CA Chamber of Comm

 oops see ccoc

coors pwl memo --> pac leg

SEE ~ CEQA // EEI 9 26

hjta

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OFFICIAL TOP FUNDERS. Valid only for January 2026 MODIFIES ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR CERTAIN PROJECTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE. OFFICIAL TITLE AND SUMMARY (SAME AS ON PETITION) The Attorney General of California has prepared the following circulating title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure: (25-0023A1.) MODIFIES ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR CERTAIN PROJECTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Amends California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to expedite environmental review of specified project categories (including most housing, transportation, water, health, and clean energy projects). For these types of projects, this measure: • sets deadlines for public agencies to complete environmental review and take required actions for project; • allows expedited review of project’s environmental impacts, limiting public agencies’ current obligation to consider a range of feasible project alternatives to reduce environmental impacts; and • limits court review of project approvals by establishing deadlines for filing and resolving lawsuits and limiting evidence court may consider and relief it can order. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: State and local government implementation costs in the tens of millions of dollars annually for the first several years. Over the long term, the annual net fiscal effects are uncertain, but state and local governments likely would experience net savings due to reduced administrative and legal workload. Net fiscal effects on state trial courts ranging from annual savings of up to the tens of millions of dollars to annual costs of up to the low tens of millions of dollars. (25-0023A1.) Petition circulation paid for by Committee to Build an Affordable California, Sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce Committee major funding from: Edison International & Affiliated Entities California Building Industry Association California Chamber of Commerce Latest Official Top Funders: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballotmeasures/initiative-and-referendum-status/official-top-funders/

-=-=

UPDATE:  The California Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against CARB declaring Cap and Trade to be illegal.  The case is pending.  Assemblywoman  Shannon Grove (R) 34th District has  introduced AB245 — CARB’s Open Meeting Transparency… specific to their agreement with Canada under WCI, Inc. (Western Climate Initiative) and the trading of carbon credits, etc.  Contact your State Assembly and Senate to support Assemblywoman Grove’s bill  AB245

God Bless America!

jun 23

Oil and Gas Lobbying Threatens California’s Game-Changing Climate Bills

two transparency bills in the California Legislature would require corporations to disclose more information about their emissions and their efforts to fight the climate crisis. The oil and gas industry is spending millions to kill them.

The bills would force big companies that do business in California to report all of their emissions and require firms that buy or sell carbon offsets — which are credits that represent a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions — to disclose more information in an effort to crack down on bogus climate claims. Both SB 253 and AB 1305 have momentum but could be blocked by moderate Democrats historically aligned with corporate interests.

Since the legislation would make new information available beyond California, the two bills could represent a watershed moment for holding big polluters accountable when they claim climate bonafides, supporters say.

Reporting requirements for corporate emissions are currently fragmented, and SB 253 would be a landmark law pinning down the climate impacts of some of the world’s largest companies. And as more companies market themselves as partners in the climate fight, greater oversight over voluntary carbon trading markets could help verify their claims. Challenges range from a lack of information on who is buying and selling credits to credits handed out for emissions reductions that never actually happened. AB 1305 requires this information to be reported publicly.

The bills are opposed by the Western States Petroleum Association, which has already spent $2.38 million on lobbying and advocacy groups this year. While some oil and gas companies in California have expressed their support for rolling back climate change, industry opposition fits into an agenda of delaying action, said Ryan Schleeter, communications director at the Climate Center.

“Delay is the new denial,” said Schleeter. “Climate denial won’t fly in this state, and companies are smart enough to figure that out, so they delay as long as possible and squeeze out as much profit as they can.”

“We Can’t Improve What We Don’t Measure”

Lawmakers are evaluating the bills as the climate crisis intensifies around the world. Halfway into 2023, smoke from extreme wildfires blanketed Canada and the U.S. Record-breaking temperatures have struck Texas, Mexico, Ireland, Britain, Puerto Rico, Europe, Northern Africa and Asia.

In California, WSPA insists that it wants to be part of the “climate conversation,” according to Kevin Slagle, the association’s vice president of strategic communications.

WSPA’s opposition to the transparency bills “is based not so much on not wanting to progress, as it is how we get to those places,” he continued, noting areas where the oil and gas industry is promoting solutions like hydrogen and biofuels. “Is it that we are often pushing too far, too fast?”

But industry warnings about pace and ambition contrast with the U.N.’s insistence that deep, rapid and sustained reductions are needed now. And the bills are in line with recommendations from a group of experts convened by the United Nations, which concluded that companies should annually report their emissions and reliance on carbon offsets as early steps to eventually ending fossil fuel production.

When pressed on the matter, Slagle deflected, offering his view that the oil and gas industry has been unfairly painted as “evil” due to its frequent opposition to climate accountability measures. In public comments and written testimony, WSPA representatives have said little about why they oppose reporting requirements proposed under SB 253. The California Chamber of Commerce, which has spoken for a broader opposition coalition that includes WSPA and other business associations, cites compliance costs.

Companies that participate in California’s cap and trade system already report emissions information to the state, including Scope 3 emissions, which account for the vast majority. These are from burning oil and gas sold by fossil fuel companies. Scope 1 and 2 refer to emissions from a business’s day-to-day activities and electricity usage.

SB 253, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), expands reporting requirements to all companies generating revenues of more than $1 billion a year. It’s more expansive than a rule currently under consideration by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the disclosures have the potential to affect climate action worldwide, said Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters.

“This would be pretty monumental,” said Creasman, whose organization is sponsoring the legislation. “There is a movement to say we can’t improve what we don’t measure, full stop.”

Sometimes companies claim to reduce their climate pollution by buying offset credits, which can be used by a company or a country to offset their own emissions.

But offsets have dubious track records across industries and regions. One study into offsets for cooking stoves found that only one in seven represented actual reductions.

Another study found 93% of Chevron’s offsets over the last two years were likely junk. The company, a WSPA member, opposes AB 1305 and spent $1.27 million on lobbying this spring, the most of any oil company. It plans to use offsets while continuing to produce oil and gas.

In a legislative filing, WSPA called the bill’s reporting requirements unclear and redundant, pointing to the SEC’s rulemaking process.

For Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Woodland Hills), who authored AB 1305, the argument holds little water. Financial filings by one WSPA member company, the refining giant Valero, warned that disclosure rules could “be used to advance agendas that disfavor the fossil fuel industry.”

“If these companies want to get the benefit of showing they are on the right side of history, [AB 1305] will encourage them to show that they are purchasing offsets that will actually make a difference,” Gabriel said.

Moderate Democrats Will Decide Bills’ Fate

A nearly identical version of SB 253 failed last year by one vote in the Assembly. It’s now headed to committees in that chamber that must approve it before a floor vote.

