WILL STATE ASSEMBLY SAVE CALIFORNIA ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“WILL STATE ASSEMBLY SAVE CALIFORNIA ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?”

 

There is rarely a shortage of self-destructive bills in the Legislature when lawmakers come back from their summer recess and get ready to confront the real consequences of proposed laws that have already passed one legislative house.

 

Perhaps this year’s best example as legislators arrive back in town this August will be a bill known as SB 540, sponsored by Silicon Valley Democrat Josh Becker.

 

This bill would essentially end California’s ability to decide what kind of electric energy it will use for all time to come. It throws out Enron-era protections against price manipulation and essentially gives the Trump administration control over this state’s environmental laws.

 

Yes, coal could be back, if that’s what President Trump or utility executives in states like Idaho and Utah want to impose on Californians. And they do.

 

This summer has already given ample evidence of how poorly Trump and his minions understand California. First, they had the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency conduct a wave of raids across Southern California, claiming they were going after criminal illegal immigrants.

 

They did in fact arrest and deport a few undocumented persons with serious criminal records. But most raids were conducted at restaurants, car washes and building supply stores where the undocumented often seek day work. These aroused crowds of thousands, almost all of whom protested peacefully, even though there was some vandalism, mostly at night when crowds had thinned.

 

Trump responded by nationalizing and calling out thousands of National Guard troops, excoriating Newsom for interfering with federal operations when he did nothing of the sort and threatening mass arrests. All while local police and sheriff’s deputies already had things under control.

 

There is no reason to believe Trump understands the California electric grid any better than he understands how Californians protest and react to what many see as injustice.

 

That’s what makes the Western grid envisioned in SB 540 so potentially pernicious. This bill, strongly backed by Google and other Silicon Valley giants, would give much of the power to determine where and what kind of power plants would be placed around the West to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

 

That agency is now controlled by Trump appointees who outspokenly advocate for coal power. Californians who want cleaner energy and more solar and wind power will be overruled, just as Newsom was when Trump ordered out the National Guard.

 

So much for California’s independence or control over its own energy fate.

 

Of course, big California companies purveying currently trendy artificial intelligence are all for this. They’re building more and more data centers in the rural west, including parts of California’s Central Valley, and they need huge new power supplies.

 

Yes, some senators voiced concerns about Trump pre-empting California laws to provide this – and the lack of legislative oversight in the bill. But that did not keep the vote in the state Senate from going 33-1 to advance this deregulation law.

 

As the bill moved through Senate committees, amendments were added to require minimizing costs and maximizing supply, as well as some transparency. But all those disappeared before the final vote and would need to be reinstated by the Assembly – unless it is similarly intimidated by the high-tech support for this measure.

 

One analysis by the Senate Judiciary Committee was especially on point: “California could see significant harms to its energy goals and its standing in the regional market,” the committee staff said. “These dangers are even greater now that Trump has…directed the U.S. attorney general to find ways to curtail our state’s climate change efforts.”

 

Still, many Democrats with strong environmental records went along with this, even okaying repeal of price gouging protections.

 

It’s all a way for artificial intelligence firms to control the electric market for their benefit with little or no transparency for millions of other consumers. It is certainly daring, but could also yield an Enron-like disaster if they hoard power and force prices up. Only this time, the law would not allow California to solve the problem on its own, but rather would keep it tethered to other states who don’t care a bit about California consumers. And all this stupidity is only part of what makes SB 540 perhaps the year’s dumbest bill.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

FIRST ELECTED INSURANCE COMMISH WANTS INCUMBENT OUT

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS5
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“FIRST ELECTED INSURANCE COMMISH WANTS INCUMBENT OUT”

 

Think back: When was the last time you heard the former occupant of an important political office, state or national, declaim publicly that a successor of the same political party wasn’t doing the job well and ought to be ousted?

 

If your answer is never, that would be correct. Jerry Brown has never criticized Gavin Newman. During Donald Trump’s first term as president, neither George W. Bush nor his father George H.W. Bush said much about his performance.

 

But John Garamendi has changed that script. An eight-term Democratic congressman from a Central Valley district and the original elected insurance commissioner (he served from 1991 to 1995), Garamendi is sickened by what he’s seeing from Ricardo Lara, the fellow Democrat who now holds the office.

 

He looked on silently for six years as Lara first took political contributions from the insurance companies he regulated, then was forced to return them. He also said nothing when Lara began kowtowing to those same companies by okaying extra-high premium increases. 

 

But he’s now had it. He’s told a San Francisco Bay Area television station that Lara “should go” if he’s unwilling to battle those same insurance companies. 

 

And Lara is demonstrably not willing to fight the hand that fed him, the hand he’s not supposed to hold in any affectionate way so long as he’s in the office he now holds. 

 

For example, when the insurance rates on a building directly next to a fire station in the hilly town of Portola Valley were raised 50 percent this year, Lara said nothing, did nothing to prevent it, even though its very location makes that structure about as fire-safe and risk-free as anyplace could be. 

 

Garamendi pointed out that Lara, when a candidate in 2018, pronounced himself “leery” of insurance rate hikes unless customers were getting something in return, like more extensive coverage or guarantees of renewal. 

