California’s Leadership Role on the Environment
If California were an independent country, it would be the world’s ninth largest economy. That’s the good news. The bad news? California’s the world’s ninth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And, while California has taken action — energy usage on a per capita basis has remained flat for a decade — it still has a long way to go. The state is growing in population and every new person coming to California adds to the state’s carbon footprint.
When it comes to climate change, the only metric that matters is tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, and California still emits too much. One of the objectives of AB32, the energy bill which Governor Schwarzenegger endorsed and the assembly passed early last year, has been to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. It’s a bold plan that aims to bring California up to global standards, even though the rest of the country lags behind.
Because the country is concerned about climate change, California is viewed as the national leader. Since AB32 was passed, fourteen states and three Canadian provinces have agreed to abide by its goals. Standards set in Sacramento have become the de facto standards for the rest of the country. And, when Gov. Schwarzenegger announced he was suing the Environmental Protection Agency because it set the emissions bar too low, other states joined in. Without strong voices in Washington advocating for the environment, the country looks to Sacramento to do that job.
Welcome to Fox&Hounds Daily
Welcome to Fox&Hounds Daily! This is not another blog simply about California politics – although, with our large state and so many voices to be heard, the more comments and participation in the process, the better off we will be. Nor is this site purely a discussion of business issues which are also well represented on the web. This non-partisan site will discuss the mix of politics and business — How the world of politics affects business and how the world of business affects, and is affected by, politics, and what those connections mean to the people in this state that both worlds serve.
The website, delivered free daily to subscribers, business people, opinion leaders, elected officials, and journalists, will educate readers on public policy and political issues. It will help businesses make decisions based on political trends, while at the same time helping policy makers and journalists to understand the issues facing the business community.
We will offer a full roster of regular bloggers and occasional commentators; leading political and business insiders, providing original content on important issues. We will profile business leaders and get their take on the political affairs in the state. We’ll provide links to headlines in other media sources carrying important business and political news, and perhaps we will break some news ourselves from time to time. And, we’ll have a little fun using satire to capture the human foibles and strange logic that comes with trying to steer a ship of state the size of California—with so many would-be captains on deck.
A Modest Proposal: Sales Tax, Lobbyists
I was talking this week with a gentleman, who is registered to lobby our elected leaders in Sacramento. He was decrying the possibility that the sales tax could be applied to services, including perhaps the lobbying services he provides.
"That sounds like a fantastic idea," I said, goading him.
"We’d just pass that cost along to our clients," he said, desperately.
The light bulb went on in my little head. The governor wants budget reform. The governor needs more tax revenue. While his people deny it, they are clearly looking at the sales tax. Why not combine all three policies into one?
Learning from Michigan
Pass the Service Tax, Don’t Pass the Service Tax: Just Keep Talking About It
California’s leaders are presently conspiring on how to fill the budget deficit by raising taxes while also clinging to a tenuous argument that they aren’t really raising taxes, but just changing the formula, shifting the tax burden.
California can learn from Michigan’s experience of passing – and then repealing – a service tax just hours after it took effect. The legislation would have put a 6% tax on a vast range of services including legal services, landscaping, janitorial services, manicures, warehousing and storage, investment services, and document preparation services. The legislature replaced it with a new Michigan Business Tax (MBT), a business income tax and a modified gross receipts tax.
Green Building Craze
In a craze that has swept the nation like nothing we have seen since the "Achy-Breaky Heart" line-dance, those who have joined what has become known to some as the Cult of Global Warming are impacting every area of public policy. Unfortunately, unlike the funny yet harmless mullet atop Billy Ray’s skull, the policies being promulgated to deal with this "emergency" may negatively impact your business and our state’s economic progress for decades to come.
While some have provided a reasonable and common-sense approach, it seems that for many not reason, common sense, nor even contradictory facts have any impact on the Svengali-like grip the issue has on many of our policymakers and their confederates in the media.
California legislators are in the lead — take for instance the numerous "green building" bills that are zipping through the process known as the "zero net energy" mandates (AB 1065 [Lieber], AB 2030 [Lieu], and AB 2112 [Saldana]). AB 1065 says that, beginning in 2020, all new buildings should use 50% less energy than they do today. AB 2030 requires that all new commercial buildings generate 50% of their own power onsite by – you guessed it, 2030 – and AB 2112 actually requires that all new homes generate that much power by 2020. Great ideas, if they weren’t technically impossible for most building types.