Democratic lawmakers and advocates for the poor harshly criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over the weekend after he vetoed nearly $1 billion from the state budget, much of it from programs intended to aid low-income families. Schwarzenegger sliced $962 million from the spending plan sent to him by the Legislature 100 days after the start of the fiscal year July 1.
Seven years after he first proposed it, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week finally achieved his goal of rolling back most state worker pensions to levels that existed before lawmakers, relying on the fruits of a booming 1990s stock market, boosted benefits with a bill they passed in 1999. The change has been one of Schwarzenegger’s goals since the day he took office.
California’s top air quality regulator and the head of a major construction industry trade group announced Thursday that they have reached agreement on a plan to reduce diesel emissions from construction equipment. The agreement, if approved by the full Air Resources Board in December, would end years of dispute between the board and the Associated General Contractors of America, which has fought California’s diesel emission regulations for construction equipment since they were adopted in 2007.
The controversy this week over several health insurance companies pulling out of the children’s market because of new provisions in the federal health bill shows how tricky it can be for legislators and regulators to try to find the sweet spot between market-driven conditions and total government control.
More than 9,000 Californians are dying prematurely every year because of the health effects of the kind of pollution emitted by diesel trucks and heavy equipment, according to a new study by the Air Resources Board, the state’s air quality regulator. The study is the first released by the state to claim that the microscopic particles emitted by engines burning diesel fuel actually cause early deaths, rather than simply being correlated with them.
Almost half of California hospital workers did not get a flu shot during the 2008-09 flu season, according to records obtained by Consumers Union from the state Department of Public Health.
Going through a home foreclosure and its aftermath can be hazardous to your health, a California advocacy group for low-income residents said Thursday. Causa Justa/Just Cause, an Oakland-based nonprofit, and the Alameda County Public Health Department surveyed nearly 400 Oakland residents last summer and found that people experiencing foreclosure reported higher incidence of physical and mental health problems than residents living in stable situations.
The California Air Resources Board acknowledged something Tuesday that critics have been saying for months: the state vastly over-estimated the amount of diesel pollution emitted by big off-road construction vehicles. The error, contained in an ARB computer model and compounded by a recession that idled far more trucks than expected, means that the construction industry would come close to meeting state-mandated targets for reducing pollution through 2025 even if regulations designed to force firms to retire or retrofit their dirtiest trucks are repealed.
After weeks of inaction, get ready for a flurry of activity Tuesday on the state budget. And then more inaction.
The Assembly on Monday approved legislation to toughen oversight of health insurance rate hikes but the Senate has rejected, at least for now, a measure to require state approval before companies can increase their premiums.