WHY DON’T STATE’S CONGRESS MEMBERS DO THIS MORE OFTEN?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018 OR THEREAFTER

  BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
            “WHY DON’T STATE’S CONGRESS MEMBERS DO THIS MORE OFTEN?”

            It’s remarkable what California’s 53 members of the U.S. House of Representatives can do when they decide to work together.

This corps of politicians together makes up almost one-eighth of the lower house of Congress, holding many influential committee and subcommittee chairmanships regardless of which party is in power.

But California’s potentially immense clout as America’s most populous state is only rarely brought to bear in the nation’s capital because of ideological differences. The state’s impotence could best be seen this year on the House Intelligence Committee, where Republican Chairman Devin Nunes of Hanford released a report attempting to whitewash President Trump in the Russia election tampering scandal over the strong opposition of the ranking Democrat on the panel, Adam Schiff, who represents Pasadena, Burbank and almost everything in between.

Conversely, Trump also gave Californians in Congress an opportunity this spring to demonstrate what they can accomplish on the rare occasions that they opt to work together for the good of the entire state.

 When Trump tried to remove $10 million from the federal budget that was earmarked to continue work on and perhaps complete a West Coast earthquake early warning system, California Democrats and Republicans alike reversed his action and then some.

Instead of $10 million for the system, the budget bill Trump eventually signed actually contained $22.9 million. Of that, $10 million is goes to the physical buildout of the remaining 800 or so seismic watch stations (more than 800 had already been set up, but Trump was willing to waste all that prior work). The other $12.9 million is for continued development of the early warning system’s technical aspects, which will likely be refined and improved continually for decades to come.

            The prime mover in this total turnaround of Trump’s choice was Republican Ken Calvert of Corona, usually a quiet back-bencher, but the holder of one of those influential chairmanships. Calvert heads an appropriations subcommittee overseeing the United States Geological Survey, builder of the system and essentially the country’s earthquake arbiter.

            “I will continue to be a champion for this life-saving technology that can have a significant impact when big earthquakes hit,” he said in a statement. “Let’s take the steps we can to save Americans from preventable injuries during natural disasters.”

            His comment was echoed by Schiff, an early advocate of the warning system, known as ShakeAlert. Schiff’s district sits just south of the San Andreas Fault where it runs east-west near the San Gabriel Mountains. Schiff thanked Calvert for his leadership, adding that “This system…will save lives across California, Oregon and Washington.”

            With Californians nearly unanimous in supporting it, the vote for even more funding than Trump had tried to eliminate was quiet and overwhelming.

            Maybe some of the nearly $13 million in development money can now be deployed to convince jaded Californians who have seen plenty of unfulfilled disaster warnings and evacuations notice to pay attention to warnings that may come 30 seconds to a minute before big shocks occur.

            That skeptical quality was seen in Santa Barbara County’s mudslide-plagued Montecito, where many residents in slide-prone areas deliberately ignored mandatory evacuation warnings during the spring season’s last large rainstorms. There had been too many false alarms following the winter’s previous serious barrage of earth movement.

            The USGS took note and is now trying to decide whether and how early to issue warnings using information from the new system. Too early and a quake might turn out to be very small, rendering warnings unneeded; too late and lives could be lost.

            The difficult part is that when earthquakes begin, it’s impossible to know how great their impact will be.

            So part of ShakeAlert’s mission will be to convince Californians to heed quake warnings, even after some of them have fizzled.

            But that’s secondary to the ultimate good that this system will do as it saves lives by getting people off bridges and away from buildings where they could be hit by falling debris.

            It’s all very important, but the real meaning of the vote to reverse Trump was to demonstrate for the first time in years what Californians in Congress can do when they work together. Too bad they don’t do it more often.

           
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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.

DO DEMOCRATS REALLY WANT TO FIX PROP. 13 PROBLEMS?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “DO DEMOCRATS REALLY WANT TO FIX PROP. 13 PROBLEMS?”

          If it’s ever to be fixed, only a ballot proposition can repair the largest and most obvious inequity caused by Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 tax-cutting initiative that causes next-door neighbors in identical homes to pay vastly different sums for property taxes.

