The first Earth Day in 1970 was organized in response to growing public concern for the environment. Many of the calls to action were justified: polluted rivers were catching fire, and smog was so dense that in downtown Los Angeles, you couldn’t even see the hills a few miles away. We’ve come a long way...
The taxpayers are always the ‘deep pockets’ that public leaders depend on. There is nothing more infuriating to me than adult predators who exploit and sexually abuse children. As a former president of the board of a summer camp, I know that it had to pay high premiums for liability insurance. Not for the mud...
California is the prime battleground between transportation innovation and legacy mass transit. While Silicon Valley is rolling out driverless taxis and testing flying cars, urbanists and transit unions are seeking more taxpayer funding to buttress money-losing train and bus systems around the state. If history is any guide, the new transportation technologies will ultimately replace...
According to the California Energy Commission, in 2024 daily oil consumption in California averaged not quite 1.4 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, daily refinery capacity in California is just over 1.6 million barrels per day. There is a 16 percent buffer between how much oil we use every day, and how much oil we are capable of refining. That...
Nobody knew how the fire started. It took hold in the dry chaparral and grasslands and quickly spread up the sides of the canyon. Propelled by winds gusting over 40 miles per hour and extremely dry air, the fire spread over the ridge and into the town below. Overwhelmed firefighters could not contain the blaze...
Helping thousands of victims of the wildfires in Los Angeles rebuild is an urgent concern, prompting, among other things, efforts to streamline the building permit process and expedite insurance claims. But this disaster and its aftermath must also prompt us to question environmental policies we’ve accepted as beyond debate, policies that have effectively rationed the...
There’s no place like California. Situated on the western edge of North America, isolated from the rest of the world by alpine mountains to the north and east, vast deserts to the south, and nestled against the Pacific Ocean, it might has well be an island. And what an island. The megacity of Los Angeles,...
Governor Newsom’s priority constituency is now located outside of California and shaded purple, and a new team occupies the White House that is as red as red can be. So it is probably safe to say that even here in deep blue California, many of the policies governing energy and water are about to be...
The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that it will investigate California for violating the authority of parents over their children who attend public schools, specifically on matters of gender identity. According to the Los Angeles Times, the investigation was initiated in response to a January 31 complaint filed by the California Justice Center. In that complaint, California Policy Center’s...
If Californians haven’t already, they’re bound to hear much more about CEQA—pronounced “SEE-kwuh” or the California Environmental Quality Act—in the coming days. Viewed as the Holy Grail of environmental policy, CEQA was signed into law by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970 in an attempt to allow public input into large government projects. However, a half-century...
It is nearly impossible to read a policy document on the topic of energy or water that won’t make frequent references to carbon. In California, the race to achieve a “carbon neutral” economy by 2045 has spawned a carbon accounting industry that calculates the carbon impact of absolutely everything we do. Certain numbers have become...
Shortly after California Justice Center and Defense of Freedom Institute filed our Title IX complaint against the California Department of Education and several school districts, the United States Department of Education (“Department”) issued a Letter of Finding of Noncompliance against the Maine Department of Education on grounds almost identical to those alleged in our complaint....
The United States used to be the undisputed leader in nuclear power and still has more operating reactors than any other nation, with 94 currently in service. But in the last 35 years, only one new nuclear power plant has been built in the U.S.—Plant Vogtle in Georgia, which only recently began commercial operations. Meanwhile,...
Politicians are pros at promising the moon and delivering a pebble. G.K. Chesterton nailed it: when they’re out of power, they’re wizards with a plan; in power, they’re magicians at making excuses. Most folks have grown so used to this song-and-dance that they don’t bat an eye when campaign trail bravado fizzles into “meh.” Enter...