The crippling cost of doing business in California

[Source: Orange County Register Editorial Board] CNBC’s annual state-by-state “business climate” study is out. No surprise, we’re dead last — No. 50 — among the states for “cost of doing business.” Here’s an area where you don’t want to say, “As California goes, so goes the nation.” Almost all of California’s business-climate problems are self-inflicted, Read More…

Californians appear poised to reject measure controlling how climate change funds are spent

[Source: Los Angeles Times] Four statewide ballot propositions were passing in California on Tuesday, while an effort to control spending of funds collected through the state’s climate change program appeared headed toward a defeat. Proposition 70 would have required both houses of the Legislature, six years from now, to approve spending of cash collected from Read More…

California’s Brown pegs bullet train future to Democratic wave

[Source: Bloomberg] California’s $77 billion high-speed rail project, which has been dogged by cost overruns and delays, could receive much-needed federal funding if Democrats take control of Congress in November, Governor Jerry Brown said Wednesday. “When the Congress shifts” and lawmakers draft an infrastructure bill, Brown said he is optimistic they will provide $6 billion Read More…

The bullet train is California’s biggest infrastructure project — but it’s seldom discussed in governor’s race

[Source: Los Angeles Times] It’s the biggest infrastructure project in state history, but the California bullet train gets hardly any attention on the campaign trail. The leading candidates for governor have said little publicly about how they would fix dire problems in the $77-billion mega-project that has already overrun its initial cost estimate by $44 Read More…

California’s bullet train is hurtling toward a multibillion-dollar overrun, a confidential federal report warns

[Source: The Los Angeles Times] California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk Read More…

What now for true-blue California?

[Source: The Sacramento Bee] This was supposed to be, in the minds of many, the election that moved the rest of the nation closer to pluralistic, pro-tax, anti-gun, “progressive” California. Never mind. California voters reinforced the state’s image in a big way, favoring Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a nearly 2-to-1 margin and passing Read More…

California’s cap-and-trade carbon emission system may be failing

[Source: Sacramento Bee] California’s much-vaunted cap-and-trade system of reducing greenhouse gas emissions may be collapsing. This month’s quarterly auction of carbon dioxide emission allowances, which was supposed to generate more than a half-billion dollars for politicians to spend, brought in a paltry $10 million as the Air Resources Board sold a tiny fraction of the Read More…