 

But that’s all gone by the wayside. Lara has finalized a plan to allow insurance companies to assess massive rate increases even in areas with no significant fire danger without making the concessions he had promised to require.

 

For example, he promised earlier this year that insurance companies would have to cover 85 percent of homes in wildfire areas (where policy cancellations have lately been rampant) in exchange for significantly higher rates. But the regulation he issued said that companies can instead opt to cover only 5 percent more homeowners than they do now.

 

“The commissioner lied,” said the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group. “And companies don’t even have to meet that 5 percent threshold; they can opt out…if they want,” added the group’s president, Jamie Court.

 

Lara’s response was to say new rates will “reflect the risks of where we’re living.” But that’s not true, either, since all homeowners will be paying more, even if they don’t live in fire areas. Said one Santa Monica policy holder who has never filed a fire claim in more than 45 years of home ownership, “Any fire would have to cross an awful lot of city before it got to me, but my rates are going up anyway.”

 

She is not alone. Meanwhile, some owners of city properties in sections of San Francisco with many older homes that have been remodeled in recent years (like Noe Valley and the Mission District) have seen their policies cancelled even though few claims have been made in those districts.

 

That led Garamendi to say, “Over the last three years, I have observed that this commissioner is not willing to take the hard task and the necessary task to stand up to the insurance industry. If the commissioner is not willing to do that…then he’s not doing his job and he should leave.”

 

In short, the pioneering insurance regulator Garamendi is saying “Lara must go.”

 

But there’s no sign of that. As a candidate, Lara said that he was running because “California needs a strong defender, one who will stand up to bullies.” But his predecessor finds he hasn’t come close to doing that.

 

Which leads to an almost unprecedented political scene, with one Democratic party stalwart telling another to depart.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

HEAD START MAY BE THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“HEAD START MAY BE THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL”

 

A little-hyped effort to gut and likely shut down Project Head Start composes one of the oddest and perhaps cruelest spending cuts mandated by President Trump and his unofficial – but very active – Department of Government Efficiency.

 

This is a cut no voters demanded, despite Trump’s insistence that his entire effort to rid America of programs he doesn’t like is the result of a voter mandate. For one thing, neither Head Start or any other government program was ever voted on anywhere except in Congress, where all existing government programs and departments are vetted and approved, or not.

 

For another, Trump fell short of winning a popular vote majority, winning only a plurality of votes against former Vice President Kamala Harris. So despite his talk of a strong mandate, he really has none.

 

Head Start, which serves about 800,000 low-income children across the country and well over 80,000 in California, was long among the most popular of federal programs, despite having been targeted by Trump in his first administration.

 

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, under whose umbrella Head Start operates, did not respond to calls seeking comment on Trump’s proposed complete defunding of the program by 2026.

 

If they did talk, they might have to get specific about why they’re using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) factors as a cudgel to destroy a program that readies very young children for kindergarten better than any other government program. If it weren’t doing that, there’s no way Head Start would have survived and steadily grown since 1965.

 

Head Start officials themselves cannot conduct lawsuits against their bosses in the Trump administration hierarchy, but the American Civil Liberties Union has made this one of its major projects in questioning Trump’s overall cuts.

 

Many of those cuts have used DEI to allege that schools and universities have favored some ethnic groups over others, especially discriminating against whites in hiring and admissions. Other lawsuits made such allegations several times in the three years leading up to Trump’s second inauguration.

 

In trying to reverse Trump’s cuts, opponents often argue that the administration’s definitions of DEI discrimination are “unconstitutionally vague,” winning a few federal court orders to delay or stop the cuts. No one knows how long those orders will stay in place,

 

One reason for confusion is that Head Start has always needed diversity because the children it serves come from such a wide array of backgrounds. To be effective, the program needs teachers who can instruct in the native languages of students, who often have immigrant parents, even if they themselves are native citizens.

 

For some involved with Head Start, the ACLU lawsuit has been far too little and far too late. Scores of federally-paid Head Start workers were laid off in February, and the Associated Press reported a leaked version of the next federal budget that would shut down the program completely.

 

It's a bit of a mystery why Trump would target Head Start, whose participants are relatively low-profile kids. The program had always previously received strong support at budget times from both Democrats and Republicans. Would Senate Democrats filibuster a proposed budget that eliminates a program almost everyone likes?

 

That’s a big unknown, probably not to be resolved until the fall. Another unknown is whether state and local governments would step in and provide enough money to keep the doors open, even if some Head Start activities would have to be ended or curtailed.

 

Meanwhile, it’s also a bit uncertain who will supervise California’s many Head Start locations in the future if the overall program survives. For early on, Trump’s budgeteers shut down 12 regional offices, including the one covering California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and American Samoa.

 

The bottom line is that the uncertainty surrounding Head Start today cannot help children who need a stable learning environment. But uncertainty is the order of the day under Trump in virtually every federal department except Defense, where massive spending remains commonplace.

