Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News California Labor and Business Advocates Call For Diverse Energy Options And Solutions

A press conference Tuesday by the California Business Roundtable had state, labor leaders and the business community there to call upon Governor Gavin Newsom to support a wide array of energy options to power the state of California, rather than allowing the current trend of ridding the state of oil and gas energy, and supporting electricity only.

The coalition also expressed concern over the lack of oversight of the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission of unelected gubernatorial appointees, and their support of energy policies which could thrust California head first into another energy crisis.

The California Business Roundtable wants lawmakers and the governor to address the affordability crisis in California, as well as the realistic energy demands of the state. “California regulators should not be in the business if picking and choosing energy winners,” Lapsley said. “By eliminating renewable natural gas as an option to meet our climate goals, the CEC and CPUC are not only eliminating cost-effective pathways to meeting our goals, they will cost the state valuable green jobs at the same time.”

Read More [[link removed]] Proponents Of 2020 California Split-Roll Property Tax Initiative Start Over With Revised Version

In California, Schools & Communities First announced that it would file a new version of an initiative to require commercial and industrial properties, except those zoned as commercial agriculture, to be taxed based on their market value. Currently, Proposition 13 (1978) requires the taxable value of residential, commercial, and industrial properties to be based on the property’s purchase price, with an annual adjustment equal to the rate of inflation or 2 percent, whichever is lower. The change was estimated to provide $6.5 billion to $10.5 billion in additional revenue. Both the version of the initiative that has already qualified for the 2020 ballot and the refiled version would allocate revenue from the increased commercial and industrial property taxes to local community college and school districts and to local governments.

In response to the new initiative, California Business Roundtable President Rob Lapsley said, “This is just another, equally flawed measure aimed at dismantling Proposition 13. Proponents should at least withdraw their existing measure, which they now acknowledge is fatally flawed. However, there are no tweaks or amendments that can be made to this split roll measure that will prevent it from being a major, multi-billion-dollar tax on all Californians in the form of higher prices on everything we buy – from groceries and gasoline to diapers and day care.” Lapsley is the co-chair of Californians to Stop Higher Property Taxes, the committee registered to oppose the qualified initiative.

Read More [[link removed]] Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Ten Years And Counting

A lot has changed in California politics over the last ten years. We have gone from a novice celebrity governor to a seasoned hand to our first Gen X executive. We’ve seen record budget deficits and record surpluses. We have transitioned to a plurality Latino state and have seen the gap between haves and have-nots grow larger than ever before.

68. Rob Lapsley

The California Business Roundtable, a pro-business nonprofit, does a lot of things: economic research and projections, taxation research, data crunching, political analysis, environmental and education research, regulatory analysis, and much more. Rob Lapsley, well regarded in the Capitol on both sides of the aisle, has been president of the Roundtable since 2011. Lapsley, an Air Force veteran, has solid political chops — he used to be political director at the California Chamber of Commerce — so he knows the ins and outs of the Capitol’s political wars, a definite help in deeply blue state where pro-business advocates are viewed with suspicion. Lapsley served as chief of staff to former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, a Republican and one of California’s last Republican statewide officeholders.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation How Much Could PG&E’s Rates Rise? What You Need To Know

Pacific Gas and Electric’s customers were warned about the cost of massive wildfires that it may have sparked. Even before California’s largest utility filed bankruptcy proceedings at the start of the year, lawyers, policymakers and consumer advocates all cautioned that the company’s liabilities in those fires would, one way or another, hit the pocketbooks of its 16 million customers.

So how much could consumers throughout northern and central California be facing in higher costs?

We don’t have a full picture yet. We do know PG&E is seeking double-digit rate increases to help reduce the risk of future fires. But there isn’t agreement yet on how much the company will be held financially responsible for the deadly and destructive wildfires in 2017 and 2018. And we don’t know how much of that liability might be passed on.

Read More [[link removed]] California Sails Toward Biggest Salmon Harvest In Years

Trolling off the California coast, Sarah Bates leans over the side of her boat and pulls out a long, silvery fish prized by anglers and seafood lovers: wild king salmon.

Reeling in a fish "feels good every time," but this year has been surprisingly good, said Bates, a commercial troller based in San Francisco.

