News

Seven years after California started pumping billions of dollars into schools with the neediest students — an attempt to narrow a chronic academic achievement gap — a new state audit has found that the state’s landmark school funding law isn’t adequately ensuring that targeted money is actually going to the disadvantaged students it’s supposed to help.

The audit released today is the latest in a growing body of research fueling calls for more state oversight of California’s groundbreaking 2013 overhaul of school finance.

Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 342 into law, making it illegal to have oil and gas pipeline leases on state owned land.

AB 342 marks a halt in a recently enacted policy in Washington that allows drilling and related infrastructure construction on Federally owned areas in the National Park System. As most of those park lands are surrounded by or immediately adjacent to state owned land, nearly all affected areas would be either extremely difficult or impossible to build out from.
Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a law intended to counter Trump administration plans to increase oil and gas production on protected public land.

The measure bars any California leasing authority from allowing pipelines or other oil and gas infrastructure to be built on state property. It makes it difficult for drilling to occur because federally protected areas are adjacent to state-owned land.

SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a law intended to counter Trump administration plans to increase oil and gas production on protected public land.

The measure bars any California leasing authority from allowing pipelines or other oil and gas infrastructure to be built on state property. It makes it difficult for drilling to occur because federally protected areas are adjacent to state-owned land.

Local officials and experts dedicated to preventing teenage vaping will gather in Manhattan Beach Monday evening, Oct. 14, for a town hall on the growing health crisis stemming from electronic smoking devices.

The town hall will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Manhattan Beach Middle School, 1501 N. Redondo Ave. Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-South Bay) and Beach Cities Health District will co-host the event.

Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-South Bay) and state Sen. Ben Allen (D-West Los Angeles/South Bay) helped ensure language made it into Prop. 68 that allows money to go toward buying land on which decommissioned power plants sit, the assemblyman said.

“We worked with Mayor Brand to make sure the language was in there specifically for this purpose,” Muratsuchi said.

President Donald Trump’s attempts to forcibly expand oil and gas drilling in California have taken his political beef with our state to a toxic new low.

“The Trump administration has finalized its plans to open hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Central California to oil and gas leasing, paving the way for more fracking to soon begin in the state,” reports McClatchy DC’s Emily Cadei.

States’ rights are sacred for many conservatives in the United States.

So how did liberal California become a poster child for states’ rights in its escalating battle with the Trump administration on environmental regulation?

California has responded to Federal threats of increased oil and gas drilling by making it virtually impossible for any drilling to happen on or near protected lands by halting most pipeline leasing.

What is it?

California is on the verge of having statewide rent control.

Assembly Bill 1482—which will bar landlords from hiking rents more than 5 percent, plus local inflation, in one year—was approved this afternoon in the state Assembly on a 46-22 vote. Inflation varies by region, but averages about 2.5 percent in California.

The bill now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk; he has said he will sign it.