Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s signature showed up on a letter to state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, expressing support for raising the statewide minimum wage to $13 by July 1, 2017.

And then it didn’t. An announcement from the mayor’s staff said that “staff miscommunication” was to blame for Johnson’s signature on the letter.

What happened? Is Johnson for or against a minimum wage increase? Did he sign the letter or not?

Perhaps because Johnson is president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which supports raising the federal minimum wage, his staff got their letters mixed up. (Big 10 mayors letter.pdf)

Either way, the discussion should be about negative impacts on employment and income growth caused by minimum wage increases.

Signature ‘Miscommunication?’

The Sacramento Bee… Read More

Almost immediately following a hearing of the Environmental Protection Agency last week on upping authoritarian smog regulations, Democratic Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leònannounced plans for “historic” climate change legislation, adding more regulations to force Californians to cut gas consumption — rather than legislation to help the state’s economy.

The goal is to cut up to 50 percent of gas consumption in California by 2030… rather than improve the state’s economy by up to 50 percent.

Clean Air

The air we breathe today in California is the cleanest since the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act was passed in the 1970s. Despite this fact, the day before Thanksgiving, the EPA released its proposal to “strengthen” ground level ozone emissions known as smog.

Current EPA ozone regulations set the nationwide limit at 75 parts per billion. The EPA is considering lowering it to 60 parts per billion,making theNational Ambient Air Quality Standardsfor… Read More

The Golden State of California has been dubbed “Crazifornia” and “La-la land,” and called “the land of fruits and nuts.” Furthermore, California’s governor, Jerry Brown, is known as “Governor Moonbeam,” a moniker from which he’d like to disentangle himself.

The rest of the country believes California has earned and deserves these disparaging names. And unless something changes in this batty state, Governor Moonbeam is on track to meticulously and completely destroy the state’s economy and bankrupt the government.

But hey… who’s going to stop him? The media?

Gov’s Agenda – Not Voters’… Read More

Californians just found out this week the new gas tax initiated by the California Air Resources Board, is 10 cents per gallon of gas. However, it will grow.January 1, California began including transportation fuels – gasoline, diesel and propane – in the nation’s first carbon emission cap-and-trading scheme. However, no other state or country in the world has attempted to regulate the sale of gasoline and diesel under a cap-and-trade program, and byAB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act,which requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions in California to 1990 levels by year 2020.

… Read More

Desperate to get any part of California’s High Speed Rail built, Gov. Jerry Brown pushed the groundbreaking for the rail system upto Tuesday, just as the new Republican Congress is getting settled.

The motive? Democrats want to get their hands on $3.5 billion in federal stimulus money. And, there’s no time like the present… following a recent Third District Court of Appeal ruling which overturned a Sacramento Superior Court decision which contended that the funding plan for the high-speed rail project violated the ballot measure voters approved in 2008.

Dan Richard, chairman of the board of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said they would move “aggressively” to build “a modern high-speed rail system that connects the state, creates jobs and complies with the law.”

There’s no time to waste lest another legal decision derail their plans.“Jobs, jobs, jobs” was the campaign rally cry for Jerry Brown during his 2010 run for governor, when he vowed his support for high-speed rail. He supported it so much it’s earned the nickname the “Browndoggle.”

In January 2013, Brown held carefully staged signing… Read More

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

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

California, the state obsessed with being first at everything, is aiming to add another first to its record books — Not content to be the first state in the country to tax the air we breathe, California will be the first in the nation to impose a cap and trade tax on transportation fuels.

In response, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, and Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers, announced Monday, 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.

The move afoot by the radical left to strip Americans of their cars under the guise of environmentalism, knows no bounds.

With the second highest gas taxes in the country, and a flailing cap and trade program, whose only trading partner is Quebec,California is already paying the price.

While the rest of the country is currently enjoying lower gas prices, Californians will be faced with a hefty new… Read More