Making sense of the alphabet soup of charges on a monthly power bill is challenge enough. But there's a surprising cost baked into customers' bills that doesn't have its own line item. A portion of each payment goes directly in the pockets of shareholders. Called a "return on equity," the...
What California Can Learn From Texas on Rebuilding After a Natural Disaster
Can California learn from other states about housing recovery after a natural disaster? That's the idea behind Assembly Bill 239 by Assemblymember John Harabedian, a freshman Democrat from Pasadena whose district was at the center of the 14,000-acre Eaton Fire. The bill, modeled after a hurricane-response plan in Texas, aims...
Trump Wants to Break California’s Sanctuary State Law: 5 Things to Know
Back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump is once again trying to break a policy California Democrats adopted during his first term to protect certain undocumented immigrants from being deported. One of his first executive orders targets the state's so-called sanctuary law, which generally limits how local cops interact...
Trump’s Conditions on LA Fire Aid Put CA Republicans in a Vise
As swaths of Southern California burn, the state’s Republican members of Congress find themselves facing a dilemma. Blaming the fires on California’s liberal policies, President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders have proposed attaching assorted conditions to federal disaster aid — a move that, if taken seriously, threatens to delay recovery...
Trump Orders Putting ‘People Over Fish.’ Will He Succeed?
President Donald Trump lost no time Monday in advancing his agenda for California’s water supply with a “presidential action” intended to send more Delta water south to millions of Southern Californians and San Joaquin Valley farms. The memo calls on the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior...
CA Sued the Tar Out of Trump the First Time Around. How Did It Do?
That revving you hear from Sacramento is the sound of California’s Democratic leaders preparing to sue the tar out of the Trump administration. We’ve seen this all before. California sued the Trump administration 123 times between 2017 and 2021, according to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office. It spent about $10 million a...
As Trump Declares Border Emergency, CA’s Targeted Immigrants Lie Low
Undocumented immigrants and their California families braced for the worst — and many told CalMatters they would go underground — as newly sworn-in President Donald Trump began issuing executive orders to enable what he promises will be the most massive deportation in U.S. history. “It’s draining my energy a lot, thinking...
Trump Wants to Deport Immigrants Accused of Crimes. CA Sheriffs Could Make It Easy
California sheriffs once again find themselves navigating a difficult political calculus on immigration as President Donald Trump begins his second term. They can enforce a state sanctuary law that some of them personally oppose, or they can roll out the welcome mat to federal immigration enforcement authorities whom Trump has...
California Abandons Diesel Truck Ban and 3 Other Clean-Air Rules Before Trump Is Sworn In
California has decided to abandon its groundbreaking regulations phasing out diesel trucks and requiring cleaner locomotives because the incoming Trump administration is unlikely to allow the state to implement them. State officials have long considered the rules regulating diesel vehicles essential to cleaning up California's severe air pollution and combating...
New California Bill Would Block Trans Females From Playing in Girls’ Sports
Days before a Kentucky judge blocked federal rules protecting LGBTQ students last week, California Assemblymember Kate Sanchez proposed similar changes to California law. On Jan. 6 she introduced a bill that would ban transgender females from playing on girls' sports teams with the California Interscholastic Federation. Congressional Republicans were on...