There is no realistic scenario imaginable that does not include Californians consuming at least another five billion barrels of oil before the state achieves its much touted official goal of a “clean energy future.” Here are the numbers: In 2025, Californians consumed 484 million barrels of crude oil. To understand why another five billion barrels is the...
If you own property in California, you’re not safe. A new ballot measure will empower the state to confiscate a percentage of the assets of any resident, even though its initial provisions don’t communicate that intent. California’s “One-Time Wealth Tax for State-Funded Healthcare, Education, and Food Assistance Programs Initiative,” which has already qualified for the November ballot,...
In the years since the National Civic League published “Is It None of Our Business?,” the trend of city halls tackling national issues has shifted from a novelty to a standard operating model. The League’s 2023 analysis argued that local agencies should embrace a broader national agenda—a shift they championed as a positive phenomenon. However, from...
The recently released “Water Renaissance” plan, a product of “conservation groups and tribes,” gets a very big idea right. There is no reason why California’s coastal megacities should have to import water. With that one visionary presumption, this report has made a major contribution. In fact, it doesn’t go far enough. With massive, targeted investments,...
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) continues to demonstrate a stunning disconnect between its investment performance and the compensation it awards its top administrators. A 255-page forensic investigation conducted by former SEC lawyer Edward Siedle and pension analyst Chris Tobe, commissioned by the Retired Public Employees’ Association of California, details a culture of secrecy...
By every reasonable standard of governance, California’s elected politicians have made a mess of the Golden State. Reciting the litany of failures has become so common that it’s hardly worth the trouble. Chaotic, unsafe downtowns. Retail businesses giving up and relocating. Chronic government budget deficits, despite the nation’s highest taxes, set to go higher still....
Whether it’s an energy project or a water project, it’s important to avoid conflating capacity with actual production, or yield. With energy projects, that difference is much more certain than with water projects. For example, in 2024, California’s lone remaining nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon, with an output capacity of 2.4 gigawatts, would have produced...
Taxpayers have a fundamental right to know how their money is being managed. Three conditions define a best-practice state regime for local government financial reporting. First, the state should require all local governments above a meaningful revenue threshold to produce independently audited financial statements annually. Second, the state should enforce a prompt filing deadline with...
Yesterday, Governor Newsom released his revised state budget, required annually by May 14th. In what promises to be a challenging budget process due to rising state costs, the Governor and legislature will have to grapple with the consequences of poor budget management in order to pass a budget by the June 15 deadline. While serving...
Published May 15, 2026
By now, almost every Californian with eyeballs and a memory of the recent past can tell you the story of the failed High-Speed Rail – how voters in 2008 approved a roughly $33 billion project to carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in lightning speed beginning in 2020. We’re six years past that...
For most of the previous century, Californians successfully designed and built big water infrastructure. In sixty years, from 1910 through 1970, we built the most impressive system of interbasin transfers in the world. The Los Angeles Aqueduct, Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct, Colorado River Aqueduct, Delta Mendota Canal, Friant-Kern Canal, and California Aqueduct. Altogether these conveyances are...
California’s entertainment industry doesn’t need another taxpayer-backed “rescue” from Sacramento. It needs the freedom to experiment, compete and succeed without politicians inserting themselves into the middle of the process. In this new California Policy Center report, Lights, Camera, Growth: How Paramount’s Bet on 30 Films a Year Could Propel California’s Economy, economist Jeff Ferry analyzes...
When asked in a recent interview why California has the highest gasoline prices in the nation, Jodie Muller, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, began by stating the following: “You can’t point a finger at one particular person, because, unfortunately, it is decades of policies layered on top of one another. You have local air...