Theory met reality on Tuesday at a Senate informational hearing on California’s carbon cap-and-trade program that is set to start with an auction in November 2012. Craig Anderson from Solar Turbines, an industrial gas turbine manufacturer with 4,000 employees in San Diego, testified that the soon-to-be-fully-implemented cap-and-trade program is the most significant threat to his […]

The California Business Alliance for a Greener Economy recently retorted in Fox and Hounds that the California manufacturers “continue to cry wolf”, after we wrote a piece on the needless employer costs being built in to the California Air Resources Board’s carbon cap-and-trade auction. The group’s response did not substantiate any miscalculations in our $3 […]

Crossposted on MPowered The California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) cap-and-trade auction will create needless costs for employers at a time when our state must compete, scrap, wrangle, advocate and fight for every high-wage job we can get. These costs will seriously hamstring our ability to grow.  What most people don’t know is that CARB is […]

Only time will tell how much AB 32 will actually cost California. Since our landmark global warming bill passed in 2006 there has been no shortage of guessing about the costs and benefits of mandating greenhouse gas reductions on California’s economy. Now all the rules are in place and experts are sharpening their pencils and […]

On Friday, the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters chided the California Republican Party for opposition to all tax increases, even those that would close a “completely unjustified special interest tax loophole.” We’re not sure what Dan had in mind, but we’re certain that it is not the tax policy — known as elective sales factor — that […]

This weekend, Gov. Jerry Brown proclaimed that revenue from the cap-and-trade system under AB 32 will go toward the construction of California’s High Speed Rail project. AB 32 was not intended to be a revenue raiser for the state of California.  We dug up then-Assembly Speaker (and bill author) Fabian Nunez’ 2006 letter of legislative […]

Crossposted on MPowered In Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2012-13 State Budget, there is a line item that anticipates $1 billion from the still-developing cap-and-trade carbon emission program in California. Though that money is not identified with any particular programs yet, the Governor intends for it to be spent on environmental programs that are outside the […]

Crossposted on Mpowered A look back at three decades of new and expanded manufacturing facilities in California leaves us scratching our head.  What’s the state’s next big game changer?  Our investment highs this decade equal our lows of the 80’s and 90’s. The aerospace and information technology ramp-ups in the 80’s and 90’s were mostly […]

A look back at three decades of new and expanded manufacturing facilities in California leaves us scratching our head.  What’s the state’s next big game changer?  Our investment highs this decade equal our lows of the 80’s and 90’s. The aerospace and information technology ramp-ups in the 80’s and 90’s were mostly based on innovation, […]

California experienced just under one percent manufacturing employment growth in 2011 with the addition of 11,500 jobs. But the state still suffers from the loss of more than a third of its manufacturing base since 2001, leaving us with 1.2 million manufacturing jobs down from almost 2 million. In 2012 and beyond, California manufacturing workers […]