Federal Options for Large Scale Seawater Desalination

California Overestimated Deficits by $2 Billion and That’s Actually Good News

Last week, KCRA 3 in Sacramento reported that the Newsom administration’s January budget contained a roughly $2 billion accounting error tied to CalPERS pension contributions. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office flagged the problem in February. Legislative leaders knew. The public didn’t find out until April. The story is genuinely newsworthy, but not for the reason...

By Marc Joffe

The Abundance Alliance

Abundance, and its political twin, affordability, are now bipartisan mantras, but cannot be realized if the only permissible avenues are via urban infill, renewable energy, and water rationing. California is uniquely positioned to do much more. Breakthrough technologies and big projects, both pioneered here, could unite a powerful coalition of farmers, energy companies, high tech...

By Edward Ring

Does San Francisco Need Another Union-Backed Tax?

San Francisco and Portland are the only two US cities that tax companies if the pay ratio between the CEO and other employees is “too high.”. After agreeing to lower this tax in 2024 via Proposition M, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its organized labor allies are pushing a ballot measure to raise...

By Marc Joffe

Sacramento’s Decarbonization Mandates Punish Working Families

Over the last ten years, residential electricity rates in California have nearly doubled, and the average California household now pays nearly 15% more than the national average on their monthly electricity bills, according to the Energy Information Administration. A key driver behind this is state climate policy and decarbonization mandates. Specifically, in 2015, the legislature...

By Sahil Shah

No, You Can’t Legislate Morality or Abundance

If you listen to the buzz in progressive state capitols and city halls across the country, or read Ezra Klein’s Abundance, you’d think our biggest problem is a crisis of state capacity. Klein, and a growing number of progressives, share a vision of a liberalism that builds. They argue that the government has become proficient...

By Mark Moses

Can California Thrive on Renewable Electricity?

California’s state government has set an official goal of “net zero” by 2045. That’s less than 19 years from now. Already in pursuit of that goal, the state has managed to have the highest priced gasoline and the highest priced electricity in the entire continental United States. Condemning its residents to a poverty inducing bleeding...

By Edward Ring

Rocklin Unified Takes Parental Notification Fight to U.S. Supreme Court

Rocklin Unified School District (RUSD) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case challenging the authority of California’s labor relations board to override the constitutional rights of parents. In the petition filed on behalf of RUSD by California Justice Center and the Liberty Justice Center,...

By California Justice Center

How Much CO2 Do Oil Tankers Emit En-Route to California?

With war in the Middle East disrupting shipments of crude oil, we have another reason to question policies that are driving our in-state oil industry into terminal decline. To briefly recap, Californians consumed 484 million barrels of oil in 2025, with in-state production only providing 111 million barrels. The rest was imported. It doesn’t have to...

By Edward Ring

The process is the punishment: Sacramento’s war on Orange County

California’s teacher unions aren’t accustomed to losing elections, but they’ve lost control of the Orange County Board of Education, the state’s third largest county board. In just five election cycles, the Orange County board slipped the grip of teachers unions, and is now a 5-0 board of average citizens laser-focused on student achievement and parent rights....

By Will Swaim

Floating Offshore Wind – A Financial and Environmental Catastrophe

Earlier this year, the California Coastal Commission released a report titled “Statewide Strategy for the Coexistence of California Fishing Communities and Offshore Wind Energy.” In addition to providing a “guiding framework” to protect California’s fishing communities, it “presents a roadmap for proposed offshore wind projects to become consistent with California’s relevant Coastal Act policies that recognize...

By Edward Ring

Will Swaim: Federal court ruling exposes AG Rob Bonta

An adverse legal ruling by a federal court in Texas may mean legal trouble for California Attorney General Rob Bonta in more than one way. The Texas court’s decision not only allows Exxon to continue to prosecute a serious defamation lawsuit against Bonta, but a key finding by that court may also implicate him in...

By Will Swaim

The Free Money Trap: How Laundered Compassion Fuels a Culture of Abuse and Fraud

The headlines are, by now, a wearying routine. In 2025, a federal takedown revealed $14.6 billion in Medicare fraud, involving kickbacks for allegedly unnecessary tests. In Minnesota, the Feeding our Future scandal saw $300 million vanish from a pandemic meal program, while childcare fraud drained another $100 million via ghost students. California, meanwhile, became the...

By Mark Moses