Well, I have some bad news and some good news this morning for FlashReport readers. The bad news is that it would appear that we are getting a lot closer to a budget deal (this is bad news because it will not come with a reopening of the Assembly-passed document that, at well over a hundred billion dollars, represents a fat, bloated state bureaucracy in serious need of downsizing and privatization). The good news is that Senate Republicans continue to negotiate from a position of strength to make the proposed budget better than it is right now.
I spoke this morning with Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, who said that his caucus will meet again this morning at 10 a.m. to brief and prepare for another round of negotiations. Ackerman shared with me that the main area of discussion is still around the CEQA issue. For those who are catching up to this budget-impasse mid-game, this has to do with the fact that last year Democrats passed and the Governor signed a bill that requires a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases. That said, while the law was passed that sets target goals, the implementing regulations to get there have not been put in place. But this is not keeping liberal Democrat Attorney General Jerry Brown from suing to stop development around California that he says are contrary to the legislation’s goals (never mind the absence of regs).
There was some talk centered around a potential compromise… Republicans want a full three year restriction placed on these kinds of lawsuits at all. Democrats apparently like the status quo. So one compromise floated out there is that a restriction would be placed on lawsuits against development projects with a nexus to the recent voter-approved transportation infrastructure bonds, and only for two years. While this was talked about quite a bit as a potential compromise, ultimately (and rightfully so) Senate Republicans felt that this was still too restricting. (If you are curious about how we got into this AB 32 mess and our solution on how to avoid this in the future, click here.)
**There is more – click the link**
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August 21st, 2007 at 12:00 am
The L.A. Times is now saying that 2 of the Republicans voted for the budget so it obviously wasn’t a good budget at the majority of Republicans didn’t vote for the budget.
Keep up the good work with your blog!
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Your buddy betrayed us!