          But the other big problem area of the tax-cutting measure originally sponsored by the late political gadflies Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann could be solved by a simple vote of the Legislature. That inequity is a loophole allowing some commercial and industrial properties to escape the tax increases that normally come when a building or lot changes hands. Sadly, this loophole will remain in place at least another year, after legislative Democrats in late spring killed a Republican bill to close it.

          The essence of the loophole: As with homes and other residential properties, business property is taxed at 1 percent of the latest sales price. But an exception was written into the Prop. 13 rules by legislators a year after Jarvis-Gann passed handily. This one allows the tax bill to remain static after sale unless at least one new owner has more than a one-half interest in the property.

          Perhaps the most egregious case of this loophole costing taxpayers money came when former basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson and a group of big-money partners bought the Los Angeles Dodgers from parking lot magnate Frank McCourt and his now ex-wife Jamie.

          As part of the $2 billion deal, McCourt retained a half-interest in the sprawling parking lots surrounding Dodger Stadium, even though the new owners control parking prices and get all the revenue. That essentially made Johnson & Co. the real owners, but kept the tax bill on the lots (with a book value of $300 million at the time of sale) from more than quadrupling. This has let the new owners save about $2 million yearly starting in 2012.

          Theoretically, the same sort of arrangement could have been worked out for the far more valuable Dodger Stadium itself, but that would have led to reams of negative publicity the Dodgers didn’t want.

          Other well-publicized examples of the loophole saving big bucks for wealthy new owners came when a Central Valley vineyard changed hands and when a landmark Santa Monica hotel was sold to a new group, later becoming part of the ultra-luxurious Fairmont group.

          Almost yearly during this decade, some state legislators have tried to get rid of this egregious injustice. Back when former Democratic state Sen. Martha Escutia of East Los Angeles first proposed closing the loophole, the state’s non-partisan legislative analyst estimated a change could produce between $3 billion and $8 billion in additional property tax revenue.

          The latest effort, carried by state Senate Minority Leader Patricia Bates, a Republican from Laguna Niguel, failed on a 3-2 vote of the Senate’s Governance and Finance Committee, with two ostensibly liberal Los Angeles County Democrats – Ed Hernandez and Robert Herzberg – abstaining. Both votes for the Prop. 13 reform came from Orange County Republicans, John Moorlach and Janet Nguyen, while Democrats Jim Beall of San Jose, Richard Lara of East Los Angeles and Mike McGuire of Ukiah all voted no.

          The vote was odd because it’s usually Democrats striving to bring more fairness to Prop. 13, while Republicans fight to keep it static.

          But over time, the conservative GOP establishment has come to see closing the 50-per-cent-ownership loophole as simple fairness. Some Republicans saw the Democratic no votes as a political ploy aimed at keeping things unfair in order to make passage of a “split roll” initiative in 2020 easier.

          That proposal would see business properties taxed at a higher rate than homes, even if no sale is involved.

          Said Jon Coupal, head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which usually fights to maintain Prop. 13’s rules, “Killing this bill shows that progressive tax and spend interests don’t want to fix how Prop. 13 is interpreted, but they’d rather…advocate for a larger split roll tax increase. They would rather play politics.”

          The bottom line is that the vote likely means this problem won’t be fixed for at least two more years, as there will be no reason for a change in Democratic tactics next year. Which means this obvious inequity will remain a part of California life and local governments will keep losing out on significant funds they could use for schools and many other causes.

         

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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.

LEGISLATURE MUST FIX LIST OF ‘NON-VIOLENT’ CRIMES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2018, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “LEGISLATURE MUST FIX LIST OF ‘NON-VIOLENT’ CRIMES”

          There isn’t a woman alive who was ever raped while either intoxicated or unconscious who doesn’t consider the entire experience violent.

          But that’s not how these crimes are defined legally in California. The same for human trafficking of a child, abducting a minor for prostitution, drive-by shootings at inhabited homes or cars, felony domestic violence, solicitation to commit murder, among others.

          The failure to designate these heinous offenses as violent is an aberration that can be fixed by the state Legislature, one that should have been accomplished last year, after passage of the 2016 Proposition 57 began allowing early paroles of non-violent criminals in exchange for certain achievements and good behavior in custody.