Democrats dominate the chamber, 62 to 18 Republicans. This supermajority means opponents are focusing on swaying moderate Democrats, who are historically more likely to oppose regulations on businesses than progressive lawmakers.

In addition to all Assembly Republicans, one Democrat who is still in the Assembly — Sharon Quirk-Silva (Buena Park) — voted against climate disclosures last year. Fifteen others who registered “no vote recorded” in 2022 will have an opportunity to vote if the bill reaches the floor this year.

Combined, these legislators have received millions from the California Chamber of Commerce, as well as the oil and gas industry and other corporate interests.

“It’ll be a tough bill to pass in the Assembly,” said Creasman. “We’re hopeful this year, because it’s part of a strong package of other corporate leadership and accountability bills.”

Meanwhile, AB 1305 passed by a large majority in the Assembly and is now moving through the Senate. Gabriel is hopeful about its chances.

“I actually think the bills would fit together nicely in terms of creating a regulatory architecture that’s going to really just provide more accountability and transparency,” Gabriel told Capital & Main.

As scrutiny of the fossil fuel industry has grown, companies have cloaked themselves as climate warriors, said Melissa Aronczyk, an associate professor of media studies at Rutgers University who studies the history of the industry’s public relations strategies.

The public has caught on to squishy climate claims in recent years, but oil majors still often announce actions or aspirations that are impossible to measure.

“These are efforts to sidestep real rules, regulation or other frameworks, to actually hold these companies accountable,” Aronczyk said. “The irony is that it is a very simple need that we have, which is to phase out fossil fuels. It’s straightforward.”

RELATED TOPICS:CALIFORNIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCEFEATUREDLOBBYISTSOIL AND GAS INDUSTRYPOLLUTIONWESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION

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sb 100 front group?

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beat ca lwv and greens on groundwater, with western growers cedar pt ~ ufw

https://waterwelljournal.com/california-groundwater-association-joined-coalition-to-oppose-assembly-bill-2201/

wspa astro:

ab 32 implementation gp, califirnians for energy indep; care, alliance for ca biz, tank the tax, ca drivers alliance; ca mfg and tehnol assoc; californians aginst higher taxes; fed up at the pump; califirnians against higher oil taxes; fueling ca

cmta calif mfg technol assoc

Status: Dormant

Spawned: 2006

Info: The ironically named group works to kill AB 32. It’s a c4, meaning they don’t have to reveal their funding, but the principle organizations running AB32IG are the California Chamber of Commerce, CMTA and WSPA.

Contact: @AB32_IG

stop fooling ca

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1/22 slapped down ash kalra singlepayer?

https://www.vox.com/**2018/**10/3/17924014/california-women-corporate-boards-jerry-brown

Women are dramatically outnumbered on the boards of directors for the nation’s biggest companies. California just passed a law trying to change that.

On Sunday, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 826, which requires publicly held companies based in California to have a minimum of one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. From there, women’s representation will have to increase: By the end of July 2021, companies have to have at least two women on boards of five members and at least three women on boards with six or more.

The law would mean 684 women would be needed for just the boards of the publicly traded companies that rank among the nation’s 3,000 largest — plus many more for smaller companies, Annalisa Barrett, a clinical professor of finance at the University of San Diego’s School of Business, told the Los Angeles Times.

But it’s not clear that hundreds of women will actually join boards in the state. More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law. Critics point out it might not pass legal muster if challenged in the courts. There are questions about how many companies in California it would apply to at all.

Even Brown seemed skeptical about the law’s long-term prospects, acknowledging “serious legal concerns”: “I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation,” he wrote in an accompanying message upon signing the bill. “Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, DC — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message.”

As if to eliminate any doubt about the message he meant to send by signing the law, Brown referenced the US Senate Judiciary Committee on his statement.

Brown is likely sincere in his desire for more gender diversity, Loyola University law professor Jessica Levinson said. “If this were a month ago, I don’t think he would have been as eager to sign the bill,” she added. “But he has to continue to show California is the capitol of ‘the resistance.’”

Still, the bill — which mimics requirements that European countries have passed to increase women’s representation in business governance — has already drawn attention to women’s underrepresentation on corporate boards.

“If nothing else, what this law is doing is increasing the visibility and awareness on the issue itself and the importance, and that is a win in and of itself,” said Serena Fong, the vice president of strategic engagement at Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on promoting women in business.

The legislation requires companies to add women to their boards or pay a fine

One-quarter of the publicly traded companies headquartered in California don’t have any women on their boards, according to the bill’s authors, California state Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson and Senate President Toni Atkins, who are both Democrats.

Nationally, women on boards are dramatically underrepresented: According to Catalyst, women make up about 20 percent of S&P 500 board seats. There are 12 Fortune 500 companies with no women on their boards whatsoever, and the number of Fortune 500 CEOs dropped by 25 percent this year, from 32 to 24.

Evidence suggests that having more gender and racial diversity in the boardroom is good for business. A Peterson Institutestudy found that the presence of women on corporate boards and in the C-suite may contribute to firm performance, and that among profitable companies, a move from no women leaders to 30 percent representation was associated with a 15 percent jump in profit.

Credit Suisse estimates that companies with more gender diversity in the boardroom see better stock market returns and valuations, and McKinsey found that the most gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to outperform their peers.

Amanda Packel, co-director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, cautioned that these findings can be overstated — a correlation between diversity and business performance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean causation.

“Companies that are more prominent and have better performance might be under more scrutiny, or are more focused on the issue, or are able to attract more women or diverse directors,” she said. “That being said, there is certainly a business case in terms of the need for diversity on the board, whether you can prove it in a regression analysis or not.”

But evidence alone hasn’t been enough to get companies in California to act. In 2013, Jackson sponsored a nonbinding resolution urging each public company to increase the number of women on its boards by 2017. But by December 31, 2016,less than 20 percent of them had followed the recommendation.

Europe has required women on corporate boards

Some European countries, including Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and France, have quotas and fines requiring to add women to their boards. Norway in 2008 required companies listed there to give at least 40 percent of their director seats to women.

Aaron Dhir, an associate professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and the author of a book about boardroom diversity, has studied the issue extensively.

“Like the California quota, the Norwegian quota was hugely controversial, but the directors who I interviewed, most of whom were initially against it, it was only after they saw the law in action and actually experienced it that they actually changed their minds and warmed to the quota,” he said.

Norwegian companies came to understand that sometimes such a blunt instrument is necessary, given implicit biases, and diversity improved the overall quality of governance and decision-making.

Women and people of color have different life experiences and perspectives than white men who typically comprise boards, and that makes a difference. Quotas force companies to look outside of the normal places for diverse candidates who might not have the typical background for such a position.