 
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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TRUMP ON ‘REMIGRATION:’ HEED THE RHETORIC

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TRUMP ON ‘REMIGRATION:’ HEED THE RHETORIC”

 

Even now, six months into President Trump’s second term, there’s a tendency to disregard President Trump’s sometimes fiery rhetoric as mere big talk. Americans ought to know better by now. Iranians certainly do, after Trump sent bunker bombs into their most secure nuclear facility.

 

Similarly, when he ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into Southern California and told them to “do all in their power to…deliver the single largest mass deportation program in history,” he wasn’t kidding. His order led to weeks of protests in affected areas, demonstrations that made no discernible dent in the president’s plans.

 

This suggests that when Trump employs white supremacist memes in speeches and social media posts, he also means it.

 

He did that just after the “No Kings” movement produced the largest one-day set of anti-government demonstrations in U.S. history.

 

In a little-noticed rant on his Truth Social service the next morning, Trump announced that “Our government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came, and preventing the admission of ANYONE who undermines the domestic tranquility of the United States.”

 

Never mind that one would have to be a mind reader to tell in advance which prospective immigrants threaten domestic tranquility.

 

It was Trump’s use of the term “remigration” that should have raised eyebrows, but drew little notice. Historically, the word has meant the voluntary return of migrants to their countries of origin. But, as reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, in modern usage, especially among white supremacists in America and Europe, it’s a euphemism for indiscriminating mass deportation and ethnic cleansing. The term is often used to target non-white immigrants, regardless of their origin.

 

In countries from Albania to Serbia and Tajikistan, that word also has been used in efforts to create all-white enclaves, with some such efforts backed by governments.

 

So it was no surprise when ICE agents without a warrant entered the Montebello auto body shop of Brian Gavidia, twisting his arm and demanding he tell them in which hospital he was born, in order to prove his citizenship. Incidents like this, first reported in local newspapers, have been common in the Southern California sweeps.

 

In the end, Gavidia used his Real ID drivers license to prove citizenship, after being unable to recall the name of the hospital.

 

The incident was not unusual. Gavidia told a reporter, “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We are all getting attacked.”

 

Documented or not, immigrants all over California now experience terror over the possibility of being picked up and deported with no due process, as has been reported in hundreds of cases so far. Construction workers stayed home in droves, roofing and drywall jobs halted, nannies refused to take their young charges to parks and some normally busy neighborhoods became sudden ghost towns.

 

The racial profiling in the ICE raids has been beyond doubt, striking fear in millions of the brown-skinned and netting some U.S. citizens. There’s also no doubt about agents attempting to hide their identity. In an era when almost all local and state police carry body cameras to ensure their behavior is correct, not only do ICE agents carry no cameras, they often wear ski masks to hide their identity. If their actions are correct, why do that?

 

It's in keeping with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem’s remark to a news conference that ICE raids on everything from convenience stores to family homes will continue indefinitely. Said Noem, “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and burdensome government that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country and this city.”

 

Just two days after Noem made that admission of the purely political nature of the ICE presence in California, Trump ordered raids to intensify in Chicago, New York and other Democratic-run cities.

 

Republican states need not worry much – yet – even though Texas called up more than 5,000 national guard troops to ready for responses to possible upcoming raids there.

 

For the other cities and states Trump vocally targeted, none of which voted for him last year, the message is clear: Heed what Trump says. He means every message, even if he backs off or softens some.

 

 
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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

RESOLVING THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GAS PRICES AND REFINERY CLOSURES

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“RESOLVING THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GAS PRICES AND REFINERY CLOSURES”

 

It’s an apparent contradiction: on one hand, state regulators reported in May that California gasoline pump prices since 2015 average 41 cents per gallon higher than in other states, after accounting for taxes, fees and environmental costs.

 

On the other hand, two of California’s large refineries now plan to close soon, one by the end of this year and the other within the first half of 2026. They say they can’t afford to stay open, even though together they make 17 percent of the state’s gasoline.

 

How can gasoline refiners be making the highest profits in the lower 48 states, but still not enough to keep their plants open?

 

To understand this, it’s important to know the average net profit for oil companies varies, with the biggest refiners – the ones supplying branded stations like Chevron and Shell – making more money because of their retail marketing networks, while smaller refiners often supply lower-priced independent brands that pay (and charge) less.

 

State regulation of gas refining is a pretty new thing, dating from a 2023 law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that allows a wing of the state Energy Commission to order that refiners keep higher stocks on hand than previously at times when they’ve recently been caught at price gouging. One such time came in February 2022, when pump prices jumped more than $2.50 per gallon within two days of an outage at one refinery near Los Angeles.

 

When Newsom signed the law allowing this kind of regulation, he accused oil companies of “gouging” and “screwing Californians.”

 

In fact, the state reported this spring that per-gallon excess profits by the oil companies peaked at $2.36 during a fall 2022 price spike.

 

There have been no similar-sized spikes since the new law took effect.

 

So how to explain the scheduled closures of a Phillips 66 refinery near Los Angeles and a Valero plant in Benicia?

 

Even with these refineries charging prices and posting profits consistently well above national averages – but without sudden windfall profits due to occasional outages for maintenance and mechanical problems – that’s what they plan.

 

Says one expert, “The two refineries are closing because they are old and expensive to run and the state’s planned transition to electric vehicles promised a drop in demand.”

