A bill in the California Legislature is blazing through to mandate the reduction of 50 percent in the use of petroleum-based fuels, 50 percent reduction in energy use by existing buildings and increases the Renewable Portfolio Standard from 33 percent renewables to 50 percent — notably as California is well ontrack to meet the 2020 goal.

SB 350 is authored by Sen. President pro Tem Kevin de Leon. “Do we have the courage to press forward,” asked De Leon, to legislative committee members at Monday’s Assembly Natural Resources Committee hearing on SB 350.

De Leon was long on drama about the “threat of climate change,” but short on verifiable data, and never broached what California can do alone if indeed climate change is the scourge of the entire world.

Radical activists have wormed their way into positions of government authority to implement carbon… Read More

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has put a halt to the City of Sacramento’s plan for a mass-deletion of millions of e-mails deemed “non-public record,” following two California Public Records Act requests — one of which was mine.

The California Public Records Actrequires judges to balance the publics’ right to access records with the public interests in not accessing records.City officials said that the email being deleted does not qualify as public record and is mostly “transitory in nature.”

I filed my PRA request June 25, 2015 specifically in response to the recent public statements by City Officials, including City Attorney James Sanchez, that the City will be destroying all emails in its possession, two years or older on July 1, 2015. My requests are, among other things, to obtain copies of those electronic messages prior to their deletion by the City.

Richard Stevenson, a grass roots community… Read More

Last week, Pope Francis called for a cultural revolution to correct what he calls the “structurally perverse” economic system of the rich exploiting the poor that is turning Earth into an “immense pile of filth.” Under the sub-heading “Climate as a common good,” hedisparaged free market principles while indicating “global governance” as a solution to the politically created climate change crisis. The Pope also said that governments should redistribute wealth to the poor, advocating socialism, and he even gave communism a backhanded compliment.

Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said it is the pope’s wish to directly influence next year’s crucialUN climate meeting in Paris, when countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions.

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Nearly every climate change and clean energy expert admits that California will achieve the legislatively mandated policy goals of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which said the state has to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

So why is the California Air Resource Board and Legislature seeking to move the target before the deadline?

The Assembly Select Committee on Clean Energy was asked to address how Californians can reduce on-road petroleum use by 50 percent, by 2030. Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, the Committee Chairman,… Read More

Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown said California has an overpopulation problem. He said the ongoing drought is a sure sign that the explosion of population in California has reached the limit of what Nature can provide.

“We are altering this planet with this incredible power of science, technology and economic advance,” Brown said during a discussion with Austin Beutner, publisher and chief executive of the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune.“If California is going to have 50 million people, they’re not going to live the same way the native people lived, much less the way people do today.… You have to find a more elegant way of relating to material things. You have to use… Read More

Clint Olivier just announced he’s running for California State Assembly for the 31st Assembly District. If Olivier’s name isn’t familiar, be thankful. He’s not the son of a politician. He’s not from Hollywood. He didn’t get independently wealthy as a hedge-fund manager on oil and coal investments. He hasn’t sold rocket launchers to Filipino Muslim separatists, or offered bribes to FBI agents.

Clint Olivier is a member of the Fresno, California City Council, representing District 7, first elected to the council in 2010, and a former television news reporter. He’s married and has two… Read More

Like the Creature of the Walking Dead, a diabolical scientist with an unquenchable thirst for blood, California redevelopment agencies are also back from the dead. Redevelopment was developed in the 1970’s to fight urban blight, but quickly transformed into a corrupt scheme to divert county and state taxes to cities. What could possibly be wrong with “urban-renewal agencies” which float massive debt and routinely misuse eminent domain to seize private property? Ahem. But I digress.

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A scorchingreport from California State Auditor Elaine Howle found that the Administrative Office of the Courts, now called the Judicial Council, spent $386 million over four years on statewide services that nearly half of California’s 58 trial courts don’t use – including $186 million on contractors and consultants.

Remember that the Administrative Office of the Courts was responsible for the debacle of the failed $2 BILLION Californiacourts computer system, paid with money allotted for state trial court operations. Thisunbelievably high costwas spent on the faulty computer system while courtrooms closed, courthouse employees furloughed, and criminal and civil cases take record time to come to trial.

The AOC’s primary function is to provide services to the courts. However, rather than making immediate corrections as the State Auditor recommended, following the damning report, the Administrative… Read More