California Voices

Gregory Favre, CalMatters board member: Agree or disagree with his politics, H. Ross Perot collected the most votes ever (nearly 20%) for an independent candidate who ran on his own.

Gladys Limón and V. John White, California Environmental Justice Alliance: Under Marybel Batjer’s leadership, the California Public Utilities Commission must prepare California to move beyond gas. Creating an equitable, safe and secure phase-out of gas in coming decades will be no small feat. But Batjer has demonstrated she is not afraid of taking courageous action and shaking things up.

Daniel Marti, RELX parent to Elsevier: Elsevier proposed a series of arrangements that would contain costs for the University of California, achieve the objectives of the Academic Senate and provide students, faculty, researchers and medical professionals with uninterrupted service to the research platform that supports their work. UC Library negotiators rejected all offers.

Jan Smutny-Jones, Independent Energy Producers Association: If there is a war on coal—as President Trump claims—it’s long been decided in California and most of the West. In 2008, coal comprised 18.2% of California’s electricity mix. By 2018, that number had fallen to 3%, with virtually all the coal coming from a single plant in Utah.

Assemblyman Adam Gray: California classifies solar, wind and geothermal as renewable but inexplicably excludes the most well-developed renewable energy of all: hydropower. A state constitutional amendment would change that. Here's why it's needed.

Mike Males, author of “Teenage Sex and Pregnancy: Modern Myths, Unsexy Realities”: From the 1990s to 2017, the birth rate among California teens fell by a staggering 80%. Why did this happen? Ignore the interest groups clamoring for credit. The reason is not sex education in California or contraceptive programs in Colorado. Teens themselves are reducing births, especially those involving adult partners.

A bill to abolish a controversial reading instruction test for teaching credential applicants died amidst a firestorm of criticism.

Tom Dalzell, IBEW Local 1245: In the fight between hedge funds for control of PG&E, there is only one viable plan for reorganization, as things stand today, and that is the one put forward by the hedge fund-bondholders. The plan articulated several weeks ago by the shareholder hedge funds has dissolved to all but nothing.

Chris Ising, Culligan Water Service: Assembly Bill 792 by Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco would require plastic beverage containers in California to be made with at least 25% recycled content material by 2021. The measure would force up prices on products that communities like Paradise need, literally, to survive.

The bottom line of another electric utility overhaul is uncertain.