California’s major cities, especially the seat of its major counties, are falling apart at the seams. The city and county of San Francisco announced that its newly elected mayor is facing an $840 million budget deficit over the next two years. San Diego’s Mayor is stressing over a $250 million budget deficit. And the controller...
Along with the fairly recent popularization of terms such as atmospheric river and bomb cyclone, we increasingly hear the term “vapor pressure deficit” (VPD). At any given temperature, the term refers to how much moisture is in the air compared to how much moisture could be in the air. The higher the deficit, the dryer...
Prepared by Golden Together, a Movement to Restore the California Dream Edward Ring, California Policy Center Steve Hilton, Founder of Golden Together Published February 24, 2025
Don’t miss California Policy Center fourth annual “Parents, Not Partisans” Summit — California at the Crossroads of Education — March 18-19, 2025 in Sacramento! This transformative two-day event brings together parent group leaders, education reform advocates, and school board members from across California to learn, network, and mobilize. Day 1: Our all-day conference at the Embassy...
“I think what we can learn here is that we are guests in this landscape.” – Marissa Christiansen, Executive Director of the Climate and Wildfire Institute, Los Angeles If you’re looking for one sentence that encapsulates the mentality and premise that underlines mainstream environmentalism in America today, these words from Marissa Christiansen, quoted in the...
The misguided quest for efficient government As the wildfires raged in southern California last month, we witnessed bipartisan support for the reintroduction of The Fix our Forests Act, ostensibly designed to reform forest management. At the same time, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced that it will submit to outside investigations to...
Last week, as a representative of the California Policy Center, I had the opportunity to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee at a hearing on the topic of “California Fires and the Consequences of Overregulation.” While my remarks were limited to five minutes, the written testimony that we entered into the Congressional Record...
Prepared by Golden Together, a Movement to Restore the California Dream Edward Ring, California Policy Center Steve Hilton, Founder of Golden Together Published February 14, 2025
On February 11, the Liberty Justice Center and California Justice Center filed a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that violates employers’ First Amendment rights by prohibiting companies from discussing any “religious or political matters” at mandatory meetings. On September 27, 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 399 (SB 399) into law. Although labeled the...
Fifty years ago, in late July and August 1974, a 156-page paperback book with a red cover showed up in alternative bookstores, radical collectives, and coffee houses across America seemingly from nowhere. The book, Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism, electrified and reinvigorated the nation’s dispirited and dispersing leftist radicals and exacerbated a new...
Edward Ring, Director of Water and Energy Policy at California Policy Center, testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust on Thursday, February 7, 2025. The hearing, “California Fires and the Consequences of Overregulation,” examined the ways years of overregulation on environmental issues has thwarted effective fire...
What can President Trump do to pressure Governor Newsom and the California legislature to manage the state’s water projects in a way that doesn’t simply offset the federal efforts? What leverage does he have, if for every federal regulation that is relaxed, its equivalent in California is further tightened? As it turns out, there’s a...
A bill that would allow state residents to sue private companies for restitution is only the latest front in California’s ongoing war on oil producers. L.A.’s wildfires are still burning, but that hasn’t stopped anyone with eyeballs from identifying the likely causes: America’s costliest natural disaster isn’t “natural,” really, or not entirely. It is, in fact, the...
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 age. Currently, California’s local governments submit their Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs) — audited financial statements, detailing financial positions and changes in a...