Free Republic

With voters headed to the polls Tuesday to decide the fate of California's climate change law, regulators are pressing ahead with a key part of the statute that puts limits on how much the state's companies can pollute. The California Air Resources Board today will unveil new rules and regulations for a cap-and-trade program. It will set a ceiling on the amount of carbon that refiners, power companies and major manufacturers can emit each year. While details of the regulations aren't yet available, ARB officials have already indicated that they plan to take a pro-business approach. They will initially give...

"I endorse Gov @charliecristfl for Senate. Great leader, works with both parties, and our country needs someone like him in DC right now."

There’s more to Schwarzenegger than Skolkovo – California’s out-going governor is already preparing for life after office with a drive to promote the environment. And in Moscow’s Higher School of Economics he outlined his ideas on energy efficiency to students, highlighting the green legacy of his regime in the US. California’s dreams come true Schwarzenegger said at the conference that California is becoming a world leader in energy efficiency and environmental programmes. “We have built hydrogen fueling stations along the roads. We promote renewable energy. We passed legislation AB32, whereby we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent...

Is there anybody out there with muscle-man Republican-populist appeal who is bigger, meaner, tougher than the indestructible Sarah Palin? Anyone who could take her on – and take her down in a run for the presidency? It seems a job for only one person – a creature of titanic strength, a man who, once he sets his sights on something, does not unlock like some kind of weird cyborg, maybe. And that one man could only be the Governator, the Terminator: Arnold himself. A new book due out next week reveals that Schwarzenegger hasn’t given up his hopes of parking...

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday announced the start of a new website intended to help Californians find jobs in green industries. The website, called Clean Energy Jobs, provides resources to promote jobs in areas such as recycling, clean transportation and renewable energy. The website lists 48 programs that provide training for green jobs, offered through organizations such as community colleges, local workforce investment boards and private industries. In a written statement, the governor said the website's purpose is to highlight "how the state's community colleges and workforce investment boards, labor unions, and employers are working to meet the demand...

A California court has refused to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a ruling that overturned the state’s gay marriage ban, according to an Associated Press report. The 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento on Wednesday denied a conservative legal group’s request to force the officials to defend Proposition 8 in court. The court did not give a reason why it turned down the request by the Pacific Justice Institute.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has privately proposed borrowing $2 billion from the state's giant pension fund to help bridge California's $19 billion budget deficit. The plan would take the money as an advance against future savings from pension cuts, according to sources close to the negotiations who would not be identified because of the sensitive nature of the talks. The Republican governor is demanding that lawmakers reduce pension benefits for newly hired state workers back to pre-1999 levels as part of any budget agreement he signs. The Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis that year authorized larger pension benefits under the assumption...

For the next minute, imagine yourself at a car dealership. You're strapped for cash but find a sleek new ride and ask the salesman for a deal. He quotes you a number that's four times what you have in the bank. And, he warns, even that price isn't fixed -- there's no guarantee you won't pay more in the end. What do you do? For California, the lure of its new ride -- a bullet train system capable of whisking passengers between the Bay Area and Los Angeles -- has proved so enticing that the state jumped at the deal,...

Reporting from Sacramento - California's high-speed rail commission, dominated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appointees, is set to award a $9-million contract today to a company led by the governor's top political advisor and his former campaign manager. The three commission staff members charged with recommending a public relations firm have advised the board to give the contract to Mercury Public Affairs at its meeting today. Schwarzenegger strategist Adam Mendelsohn is a partner at Mercury, as is Steve Schmidt, who managed the governor's 2006 reelection effort. Two members of the staff panel are former Mendelsohn colleagues. Ethics watchdogs raised questions about...

SACRAMENTO, California, August 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging Judge Vaughn Walker to discontinue the stay that the judge placed on the enforcement of his own ruling against Proposition 8, and to thereby let homosexuals marry.Judge Walker issued his explosive decision against traditional marriage last week; however, he decided to enjoin enforcement of his order and not to allow gay “marriages” to commence immediately in the state, pending the inevitable appeal of his ruling by defenders of true marriage. "The Administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the Court’s judgment to go into effect,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the state’s air-quality enforcers to postpone a rule to require 33 percent of the power used by utilities to come from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. Schwarzenegger asked the Air Resources Board to delay until September its adoption of the new regulation, which had been expected this month. The Republican governor said he made the request because of “ongoing discussions with legislative leaders to develop a bill that I can sign.” If those negotiations don’t prove fruitful, the ARB “will be ready and able to adopt the regulations at that time (in...