“Companies expanded their one-dimensional picture of what a qualified board member should be,” Dhir said.

The bill is controversial — and it might not hold up in court

Because so many companies are headquartered in California — 377 of the largest 3,000 publicly held companies in the US are located there — the bill could make a difference if companies comply. But it could also face legal challenges.

More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law, according to the LA Times. The businesses argue that the law will “displace an existing member of the board of directors solely on the basis of gender” and that it focuses too narrowly only on gender instead of other aspects of diversity, including race and sexual orientation.

Successful equal protection challenges under the US and California constitutions could nullify the law: The government would have to prove not only that there is disparity in board representation among men and women but also that such a divide is a sufficient reason to create a special law for women.

“It makes a categorization based on gender, which is subject to increased scrutiny if the law is challenged, and it’s not 100 percent clear how that would play out,” Packel, from Stanford, said. “The state would have to meet a burden in terms of showing the reason that legislation is needed and why this methodology is necessary.”

There are also questions about whether it will apply to companies that are headquartered in California but incorporated elsewhere. (Most US companies are incorporated in Delaware for tax reasons.)

The “internal affairs doctrine” ensures the state in which a company is incorporated governs issues such as voting rights, dividends, and investor relations,Joseph Grundfest, a Stanford University law professor and former commissioner for the Securities and Exchange Commission, argued a recent paper outlining the legal case against the bill. That would limit the law’s application to just 72 corporations headquartered and chartered in California.

Most of those companies already comply with the bill’s mandates. But one doesn’t: Apple, which has two women on its eight-member board. Apple is one of the most recognized brands in the world and became the first $1 trillion publicly traded company in the US. Adding more diversity to its board would not be insignificant.

Still, if the law does stand, there is also a chance that companies will just pay the fine and move on — a few hundred thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for a lot of companies, particularly Apple.

“I do think for big companies, it could be like any other fine, where it’s just the cost of doing business,” Levinson said. “But for smaller companies, this is a big hit.”

If we wait for the market to just figure this out, we’ll be waiting a while

Waiting for boardrooms to eventually become diverse will take a long time: the Government Accountability Office in 2016 estimated that women in S&P 1500 companies will reach parity with men in 40 years.

Grundfest argues that shareholder activism, not a state requirement, is the way to get more women on boards. Essentially, that means big funds insisting the companies they invest in having diverse boards, engaging with companies to increase diversity, and potentially withholding votes.

Levinson, from Loyola, said the California law is “government overreach” and what matters more is corporate culture. “It feels like kind of a sledge hammer when you actually need a thousand tiny little stitches,” she said.

There are some institutions that have taken more of an interest in diversity as of late, including pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS and investment giants State Street and BlackRock. And the #MeToo movement has also brought attention to the issue of women in corporate America.

“The bottom line is, we need to make [board diversity] a reality, and the only way you make it a reality is if the marketplace demands it,” David Katz, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City, said.

Still, waiting for the markets to come around and corporate culture to change isn’t exactly a satisfying answer for women who want more equal representation now, not when they’re old or dead. The fact that women need to make an evidence-based case for their inclusion on boards, in some ways, proves the point.

Nobody asks the opposite question, said Fong, the Catalyst vice president: “Where is the business case for keeping a board all white and all male?”

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off bs

gun to head ballot prop on soda tax

https://www.cbrt.org/

Prior to joining the Roundtable, Rob served as the vice president of public affairs for CalChamber. During this time, he also served as executive director of JobsPAC, a broad, employer-based, bipartisan independent expenditure committee for CalChamber. lapsly sp

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Job Killer Update: 29th Bill Will Increase California Energy Costs

:{ August 27, 2018:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;display:inline-block;text-rendering:auto;-webkit-font-smoothing:antialiased;transform:translate(0px, 0px);padding-right:3px"):}: Christine Haddon

SACRAMENTO, CA— The California Chamber of Commerce has added to the job killer list a bill that recently was amended to impose on both public and investor-owned utilities an extreme, costly mandate to procure 5,000 megawatts (MW) of energy from renewable sources. AddingAB 893 (E. Garcia; D-Coachella) brings the total number of job killer bills identified this year to 29.  Currently, in addition to AB 893, only one other job killer remains active, AB 3080 (Gonzalez Fletcher; D-San Diego), which passed the Senate last week and is awaiting action by the Governor.

CalChamber has identified AB 893 as a job killer because it would discourage energy-dependent businesses from growing in California and would add new overhead costs for all California employers. AB 893 also creates incentives for utilities to purchase out-of-state power to satisfy the mandate, threatening even more California jobs.

...

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The California Chamber of Commerce released its annual initial list of 21 “job killer” bills on April 4.

The bills, which include a ban on combustion engine vehicles by 2040, a wage requirement for personal services contracts and several that would hike taxes, would each place excessive burdens on businesses in the state, the chamber said.

“Each bill on this year’s job killer list poses a threat to certainty for employers and investors in our state,” said chamber Chief Executive Allan Zaremberg. “Besides undermining the state’s economic health, job killer bills have a cumulative negative impact on the businesses and entrepreneurs who provide the resources necessary to fund critical state programs like health care and education.

“Legislators must measure the impact that each of these proposed new laws will have, not just when the economy is expanding but also when California experiences the inevitable downturn,” Zaremberg added.

Of the 21 bills, 13 were introduced earlier this year and eight carried over from last year. Nine deal with workplaces issues such as harassment, discrimination, wages and arbitration clauses. Four would directly hike taxes – either personal income or sales taxes – while two more would reduce the supermajority threshold needed to pass tax increases.

current crop of job bills include:

SB 33, by Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa: Arbitration Agreements: Restricts the use of arbitration agreements between consumers and financial institutions in instances of suspected identity theft. The chamber states this will result in “unnecessary litigation.”

AB 421, by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles: Cleanup liability - Extends liability for Superfund cleanup costs to airborne emissions. The chamber states this will increase liability on businesses and place the burden of proof on those businesses.

SB 63, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara: New Maternity and Paternity Leave Mandate - Expands the existing federal law of 12 weeks of protected employee leave around the birth of a child to businesses with as few as 20 employees; currently, federal law applies to firms with at least 50 employees. The chamber states this will unduly burden very small firms that cannot always afford extended leaves for employees.

ACA 4, Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters: Property taxes - Lowers the vote requirement for new property tax increases to 55 percent from the current two-thirds. Chamber states this would increase the pressure to increase property taxes on both residential and commercial properties.

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2017 hit list

https://advocacy.calchamber.com/2017/08/28/many-harmful-bills-still-alive-in-state-legislature/

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2 big losses in ct? high speed rail and

After more than four years, a legal challenge to California's cap-and-trade program has reached an unsuccessful conclusion.

