Environment

Business & Economics

Killing the gasoline-powered car in California? That’s what one legislator wants by 2040

A clean energy advocate in the California Legislature wants internal combustion vehicles to sputter out of existence on the state’s roads and highways. “The cars that we drive today are based on technology that’s 100 years old,” said Assembly member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. “It’s almost like we’re doing addition ...
Blog

Housing shortage goes from dire to desperate after wildfires

A few months ago, Tim Anaya and I interviewed for PRI’s podcast Farhad Zabihi, a math professor at the College of Marin, who had been house hunting for nearly a year in Marin County.  Marin is just south of Napa and Sonoma — two of the hardest hit counties in ...
Blog

The Political Aftermath of California’s Wildfires

The amount of time it takes a celebrity of the political left to blame a natural disaster on global warming can usually be measured in seconds. Gov. Jerry Brown quickly answered the challenge last week by coldly politicizing the deadly Northern California wildfires. Following the master blueprint Chicago Mayor Rahm ...
California

Wayne Winegarden Talks California’s Proposed Gas Car Ban on Air Talk

Wayne Winegarden, PRI’s senior fellow in business and economics, recently joined “Air Talk with Larry Mantle” on Southern California Public Radio/KPCC to discuss California’s proposed ban on gas-powered cars.  Winegarden is the author of an upcoming PRI study exploring state electric car subsidies. Click here to listen to the interview ...
Blog

Prop. 54 Tames Wild Late Nights at the State Capitol

For political nerds like me, there’s no rush quite like the last night of the legislative session. Every year, legislators and staff literally work around-the-clock to pass final bills before the clock runs out.  To keep going, they drink too much coffee and eat lukewarm pizza and take-out Chinese food.  ...
Blog

An entitlement for… moi?

If you think this is going to be one of those hard-hitting policy pieces that you get from the likes of Anaya and Jackson, or one of those brainy blogs from Winegarden.  It’s not.  It’s all about me, and my yearning for that fabulous, subsidized Tesla. I’m in the market ...
Blog

A Scientific Basis for the EPA on the Clean Power Plan

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will make official on Tuesday what we knew all along – the Administration is officially withdrawing the controversial Clean Power Plan rule on power plant emissions. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has railed against the repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) claiming that the EPA’s ...
Blog

Government Policy, Not Hurricanes, Main Contributor to High California Gas Prices

Download Capital Ideas, October 2017 Gasoline prices spiked more sharply in some states after deadly storms in Texas and Florida than at any time since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But in California, steep fuel prices are an everyday event. The average gallon of gasoline cost $3.02 in California in August, ...
California

Proposed California Gas Car Ban Is A Farce Worthy of The Onion

When a New York Times reporter called the Pacific Research Institute asking for a reaction to a story reporting that Gov. Jerry Brown is entertaining the idea of outlawing the sale of cars with internal combustion engines, the initial response was that it just can’t be true — not even ...
Blog

Sacramento Tries to Dictate Our Choices Again with Proposed Gas Car Ban

Last week, within the space of three days, we learned that Gov. Jerry Brown is considering phasing out fossil-fuel powered automobiles in about 10 years, then we found out that Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat, is planning to introduce legislation that would outlaw the sale of new cars ...
Business & Economics

Killing the gasoline-powered car in California? That’s what one legislator wants by 2040

A clean energy advocate in the California Legislature wants internal combustion vehicles to sputter out of existence on the state’s roads and highways. “The cars that we drive today are based on technology that’s 100 years old,” said Assembly member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. “It’s almost like we’re doing addition ...
Blog

Housing shortage goes from dire to desperate after wildfires

A few months ago, Tim Anaya and I interviewed for PRI’s podcast Farhad Zabihi, a math professor at the College of Marin, who had been house hunting for nearly a year in Marin County.  Marin is just south of Napa and Sonoma — two of the hardest hit counties in ...
Blog

The Political Aftermath of California’s Wildfires

The amount of time it takes a celebrity of the political left to blame a natural disaster on global warming can usually be measured in seconds. Gov. Jerry Brown quickly answered the challenge last week by coldly politicizing the deadly Northern California wildfires. Following the master blueprint Chicago Mayor Rahm ...
California

Wayne Winegarden Talks California’s Proposed Gas Car Ban on Air Talk

Wayne Winegarden, PRI’s senior fellow in business and economics, recently joined “Air Talk with Larry Mantle” on Southern California Public Radio/KPCC to discuss California’s proposed ban on gas-powered cars.  Winegarden is the author of an upcoming PRI study exploring state electric car subsidies. Click here to listen to the interview ...
Blog

Prop. 54 Tames Wild Late Nights at the State Capitol

For political nerds like me, there’s no rush quite like the last night of the legislative session. Every year, legislators and staff literally work around-the-clock to pass final bills before the clock runs out.  To keep going, they drink too much coffee and eat lukewarm pizza and take-out Chinese food.  ...
Blog

An entitlement for… moi?

If you think this is going to be one of those hard-hitting policy pieces that you get from the likes of Anaya and Jackson, or one of those brainy blogs from Winegarden.  It’s not.  It’s all about me, and my yearning for that fabulous, subsidized Tesla. I’m in the market ...
Blog

A Scientific Basis for the EPA on the Clean Power Plan

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will make official on Tuesday what we knew all along – the Administration is officially withdrawing the controversial Clean Power Plan rule on power plant emissions. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has railed against the repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) claiming that the EPA’s ...
Blog

Government Policy, Not Hurricanes, Main Contributor to High California Gas Prices

Download Capital Ideas, October 2017 Gasoline prices spiked more sharply in some states after deadly storms in Texas and Florida than at any time since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But in California, steep fuel prices are an everyday event. The average gallon of gasoline cost $3.02 in California in August, ...
California

Proposed California Gas Car Ban Is A Farce Worthy of The Onion

When a New York Times reporter called the Pacific Research Institute asking for a reaction to a story reporting that Gov. Jerry Brown is entertaining the idea of outlawing the sale of cars with internal combustion engines, the initial response was that it just can’t be true — not even ...
Blog

Sacramento Tries to Dictate Our Choices Again with Proposed Gas Car Ban

Last week, within the space of three days, we learned that Gov. Jerry Brown is considering phasing out fossil-fuel powered automobiles in about 10 years, then we found out that Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat, is planning to introduce legislation that would outlaw the sale of new cars ...
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