Commentary
Time to Bring California Out of the Municipal Reporting Stone Age
California brands itself as the global leader in technology and innovation. Yet when it comes to modernizing state and municipal government financial reporting, the Golden State is stuck in the digital stone…
Burnt Wiener Sandwich
San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener is California’s most devious and craven politician. Sensing an opportunity to pit two despised industries against one another, he submitted a new bill, seemingly overnight, that…
Ten State Water Laws to Scrap
There are two ways we can respond as Californians to the wildfires in Los Angeles, and for those who share this concern, to the climate crisis which they cite as an underlying…
When Will Gavin Newsom Stop Deflecting Blame for the Wildfires?
His responses to criticism don’t withstand scrutiny. The people of Los Angeles are experiencing one of the most horrific disasters in the city’s history. Wind-driven fires have raced through the canyons and…
Trump Executive Order Boosts School Choice — Will California Finally Catch Up?
National School Choice Week — the last week of January each year – is here again. School choice is simply the ability for families to select the education option that’s best for…
California’s Mismanagement of Fire and Water
The more we learn about the Los Angeles-area wildfires, the more caution is called for when assigning blame. When the Santa Ana winds periodically sweep down from California’s eastern deserts and rip…
California Government Breaks its Social Contract with Rich Liberals
Conservatives often wonder why California’s 13.3 percent top marginal income tax rate has not driven out more of its affluent residents. Indeed, a family earning $10 million annually stands to save over…
Court Orders LAUSD to Release Union Membership Records in Transparency Win for Californians
LOS ANGELES, CA — California Policy Center (CPC) has won an important victory for government transparency in its lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In a decision released Wednesday,…
Fire Prevention and Resilience in California
A Policy Blueprint for Government Leaders Full PDF Version here INTRODUCTION The devastating fires in Los Angeles County underscore the urgent need for proactive measures to reduce wildfire risk and improve community…
The Politicization of Wind and Fire
The first time I’d ever heard of the Santa Ana wind was while reading an essay famed author Joan Didion wrote, “Los Angeles Notebook,” which is included in her book Slouching Towards…
Quantifying the Upside of More Lawns
A respected advocate for farming interests in California once explained to me that every acre of lawn requires 5 acre feet of water per year. The unsubtle implication was that the more…
The Fire Next Time
Given our mission to review and recommend water and energy policies and projects, it would be negligent to ignore the horrific firestorms that have torn through Los Angeles County. And before beginning,…
2024 California Fuel taxes… A DOOSEY
California has collected record gasoline tax revenue in 2024 according to data released by the U.S Census Bureau in December. If Californians buy as much gasoline and diesel as they did the…
The Many Colors of Hydrogen
The lightest and most abundant substance in the universe, the simplest possible molecule, hydrogen (H2), is touted as the clean burning fuel of the future. Zero pollution. But how can hydrogen be…
How to Help Victims of the LA Wildfires
Returning readers are accustomed to reading an array of policy suggestions or commentary on the myriad policy failures that lead to tragedies like this week’s devastating wildfires. But today we want to…
A Firestorm of Failures
SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT WILL SWAIM Before we get to our regularly scheduled programming — in which we discuss the myriad policy failures that led to this week’s devastating wildfires — we…
Newsom Doubles Down on Hopeless High-Speed Rail Project
Pushing back against the winds of change in Washington, DC, California Governor Newsom reiterated his commitment to the state’s high-speed rail (HSR) boondoggle while tacitly lending support to a new effort to…
Modernizing Municipal Reporting Conference
After a period of municipal financial stability, California local governments are once again facing fiscal distress. A robust system of municipal financial reporting and monitoring can provide early warnings of fiscal trouble…
Rescuing California Requires Challenging Crony Environmentalism
The Speaker of the Assembly in the California state legislature, Robert Rivas, recently said that “California must not fixate on Trump and forget about affordability.” Fat chance. California has been under the…
Julie Su Again and Again
History repeats itself, Karl Marx wrote, “First as tragedy, then as farce.” But he didn’t say what happens the third time, when tragic farce strikes again and the whole benighted process repeats…
University admissions may prioritize descendants of slaves under new California bill
Earlier this month, California Assemblyman Isaac Bryan of Los Angeles introduced a bill, Assembly Bill 7, which would affect admissions for the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems.…
Teacher union swindle in Orange Unified serves as a lesson for all of California
They may not care much about education, but give teacher union leaders in the city of Orange, California, credit for speed and political ingenuity. Shortly after a successful March recall campaign in…
How Newsom Can Achieve “Affordability”
Leadership in the California Legislature claim they’re aware of the cost of living and doing business in the state. In the special session called by Governor Newsom to “Trump proof” the state,…
CPC Files Amicus Brief in Huntington Beach v. Newsom
California Policy Center has filed an amicus brief supporting the City of Huntington Beach’s petition for rehearing en banc in the City’s challenge to California’s unconstitutional housing mandates. A three-judge panel denied…
Is Photovoltaic Power Competitive?