The end came on Wednesday when the California Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal from business groups who consider the program to be an unconstitutional tax.

The program requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, a system intended to provide a financial incentive to reduce emissions.

The law that provided the program's foundation was not passed with a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, the legal threshold for new taxes, sparking lawsuits from theCalifornia Chamber of Commerce and the Pacific Legal Foundation.

A state appeals court rejected their arguments in April, but they appealed. Business groups were also concerned the decision was too broad and could open the door to additional taxes.

Despite the state's victory in court, there are other legal questions around cap and trade. Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing lawmakers to extend the program past 2020 with new legislation.

“With this Supreme Court victory, now it’s up to us to take action extending California’s cap-and-trade system on a more permanent basis," Brown said in a statement.

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The biggest test of oil’s power could come this year, as Brown seeks legislation to save the state’s embattled cap-and-trade program, the linchpin of California’s climate-change efforts. The program, which requires companies to purchase permits in order to emit greenhouse gases, provides a key source of revenue for the state’s anti-pollution efforts, but the California Chamber of Commerce has challenged it in court, alleging that cap-and-trade is an unconstitutional tax, passed without the required two-thirds majority of the Legislature. 

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votes may not match the vote record because the tally for not voting or absent is not included in this list. Votes when a legislator was

absent are not included in calculating percentages.

Senate

Anderson, Joel (R) 17-0

Bates, Pat (R) 17-0

Fuller, Jean (R) 17-0

Huff, Bob (R) 17-0

Moorlach, John M.W. (R) 17-0

Nguyen, Janet (R) 17-0

Stone, Jeff (R) 17-0

Vidak, Andy (R) 17-0

Berryhill, Tom (R) 16-0

Gaines, Ted (R) 16-0

Morrell, Mike (R) 16-0

Nielsen, Jim (R) 16-0

Cannella, Anthony (R) 16-1

Galgiani, Cathleen (D) 11-6

Glazer, Steve (D) 11-6

Roth, Richard (D) 9-8

Pan, Richard (D) 8-9

McGuire, Mike (D) 6-11

Wieckowski, Bob (D) 6-11

Hueso, Ben (D) 5-10

Liu, Carol (D) 5-11

Allen, Ben (D) 5-12

Hernandez, Ed (D) 5-12

Lara, Ricardo (D) 5-12

Leyva, Connie (D) 5-12

Mendoza, Tony (D) 5-12

Wolk, Lois (D) 5-12

Hancock, Loni (D) 4-12

Beall, Jim (D) 4-13

Block, Marty (D) 4-13

de León, Kevin (D) 4-13

Hall, Isadore (D) 4-13

Hertzberg, Bob (D) 4-13

Hill, Jerry (D) 4-13

Jackson, Hannah-Beth (D) 4-13

Leno, Mark (D) 4-13

Mitchell, Holly J. (D) 4-13

Monning, Bill (D) 4-13

Pavley, Fran (D) 4-13

Assembly

Gaines, Beth (R) 16-0

Kim, Young (R) 16-0

Mathis, Devon (R) 16-0

Obernolte, Jay (R) 16-0

Patterson, Jim (R) 16-0

Bigelow, Frank (R) 15-0

Grove, Shannon (R) 15-0

Harper, Matthew (R) 15-0

Allen, Travis (R) 15-1

Brough, William P. (R) 15-1

Jones, Brian (R) 15-1

Mayes, Chad (R) 15-1

Wagner, Donald (R) 15-1

Chang, Ling Ling (R) 14-2

Chávez, Rocky (R) 14-2

Gallagher, James (R) 14-2

Melendez, Melissa (R) 13-2

Dahle, Brian (R) 13-3

Lackey, Tom (R) 13-3

Olsen, Kristin (R) 13-3

Steinorth, Marc (R) 13-3

Wilk, Scott (R) 13-3

Achadjian, Katcho (R) 12-4

Maienschein, Brian (R) 12-4

Waldron, Marie (R) 12-4

Daly, Tom (D) 11-5

Gray, Adam (D) 10-5

Baker, Catharine (R) 10-6

Frazier, Jim (D) 10-6

Hadley, David (R) 10-6

Cooper, Jim (D) 9-7

Linder, Eric (R) 9-7

Salas, Rudy (D) 9-7

Gipson, Mike (D) 8-8

O’Donnell, Patrick (D) 8-8

Brown, Cheryl (D) 7-9

Campos, Nora (D) 7-9

Irwin, Jacqui (D) 6-9

Cooley, Ken (D) 6-10

Eggman, Susan Talamantes (D) 6-10

Arambula, Joaquin (D) 5-10

Levine, Marc (D) 5-10

Bloom, Richard (D) 5-11

Dodd, Bill (D) 5-11

López, Patty (D) 5-11

Ridley-Thomas, Sebastian (D) 5-11

Wood, Jim (D) 5-11

Hernández, Roger (D) 4-11

Medina, Jose (D) 4-11

Nazarian, Adrin (D) 4-11

Alejo, Luis (D) 4-12

Atkins, Toni (D) 4-12

Bonilla, Susan (D) 4-12

Bonta, Rob (D) 4-12

Burke, Autumn (D) 4-12

Calderon, Ian (D) 4-12

Chau, Ed (D) 4-12

Chiu, David (D) 4-12

Chu, Kansen (D) 4-12

Dababneh, Matt (D) 4-12

Garcia, Cristina (D) 4-12

Garcia, Eduardo (D) 4-12

Gatto, Mike (D) 4-12

Gomez, Jimmy (D) 4-12

Gonzalez, Lorena (D) 4-12

Gordon, Rich (D) 4-12

Holden, Chris (D) 4-12

Jones-Sawyer, Reggie (D) 4-12

Low, Evan (D) 4-12

Mullin, Kevin (D) 4-12

Quirk, Bill (D) 4-12

Rendon, Anthony (D) 4-12

Rodriguez, Freddie (D) 4-12

Santiago, Miguel (D) 4-12

Stone, Mark (D) 4-12

Ting, Phil (D) 4-12

Weber, Shirley (D) 4-12

Williams, Das (D) 4-12

Thurmond, Tony (D) 3-12

McCarty, Kevin (D) 2-12

color code:

http://advocacy.calchamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Vote-Record-10-21-2016.pdf

Parties in a four-year-old legal challenge to California's emissions trading program will head to court in Sacramento on Tuesday with a business group arguing the billions the program collected amounts to an "illegal tax" on businesses.

California's cap-and-trade programsets an overall limit on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and either hands out or sells a declining number of state-issued permits, which large manufacturers and oil refineries are required to turn in annually.

