Environment
Climate Change
The Wrong Solutions: Climate Change Policies Increasingly Embrace Unreality
Advocates and public officials blame a growing number of seemingly unrelated phenomena, from tornadoes to medical problems, on climate change. As the list grows, they call for policies to tackle the putative crisis, while overlooking the flaws in their preferred solutions. Consider, for example, the rush into electrification to leverage renewable energy as ...
Agriculture
Pam Lewison – Farming Policy in Progressive Western States
Our guest this week is Pam Lewison, Director of the Washington Policy Center Initiative on Agriculture and a PRI Fellow. Pam farms in Eastern Washington and is a tireless advocate for agriculture in the Western states and around the country. She discusses the challenges of being a farmer and rancher ...
Agriculture
Canada poised to join expanding number of countries endorsing crop gene editing. That’s encouraging – but global reform remains elusive
Gene editing, which allows precise edits to the genome, has been widely used for a variety of applications in laboratories worldwide since its discovery a decade ago. It has tremendous potential: Researchers hope to use it to alter human genes to eliminate diseases; improve the characteristics of plants; resist pathogens; ...
Agriculture
Amid Inflation, Skyrocketing Prices, Will Sacramento Actually Cut Gas Taxes?
There has been much speculation on Right by the Bay and elsewhere about how Gov. Gavin Newsom will address surging state tax revenue to meet the requirements of the so-called Gann Limit. Newsom promised in his 3-hour marathon Jan. 10 budget press conference that details about potential tax relief for ...
Blog
California Not Meeting Emission Reduction Goals by Doubling Down on Policy Mistakes
Download the PDF A recently released independent report says California isn’t going to meet its 2030 emissions goal. Those who have been paying close attention, and those who have immersed themselves in PRI research, won’t be even mildly surprised by this. They know the state has taken the wrong approach ...
Agriculture
Opinion: The bioengineered food label is not expected to have any benefits to human health or the environment
By Henry I. Miller and Drew L. Kershen It’s no secret that Congress sometimes does things – including creating laws – that make little sense and that are contrary to the public interest. One of the most egregious of those laws has just taken effect. The subject – labeling of foods ...
Agriculture
Taxes Up, Roads Still Down, Nothing New
Almost five years ago, the California Legislature passed, and then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed, Senate Bill 1, hiking fuel taxes to raise $52 billion over 10 years for overdue road repairs. For all the revenue raised and spent, the condition of the state’s highway system continues to decline. Under SB1, state ...
Blog
California Continued to Shrink in 2021
In 2021, as in 2020, the Golden State only continued to shrink. According to new data from the Department of Finance, California lost a startling 173,000 residents last year. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, 55,000 of those lost residents were victims of the pandemic, while a further 53,000 ...
Agriculture
Opinion: Prop. 12 Limits Californians From ‘Bringing Home the Bacon’
2022 is a year in which San Diegans and all Californians will be allowed to do less than the year before, as a number of new prohibitions kicked in on Jan. 1, all of them aggravating, but none so irksome as the limits imposed by Proposition 12. It gives new meaning ...
Blog
A Fundamental Misunderstanding Of … Almost Everything
An end-of-the-year tradition among reporters, commentators, and more recently laptop pundits is the compilation of legislation that becomes law with the turn of the calendar. California being California, there is never a shortage of new rules to live by. And, with a few exceptions, they are further evidence that policymakers ...
The Wrong Solutions: Climate Change Policies Increasingly Embrace Unreality
Advocates and public officials blame a growing number of seemingly unrelated phenomena, from tornadoes to medical problems, on climate change. As the list grows, they call for policies to tackle the putative crisis, while overlooking the flaws in their preferred solutions. Consider, for example, the rush into electrification to leverage renewable energy as ...
Pam Lewison – Farming Policy in Progressive Western States
Our guest this week is Pam Lewison, Director of the Washington Policy Center Initiative on Agriculture and a PRI Fellow. Pam farms in Eastern Washington and is a tireless advocate for agriculture in the Western states and around the country. She discusses the challenges of being a farmer and rancher ...
Canada poised to join expanding number of countries endorsing crop gene editing. That’s encouraging – but global reform remains elusive
Gene editing, which allows precise edits to the genome, has been widely used for a variety of applications in laboratories worldwide since its discovery a decade ago. It has tremendous potential: Researchers hope to use it to alter human genes to eliminate diseases; improve the characteristics of plants; resist pathogens; ...
Amid Inflation, Skyrocketing Prices, Will Sacramento Actually Cut Gas Taxes?
There has been much speculation on Right by the Bay and elsewhere about how Gov. Gavin Newsom will address surging state tax revenue to meet the requirements of the so-called Gann Limit. Newsom promised in his 3-hour marathon Jan. 10 budget press conference that details about potential tax relief for ...
California Not Meeting Emission Reduction Goals by Doubling Down on Policy Mistakes
Download the PDF A recently released independent report says California isn’t going to meet its 2030 emissions goal. Those who have been paying close attention, and those who have immersed themselves in PRI research, won’t be even mildly surprised by this. They know the state has taken the wrong approach ...
Opinion: The bioengineered food label is not expected to have any benefits to human health or the environment
By Henry I. Miller and Drew L. Kershen It’s no secret that Congress sometimes does things – including creating laws – that make little sense and that are contrary to the public interest. One of the most egregious of those laws has just taken effect. The subject – labeling of foods ...
Taxes Up, Roads Still Down, Nothing New
Almost five years ago, the California Legislature passed, and then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed, Senate Bill 1, hiking fuel taxes to raise $52 billion over 10 years for overdue road repairs. For all the revenue raised and spent, the condition of the state’s highway system continues to decline. Under SB1, state ...
California Continued to Shrink in 2021
In 2021, as in 2020, the Golden State only continued to shrink. According to new data from the Department of Finance, California lost a startling 173,000 residents last year. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, 55,000 of those lost residents were victims of the pandemic, while a further 53,000 ...
Opinion: Prop. 12 Limits Californians From ‘Bringing Home the Bacon’
2022 is a year in which San Diegans and all Californians will be allowed to do less than the year before, as a number of new prohibitions kicked in on Jan. 1, all of them aggravating, but none so irksome as the limits imposed by Proposition 12. It gives new meaning ...
A Fundamental Misunderstanding Of … Almost Everything
An end-of-the-year tradition among reporters, commentators, and more recently laptop pundits is the compilation of legislation that becomes law with the turn of the calendar. California being California, there is never a shortage of new rules to live by. And, with a few exceptions, they are further evidence that policymakers ...