          No sociologist or psychologist has ever claimed that earning a college degree (one achievement that can help create eligibility for early prison releases) reduces the likelihood a parolee will repeat his or her prior crime.

          Official state statistics now do not link Proposition 57’s early paroles with crime increases. But the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys early this year claimed violent crime in some cities was up by 50 percent since 2013, about the time Gov. Jerry Brown’s prison realignment program took hold. Under that plan, designed to comply with federal court orders to ease crowded conditions inside state prisons, many inmates have been shifted to county jails, while lesser offenders sometimes serve little or no jail time.

          Combining that with the early releases of Proposition 57 is a sure-fire ticket to increased crime, says the prosecutors’ group.

          One way to decrease the exodus of felons from prison would be to change some definitions, something a few lawmakers tried to accomplish last year.

          But a series of bills aiming to expand the list of crimes defined as violent died in legislative financial committees. Too expensive, was the verdict. That was the reason given when the Assembly Appropriations Committee just about one year ago killed a bipartisan measure aiming to classify all rapes and all human trafficking as violent.

          Keeping in custody the approximately 120 prisoners who could then have been affected by that proposed change would have cost $1 million a year. If just one of the men involved were prevented from repeating such a crime, those dollars would likely have been among the best-spent in the state budget.

          No one has tracked how defeat of the measure actually affected crime in the streets. But Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims told one reporter the new parole laws combine with realignment to erode public faith in the justice system.

          She cited reports of arrestees saying immediately after their capture that Proposition 57 and the 2014 Proposition 47 (which lowered many felonies to the misdemeanor level) would cut their prison time by half or more. Soon after, Whittier Police Chief Jeff Piper blamed lenient new laws for the early 2017 slaying of Police Officer Keith Boyer, shot by a recently paroled felon involved in a car accident. “We need to wake up,” said Piper, whose claim was never proved. “Enough is enough. This is a senseless, senseless tragedy that did not need to be.”

          Meanwhile, in the final proposed state budget of his long career, Brown wants to spend $50 million more in the next year (on top of more than $100 million spent last year) on programs to help former inmates stay out of jail. Currently, 46 percent of state inmates released in the latest year for which data is available were convicted of new crimes less than three years after release.

          Official numbers are not yet in on the effects of Proposition 57 on violent crime, but there is no doubt property crimes in big cities rose sharply in the two years after Proposition 47 passed.

          Efforts are underway again in the Legislature to change at least some crime designations to violent. This time, they must succeed, or it’s a good bet that lives will be lost as public safety is diminished.

         
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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

THIS BILL IS AN ABSOLUTE NO-BRAINER

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2018, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

          “THIS BILL IS AN ABSOLUTE NO-BRAINER”

          Only occasionally does a proposed California law approach the status of being an absolute no-brainer.

          There’s just one such measure before the Legislature right now, a bill that could possibly restore a modicum of public trust in California government, even if it doesn’t go anywhere near as far as it should.

      With the Capitol under the firm control of a single party, suspicions of corruption and favoritism are common in California today. It’s for sure that Democratic Party domination pretty much assures that anyone Gov. Jerry Brown or his successor appoints to major state jobs will be confirmed with few questions.

          Take the example of Mark Ferron, now in his second three-year term on the state Independent System Operator (ISO) board of governors. This board essentially decides where California utilities buy electricity and then supervises its distribution.

          Ferron, a former Deutsche Bank investment official and later a partner at the Silicon Valley Venture (capital) Fund, contributed the maximum $25,900 to Brown’s 2010 election kitty and got a seat on the powerful rate-setting state Public Utilities Commission soon after.

An illness forced him to leave the PUC, but on his recovery Brown quickly put him on the ISO. Two open questions: Would he have gotten either job without his contribution? Would Brown even know who he is without that money?

          While on the PUC, Ferron voted consistently for whatever big utility companies wanted, so long as they complied with state laws demanding an ever-greater emphasis on renewable energy, regardless of cost. Never mind consumer concerns over prices. He’s had no significant differences with utilities while on the ISO, either, and his current term runs out Dec. 31, giving Brown just enough time to appoint him to a third term if he likes.

