Cleaning up environmental regulation

[Source: The Daily Signal/Diane Katz] Environmental regulations constitute a hefty portion of America’s regulatory burden, in large part because “reform” is an alien concept within the Environmental Protection Agency. But the House GOP on Tuesday unveiled a new policy agenda that, with any luck (and political fortitude), will reverse decades of regulatory excess and abuse. Read More…

‘Environmental Justice’: Obama-era politics override rule of law

[Source: The Daily Signal/Todd G. Young, Southeastern Legal Foundation] In every Soviet-era military unit, the long shadow of totalitarian political control hung over day-to-day operations. A political commissar served alongside commanding military officers to ensure that communist purity was maintained. We’re seeing the same political strong-arm in President Barack Obama’s executive agencies, particularly in the Read More…

State’s progress toward 1.5 million ZEVs by 2025

[Source: California Center for Jobs & the Economy] As part of the AB 32 climate change program, Executive Order B-16-2012 administratively created a goal of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) on California roads by 2025, with a sub-goal that their market share is expanding at that point. The order also established interim mileposts primarily related Read More…

California’s trade dominance at risk

[Source: Logistics Management] While California has long been a vital leader creating trade and transportation trends, the state is becoming stymied by a variety of problems it can’t seem to solve. Southern California’s infamous highway gridlock, for example, not only torments the region’s logistics managers, but it may also be detrimental to regional job growth. Read More…

The head of California’s ISO is on a mission to regionalize and decarbonize

[Source: Utility Dive] California’s system operator is moving ahead with its plans to organize 38 independent power providing systems into a western region grid and market. Nobody is more passionate about this history-making plan than California Independent System Operator (CAISO) President and CEO Steve Berberich. Just-released preliminary assessments of the regionalization plan to integrate the separate balancing authority areas (BAAs) Read More…

Federal environmental regulators dispel fracking fears

[Source: Forbes] Last month, the Obama Administration’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) in a ruling found no significant environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing off the California shores. The debate over the safety and implications of fracking has grown over several years to include issues of water Read More…