offshore wind energy in federal waters, which “if developed and deployed at scale … can ...
Are Mandatory California Water Cutbacks Coming Soon?
Back in 2014, when I was in my past life working for elected officials, I found myself engaged in one of the more annoying parts of the job – “volunteering” on political campaigns. One day, my volunteer efforts took me to a neighborhood in San Bernardino. Knocking on doors, it ...
Afghan Refugees Are Being Steered Away From California – It’s Just Too Expensive to Live Here
Thousands of Afghans who escaped as the Taliban was overtaking their country are being relocated in the U.S. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, “proud,” he said, “of the fact that, over the last decade, the state has taken in more refugees than any other state in America,” announced in August ...
