Example 1,876,342 of why there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats:
So, as usual, what has Republican leaders grumbling is not the principle that free people ought to be at liberty to conduct routine business without federal mandates. What irks them is that Obama bureaucrats are marginally more domineering than, say, Bush-era light bulb bureaucrats. (By the way, Daniel Horowitz of RedState reminds us that Rep. Upton’s light bulb ban “made its way into the 2007 energy bill [signed by President Bush], which turned out to be the Obamacare of the energy industry.”) Upton and Rodgers object to what they call FDA’s inflexible “‘my way or the highway’ approach” to the imposition of government standards. That the imposition itself, quite apart from its obnoxious manner, is offensive never dawns on them. And speaking of offensive, how’d you like this Upton-Rodgers line: “In fact, Congress has previously partnered with the restaurant industry to improve consumers’ access to information.” Michael Bloomberg and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz wouldn’t have written it any differently.
As he notes, this is why Obama managed to win again with four million fewer votes than the last time.
John and Ken were touting him on their show yesterday. Mayoral primaries are notoriously low turnout, and Garcetti and Greuel will be splitting the continuing-corruption vote, so that’s the only chance he has. And of course, he’d still have to win the runoff against the union-thug- and LA Times-endorsed winner in May.
Classification Societies originated in the 18th and 19th centuries at the initiative of English ship insurers. Their purpose is to serve the public interest and the needs of their clients by promoting the security of life, property and the natural environment.1 They are impartial organizations consisting of technical experts that have established a system of public safety based on private law contracts. They are often described as the unofficial “policemen” in the marine world. Classification Societies enter into contracts primarily with ship owners and shipyards, which enable them to determine and control whether a ship conforms to their rules. Although Classification Societies do have economic interests, these interests are not the primary reason for their existence. Because of this, they often take the form of non-profit corporations.2
Classification Societies set the standards for the design, construction, and maintenance of maritime vessels. They accomplish this through rules and standards formulated through a committee process. In developing these rules, a Classification Society’s staff relies upon prudent marine engineering principles, theoretical research, and experience.
This is something that the Commercial Spaceflight Federation should be considering.
Unfortunately, California environmentalists are trying to turn much of the Central Valley’s farmland back into desert too. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, federal courts have ordered farmers to divert hundreds of billions of gallons of water away from crops and into the Sacramento River, where it is supposed to help revive the delta smelt.
The diverted water has not helped the smelt much, but it has turned hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland fallow and sent unemployment in some farming communities as high as 40 percent.
California could solve this problem by building more dams, thus adding water capacity. But the state hasn’t built a major new dam since 1979 and none is on the drawing board.
One reason is the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970. Modeled after the federal National Environmental Policy Act, CEQA was intended to make infrastructure planning easier. As the accompanying chart shows, it is anything but an easy law to follow. Unlike most state environmental planning laws, CEQA allows plaintiffs to recover attorney’s fees from defendant infrastructure developers (whether they be state, city or private actors).
This has created an entire environmental lawsuit industry — a very profitable one that chills development. According to the California Chamber of Commerce, CEQA has become “a morass of uncertainty for project proponents and agencies alike.”
Local government smart-growth plans have made it next to impossible for developers to build single-family homes near job centers such as the Bay Area or Los Angeles. As a result, real estate prices along California’s coast are among the highest in the nation, forcing many middle-class families to downsize or move elsewhere.
But the moron voters keep reelecting these people.