Recent Streetsblog SF posts about State Senate

Senate Committee Grills CA High-Speed Rail Authority on Its Funding Plan

By Melanie Curry | Apr 1, 2014 | No Comments

Doubts about the High Speed Rail Authority’s ability to fund its estimated $68 billion program dominated last week’s Senate Transportation and Housing Committee hearing (see the background report in this PDF). Committee Chair Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) said he was “somewhat skeptical” about the Authority’s 2014 Draft Business Plan and questioned CAHSRA CEO Jeff Morales on […]

California Legislation Watch: Weekly Update

By Melanie Curry | Mar 28, 2014 | No Comments

California’s legislative season is heating up, and both the Assembly and the Senate are beginning to read and discuss the bills wending their way though the session. Here’s Streetsblog’s weekly highlight of events and legislation related to transportation at the capitol. Today’s column focuses on four pieces of legislation that moved through the hearing process […]

Leland Yee’s Downfall No Loss for Livable Streets

By Aaron Bialick | Mar 27, 2014 | 6 Comments

Now that State Senator Leland Yee has been arrested on charges of accepting bribes to facilitate trafficking of illegal firearms from a militia group in the Philippines, it’s probably a safe bet that his political career is over. State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has called for Yee’s resignation in light of the FBI’s charges. Yee […]

Transportation Priorities Jostle for CA’s Cap-and-Trade Revenue

By Melanie Curry | Mar 21, 2014 | No Comments

A series of hearings in Sacramento have been revisiting California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, Assembly Bill (A.B.) 32, which calls for a statewide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to 1990 levels by 2020. Two recent hearings have opened discussions of Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed spending plan for the revenue received so far from the state’s […]

CA Legislation Watch: Bills Introduced That Could Impact Livable Streets

By Melanie Curry | Feb 25, 2014 | No Comments

The deadline to introduce new bills to the California legislature was Friday, so a slew of new legislation is currently being assigned to committees for hearing. Some of them are so-called “spot” bills, as in “hold a spot in line for me, bub,” containing a bare minimum of information, with the plan being to shape […]

Sen. Steinberg Proposes Carbon Tax on Gas Instead of Cap-and-Trade

By Melanie Curry | Feb 21, 2014 | No Comments

CA Senator Darrell Steinberg proposed a change yesterday to California’s nascent cap-and-trade program that would replace next year’s cap on fuel emissions with a per-gallon carbon tax. Steinberg called it a “broader, more stable, and more flexible” way to reduce emissions from fuels than cap-and-trade. His proposal would apply the revenue raised from the tax […]

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