Renewing the Debate on the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS)
“It’s déjà vu all over again.” – Yogi Berra As has been reported in these pages and elsewhere, Senators Kevin de León and Mark Leno earlier this month introduced Senate Bill (SB) 350, otherwise known as the “Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015.” The authors developed SB 350 ostensibly to help create jobs […]
Placing Fuels Under the Cap Puts Low-Income Households Under the Bus
John Husing, the Inland Empire economist, asserts that California’s policies are short-sighted when it comes to many important subject areas like energy policy. Specifically, he argues that the state’s leadership from wealthy coastal counties tends to design policies that make sense for these same counties, but that ultimately create unintended, negative consequences for poorer inland […]
California Isn’t Greece, It’s Lake Wobegon
I’ll admit it, I was more than a little dismayed to read last week’s Los Angeles Times article explaining away Toyota’s decision to move its Torrance headquarters to Texas. The Times turned what seemed to be a teachable moment on the excesses of California regulation into little more than a business school case study: “The […]
The Real Economy of Orange County
Thursday marked the much anticipated IPO of San Francisco-based Twitter, the social media phenomenon. The buzz surrounding Twitter’s IPO, similar to that seen for Bay Area giants LinkedIn (2011) and Facebook (2012), shines yet another spotlight on the innovation and entrepreneurialism of Silicon Valley. Twitter certainly deserves congratulations for reaching this milestone. For the company’s […]