Arnold Schwarzenegger approval drops to record low -- tied with Gray Davis dsiders@sacbee.com Published Wednesday, Jul. 14, 2010 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's job approval rating has fallen to a record low, matching that of former Gov. Gray Davis from 2003, the year he was recalled, according to a Field Poll released today. Registered voters held an even dimmer view of the job state lawmakers are doing. Though the Legislature's job approval rating ticked up three points from March, it remained a dismal 16 percent, according to the poll. With the state mired in yet another budget crisis, just 22 percent of...

"Mom and Dad" as well as "husband and wife" have been banned from California schools under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who with his signature also ordered public schools to allow boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, if they choose. "We are shocked and appalled that the governor has blatantly attacked traditional family values in California," said Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Institute. "With this decision, Gov. Schwarzenegger has told parents that their values are irrelevant. Many parents will have no choice but to pull their children out of the public...

LOS ANGELES — If the mark of a real independent is lack of friends, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the quintessential nonpartisan in American politics right now. His approval rating has not risen above 30 percent since May 2009. California remains in deep fiscal distress. He is despised by the state’s workers (whose pay he cut), Democrats (who loathe his aversion to new taxes and his desire to cut entitlements) and Republicans (who wish those respective aversions and desires were stronger), as well as college students, public school parents and people who hate the smell of cigars. As Governor Schwarzenegger prepares...

In 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger barnstormed around the state for Proposition 58, using an oversized credit card as a prop and vowing that it was time for the state to "tear up its credit card." Now Attorney General Jerry Brown has concluded that Assembly Democrats' plan to borrow billions to help ease the state's $19.1 billion deficit could be deemed illegal under that ballot measure if challenged in court. "We conclude that a court could reasonably determine that the proposed transaction violates Proposition 58," the attorney general's office said in a letter to Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary. Assembly Speaker John...

The governor proposes that a train be set up by November, before he leaves office, to give commuters a taste of European-style fast rail travel. Skeptics say extensive upgrades must first be made.It could be years before sections of the planned California high-speed rail project can be completed. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't want to wait that long to give the state a taste of the European-style system. The governor has proposed to the federal government that a demonstration project be set up on the rail link between San Diego and Los Angeles, one of the busiest commuter corridors in...

In case anyone missed the tea leaves scattered around the country, California’s primary results offer more evidence of voters’ dislike for political parties. The Golden State on Tuesday passed Proposition 14, creating a so-called open primary in which any voter is allowed to cast their vote for any candidate in the primary, regardless of party affiliation. The top two vote-getters would face each other in the general election, even if they were from the same party. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a big backer of the change, arguing that it would push politics away from the polarized extremes and toward a...

Yesterday the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation bestowed four California state legislators – Senator Dave Cogdill, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assemblyman Mike Villines, and former Assembly Speaker Karen Bass – with the JFK Profile in Courage Award. It turns out it’s “courageous” for politicians, despite a recession and rising unemployment, to impose the largest state-level tax increase in history. At least, that is what the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation would have you believe, as the instrumental role played by the aforementioned four in passing last year’s tax-hike laden budget was the cause for their award. It also...

Leadership: Alaska's ex-governor asks a question we'd like answered: Why is California's current governor pushing the same policies in Copenhagen that helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? The movie series that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name involved cyborgs traveling through time to alternately try to destroy or save one John Connor, who would grow up to be the leader of the resistance against a race of machines that ruled the planet. Prominent in the series was his tough cookie of a mom, Sarah Connor. Another Sarah has taken the lead in another resistance against another group...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday defended $11.1 billion in new borrowing as a critical investment in the state's water future while at the same time insisting California must cut its way toward a balanced budget in the short term. In an interview with The Bee's editorial board, the Republican governor also took aim at the state's prison employees and advocated for a constitutional change allowing California to rely more on private workers. After reaching a deal last week with state lawmakers to bolster California's water infrastructure, Schwarzenegger is trying to build popular support for the plan, knowing voters will have...