The lawsuit by business group CalChamberargues that the state legislature never authorized the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to collect revenue from the program when it passed AB 32, its landmark climate change law.

Revenue from the program funds clean energy programs, especially in poorer communities, and helps finance the state's ambitious high speed rail project.

"The lawsuit does not challenge any of the provisions of AB 32, including cap-and-trade authority, nor the merits of climate change science," said Denise Davis of the CalChamber.

It just argues that the state has no right to sell permits and generate revenue, she said.

The ARB prevailed in Sacramento Superior Court in 2013 after successfully arguing that it was given broad authority to design a program to meet emissions targets, including the sale of permits.

CalChamber's appeal of that ruling has kept the issue alive, casting a shadow over the emissions trading market, which has at times suffered a lack of participation due to uncertainty over its future.

lobbyist

Jennifer Barrera, senior policy advocate for the California Chamber of Commerce, took over as senior vice president of policy and leader of the policy team on February 1.

She will oversee the development and implementation of CalChamber policy and strategy. Barrera led CalChamber advocacy on labor and employment and taxation from September 2010 through the end of 2017. She will continue to head CalChamber’s legal reform efforts, as she has since June 2012.

Barrera succeeds Jeanne Cain, a 18-year CalChamber veteran and outgoing executive vice president of policy.

“For the last 13 months, Jennifer and Jeanne have worked closely on developing policy strategy,” said CalChamber President and CEO Allan Zaremberg. “I am confident that CalChamber’s impact in the State Capitol will remain strong and effective under Jennifer’s leadership. She has distinguished herself as a successful attorney and policy advocate who has worked diligently on behalf of CalChamber members to protect our business climate.”

In addition to her advocacy duties, Barrera advises the CalChamber business compliance division about interpreting changes in employment law.

Before joining the CalChamber staff, Barrera had worked since May 2003 at a statewide law firm (now Carothers, DiSane & Freudenberger, LLP) that specializes in labor/employment defense. She represented employers in both state and federal court on a variety of issues, including wage and hour disputes, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, and wrongful termination.

She also advised both small and large businesses on compliance issues, presented seminars on various employment-related topics, and regularly authored articles in human resources publications.

Barrera earned a B.A. in English from California State University, Bakersfield, and a J.D. with high honors from California Western School of Law.

Cain plans to devote more time to her responsibilities as president of Fairview Farms, Inc., a family farming operation in Northern California, and will continue as a board member of California Women Lead. She will put nearly three decades of experience in public policy to use on various projects, including consulting with CalChamber on health care issues.

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~ 49

Loren Kaye, President of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education,

http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2014/07/vote-far-voters-advise-legislature/

With little fanfare, California leaders are on the verge of breaking new ground for statewide ballot measures. This is not a good thing.

Passed by the Legislature and awaiting a decision from the Governor is a bill that would put to voters this November an advisory question as to whether Congress should propose an amendment to the US Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on campaign contribution limits.

I’ll leave the substantive debate on political fundraising to others. What disturbs me is the Legislature conjuring an extraordinary and likely unlawful new scheme to grind a political axe – without making an ounce of difference in the lives of Californians.

Nowhere by the Constitution or laws of the state is the Legislature granted the authority to place an advisory measure on the statewide ballot. The Constitution specifies only three mechanisms by which the Legislature can place matters on the ballot: a proposed constitutional amendment, a proposed general obligation bond, and a proposed amendment to a previously-approved ballot initiative. That’s it. The first two mechanisms require two-thirds legislative approval; the third requires simple majority support. The advisory measure being considered by the Legislature requires only a simple majority (and the Governor’s signature) to reach the ballot – at least by the Legislature’s rules.

This would not be the first time the Legislature placed an advisory measure on the ballot – but it’s been awhile. According to ahelpful analysis by Senate staff, Propositions 9 and 10were submitted to the voters at a special election in June, 1933.

By a three-to-one margin voters rejected this Depression-era proposal to divert gasoline tax revenues to pay off state general obligation bonds for highway construction. (Why the Legislature punted this apparently bad idea to the voters is lost to history. But the lesson was internalized by a later Legislature during a later budget crisis: don’t ask the voters – just approve the gimmick yourself!)

Advisory measures were resurrected by ballot initiative in the 1980s. Anti-nuclear groups sponsored and passed Proposition 12 in 1982, which called for a nuclear weapons freeze. But when fiscal conservatives attempted to place on the ballot a measure demanding Congress propose a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution, liberal interest groups had had enough.

They successfully petitioned the state Supreme Court to toss the measure from the ballot because the measure “exceeds the scope of the initiative power under the … California constitution. The initiative power is the power to adopt “statutes” – to enact laws – but the crucial provisions of the balanced budget initiative do not adopt a statue or enact a law. They adopt, and mandate the Legislature to adopt, a resolution which does not change California law and constitutes only one step in a process which might eventually amend the federal constitution.”

Since the initiative is the People stepping into the shoes of the Legislature, and since the Legislature is given no authority to propose to the voters any measure the voters cannot propose to themselves, it seems this argument is equally apt to a Legislature’s proposed advisory measure.

But rewriting the Constitution isn’t the worst feature of this bill. Tossing questions to the voters for nonbinding answers is a terrible practice by elected leaders, and pernicious if taken to its likely conclusion.

Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg has bemoaned the abuse of the initiative process by special interests, and proposed restoring the “indirect initiative,” which would formally involve the Legislature in addressing a proposed ballot measure before voters have a chance to consider the proposal.

The advisory ballot measure takes off in the opposite direction: the Legislature taking the temperature of the voters before diving into the issue themselves.

It’s true that the subject of this legislation is a federal matter over which the Legislature has no jurisdiction in the first place. But given a taste of what amounts to opinion polling on steroids – with no accountability for the results – any Legislature would find the mechanism irresistible.

First, the Legislature could put popular notions to the public in generic and abstract terms, obtain voter support, and use the resulting “mandate” to roll over legitimate opposition to a legislative measure that necessarily must be more detailed.

For example, an advisory measure purporting to strengthen public schools could be used as cover to weaken the penetration of charter schools. Or an advisory measure calling for a balanced energy policy could be used to justify undermining advanced technologies for oil and gas production.

A second and more likely abuse of this power would be to place advisory measures on the ballot with a majority vote to help goose turnout of the majority party’s base to support their candidate ticket. This would be the most cynical use of this tool, since it has nothing to do with the policy being debated.

It’s a short step from the measure on the Governor’s desk to more consequential legislative shenanigans. He should reject this power grab.

