Environment
Blog
Rentonomics in California: It’s Worse than We Think
Right by the Bay has sounded the alarm on the affordable housing crisis, especially our colleague Kerry Jackson, who has written about it here, here, and here. But until we get real reform, like Sam in Casablanca, we plan to play it again and again. A new study by Apartment ...
Blog
CEQA Show Hearing Gets California Nowhere
The state Senate held a joint informational hearing last month that, on the surface, looked to be a step forward for those who believe the California Environmental Quality Act needs reform, if not a top-to-bottom overhaul. But apparently the hearing was anything but an effort to fix the law that ...
Blog
It’s Taxfest in Sacramento
Will Rogers said, “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” But Rogers never came up against the current California legislature, which these days isn’t just holding a legislative session but an all-out Tax Hike Convention. Today, the state enjoys a ...
Agriculture
An April Fool’s Day Quiz
Right by the Bay is celebrating (or lamenting) April Fool’s Day by creating the following quiz on weird and goofy laws beginning in 2019 in California. If you get a perfect score, you get a one-way ticket to Texas (April Fool’s!). True or False: Surfing is now the official sport ...
Blog
Estate Tax Bill Will Do Nothing to Reduce California’s Wealth Gap
You would think that California’s current $21.4 billion budget surplus would be plenty of money to fund the spending wish list of those thwarted over the past 8 years by former Gov. Jerry Brown’s adherence to the principle of subsidiarity. Think again. In fact, much of the talk in Sacramento ...
Blog
Why Buy A Modest Home in California for The Price of a Texas Mansion?
It can cost a half-million dollars more to build the same-size house in California as it does in Texas. The number of adults surprised by this is roughly zero. While California ranked no. 3 in new home construction in 2017, housing supply still lags far behind demand in the most ...
Agriculture
Don’t Scapegoat Charter Schools For School Districts’ Fiscal Woes
Governor Gavin Newsom’s move to have State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond create an expert panel to review the financial impact of charter schools on regular public schools, and put out a report by July, smells like an attempt to scapegoat charter schools. First, comments by the governor’s office ...
Climate Change
Green New Deal would cause a new Depression
Democrat firebrands Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey just unveiled their “Green New Deal,” a multi-trillion-dollar effort to overhaul the energy industry and slash America’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero within a decade. The legislation’s title is fitting. The original New Deal failed to create jobs and actually ...
Agriculture
America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
Blog
Water, Water In The Desert, But Still None To Drink
A proposal to draw water from the desert to slake perpetually dry Southern California seems no closer to reality now than it did when the idea emerged well more than a decade ago. The project has, according to California Water News Daily, “received numerous validations of its plans, including its ...
Rentonomics in California: It’s Worse than We Think
Right by the Bay has sounded the alarm on the affordable housing crisis, especially our colleague Kerry Jackson, who has written about it here, here, and here. But until we get real reform, like Sam in Casablanca, we plan to play it again and again. A new study by Apartment ...
CEQA Show Hearing Gets California Nowhere
The state Senate held a joint informational hearing last month that, on the surface, looked to be a step forward for those who believe the California Environmental Quality Act needs reform, if not a top-to-bottom overhaul. But apparently the hearing was anything but an effort to fix the law that ...
It’s Taxfest in Sacramento
Will Rogers said, “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” But Rogers never came up against the current California legislature, which these days isn’t just holding a legislative session but an all-out Tax Hike Convention. Today, the state enjoys a ...
An April Fool’s Day Quiz
Right by the Bay is celebrating (or lamenting) April Fool’s Day by creating the following quiz on weird and goofy laws beginning in 2019 in California. If you get a perfect score, you get a one-way ticket to Texas (April Fool’s!). True or False: Surfing is now the official sport ...
Estate Tax Bill Will Do Nothing to Reduce California’s Wealth Gap
You would think that California’s current $21.4 billion budget surplus would be plenty of money to fund the spending wish list of those thwarted over the past 8 years by former Gov. Jerry Brown’s adherence to the principle of subsidiarity. Think again. In fact, much of the talk in Sacramento ...
Why Buy A Modest Home in California for The Price of a Texas Mansion?
It can cost a half-million dollars more to build the same-size house in California as it does in Texas. The number of adults surprised by this is roughly zero. While California ranked no. 3 in new home construction in 2017, housing supply still lags far behind demand in the most ...
Don’t Scapegoat Charter Schools For School Districts’ Fiscal Woes
Governor Gavin Newsom’s move to have State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond create an expert panel to review the financial impact of charter schools on regular public schools, and put out a report by July, smells like an attempt to scapegoat charter schools. First, comments by the governor’s office ...
Green New Deal would cause a new Depression
Democrat firebrands Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey just unveiled their “Green New Deal,” a multi-trillion-dollar effort to overhaul the energy industry and slash America’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero within a decade. The legislation’s title is fitting. The original New Deal failed to create jobs and actually ...
America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
Water, Water In The Desert, But Still None To Drink
A proposal to draw water from the desert to slake perpetually dry Southern California seems no closer to reality now than it did when the idea emerged well more than a decade ago. The project has, according to California Water News Daily, “received numerous validations of its plans, including its ...
