Immediately following Gov. Jerry Brown signing the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to ban the use of plastic bags at grocery stores and tax paper bags, now the progressive left is whining about the plastic bag industry initiating a referendum process for a vote of the people for the November 2016 election.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board compared the plastic bag industry to a chicken with its head curt off: “It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.”

And the Bee editors are still calling these plastic bags, “single use bags.” Perhaps all of the people who insist these bags are “single use” are the people who throw them out after just one use, rather than use them a second or third use at the grocery store. Do they instead purchase… Read More

We’ve all heard about the 6-states initiative, and the State of Jefferson secession proposal, however, there are really two Californias:

There is the liberal elite state, run by the environmental oligarchy, which makes our political policy; and There is everyone else – the upper working middle class, the very middle class, the working class, the working poor, and those living in abject poverty.

Santa Barbara County is a microcosm of the two Californias –

the North County, which is primarily working class and relatively poor, with a large Hispanic population; and the South County, which is relatively wealthy, white, with high-paying white collar, jobs, high tech jobs, and academia.

As if the divide isn’t enough already, Measure P, put on the ballot bythe Water GuardiansofSanta Barbara County, is masquerading as a ban on hydraulic fracturing, while the initiative would actually result in shutting down the onshore oil and gas industry in Santa Barbara County, according to COLAB President Andy Caldwell.… Read More

With the 2012 passage of Proposition 30, voters were assured the significant tax increase would go entirely to education. However, less than 50 percent actually does.

Now, a new bill is moving through the Legislature, claiming to tax oil and gas production for – ahem, you guessed it — education.

SB 1017, an urgency measure, would impose a severance tax on the extraction of oil and natural gas, effective immediately after being signed into law.

Pay attention to the taxman behind the curtain who wants to add more taxes onto oil and gas production.

However, if the California legislature doesn’t pass an oil severance tax this year, billionaire hedge fund manager, Tom Steyer, is preparing a ballot initiative for 2016.

Because Gov. Jerry Brown vowed that all new tax increase proposals would go before the voters, there are reports which say he’s largely rejected the oil tax this year. But NextGenClimate Action, Steyer’s political action committee, can do it for Brown instead, with the… Read More

SACRAMENTO — After sitting through several recent marathon sessions in the Assembly, it was shocking to witness the powerful California environmental lobby lose its attempt to ban oil and gas hydraulic fracturing.

For this, Californians can be thankful.

That got me thinking. What if California’s powerful environmental lobby had been as powerful during the 1849 Gold Rush as it is today? Back then, they would have harassed gold pioneer James Marshall so much he would have quit. California never would have become the Golden State.

Hydrolic fracking for oil and gas has the potential to become the next Gold Rush — this time of black gold, Texas tea. But will the environmentalists stop it? Not yet — but maybe in the future.

A University of Southern California study, “Powering California: The Monterey Shale & California’s Economic Future,” looked at the development of the vast energy resource beneath the San Joaquin Valley known as the Monterey Shale. It found that hydraulic fracturing could create 512,000 to 2.8 million new jobs, personal income growth of $40.6 billion to $222.3… Read More