 

Also, these refineries serve more unbranded gas stations than the biggest-in-California Marathon refinery near Los Angeles and the two big Chevron facilities at Richmond and El Segundo. So they make less profit than their competitors that supply large networks of branded stations. Maybe they needed to gouge customers once in awhile just to stay open.

 

Pollution also plays a role. Valero Benicia last October was forced to pay an $82 million fine. The state Air Resources Board and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) imposed the penalty for violations involving unreported emissions of harmful organic compounds, including benzene. An investigation showed the violations had been occurring for about 20 years.

 

To fix up both the refineries aiming to shut down would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, an amount they believed they were unlikely to make up soon in the new no-price-spikes era. This situation is not unique: Several refineries in Texas are also closing in response to competition from new foreign “super refineries,” mostly in the Middle East.

 

The closing California plants will likely replace their production with gasoline shipped in from those and other foreign sources, including Indonesia. Chances are, there will be no major shortages, but there may be price increases, which could provide drivers with new reasons to buy EVs.

 

Of course, now that President Trump has eliminated federal EV price incentives and tax refunds, one or both of the outfits that have resolved to shut down may reconsider, as their potential economic futures look better than they did a few months ago.

 

Meanwhile, the remaining large refineries, which may soon be producing as much as 98 percent of California fuel, have no reason to stage a similar shutdown, which promises a long period of stability in this industry after the inevitable adjustment period that would accompany the two scheduled closures.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TRUMP REVITALIZES A NEWSOM PRESIDENTIAL RUN

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TRUMP REVITALIZES A NEWSOM PRESIDENTIAL RUN”

 

If President Trump wanted to set up Gov. Gavin Newsom for a strong 2028  run against fellow Democrats and then Trump's chosen Republican successor, he could scarcely have done better than in the last month.

 

First came the president's threat to withhold virtually all federal grant money from California, affecting everything from medical research to sewer building and more.

 

That spurred Newsom to one of his most creative and energetic responses in months, even though his idea of withholding California’s federal taxes won’t work. At least it allowed the governor to say no one can attack California without learning how important it is to the rest of America.

 

Days later, Trump made the possibly unconstitutional move of calling out the California National Guard over Newsom’s objection, supposedly to quell rioting over immigration and deportation raids in Southern California. Then he sent 700 U.S. Marines into Los Angeles, saying they would protect federal personnel and facilities from rioters. All along, local police said they had matters well in hand. But Trump insists he saved the city from “incinerating.”

 

Newsom followed with a national speech denouncing authoritarian behavior and government overreach. Said Newsom, “This brazen abuse of power...inflamed a combustible situation, putting at risk our people, our officers and the National Guard.”

 

Only after that did Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem inadvertently reveal the purely political thought behind Trump’s moves: After her agents tackled and handcuffed Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla when he tried to question her, she got off perhaps the key statement in a week of dramatic talk: “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and burdensome government that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country and this city.”

 

Which means a president who pardoned hundreds of convicted January 6 insurrectionists now wants to dictate who Californians elect to lead them.

 

This is pure Trumpian overreach. It validated what Newsom said days earlier in his nationally broadcast speech: “This is about all of us,” he warned. “California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Democracy is under assault before our eyes.”

 

If Newsom sought a campaign theme, Trump provided it. The governor can now say he stands for America remaining a free country, with no dictator.

 

That speech and other resistance was the reason many protesters at mid-June “No Kings” rallies around California carried signs saying “Resist Trump: Thank you Gov. Newsom.”

 

Trump had never stinted in his enmity for California. But now Newsom’s gloves are also off, and he is active in lawsuits galore against Trump and his tactics. That’s one reason Trump suggested, “I would not hesitate to arrest him.” Newsom dared him to, saying “Come and get me. He knows where I am.”

 

Trump also observed that Newsom loves the publicity all this gives him. That appears accurate.

 

How did Newsom win his newfound popularity as an anti-Trump champion? He first projected strength by refusing to take Trump’s bait and get himself arrested in the act of interfering with immigration officers.

 

“Don’t give him a spectacle,” Newsom urged. “Never use violence.”

 

Just as unique was his response to Trump’s unprecedented threat to cut off federal funds for California. Newsom essentially said “If you take our money, we may cut off yours.”

  

He could say that because California is by far the biggest taxpaying state in the Union, also the biggest “donor” state. This state in 2022, the last year for which full figures are available, paid more than $692 billion in federal taxes, $83.1 billion more than it got back in federal funds. That’s nearly three times the “donation” of the next biggest “donor” state.

 

What if California withheld its billions, as Newsom threatened, and raised the national debt almost $1 trillion? It won’t happen.

 

This would be almost impossible to pull off because typical federal tax payments go straight to the Internal Revenue Service, with no state involvement.

 

Keeping those payments from the IRS would need cooperation from millions of individual taxpayers, thousands of tax preparers and many, many corporate officials.

 

That would require a huge campaign, which will not occur. Still, reminding Trump how important California really is can’t be all bad.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

WE’RE NO. 4! WE’RE NO. 4! WHAT DOES THIS RANKING MEAN?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WE’RE NO. 4! WE’RE NO. 4! WHAT DOES THIS RANKING MEAN?”

