My-turn

Gov. Gavin Newsom needs legislators to begin the uncomfortable work of making changes to our infrastructure, our policies, and yes, our liability laws, so that we can build a state meets the current challenges of climate change while reducing its impact in the future.

PG&E's bankruptcy in 2001 and the one to come are at once similar and very different. But we did learn lessons the hard way in 2000 and 2001. Having lived through the last bankruptcy, my suggestion to policymakers is to slow down and conduct a thorough analysis to fully understand the nature of the problem.

What if Donald Trump had used those nine minutes, or even a portion of them, to convey a different message, one that reminded us of what binds us rather than what separates us, reminded us to help those, as the song says, who are walking on the boulevard of broken dreams? What if?

The California Air Resources Board has adopted an aggressive regulation, baking in higher consumer and industry costs in the hope of squeezing out more emission reductions. This approach not only flouts the express will of the Legislature, but undermines the moral authority for engaging in state-level greenhouse gas regulation.

For many people outside Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District strike might seem far away, with little relevance to their daily lives. But the strike hits closer to home than you might think.

If our government is going to truly prioritize housing all Californians, cities and counties must be required to put a significant portion of any incentive funding from the state toward directly supporting the production of homes at levels affordable to people most in need.

By Catherine Brinkley Catherine Brinkley is an assistant professor of human ecology at University of California, Davis, who has written extensively on community energy infrastructures, ckbrinkley@ucdavis.edu. She wrote this commentary for CALmatters. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is filing for bankruptcy. Again. When PG&E filed in 2001, it was the third largest bankruptcy filing in […]

As legislators resume discussions regarding policy solutions, we must be clear: California’s environmental regulations did not cause the housing crisis and eviscerating the California Environmental Quality Act would harm disadvantaged communities.

By Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla is executive director of Restore the Delta, barbara@restorethedelta.org. She wrote this commentary for CALmatters. The confluence of California’s two great rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, creates the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. Those of us who live here call it, simply, the Delta.  It […]

Yosemite was a refuge where I could momentarily escape thoughts of petty politics and news of the day that typically consume most of my waking hours as a journalist. This time, though, a political stunt encroached into this natural refuge.