Steven Greenhut

California continues to play budget games.

Posted on May 14, 2012 at 8:05pm by Becket Adams

Here’s a shocker: the top 100 universities* in America prefer left-leaning commencement speakers to conservatives by a ratio of seven-to-one, according to a new report from the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), the principal youth activism wing of the conservative movement.

In fact, according to the YAF report, out of 106 keynote speakers scheduled to address America’s “top universities,” an astounding 71 can be identified as “liberal” while the rest are either politically unaffiliated (25) or conservative (10).

“Among the top 35 universities, only one conservative is scheduled to speak, compared to 29 liberals,” YAF spokesman Ron Meyer writes, adding that 16 White House officials have been scheduled to speak this year, more than all the conservatives combined.

“Young America’s Foundation’s previous research shows that Bush administration officials spoke at the top 100 universities a total of 14 times throughout his Presidency. In President Obama’s first three years, administration officials have spoken 29 times—more than double the total number of Bush administration speeches,” Meyer adds.

The rest-of-the-story

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-liberal-2012-commencement-speakers-outnumber-conservatives-seven-to-one

Contra Costa Times editorial 05/07/2012

A new legal opinion by the Legislature's attorney that concludes the Metropolitan Transportation Commission exceeded its legal authority by using bridge toll money to speculate on San Francisco real estate is right on the money. The opinion should cause MTC to immediately reverse course.

The commission -- a collection of 19 public officials from around the Bay Area -- was a leading advocate for increasing tolls on Bay Area bridges from $2 in 2004 to $5 today.

The toll for three-axle vehicles or combinations on the region’s seven state-owned toll bridges increased to $10.50 from $6. Tolls for four-axle vehicles rose to $14 from $8.25; tolls for five-axle vehicles went up to $18 from $11.25; tolls for six-axle rigs climbed to $21 from $12 and tolls for vehicles with seven or more axles ballooned to $24.25 from the current $13.50.

Caltrans is sharing a chart they call “The Mountain” that shows the days of $13 billion in highway spending in California ends this year. During the next fiscal year and without legislative action, for the foreseeable future, Caltrans spending will drop by nearly 50 percent.

All of the 2006 bond money and all of the federal stimulus money will be spent by the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, leaving the motor fuel excise tax, local government half-cent sales taxes for transportation and an ever-declining federal Highway Trust Fund to support California roadwork.

May 7th, 2012, 1:22 pm · · posted by Jeff Collins

Another potential casualty of the housing crash has been rescued from the brink of extinction.

A private homebuilding foundation will take over the Construction Industry Research Board, which has been compiling building statistics in California since 1974, with data going back to just after World War II.

The Construction Industry Research Board has data on O.C. homebuilding going back to 1946 -- much of it still collected and distributed by FAX.

The California Homebuilding Foundation in Sacramento announced Monday that it agreed to take over building permit data collection and reporting from the Building Industry Association of Southern California.

by Dan Gagliasso34 days ago68post a comment

Think a University of California degree is worth its weight in gold? Think again. According to a new study, you might want to rethink that second mortgage needed to send junior to a UC campus.

The California Association of Scholars, a division of the National Association of Scholars, have just released an incendiary report showing that all nine of the University of California’s campuses have been compromised by too many politicized courses and radical faculty members. CAS members include a number of current or past professors from the UC system who have taught at UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-Santa Cruz, and UC-San Diego.

By Bill Davis, Editor

At a time when other states are green lighting natural gas-fired electrical generation plants to lower electricity costs for their consumers and improve air quality, the state of California is headed in the other direction.

On April 19, the California Public Utilities Commission decided the state has enough electricity generation capacity to meet demand through 2020, so it banned construction of new fossil fuel plants (coal, natural gas or oil) for at least the next two years—and, based on the PUC’s 46-page declaration on the issue, maybe forever. 1

This notice is a reminder of several new labeling requirements for in-use off-road diesel vehicles. By January 1, 2013, BOTH sides of all vehicles subject to the Off-Road Regulation must be labeled with the equipment identification number (EIN).

Additionally, the EIN labels on vehicles owned by captive attainment area fleets must be changed to white on a green background by January 1, 2013.  Because captive attainment area fleets are potentially subject to lesser compliance requirements than those fleets operating in surrounding areas, the labels on vehicles owned by captive attainment area fleets must be changed in order to differentiate them from other vehicles not eligible for this provision.  Captive Attainment Area Fleets are fleets or fleet portions in which all of the vehicles operate exclusively within the following counties:

Sooty, finicky diesel engines are a thing of the past, boosting prospects for the fuel-efficient automobiles in America

By Julia Pyper and ClimateWire | April 24, 2012 - Scientific American.com

Gone are the days of riding in the family station wagon, inhaling smelly, sooty fumes from a noisy diesel engine.

Diesel engines have always been more efficient than their gasoline counterparts, but over the last decade, the autos and the fuel they run on have had to come a long way to shed their dirty image. Today, diesel cars offer Americans another fuel-efficient vehicle option that could also ease the pain at the pump.

"The great thing about diesel is that it's coming in at the right time," said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum. "It's proven itself as a technology, and it has the credentials to compete with policymakers and customers that want to drive a car that's good for the environment and low in carbon dioxide emissions."