As reported in Politico on 10/29, “Westlands Water District, which supplies some of California’s driest farmland in the Central Valley, is making plans to convert some 200 square miles of it —…
California’s Regulators – Uninformed and Unaccountable
By Truman Angell for the California Policy Center The California legislature has a habit of giving away its own power to regulatory agencies and ABX2-1 is another in a long line of…
Finding Water for the San Joaquin Valley
Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley require roughly 15 million acre feet of water per year to irrigate their crops. In return they produce more than half of all California’s agricultural output.…
Unions Give Thanks for Trump’s Labor Pick
We don’t generally discuss national politics here at CPC World HQ – we’ve got our hands full dealing with Gov. Gavin Newsom and his confederacy of dunces in the state capitol. But…
Californian Energy Use Compared to the USA and the World
As we celebrate one of America’s finest traditions this week, one of the things we are surely thankful for is the energy we often take for granted. We are particularly lucky in…
Trump vs. Newsom: California’s Tightrope on Energy and Environment
With national election results that have delivered a surprisingly unequivocal result, California’s business interests now find themselves on a political tightrope. On one side, the incoming Trump administration will pursue deregulation that…
The Numbers Driving California vs Washington on Energy, Water & Forestry
With national election results that have delivered a surprisingly unequivocal result, California’s business interests now find themselves on a political tightrope. On one side, the incoming Trump administration will pursue deregulation that…
Quantifying the Impact of “Low Carbon” Fuel
On November 8, a Friday evening, after a day long marathon of public comment, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved updates to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard. According to the…
Is California Ready to Kill Its Oil Industry?
California’s state legislature is determined to eliminate fossil fuel as soon as possible, with oil at the top of the list. This goal is shared by the Governor and Attorney General, along…
Reflections on the last 900 years, this last week, elections and the future
Early this week I was in Menlo Park, “The Capital of Venture Capital.” It’s a place so lovely, leafy and wealthy, so obviously preserved in amber by anti-growth regulation, that it might…
Ways California Can Have Abundant Water
A few years ago a group of volunteers, myself included, attempted to qualify a state ballot initiative called “The Water Infrastructure Funding Act.” Those of us involved with this project remain convinced…
Should voters approve new taxes without seeing the books?
As Californians head to the polls, voters statewide will be deciding on whether to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in local tax hikes and new government bonds. The problem? Over two…
Golden Debacle – The California political machine is no model for the nation
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has been light on policy specifics, but her political inheritance provides clues. Harris is a creature, after all, of the California political machine. What real-world results has that…
California’s Unstoppable Taxation Machine
The powers that be seek to make it virtually impossible for state residents to restrain taxation and spending. Every two years, in addition to electing their state and local officials, Californians participate…
Ways California Can Have Abundant Energy
With the right combination of new policies in California, abundant energy ought to be just around the corner. Nearly all new energy development can be privately financed, and it can be delivered…
Would Suing the Bureaucracy Bring Us More Water?
There isn’t a major water project in California in the last 30 years or more that hasn’t been subject to relentless litigation. Usually the litigators represent powerful environmentalist organizations, sometimes they represent…
What the City of Santa Ana Does Not Want the Public to Know
Longtime teacher Brenda Lebsack noticed some disconcerting statistics coming out of the Santa Ana Unified School District. Only 30% of students are proficient in reading and 20% are proficient in math, but…
Newsom’s Empty Comparison: The Real Difference Between California and Texas Shoplifting Laws
Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to gaslight voters about Proposition 36, the ballot measure that would strengthen California’s shoplifting laws. In his tone-deaf defense of the state’s lenient laws, the governor has repeatedly…
California Student Test Scores Fall Short but Education Officials Ignore Root Causes
The California Department of Education released its annual student test scores this week and the news is sobering. The state’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results for the 2023-24…
The Disruptive Potential of Photovoltaics
Earlier this year the New York Times published an opinion piece “What Will We Do With Our Free Power?,” written by David Wallace Wells. The sheer optimism of the piece was a…
CPC Launches Local Fiscal Health Dashboard for California’s Cities, Counties and School Districts
Interactive Database Reveals which Local Governments are Fiscally Sound or at High-Risk of Fiscal Crisis As of November 19, 2024, California Policy Center has updated its General Fund Reserves scoring to give…
CPC files amicus brief in support of Temecula school district
CPC Amicus Brief in Support of District Read the Full Amicus Brief Here. In Mae M. v. Komrosky, the trial court upheld Temecula Valley Unified School District’s (“TVUSD”) resolution against teaching racist…
Time to Gut and Amend California’s Rogue Water Agencies
In California today, we have given unelected state bureaucrats the power to make decisions that affect millions of people and cost billions of dollars, and there is almost no recourse. There is…