 

There were large headlines around California (but not in many Republican-led “red” states) in late spring, when the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis simultaneously found that this state’s economy had surpassed Japan’s to become the world’s fourth-largest, with a gross state product exceeding $4.1 trillion, about $800 billion better than Japan.

 

This had different meanings for different folks. For Gov. Gavin Newsom, it meant new ammunition for his putative 2028 presidential campaign, where he has been challenged lately by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Pritzker has taken a page from Newsom’s 2024 manual, when the California governor blasted his Democratic Party mates for being too passive, before lapsing into months of his own political passivity after ex-President Biden handed the party’s 2024 nomination to Kamala Harris and not him.

 

But Newsom is going again on his effort to extend his political life beyond the early 2027 term-out he faces after eight years in office. His first new move was to become a named plaintiff on California’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s unilaterally imposed tariffs, which vary greatly by country.

 

Now two big economic arbiters have given him some more juice. For sure, Pritzker cannot claim Illinois is even among the world’s top ten economies, let alone No. 4, behind only the rest of the USA, China and Germany.

 

It’s true that the IMF speculates India’s economy might ramp up enough to pass California sometime late next year, but that seems unlikely when California had the world’s highest economic growth rate last year at 6 percent, well above India’s.

 

It all means that Californians are not only more productive than residents of the United Kingdom or any other American state, but also that no matter what opposing politicians might say, Newsom has not mismanaged the economy. Yes, some businesses moved headquarters out of California, like Chevron, Toyota USA and Tesla, but other companies arose to eclipse the effect of those departures. One example might be Open AI, a leader in artificial intelligence and maker of ChatGPT.

 

Bragged Newsom, “California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace. Our economy is thriving because we invest in people, prioritize sustainability and believe in the power of innovation.”

 

Not even California’s relatively high sales and income taxes could stymie the state’s economic growth, as California seems to spawn one pioneering new industry after another.

 

But Newsom warned both in his lawsuit and otherwise that Trump’s tariffs could throw a monkey wrench into what California achieves.

 

“While we celebrate this success,” he said, “we recognize that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration.”

 

In short, California’s more than $675 billion in two-way trade with other countries last year could be brought up very short this year, allowing countries like India, France and Italy to surpass this state in a seesaw race for high ranking, prestige and bragging rights.

 

For the state’s high economic ranking, which far surpasses other states’ performances along with those of prosperous foreign provinces like Canada’s Ontario and the UK’s Wales and Scotland, is not static or guaranteed. It depends on trade and cooperation with other nations, states and provinces.

 

And it depends on California’s own responses to its admitted problems, things like high taxes, a sometimes questionable business climate, earthquakes, wildfires, expensive insurance and much more.

 

But those things can bring advantages, too. An example is residential construction, which will be a huge element in California’s gross state product once reconstruction from last January’s Los Angeles County firestorms ramps up.

 

All of which means the new No. 4 ranking confers little upon California except very ephemeral bragging rights, which can disappear quickly if economic conditions change a lot, something Trump appears determined to make happen.

 

So Newsom and anyone backing him would be wise not to become too smug – for today’s super-high rating is not necessarily a promise of things to come.

 

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

WILL CONSUMERS PAY UTILITY’S BIG FIRE FINE?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WILL CONSUMERS PAY UTILITY’S BIG FIRE FINE?”

 

When California’s second-largest electric utility settled a U.S. Forest Service claim for starting a huge fire that covered 114,577 acres in 2020, officials of that power company could not or would not say whether they will try to get their customers to pay the freight.

 

At stake here is $82.5 million which Southern California Edison Co. agreed to pay the Forest Service, which is supposed to use the money to restore or replace more than 100 buildings, many trails and at least 178 vehicles, among other items destroyed in the Bobcat Fire that started Sept. 6, 2020 in the Angeles National Forest northeast of Los Angeles.

 

But the answer to the question of whether consumers will be dunned is already known, even if Edison officials had no immediate response: Of course, the customers will pay. The problem is that the payment, probably averaging more than $5 for each of Edison’s 15 million customers, will never officially be called a reimbursement for the settlement, even though that’s what it will be.

 

This is common practice with the California Public Utilities Commission, which has a long record of restoring fines it charges big utilities like Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric for their many misdeeds via their next routine rate increase request.

 

Edison, like its fellow privately owned utilities, almost always has a rate increase case going before the CPUC. One is happening right now.

 

This rate case sees Edison asking a 23 percent increase in its rates over the years 2026 to 2028, with a decision in that case possible as early as this summer. If it got the full requested increase, customers’ monthly bills would rise by about $17.49 in the first year, adding to California’s status as having the second-highest electricity bills in the USA, trailing only isolated Hawaii.

 

Edison says it needs the extra money for wildfire mitigation, which was found deficient when its equipment helped start the Bobcat fire. Edison equipment also is suspected to have caused the far more destructive Eaton fire that destroyed much of Altadena last January, with executives not even denying those accusations.