          Because Ferron, with degrees in mathematics and economics, had no prior background in utility regulation, it was hard to see how he qualified for the jobs Brown tossed his way – but then $25,900 has usually been enough to buy California political donors something, whether it’s a job or mere access to high officials. Money talks.

          Now comes Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray of Merced with a proposal that would ban contributions to state senators by political appointees for up to a year between the time they are nominated to a job by the governor and when the vote on their confirmation comes up in the Senate.

          This wouldn’t keep someone like the seemingly unqualified Ferron off a powerful board like the PUC or ISO, but it’s a start. Even though it leaves open the appearance of appointees buying their nominations, at least it would remove the appearance of appointees buying confirmation.

          Ferron, of course, is far from the only political donor with a political patronage job. Another is Mary Nichols, the longtime chair of the state’s Air Resources Board, which sets smog policy for cars and other pollution sources and is currently battling federal efforts to squash some California anti-smog regulations.

          Not only did she kick in $5,000 to Brown’s campaign before he reappointed her to the job she held both in his earlier administration and under ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but she also gave $1,000 to a senator’s reelection campaign before her confirmation vote came up. Was there any doubt which way that senator would vote?

          These practices are common not just at the state level, but also in the federal government. So it’s no wonder many believe government is really about keeping the rich that way.

          These kinds of financially greased appointments and confirmations have gone on at other powerful commissions, too, ranging from the state’s Transportation Commission (which hands out highway repair and construction funds) and its Energy Commission to boards regulating everything from chiropractors to solid waste disposal.

          Appointees may or may not be qualified, but there’s a public perception regardless that corruption is deeply embedded in both the state and national capitals.

          The only way to change this is to take at least some money out of the picture. Gray’s bill is a start and an obvious no-brainer. Once it is (hopefully) passed, the next action ought to limit how soon governors can name big donors to powerful jobs for which they may or may not be qualified.

    -30-
     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, go to www.californiafocus.net

NEWSOM SHOULD HAVE NO TROUBLE FINDING MORE VOTES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 6, 2018, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

  “NEWSOM SHOULD HAVE NO TROUBLE FINDING MORE VOTES”

          As the primary election vote count drags on, not to reach a final tally until July 6, one large question confronts Gavin Newsom, winner of a plurality of the vote in the preliminary round of this year’s run for governor:

          Where will he get another 17 percent of the vote, beyond the 34 percent he took in that first round?

          Even though Newsom and his campaign staff glossed over this question all spring, now it has become an urgent matter they must confront. For Newsom drew about 30 percent support in the first polls in the race, taken way back in the spring of 2017, and that’s not far from where he ended up on Election Night.

          This means that despite spending many millions of dollars on advertising, despite his indefatigable campaigning in almost every corner of California, support for the lieutenant governor and former San Francisco mayor did not increase beyond its original base over the last 15 months.

          One striking aspect of the polling history in this election was that while more than 40 percent of voters surveyed were undecided in the earliest phases of the campaign, Newsom’s support did not swell greatly when those on-the-fence voters eventually decided how to mark their ballots.

          As the primary vote neared this spring, Newsom tended to downplay this unpleasant reality. “People who voted for other Democrats will eventually support me,” he said in a May interview.

          For him to get the majority support he needs to win his two-man race against Republican John Cox, Newsom must draw most voters who went for state Treasurer John Chiang, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Schools Supt. Delaine Eastin in the primary. But those voters may still be influenced by negative advertising used against Newsom during the spring, mostly in May. For sure, Cox will air even more negative ads on Newsom this fall.

          Running against Cox, an opponent of climate change mitigation best known previously for trying to expand the state Legislature to12,000 members, Newsom must attract Villaraigosa voters, Chiang voters, Eastin voters and a good proportion of the 25 percent of registered Californians who have no party preference. This may not be as hard as it would have been to attract the same voters if he were now opposed by Villaraigosa, the third-place primary finisher and a fellow Democrat.

          For on almost every issue other than single-payer, the positions of Villaraigosa, Chiang and Eastin were far closer to Newsom than Cox.