===

Loren Kaye, President of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education, argued not so much against the content of the advisory question, but against legislatively referred advisory referendums as tools for acquiring the populace's opinion on federal issues. He asserted that there is no legal basis for advisory questions in California. He noted:

Vote NO on Proposition 26 - If Polluters Don't Pay, Taxpayers Will

Posted on 25 October 2010

By Sara Flocks

California Labor Federation

In the 2005 film Thank You For Smoking, a group of lobbyists for the tobacco, alcohol and gun industries jokingly refer to themselves as the “MOD Squad”—shorthand for “Merchants of Death.” At the end of the film the MOD Squad grows to include lobbyists for fast food, hazardous waste and oil.

The list of donors to Proposition 26 -- which will appear on the November 2010 ballot -- reads eerily like a roster for the MOD Squad. Major players in the tobacco, alcohol, soda and oil industries have poured millions of dollars into Prop. 26. Some of the biggest donors are Chevron, Philip Morris and various beer and wine makers.

At first glance, Prop 26 doesn’t read like an initiative that multi-national corporations would care much about. The initiative broadens the definition of a tax to include fees—which would raise the votes required to approve a fee from a majority to two-thirds at the state and local level.

So why do these companies care about Prop 26? It turns out that the fees that Prop 26 targets are the fees that oil, tobacco, alcohol and hazardous waste companies have to pay for the damage they cause. Right now, fees on corporations pay for the damage their products do to the health, environment, safety and quality of life of Californians.

If companies make products that have the potential to pollute our air and water, damage our health or are just plain hazardous, then they should pay to clean up the mess. Proposition 26 would make it harder to impose those fees, effectively shifting the burden of paying for the costs created by polluters to taxpayers like you and me.

And the cost of that clean-up is huge. The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office states that Prop 26 would cost state and local governments “up to billions of dollars annually” blowing a hole in the state’s shaky budget. That means if there is an oil spill off the coast of California, the cost of cleaning up that spill will come out of taxpayer funds---draining money away from priorities like schools, roads and public safety.

It is clear from the list of donors to Proposition 26 that the companies that pay fees in California are not hurting. The funders behind Prop 26 are multi-national corporations that have $2 million on hand to spend on a state ballot measure. They can certainly afford to pay a fee to clean up the waste and pollution they produce. On the other hand, California taxpayers cannot afford to subsidize major corporations whose products damage our health, environment and communities.

~~

Sara Flocks is the Public Policy Coordinator for the California Labor Federation (CLF). CLF is made up of more than 1,200 AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions, representing 2.1 million union members in manufacturing, retail, construction, hospitality, public sector, health care, entertainment and other industries.

Tags 2010 Ballot Initiatives 2010 Elections Flocks, Sara Prop 26

PROP 26 is Just as Destructive as PROP 23

Submitted by EarlRichards on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 7:44am.

Prop 26 is a treacherous, Big Oil rip-off, which "passes the buck" from oil corporation, clean-up fees to the public's taxes, who will pay the oil recycling fees, the materials hazards fees and other fees. If you do not understand the ambiguities and the intrigues behind Prop 26, then, vote no. Power to the people. BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil are silent partners behind Prop 26.

Follow the money...

Submitted by jeffson on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 4:35pm.

Just look at Prop 26's biggest funders:

Chevron Corporation $3,750,000

California Chamber of Commerce (money largely laundered from Oil, tobacco and alcohol industries) $3,587,323

American Beverage Association $1,950,000

Philip Morris USA Inc. $1,750,000

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. $925,000

Then ask yourself why in the world would Big Oil, Tobacco and Alcohol be spending so much money to lower your taxes? Please! Prop 26 is simply trying to shift the burden from them for the cost of the harm they do to you...

See for yourself who's bankrolling Prop 26 here: http://www.noonproposition26.com/about-prop-26/who-is-bankrolling-26/

And see for yourself what kind of "fees" we're talking about and ask yourself if any of them effect you...or have you paid a clean up fee for your oil spills before?

http://www.noonproposition26.com/about-prop-26/fees-prop-26-targets/

==

recent conf hosted luntz on msging 11/15

http://advocacy.calchamber.com/2015/10/13/pundit-pollster-frank-luntz-to-speak-at-fall-public-affairs-conference/

==

September 20, 2010

California Democratic Party Files IRS Complaint Against California Chamber of Commerce

Chamber’s Failure to Report Salary for Top Officials, Including Whitman Ally and Chamber CEO Allan Zaremberg, Represents Clear Violation of U.S. Tax Code

Over $2.9 Million in Potential Salary and Compensation Information Not Properly Disclosed

Sacramento – The California Democratic Party today reported filing a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against the California Chamber of Commerce for failing to disclose the salaries of their top officials including CEO Allan Zaremberg. The Chamber of Commerce has recently stepped up its advocacy efforts on behalf of Republican candidates across the nation and in California where they endorsed Meg Whitman for governor.

“The California Chamber of Commerce’s lack of disclosure in this case constitutes a critical failure of transparency and accountability,” said Hilary Crosby CPA, Controller of the California Democratic Party. “We would hope that the Chamber spend more time minding their books and ledger sheets instead of engaging in smear campaigns against Democratic candidates here in California.”

“If the Chamber is getting a tax break people have a right to know how much their CEO and other top officials are taking home,” she continued.

The copy of the Chamber's Form 990 for the tax year ending September 30, 2009 provided for public review, as required by law, fails to disclose the amount of compensation for CEO Allan Zaremberg and other officers and key officials as required by law. Instead of listing the salaries for top officials, the Chamber listed a total of $2,256,014  (plus $678,057 in “other”) in reportable compensation – effectively hiding the salaries of top officials.

http://www.cadem.org/news/press-releases/2010/california-democratic-party-files-irs-complaint-against-california-chamber-of-commerce

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==

bs bios

Before joining CalChamber, Zaremberg served as chief legislative advisor to and advocate for Governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson.Enhancing the state’s economic growth has been the goal of Zaremberg’s activities. He has headed statewide ballot campaigns to close the legal loophole that permitted shakedown lawsuits, to assure adequate funding for transportation infrastructure and to oppose anti-business proposals that would have raised the cost of health care, electricity and public works. He led negotiations culminating in comprehensive reforms of workers’ compensation, endangered species laws, and other key issues.

---

Zaremberg is president and chief executive officer of the CalChamber. He took over the top staff position in 1998 after six years as executive vice president and head of CalChamber's legislative advocacy program. Before joining CalChamber, Zaremberg served as chief legislative advisor to and advocate for Governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson. Zaremberg served as a captain and flight navigator on a KC-135 jet air refueling tanker while in the U.S. Air Force from 1970 to 1975. He received a B.S. in economics from Penn State University and a J.D. from the McGeorge School of Law.

Full Profile

After serving two California governors as their chief lobbyist, Allan Zaremberg, '78, wanted to continue serving the public in the most far-reaching way he could.

