News

Matthew Renda, Courthouse News

(CN) — Senate Bill 2, which would allow California to decertify police officers who show persistent misconduct or incidents of excessive force, passed an Assembly committee Tuesday morning, clearing another hurdle in what appears to be an all-but-certain trip to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. 

Pedro Nava - Chair, Little Hoover Commission - TechWire.net

Imagine if every Californian could access the government services they need as quickly and easily as shopping online or booking a flight. It may sound too good to be true, but such efficiency is entirely possible. And high-speed broadband is the key to making it happen.

Hannah Hagemann, Monterey Herald

Environmentalists might have been one step closer to decreasing single-use plastics in the e-commerce industry, if a bill that would have required companies to cut down and recycle packaging passed through the state assembly last week.

But it didn’t, and Assembly member Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, wasn’t surprised.

Capitol Weekly, Bill Quirk (special commentary)

Joanna Sampson, H2View

“Let me be very clear: the reason we need hydrogen is because there is a climate crisis, a climate emergency. It’s something that just can’t wait, and the [US] government absolutely needs to take a role in this,” Dr. Bill Quirk stressed to H2 View over a Zoom call recently.

A bill incentivizing the construction of new biomass facilities has pitted environmental lawmakers against environmental groups.

Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee

For years, contractors and trash haulers in California have been accepting discarded fence posts, backyard deck planks and other chemically treated wood debris without giving it much thought.

Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle

California — birthplace of the Grateful Dead, Snoop Dogg and the Weedmaps app — is still uptight about marijuana, more than four years after voters legalized it for adult recreational use and 25 years after they OKd medicinal herb.

Ian Spiegelman, Los Angeles Magazine

Five years after Californians voted overwhelmingly to legalize recreational pot use for adults, the debate rages on—this time over whether the purveyors of legal weed may continue to advertise their wares on billboards along the state’s roadways.

Alexander Nieves, Politico

Recreational cannabis may be legal in California, but debate rages on over how visible the once-taboo plant should be in daily life — namely, along the state's roadways.

A fight is brewing in the state Legislature over cannabis-related billboards that have sprung up around the state, advertising tools the industry says are necessary to support the struggling legal market but that opponents argue expose children to a potentially harmful substance.