          This is precisely the scenario Newsom wished for as he ran myriad TV commercials attacking Cox for being a virtual clone of President Trump, who sealed his ballot slot when he endorsed Cox in mid-May. Essentially, Villaraigosa, Chiang and Eastin voters – 24 percent of the primary total – have nowhere to go but into Newsom’s camp.

Meanwhile, Cox’s primary vote total closely approximated the GOP’s voter registration percentage, meaning he got the vast majority of Republican votes and some from independents, too. He’ll keep that support in November, but will have difficulty winning over many who voted Democratic this spring.

         

          While there’s a chance some Chiang voters might end up in the Cox column, it’s doubtful the primary leader will lose very many more Democrats or liberal-leaning independents.

         

          Meanwhile, Republican voters who supported Cox’s tough anti-sanctuary immigration position will likely turn out strongly for him and could influence other contests on the ballot, including hotly contested congressional races and ballot proposition fights.

          Had Villaraigosa survived the primary, things would have looked very different. He might have splintered the Democrats’ fall vote in ways that Cox cannot.

          So the main hope for Cox and Republicans may be for many thousands of Democrats to become complacent and not bother voting, since the November outcome looks like a sure thing.

There’s a test here for Newsom: Can he inspire Democrats to vote not only for him, but also for the causes and fellow candidates he holds dear? We’ll know the answer Nov. 6.

         

 
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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

NEVER MIND CALEXIT; OTHER STATES MAY WANT TO GET RID OF CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 3, 2018 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “NEVER MIND CALEXIT; OTHER STATES MAY WANT TO GET RID OF CALIFORNIA”

       Petition carriers – mostly volunteers -- have been on the streets and in the parking lots of California for a few weeks now, eager to qualify an initiative for the next available ballot asking this state’s voters to set a date for a formal referendum on whether to leave the Union.

        The last time anyone tried something like this, the central issue was slavery and the brutal Civil War ensued, still the most deadly of all America’s conflicts.

        But that might not happen this time, if California voters decide in a couple of years to divorce the rest of America.

       For there are signs much of the rest of America might cheerfully let California go, just to get rid of us.

       Perhaps the most significant of those indications takes the form of a lawsuit that essentially says California has gotten too big for its britches.

        This isn’t about California’s lifestyle choices or its “resistance” to President Trump’s administration and its edicts, even though he became President over the strong opposition of most California voters.

       Rather, it’s about a spate of measures passed in California that impact commerce in and among other states.

     The lawsuit bears the name of a group of egg and poultry growers in the Canadian province of Quebec, with fully one-fifth of America’s states either listed as co-plaintiffs or friends of the court supporting the anti-California action.

         “California is flouting the limits federal law puts on California’s regulatory reach…California lacks power to regulate agriculture or commerce beyond its borders, but…California is enacting law after law governing other states’ economies,” says the action, filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

          Essentially, the Quebecois and 11 states supporting them object to laws like the 2008 Proposition 2, which mandates that eggs and poultry sold in California must come from chickens that can turn freely in their cages.

       The other states also don’t like California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. “This standard makes businesses that sell fuels in California reduce the carbon intensity of their fuels by 10 percent…,” gripes a friend of the court brief submitted by the state of Missouri. Essentially, the bill severely cut use of out-of-state ethanol in gasoline, seriously impacting Iowa and other corn-producing states.

        Objecting states also worry that California may start a contagion affecting their businesses negatively. “Worse still,” their brief adds, “other states like Massachusetts and Colorado have begun to follow California’s lead and pass extraterritorial laws themselves.”

         In other words, we dastardly Californians are not only impeding interstate commerce, we’re setting a “bad” example.

       Nowhere is this more clear than in the Northeast Consortium of states, a region extending from Maine south to Maryland which automatically adopts California’s smog standards shortly after they take effect here. This has been a major hindrance for Trump and the ironically named Environmental Protection Administration he now controls as they try to eliminate environmental protections begun and inspired by California.

       Moan the objecting states, “California has become so emboldened by failure to enforce (federal laws against interstate trade barriers) that it has taken the unprecedented step of sending agricultural inspectors into other states to register and inspect.”

     The new lawsuit is not totally unprecedented: Other states have filed actions against specific California regulations before. But the new case is different.