 

The new Donald Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the Los Angeles area, former Republican state Assemblyman Bill Essayli of Corona, said the “record settlement against…Edison provides meaningful compensation to taxpayers for the extensive costs of fighting the Bobcat fire and for the widespread damage to public lands.”

 

It may, but the effect on Edison, which continued handing out executive bonuses over the last several years while its equipment helped cause many fires, will be nil.

 

While Edison won’t get the full amount its rate case requests, history suggests it will get most. The more than $80 million in this settlement will be dwarfed by the rate increase and consumers will be lucky if Edison’s bosses so much as blink when they pay up on the settlement.

 

It's all part of the PUC’s decades-long “kabuki dance” with the companies it regulates, where the firms ask for significantly higher rate increases than they know they will get, realizing all along they will get more than they really need and knowing that all fines will essentially be repaid by consumers via the new and higher prices. (In Japanese kabuki dances, elaborate plots often play out, with everyone knowing all along how they will turn out, exactly what happens in rate cases before the CPUC.)

 

So, no, don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for Edison or PG&E the next time you hear they are being fined many millions of dollars for their equipment failures and poor vegetation clearance, even as customers pay them huge sums to maintain and improve that very equipment and vegetation control.

 

Instead, understand this is what happened when utility customers were assessed $13 billion to create the state Wildfire Fund, used to pay for damages caused by utility equipment in fires since the fund was created in 2019 after PG&E suffered a fire-related bankruptcy.

 

Customers will keep paying so long as California governors appoint PUC members willing to let the big utilities off the hook for their misdeeds or negligence. Sadly, there is no end in sight for this.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

IS NEWSOM’S PUTATIVE CAMPAIGN IN A BUMBLING PHASE?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“IS NEWSOM’S PUTATIVE CAMPAIGN IN A BUMBLING PHASE?”

 

As California Gov. Gavin Newsom pursues the early phases of what looks like a 2028 presidential campaign, he’s running afoul of two realities about his present office:

 

One is that no California governor can hide for long from any issue affecting the state. It’s too big for that and governors – unlike U.S. senators – don’t get to pick and choose which issues they want to deal with. Everything eventually lands on the governor’s plate, from welfare to water, from budgets to the survival of bees.

 

The other unchanging reality is that Eastern pundits love analyzing the performance of California governors, since the sheer size of this state automatically propels whoever is governor into the status of a presidential possibility. So even though Newsom is mostly staying home, he gets as much national attention as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who are campaigning widely.

 

Newsom can’t escape these realities of his office any more than Jerry Brown or Pete Wilson could. No matter what he does in the waning months of his second term in American’s most prominent state job, it will be analyzed in terms of his presidential chances.

 

That put Newsom’s every move during the January Los Angeles County firestorms under the microscope. So too his podcast and his budget manipulations.

 

Right now, all this does not look great for him. For one thing, the 2024 Joe Biden surrogate who loved to roast candidate Donald Trump has toned down his criticism in the face of threats to the funding of everything in this state from the Coastal Commission to the University of California. Why the Coastal Commission? Trump’s golf course on Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula has had disputes with the Coastal Commission, from beach access to placement of a 70-foot flagpole that exceeded height limits.

 

Few California features are valued more by state residents than public access to beaches fronting on private property. While Newsom likes to say he stands up for California values, he’s had little to say about that one as Trump’s administration threatens to hold up wildfire recovery funds so long as the Coastal Commission exists.

 

Another so-called “California value” is giving Medi-Cal health coverage to undocumented immigrants. Newsom bragged for the last couple of years that California was the first state to provide government health care to all low-income people, regardless of immigration status. But the start of this year’s budget process revealed the program (the state’s version of Medicaid) was $6.2 billion (now $12 billion) in the red because of high drug costs and unexpectedly high Medi-Cal enrollments, among other factors.

 

So Newsom was forced to cut back one of his pride-and-joy programs considerably and national news outlets covered the process closely. At the same time, the governor had to admit he was spending more than $8 billion tax dollars a year to assist illegal immigrants. Other states like New York, Illinois and Oregon also provide some Medicaid coverage for the undocumented, but it’s generally reserved for the pregnant or the very young.

 

Then there’s Newsom’s podcast, where he has featured Trump loyalists like Joe Rogan and Steve Bannon. That’s also where he chose to reveal he opposes allowing transgender girls and women to compete in major sports. 

 

Some called this new stance a major move to the political center for Newsom, whose softer line toward Trump and his demands about some California institutions like the Coastal Commission – created via ballot initiative by a large majority of state voters – also was a move to the middle.

 

Here’s an open question: As Democrats’ anger simmers over some of Trump’s power-grabbing moves, how useful is a move toward the political center in a 2028 presidential campaign?

 

Candidates seeking that year’s nomination will surely need to create major contrasts with Trump and his potential successors like Vice President JD Vance rather than somehow blending in with them. So why make nice to the likes of Bannon, Rogan and conservative activist Charlie Kirk if Newsom wants to lead the opposition to them?

 

For sure, Newsom’s is a unique strategy, unless he’s merely bumbling along with hopes of becoming the de facto leader of the Trump opposition and the Democrats’ 2028 candidate.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

NO LONGER JUST TRUMP WARRING ON CALIFORNIA

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“NO LONGER JUST TRUMP WARRING ON CALIFORNIA”

 

No one can doubt anymore that President Trump has carried out a “war” on California in both his presidential terms, harming this state’s reputation, capabilities and privileges in ways no other president ever even tried.

