As Governor Brown and legislative leaders try to spur climate change reforms worldwide in Paris, the Los Angeles Times’ energy reporter Ivan Penn uncovered how the statehouse’s climate reform stuck it to rooftop solar power homeowners in favor of the big utilities.
The cautionary tale for Paris reformers is cleaner energy needs also to be cheaper energy and ratepayers shouldn’t be taken for a ride in the process or it will undermine the movement to curb global warming.
The head of the state's oil and gas oversight agency is leaving, and he still doesn't understand why Gov. Jerry Brown shouldn't have used state workers for private business.
The obscure yet powerful California Board of Equalization (BOE) is a petri dish for how companies skirt conflict of interest rules.
The nation's only elected tax board decides cases involving sales, property, or income taxes; and the agency collects dozens of taxes and fees, which generates nearly $60 billion in revenue. Because of their power, the Legislature passed a law that board members must recuse themselves or return contributions before voting on issues affecting companies that have given them $250 or more in the preceding 12 months.
It’s not often that state officials stand up to a powerful California corporation like Google but that appears to be exactly what the Department of Motor Vehicles is doing.
California officials give transparency a lot of lip service, but it's usually the first thing sacrificed when it reveals inconvenient truths like incompetence, industry bias and moral bankruptcy.