       “This is an escalation,” says Marcus Ruiz Evans, president of the Yes California! organization now circulating the pro-secession initiative petitions. “This makes very bold statements about how California is a threat to America itself.”

       The lawsuit, then, seems to reinforce Evans’ earlier prediction that no civil war, no war of any type, would follow if California declared its independence.

       But a lawsuit against Californians who demanded (by a 63 percent majority in 2008) that their eggs be at least something approaching free range is very different from the rest of the country willingly releasing the state that provides more tax dollars and military personnel than any other.

      Much of the rest of America may resent California for its salubrious climate, its mix of lifestyles and its liberal politics, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will cheerily wave goodbye and good luck if California suddenly decides to secede.

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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

BROWN REVEALS NAIVETE IN ASSUMING PUC IS FAIR

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE:  FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2018, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

 “BROWN REVEALS NAIVETE IN ASSUMING PUC IS FAIR”

          Gov. Jerry Brown has made this year something like a farewell tour, traveling the world as the de facto leader of American environmentalism and basking in compliments from major state and national media over his bringing California back from financial collapse while growing the state’s economy into the world’s fifth largest.

          These are major achievements, not to be denied. But neither can anyone deny the fact he has tolerated, if not suborned, corruption and unfairness from his appointees to the state’s most powerful regulatory commissions.

          The outgoing governor’s naivete toward his favored officials has been staggering, and a recent veto message from him demonstrates the unsuspecting trust he continues to give them.

          Brown, for example, knew the unfairness of the grant-giving practices of the state Energy Commission as it doled out multi-million-dollar grants for building hydrogen refueling stations around the state while preparing for use of H2-powered cars whose exhaust is nothing but drops of water. No greenhouse gases at all.2HH

          Building the stations with gasoline tax money was a worthy project, but at one point that commission had to pull back $28 million in grants because this column exposed the sheer unfairness of its grant-giving process. Later, the commission refused to cancel a large grant to an outfit whose leader had trained the commission’s own staff in how to evaluate grant applications – and then just three months later submitted one that fit all the criteria he had trained staff to look for.

          Brown knew about these plainly unjustified actions, but did nothing and in fact reappointed the commission’s chairman, Robert Weisenmiller.

          His actions toward the even more powerful state Public Utilities Commission have been similar. When the commission’s former president, Michael Peevey, met secretly with utility executives to hash out a clandestine deal sticking consumers with most costs for the failure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Brown did not object and let Peevey serve out his term.

          Then he appointed his former aide Michael Picker, who voted for that corrupt San Onofre settlement as one of his first acts on the commission, to replace Peevey. As The Who once sang, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

          Now Brown has vetoed a relatively minor bill designed to keep homeowners using rooftop solar photovoltaic power from being overcharged. The bill, by Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno, demanded that electric providers like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric compute the state’s average residential power use and set a baseline quantity for residential electricity, excluding power generated by customers themselves.

          Brown’s veto message called the bill “premature.” He noted that the PUC already can exclude customers with “onsite generation” when it figures average consumption.

          Said Brown, “The commission will determine whether or not to exclude customers with onsite generation through the general rate case process…I believe the commission will act to ensure that energy costs to ratepayers are fair and equitable.”

          That’s about as naïve a statement as anyone could make about energy price regulation in this state, which has the highest electric rates in the Lower 48 states, and features utility companies continually pressing for even more profits.

          It’s a fairy tale to believe the PUC’s processes are fair and equitable. Rather, they have been stacked in favor of utilities for more than half a century, with some PUC members moving to big utility company jobs and some utility executives, like Peevey, moving onto the commission.

          The general rate case process cited so trustingly by Brown has also long been as good as fixed. Utilities invariably request larger-than-needed rate increases even when profits are historically high, all the while knowing the PUC will cut their proposals by about half and then brag about “saving” money for consumers.

          So there’s every reason to believe the PUC will conspire with utilities that hate the idea of rooftop solar to penalize those who install it. It’s simply naïve to think otherwise, as Brown plainly does.

          The bottom line: There’s no disputing the constructive aspects of Brown’s second eight years as governor. But there’s also no doubt about the unfair practices and actions he’s tolerated and/or approved.

         

           

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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, go to www.californiafocus.net