 

Trump is not the only president who failed to win California’s 50-plus electoral votes, he’s merely the one who resented it most. So he’s held up promised disaster aid that was never previously doled out in a partisan manner, holding it hostage to longtime Republican policy priorities like requiring government IDs before voters can cast ballots. His national policies targeting immigrants also have more impact here than elsewhere because California is home to a far larger share of immigrants than its share of national population.

 

Now Trump’s campaign to reduce California’s stature by taking away some of its powers and influence has spread to Congress, narrowly controlled by his Republican Party. It’s a campaign occasionally joined by Democrats from Eastern and Midwestern states. When that happens, it can look like a continuation of the “anywhere but California” sentiment that has sometimes influenced Congress to make epically stupid decisions. One classic was placement for years of the National Earthquake Research Center in Buffalo, NY back in the 1970s. That supposed research center took a complete back seat to other seismic researchers at places like Caltech and Stanford, where earthquakes actually occur from time to time. Unlike Buffalo, where no quake topping a meager 3.8 on the Richter Scale has been felt in more than 40 years, a full share of 4s and 5s routinely occurs around California.

 

But few things rankle Republicans in red states like California’s Clean Air Act waiver, which has given it authority since 1970 to make its own smog laws and regulations. This has resulted in advances from the catalytic converter to hybrid gas/electric cars like the Toyota Prius, many Honda Civics and a wide variety of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids that run about 30 to 40 miles on electric power before reverting to hybrid status.

 

No doubt, California’s rules have made cars cost more. That’s been generally accepted here under the notion that clean air costs something in a state whose biggest urban centers sit in coastal basins where prevailing winds often blow smog inland to areas where it can essentially pile up and thicken against mountains or substantial hills.

 

So far, no California governor has been ousted over the cost of living in more than 50 years of imposing anti-smog rules that make vehicles and some other goods more expensive. Polls show most Californians accept it’s the price of less emphysema, asthma and other smog-related diseases. The state’s powerful, appointive Air Resources Board now regulates not only vehicles, but industrial emissions and many commercial products, banning – for one example – most leaf blowers. Other state agencies here use similar priorities to promote things like solar and wind energy.

 

Meanwhile, other states including large automotive markets like Pennsylvania and New York accept a lot of California’s reasoning. Fully 17 states and the District of Columbia automatically adopt California smog rules some years after they take effect here.

 

Because carmakers want to construct and sell products for use everywhere, they often build to California standards, making vehicles more expensive everywhere and not just here, where clean cars are more often equated with healthy air.

 

This offends many red state politicians, since the automatic adopters mostly include Democratic-leaning states.

 

They appear most rankled by California’s plan to ban sales of new gasoline-only cars and trucks after 2035. “Every state would lose options – whether you live in California or not,” griped Wyoming’s Republican Sen. John Barrasso, whose state is a major oil pumper.

 

So the latest tactic in the war on California has been an attempt to repeal California’s unique smog-fighting authority. Trump tried this in his first term, but was held up by lawsuits. It’s doubtful that will work this time. Chances are, the state’s powers will at least be dented.

 

But it's doubtful Trump and other Republicans will be satisfied with just this, if they manage it. Which means the war on California will likely persist as long as Republicans control either Congress or the White House.

 

 

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 Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

PROMISES, PROMISES: FEDS FAILING VICTIMS OF WINTER FIRESTORMS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“PROMISES, PROMISES: FEDS FAILING VICTIMS OF WINTER FIRESTORMS”

 

So far, the federal government is in large part failing the victims of the firestorms that swept through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas of Los Angeles County last January.

 

Things are not the way President Trump said things would be. “We’re going to have you go very quickly,” he promised the fire victims at a press conference staged with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass while the ashes of the Palisades fire still smoked nearby.

 

That’s in part because Trump and other Republicans have linked any substantial aid package to political preconditions, an unprecedented attempt to leverage a major disaster against ideological opponents. Among those goals, thus far resisted by state officials, are changes in water management policies to disregard most endangered species and adopting voter ID laws, a longtime Republican goal.

 

So much for the American tradition of non-partisan disaster relief.

 

There’s also Trump’s concerted attempt to downsize and virtually eliminate FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has taken charge of disaster aftermath measures in virtually all wildfire or hurricane disasters of the last several decades.

 

Trump wants to farm out FEMA’s work to the states and provide far less disaster relief funding than in previous episodes.

 

That’s not the spoken reason FEMA refuses to perform analyses of toxic substances in the topsoil remaining on burned-out lots in both the Palisades and Eaton fire footprints, saying only that the scraping of top layers of each lot by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gives sufficient protection from toxics. Recent soil testing by Los Angeles County officials found elevated lead and arsenic levels at destroyed homes already cleared by Army crews in Altadena, but FEMA officials maintain removing wildfire debris and up to six inches of topsoil is good enough to eliminate immediate public health risks.