Since 1992, Zaremberg has worked at the California Chamber of Commerce, where he is CEO and president. Zaremberg always wanted to be an attorney. After serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1970 to 1975, he entered McGeorge School of Law. During law school, he wrote legislation for the California Peace Officers' Association and served on the law journal.

After graduating, Zaremberg joined a small general practice firm in Sacramento, where he practiced a variety of law, including probate, family law, criminal defense and business law for several years. When he left the firm, Zaremberg joined the state Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general. He worked as a lobbyist on a variety of issues for then-Attorney General George Deukmejian. When Deukmejian became governor, Zaremberg became his deputy legislative secretary and then his legislative secretary from 1983 to 1990.

When Pete Wilson became governor, Zaremberg worked as his legislative secretary in 1991, a role he held for one year. In the governor's office, Zaremberg was the chief lobbyist, representing the governor before the Legislature, acting as his strategist, reviewing every piece of legislation whether or not it passed, helping the administration take positions on bills and helping develop the governor's policy decisions. He joined the chamber as a registered lobbyist.

"After my years in the governor's office, I enjoyed having a chance to find opportunities to formulate policy that's going to help California be better for everybody who lives here and improve their quality of life," Zaremberg says.

Zaremberg started as executive vice president and head of the chamber's legislative advocacy program, overseeing lobbying efforts, political activity and ballot measures. In 1998 he became CEO and president, also responsible for overseeing about 125 staff members, and the organization's overall goals and strategy. The chamber serves more than 13,000 members, including Mom-and-Pop businesses, trade associations and multi-national corporations. The chamber gets involved in a broad range of issues. During his tenure, Zaremberg has headed statewide ballot campaigns to prevent shakedown lawsuits and increase transportation infrastructure funding. He has helped achieve reforms for worker's compensation and endangered species laws.

"What I find rewarding is we get a chance to influence public policy on a broad scale that's important for all our residents in California," Zaremberg says. "That's the most rewarding, is to be able to step back and look at the overall success of trying to improve people's lives and not measure it in one piece of legislation or one initiative, but over the broad course of years."

Zaremberg is involved in creating a new foundation, Foundation for Democracy and Justice, based in San Francisco, to promote civics and the benefits of a democratic government. He got involved with the Capital Center Advisory Board to repay his gratitude to McGeorge.  https://fdjca.org/overview/

"If I can help anybody else enhance their career and provide guidance and on top of that make McGeorge a better place ... then I think that will result in a better education for the students," he says. "I feel grateful for the education that I've had and the opportunities that it brought to me, so anything I can do to give back is worthwhile."

==

Allan Zaremberg will succeed Kirk West as president of the California Chamber of Commerce in January. As the chamber's top lobbyist for the past six years, Zaremberg has tracked a full range of issues for the 11,000-member business organization. He formerly served as legislative secretary under governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson.

BACKGROUND

Age: 48

Education: Bachelor of science degree from Pennsylvania State University and law degree from McGeorge School of Law

Residence: Elk Grove

Native of: Beaver Falls, Pa.

NEW CHALLENGES

Staying the course: "It's important to recognize that my board selected me, I think, because they're happy with the direction the California Chamber has been going and they believe the chamber doesn't need any major corrections in the course we're on right now. But obviously, I'm different than my predecessor. I think they are very satisfied with what Kirk West has done, but they also recognize that no two people are alike."

TOP PRIORITIES

Protecting business: "We have to ensure that nothing adverse happens to the ability to do business in California, whether it be labor unions or trial lawyers who put in legislation to increase revenues to their special interests.

"This year we created a ... coalition of businesses from every industry and from associations like the California Taxpayers' Association, the California Business Roundtable and the California Manufacturers Association. We had different industries being supportive of our effort to oppose bills with an effect on other industries. ... It will be one of our goals to keep the business community together on a variety of issues and speak with one voice."

Initiative watch: "We need to make sure that those initiatives that are harmful to business can't pass. Right now, there are two already submitted to raise taxes just on businesses in California. There's another one to prohibit businesses from participating in the political process. Those three are immediate and require our attention.

"We need to reduce the regulatory burden and we need to make some of the environmental laws balanced and fair. I don't think any of us feel it's right to eliminate the laws that regulate a clean environment because that's very conducive to a good business climate in the state. But at the same time we need to bring some balance and far too often businesses get sued just to make money.

"Finally, (we) will try to limit frivolous lawsuitabuse ... especially in the area of employment law where it is more costly to defend (a suit) than it is to settle the case. When we poll our membership and the business community, over 75 percent identify lawsuit abuse at the top of the list."

NETWORKING

Connecting with legislators: "Local chambers have a very important role. It would be important even if we didn't have term limits in the state Legislature, but it's become even more important because of that. There's such great turnover in the Legislature, you can't develop relationships over 20 years like (before).

"We've spent a lot of time in the last five years trying to encourage local chambers to get involved. We have a conference call every week with the 40 most politically active chambers in the state. Everybody can talk and we describe to them the most significant issues. The second thing we've done is develop a book that local chambers can use to get involved in political campaigns, especially in light of Prop. 208 that limits the ability to contribute money on a statewide basis and limits how much corporations can give."

BUSINESS VS. LABOR

Tension level varies: "I think the business and labor communities should work together when they have common goals. We've done that in the past. ... We always try to keep communications open.

"Obviously there is always going to be a tension because we have different goals. Certainly in the legislative or government arena, I think some of the unions try to get an upper hand that they can't otherwise get in their bargaining position to increase revenues to their members. If they can't get it in the marketplace, they'll turn to government to try to get the upper hand to do that. So we've had some tension -- and tension is probably an understatement -- over the issue of overtime reform. We were able reform California's overtime laws to conform to 47 other states. So beginning January 1st, we compute overtime on a 40 hour workweek ... but the unions were strongly opposed to that."

Union battles: "The California Chamber has not officially taken a position on the initiative to limit use of union dues. ... Unfortunately, it's gotten tied up with some retaliatory issues with some labor unions who want to put two initiatives on the ballot to increase taxes on California businesses and ban the ability for corporations to participate in the political process.

"The stated, or maybe unstated, purpose of the measures put forth by the labor unions is to try to leverage the business community to get the proponents of the unions dues measure to back away and not put it on the ballot. I think if the labor unions are going to attack -- and I think attack is the right word -- the ability to do business in California and try to raise taxes on businesses, we're going to make sure we try and defeat those and would have to take another look at the ability of the unions to raise money to attack business."

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

When business should pay: "I don't think we can expect all businesses today to satisfy the mistakes of past businesses, especially when they were approved and licensed by the government. I think for much of our toxic issues they were not only condoned, but may have been encouraged by a local government agency at the time. To say those should solely be the purview of one particular industry I think is very difficult. It becomes something where the state and private businesses have to work together."