She and other California fishermen are reporting one of the best salmon fishing seasons in years, thanks to heavy rain and snow that ended the state's historic drought.

It's a sharp reversal for chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, an iconic species that helps sustain many Pacific Coast fishing communities.

Read More [[link removed]] Trump Orders U.S. Businesses To Find Alternative To China

President Trump said U.S. companies were “hereby ordered” to start looking for alternatives to doing business in China after Beijing said it would impose tariffs on $75 billion worth of additional U.S. products.

“Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years,” Mr. Trump wrote in a series of tweets. “They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far better off without them.”

Mr. Trump’s comments came in response to China’s plan, laid out Friday, to impose tariffs of 5% and 10% on almost all the remaining U.S. imports on which it has yet to impose punitive taxes, including vehicles and car parts, in retaliation against U.S. moves to slap punitive tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods.

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change California Wildfire Plan Shows How We Can Adapt To Threat Of Natural Disasters

Climate change is rapidly becoming America’s biggest economic and business challenge, and no state is doing more to address it than California. The Golden State has not just led the way in challenging the do-nothing policies of the Trump administration by requiring its electric companies to switch to renewable energy sources and preserving higher fuel efficiency standards for cars. No less impressive is how it has stepped up to deal with what has become the most dangerous and costly manifestation of global warming: wildfires, which have already claimed dozens of lives, destroyed billions of dollars in property and bankrupted the state’s largest electric utility.

Last month, the California legislature — with a two-thirds majority, no less — passed the creative proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to reduce the risk that utility power lines will spark wildfires and to socialize the cost of compensating victims when those measures fail.

Read More [[link removed]] California Releases Misleading Greenhouse Emissions Report

California has released its annual greenhouse gas inventory, with the numbers praised by Governor Gavin Newsom. But emissions are up in nearly every category, with critics calling presentation of the data misleading

In the Golden State, all is golden on the issue of climate change, or at least that’s what we’re being told. In essence, that was the conclusion of California Governor Gavin Newsom in reaction to the state’s release of its annual greenhouse gas emissions data on August 12th. On that day, the California Air Resources Board released its 2017 data, showing emissions driving statewide down in the electricity sector and yet emissions up in nearly every other category, including the inventory. Some categories, such as oil imports, are noticeably missing from the analysis. That, despite the fact that the state has 15 refineries in over 100 import terminals. Others such as natural gas consumption, do not include an entire life cycle analysis to account for things such as methane emissions, which happen throughout the supply chain.

Read More [[link removed]] 2020 Looks Like the Breakout Year for Building Decarbonization in California

California has just 25 years to achieve its economywide carbon-neutrality target. Buildings account for about a quarter of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, so concerted efforts will be needed to squeeze carbon out of the sector, especially existing buildings.

State policymakers are increasingly coalescing around a solution: electrification. As a recent California Energy Commission (CEC) report put it: “There is a growing consensus that building electrification is the most viable and predictable path to zero-emission buildings.”

Recent events underscore this sentiment. California regulators just overhauled a legacy policy that acted as a brake on building electrification. New incentives for electric appliances could be available by the end of this year. Meanwhile, local governments across California are moving to adopt bans on new natural-gas hookups, grabbing the attention of the state’s powerful oil and gas industry.

Read More [[link removed]] Workforce Development Hardship Score For College Admission Gets Mixed Reaction In California

Embrace the new “adversity score” in college admissions or ignore it?

That’s a question that college officials in California and nationwide are debating now.

A College Board-sponsored index that measures hardships students face at their high schools and in their neighborhoods is being tested as a college admissions tool on a small-scale nationwide and is expected to be available to all colleges in 2020.

Using federal data and other sources, it gathers 31 socio-economic statistics about a student’s home census tract and high school, such as income levels, crime and educational achievements. It then creates a single 1 to 100 score — a so-called adversity index — for the student. The higher the score, the more hardship a student has likely faced. Colleges can use the score in any way to help evaluate candidates for their freshman classes, or reject it.

Read More [[link removed]] Boosting California College Graduations Is Governor Panel's First Task

The first order of business for a new higher education advisory board appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will be to look at ways to improve the low college graduation rates in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire and counter the effects of poverty and geographic isolation there, officials say.

