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Katy Grimes

McClintock Interview: A Good First Week in Congress

Taking a page from the experienced,aging Jerry Brown political playbook, Democrats in Congress and the Obama White House appear to have been trying to destroy the economy and bankrupt the government given their policies the past six years. However, they’ve been stopped in their tracks, thanks to American voters, who in November resoundingly thrashed President Barack Obama, together with the Democrats in Congress, and their destructive policies. By defeating Democrats across the country, voters ushered in a Republican controlled House and Senate.

If only California could be so charmed.

I met with California Congressman Tom McClintock, of California’s 4th District, following completion of the first week of the new Republican majority Congress. McClintock, a prudent, stalwart Conservative, cleared up several falsehoods being repeated in the media about Republican and Democratic leadership, and clarified the Constitutionality of the President’s recent actions. And McClintock smiled when he said that with former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid no longer in power, Congress can finally get to work and deliberate.

Congress had quite a first… Read More

Katy Grimes

Gov. Jerry Brown State of the State: How is California Leading On Anything?

Following a peculiar introduction by California’s First Lady, Gov. Jerry Brown made his State of the State address even more peculiar when he cited dubious United Nations data on climate change. And then the governor announced he wanted 50 percent, instead of the already legislatively mandated one-third of the state’s electricity, under the 2011 Renewable Portfolio Standard, to be generated by renewable resources over the next 15 years. And he added that he wanted to cut petroleum usage by 50 percent.

Californians are faced with 930 new laws effective January 1, by this governor and Legislature.

Brown also said he would wanted to “double the energy efficiency of existing buildings, and make heating fuels cleaner.”

“I envision a wide range of initiatives: more distributed power, expanded rooftop solar, micro-grids, an energy imbalance market, battery storage, the full integration of information technology and electrical distribution and millions of… Read More

Katy Grimes

California Attempts to Regulate the Sale of Gas Under Cap-and-Trade

On Monday, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers announced the introduction of theAffordable Gas for California Families Act,legislation to exempt transportation fuels and natural gas from the California Air Resource Board’scap-and-trade program.

“We struck a nerve!” Patterson told me. Patterson said he was surprised at the media response, and how many in the media did not know the gas tax is starting Jan. 1 – next month.

Patterson is working on issues like… Read More

Katy Grimes

‘Conversations On Race’ Missing Irrefutable Issues

However little the Republicans Party offered voters in the Nov. election, the Democrats offered far worse. Democrats showed once again they are more interested in ginning up discontent and unrest in America as long as this unrest puts Democrats in office. They care nothing for governing the country or for the health and welfare of its citizens.

They’ve proven they have no interest in healthy race relationships and instead work exactly opposite in order to gain and retain political offices.

“Most Americans are put off by the ‘us versus them’ tone of current political debates, and most prefer political leaders who ‘are… Read More

Katy Grimes

The Mystery and Deceit of Cap and Trade and Carbon Trading

Someone recently asked me what Cap and Trade and Carbon Trading is. The simple answer is the State of California is taxing the air we breathe. However, it is also one of the biggest taxing schemes perpetrated on Americans, Californians, and businesses.

The beginning

Carbon trading is actually emissions trading by businesses forced into these “agreements.”

When California’sGlobal Warming Solutions Act,AB 32, was passed in 2006, it was sold to the public as a necessary step to reduce dangerous carbon emissions. California politicians gloated over being the first state to enact such an aggressive policy.

The state’s unemployment rate was very low at the time at only4.8 percent. It… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Air Board Postpones ‘Giant Climate Change Coalition’ Carbon Auction with Québec

Wednesday the California Air Resources Board announced the first joint cap-and-trade carbon credits auctionbetween California and Québechas been postponed due to “technical difficulties.” Some carbon followers say the new auction will be scheduled in the next three working days.

Under AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, the 2006 legislation signed into law was to supposedly lower the state’s carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. CARB recently added to the carbon reduction plan the goal of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, because California already reached 1992 levels just with technological advances in autos, as… Read More

Katy Grimes

CARB, EPA Shakedown Hyundai and Kia Over New Car ‘Dirty Emissions’

The Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice just ‘settled’ an historic lawsuit with Hyundai, Kia, et.al. over alleged Clean Air Act violations, based on the carmakers’ sale of vehicles that are anticipated to emit more greenhouse gas emissions than certified to the EPA.

The EPA and DOJ are hitting the automakers with collective penalties valued at around $300 million for Clean Air Act violations including $100-million in civil penalties, the largest such fines in EPA history.

The $100 million… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Nurses Union Bullies Kaiser Nurses Into Strike

Nearly 21,000 Northern California Kaiser nurses are walking off the job for a two-day strike. Tuesday was day one of the California Nurses Association Kaiser strike.

Kaiser was forced to hire and train nearly 3,000 temporary nurses because of the strike, with estimate costs of $20 million per day, Kaiser reports.

Labor meetings last summer focused on upcoming changes and growth anticipated by the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). And if there is growth, the nurses union wants its cut, according to a NPR story from July.

Nurses claim there are more than 30 operational proposals still unresolved after only three months of bargaining. They want 2,000 vacated positions filled, better protections for use of sick leave, more time with patients, more flexibility over breaks, and more training and education, NPR reported.

And the nurses union is throwing in the Ebola scare as an issue “to try to win PR points with the… Read More

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