 

But what about burned-out homeowners, virtually none of whom is getting toxics-testing funding as part of their homeowner insurance settlements? They have little or no money for testing, one reason only about 200 rebuilding permits had been taken out in the Palisades fire area as of late May.

 

The most common suggestion among researchers and fire victims is for the state to step in where FEMA refuses. But Newsom faces a $12 billion state budget deficit. Every dollar spent on toxics testing for homeowners could be a dollar taken from everything from public schools to state parks to sewer and highway maintenance. So state aid is not likely, especially since the Palisades fire area was previously among the state’s wealthiest enclaves, with an abundance of $3 million-plus home valuations.

 

And yet, who’s going to pull a building permit and stand by while framing of their future home rises from the ashes if they have reason to believe those ashes might somehow poison them?

 

Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University professor and researcher on post-wildfire contamination, told a reporter that comprehensive soil testing is critical for the affected areas’ future health and safety.

 

Newsom at one point asked FEMA to perform detailed tests, but said his request was nixed less than a day after it was posed.

 

It’s been similar for him on Capitol Hill forays to seek $40 billion in general disaster relief for the winter fires. So far, not a penny has cleared the Republican-led Congress.

 

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, did step up in unincorporated Altadena, providing $3 million for soil testing for homeowners downwind of the Eaton fire. But Whelton said that effort – with homeowners submitting one sample to a commercial lab and then having to interpret data on their own – will not provide reliable risk analysis even for people wanting to return to homes that did not burn.

 

Even that effort has not been matched by the city of Los Angeles, of which Pacific Palisades is part. The city now is battling a billion-dollar-plus budget deficit of its own.

 

It adds up to colossal disappointment for all but the wealthiest, who can fund their own testing and analysis, and suggests recovery from the winter fires might not only be far slower than Trump promised, but also slower than after previous major California wildfires, with even worse performances likely after fires yet to come.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

 

THE KEY QUESTION FOR KAMALA HARRIS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THE KEY QUESTION FOR KAMALA HARRIS”

 

The polls show Kamala Harris holds the approval of about 50 percent of California voters as she heads into a self-assigned summer of decision making about her political future.

 

Does the former vice president who lost last year’s election by just 1.6 percent of the popular vote want to give up on the possibility of succeeding Donald Trump as president? Is she ready to deal with all the detailed and complex issues that constantly confront any California governor? Can she raise the $100 million or so minimum needed to be a credible candidate for governor?

 

These are just some of the items on Harris’ mind as she disapprovingly watches Trump run the government in a confrontational manner completely foreign to her.

 

But she knows that if she does not run for president in 2028, she will forfeit any advantage she would possess as a barely beaten candidate last time out, one whose defeat now has many 2024 Trump voters feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse.

 

She also knows that if she goes for governor, she will have to promise to serve out a full term in that office should she win. Reneging on that pledge would likely doom her in any presidential primary election, tagging her as a non-promise keeper. But keeping such a pledge also takes her out of the 2028 presidential running.

 

It's a rare quandary no previous California Democrat has faced. The huge question for Harris: Does she care enough about the details of California issues from electric vehicle mandates to Medi-Cal for the undocumented to give up on her national ambitions, at least for most of her 60s? (Harris will be 63 on Election Day 2026.)

 

For sure, Harris bears the image of a surfacy politician. Rivals also blame her for failing to disclose just how disabled ex-President Joe Biden became. Few can name salient achievements of either her six years as state attorney general or her four years as Biden’s No. 2.

 

Some of those are substantial: During the fiscal crisis of 2009-2012, when many thousands of mortgages were threatened with foreclosure, she leveraged California’s sheer size to jump the state’s share of a 2012 national mortgage settlement up from an initial top offer of $4 billion to $18 billion, helping an unknown but large number of Californians evade foreclosure.

 

Between 2013 and 2015, her office recouped more than $1 billion for the state’s major public employee retirement funds after banks and rating agencies lied to greatly overvalue mortgage-backed securities.

 

She also secured a 2012 agreement with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and HP to require all apps they sell to display clear new privacy policies – and then she created a state privacy enforcement unit to seal that deal.

 

Her record was less noteworthy as vice president, partly because Biden assigned her impossible tasks, like fixing conditions in Latin America that encourage illegal immigration. That assignment did not come with the power to make any improvements.

 

So the Harris image as a lightweight, promoted in part by her cackling responses in some interviews, can be misleading and other candidates for governor would be wise not to underestimate her.

 

But there remains that key question: How interested is Harris in pursuing the state’s problems all the way to solutions, from the fate of the partially-built bullet train to the pesky and expensive issue of caring for indigent immigrants?

 

No one really knows, perhaps not even Harris. That’s what makes this question so vital in a campaign where other candidates like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Atty. Gen. and federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra are known for their strong interest in taking on major issues. Candidates like former state Senate President Toni Atkins and former state Controller Betty Yee are similarly known for strong focus.

 

If Harris runs and debates them all, plus Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, they will surely be trying to paint her as the lightweight of her reputation and not the accomplished politician of her reality.

 

Which makes running a big risk for Harris, who could lose out as a major national player if she enters this race, regardless of whether she wins or loses.

 

  

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net