The “Council for Post-Secondary Education,” which includes the state’s top education leaders as well as representatives of business and labor, will meet for the first time on Monday in Sacramento. It is supposed to get the state’s various public and private education systems out of what Newsom called their separate “silos” and to cooperate on issues of college access, success and costs.

But even before its first gathering, the panel is triggering anticipation that it might one day grow into or be replaced by a formal state-wide coordinating council for higher education with more authority and resources. During his election campaign last year, Newsom said he would support such a coordinating board.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing Sacramento-Area Commuters Lose 59 Hours Every Year In Traffic – And It’s Getting Worse

If it seems like it takes longer to get around Sacramento than it used to, it’s not just your imagination.

The latest urban mobility report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute showed Sacramento-area residents had the 22nd-worst commute delays in the country, losing 59 hours in 2017 stuck in traffic.

Since 1982, the amount of time each Sacramento resident spends stuck in traffic has skyrocketed. At that time, the average delay per commuter was a mere 16 hours. But since then the number has more than tripled. If that trend continues, the average commuter could see annual delays close to 70 hours by 2030.

Read More [[link removed]] Neighbors Had A Plan To Transform Haight Street Eyesore. Then City Hall Said: ‘Never mind’

It’s ironic that the site of a longtime fast food restaurant — where predictable food was served with predictable haste — has become an emblem of City Hall’s incredible slowness and indecision.

The McDonald’s that stood at Haight and Stanyan streets for five decades attracted violent crime and open-air drug sales, and it had to go. After years of complaints from neighbors, the city bought the property in April 2018 for $15.5 million with plans to build 100% affordable housing on-site.

So 16 months later, the 38,000-square-foot parcel across the street from Golden Gate Park has been put to good use, right? Come on, folks. This is San Francisco.

Demolition of the old restaurant was supposed to occur quickly — as was the temporary activation of the space while the affordable housing plans were crafted. There was even a great proposal: a mix of soccer for low-income youth alongside food trucks, nonprofit space, a garden and more. It was one that neighbors put more than 100 hours of work into crafting, and yet it has been discarded by City Hall.

Read More [[link removed]] US New Home Sales Slid 12.8% In July

Sales of new U.S. homes fell a steep 12.8% in July, but the drop came after revisions to June sales showed the sales highest growth in 12 years.

The Commerce Department said Friday that new homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 635,000 units. That’s down from a sharply revised upward rate of 728,000 in June. So far this year, sales have risen 4.1%, a sign that buyers are beginning to respond to lower mortgage rates.

The volatility in home sales reflects broader uncertainty in the housing market. Buyers have been eager to take advantage of wage growth and historically-low mortgage rates. The average rate on a 30-year loan declined to 3.55% this week, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. The revisions to the June figure, coupled with a rebound in existing home sales in July according to data released by the National Association of Realtors, show sales reacting largely well to lower borrowing costs.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion Is Recession On Our Horizon?

We live in volatile economic times, with global markets reacting moment by moment to the latest bits of data and the utterances of central bankers and politicians — even the tweets from the White House.

California’s economy is much too big — the fifth largest in the world, we are constantly reminded — to avoid that volatility. Agriculture and the state’s high technology sector, for instance, are directly affected by trade conflicts between the U.S. and China.

California, meanwhile, generates its own economic x-factors, such as shortages of housing and workers, and wildfires’ impacts on electric utilities’ financial stability.

Read More [[link removed]] The Bernie Sanders Show Comes To Sacramento, And His Rally Is Pushing Out The Homeless

Bernie Sanders is coming to downtown Sacramento and not just any old spot in the heart of the capital city. Sanders is coming to Cesar Chavez Plaza on Thursday evening.

Directly across from City Hall, Chavez Plaza is the home office of homelessness in the urban core of the capital of California. It’s where California prosperity and desperation meet in the shadow of a civic government unable to address this civic contradiction.

Chavez Plaza is where you see the futility of our city’s efforts to get people off of our streets. It’s where you see what happens when residents object to homeless shelters in their neighborhoods.

Chavez Plaza is the price we pay for NIMBYism – people sleeping and panhandling in parks named after civil rights legends.

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