Endangered species: "Businesses should be able to maintain or develop their property and if they happen to take or kill a species that may be endangered (they should be able to proceed) as long as they don't endanger that species and they mitigate or replace it. At the same time, businesses obviously should be limited to mitigating or replacing in proportion to what they damage or take. That's what we've successfully put into law this year. ... I think businesses are willing to replace what they kill as long as they don't have to make up for sins of the past and are limited by law to mitigation in proportion to what they take."

WELFARE REFORM

Back to work: "Working to match welfare individuals and businesses is probably best done at the local level. We're going to try to help the state Employment Development Department facilitate that. ... We're also concerned about taking a risk on somebody who hasn't been in the work force and we're trying to facilitate that with EDD as well. There's been some strategies suggested. Perhaps a government entity or a nonprofit could actually function as a temporary agency. People would then get their work experience by that agency contracting with employers. It reduces the risk, gets people into the work force and is certainly more reassuring to businesses concerned about lawsuits."

SUPPORTING EDUCATION

Closing the income gap: "Education needs to be a priority not only of each individual but of the business community and government to ensure that people have the ability and opportunity to receive a quality education. I think the income gap, if there is one, or if it grows, will be tied to people's ability to be educated and perform in the next century.

"Our ability to have a strong economy isn't just about people's jobs, it's about the ability to produce revenue for government because that's where education dollars come from. We've seen a substantial growth in income and revenues going toward education in the last few years solely because the economy has turned around and because businesses are able to do better in California."

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/1997/11/17/focus4.html

==

“We must act urgently to protect the water supply for California’s homes, farms, businesses and industries, while also protecting the

**Critical habitat** is defined as the specific geographic areas, whether occupied by a listed species or not, that are essential for its conservation and that have been formally designated by rule published in the Federal Register.

" class="glossaryLink" target="_new" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; border-left: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; text-decoration: none !important;">critical habitat, species and environment of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” said Robbie Hunter, President of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California. “We support the California Water Fix as the best solution to build these protections and move us forward.”

“California’s historic drought is a stark reminder that we need to address the state’s severe water infrastructure problems immediately,” said Allan Zaremberg, President of CalChamber. “It is time to support the Governor’s California Water Fix to secure our water system into the future. This plan will help ensure we have the ability to move water during wet years in order to increase water supplies during future droughts.”

Currently, two-thirds of water for Californians starts in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and flows through the state’s main water distribution system through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state, including Northern California, the Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California.

But this system of aging dirt levees, aqueducts and pipes is outdated and at risk of collapse in the event of a major earthquake or flood. Problems with this aging system have already resulted in significant water supply cutbacks and shortages for people, farms and businesses, as well as damage to fish, wildlife and the environment.

“In the event of a levee break or system failure, much of Los Angeles’ water supply could be interrupted for up to one year,” said Gary Toebben, President & CEO, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “The California Water Fix will upgrade and repair the state’s water system, and protect hundreds of thousands of regional jobs that depend on the stability of this water supply.”

“The California Water Fix is a bold, responsible strategy to ensure our state is making the most of our limited water supplies,” said Mike Mielke, Senior Vice President for Environment & Energy at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. “This plan is especially important to the economy and quality of life of the Bay Area and the Silicon Valley. Not only will the California Water Fix reliably deliver water to people and businesses, it will also protect water supplies for the environment, fish and wildlife in the Delta.”

==

1995

Environmental Laws Under Siege : Legislature: More conservative body targets water standards, rare species and 'green' labels on products. However, major parts of the effort have stalled.

September 10, 1995|DAN MORAIN | TIMES STAFF WRITER

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-09-10/news/mn-44283_1_drinking-water-standards

SACRAMENTO — As lawmakers stagger toward adjournment, Republicans and a few moderate Democrats are taking time to roll back some of California's tough environmental laws.

Many of the targeted environmental laws were placed on the books in the 1980s or early '90s, and were attempts to protect rare species, improve drinking water quality, and let consumers more accurately identify "green" products.

But with the Legislature now more conservative, a new wave of bills backed by most Republicans and a few moderate Democrats is aimed at protecting private property rights, improving California's economy, and relieving businesses of some environmental restrictions.

"We're starting to make progress," saidAllan Zaremberg, lobbyist for the state Chamber of Commerce, one of the most active Sacramento groups involved in the rollback of environmental laws."We obviously haven't accomplished all our goals. On the other hand, a few years ago, we would have been happy to defeat another [environmental] obligation."

Gov. Pete Wilson and some Republican lawmakers still hope that there is time to fashion a bill to make sweeping changes to the California Environmental Quality Act and Endangered Species Act. Changes to both were part of Wilson's ambitious 1995 legislative agenda.

As of Friday, however, the effort had stalled. With the Legislature heading into its final week and still racked by partisan bickering, efforts to dramatically alter those two laws most likely will be left undone until lawmakers return in January.

Nonetheless, several less drastic measures have won legislative approval or are nearing final passage:

* A bill promoted by agriculture and chemical manufacturers permitting continued use of methyl bromide, a potent fumigant and pesticide used extensively on strawberry, cherry and nut crops. Methyl bromide has been identified as a substance that depletes the ozone. The Assembly approved the bill last week, and returned it to the Senate.

*A bill aimed at repealing part of a 1990 initiative that banned mountain lion hunting in California. If placed on the ballot in March and approved by voters, the measure would permit fish and game authorities to limit the cougar population by once again allowing mountain lion hunting. The Senate has approved the bill, and a final Assembly vote is expected this week.

* A measure by Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) seeks to remove criminal penalties for farmers who accidentally kill animals protected by the Endangered Species Act while working their fields. Although farm groups and some environmentalists support the measure, conservative Assembly Republicans are trying to stop it temporarily, hoping to gain leverage for a broader assault on the Endangered Species Act.

* A bill that alters state-imposed advertising standards for "green" labeling. Backed by the Assn. of National Advertisers and various industry groups, the bill won final legislative approval last week and is on Wilson's desk.

If, as expected, Wilson signs it, the bill would replace a 1990 state law that created tough "green" labeling standards in California and exchange the state standards for looser Federal Trade Commission requirements.

Under the 1990 state standards, manufacturers cannot proclaim on their labels that a product contains recycled material unless at least 10% of it was once used by consumers.

The new bill, SB 426 by state Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay), would remove the requirement that "recycled" products contain material once used by consumers, such as plastic, glass or paper. Instead, recycled material could include byproducts of the manufacturing process that never reach consumers' hands.

Leslie called the state standards arbitrary, and noted that under his bill, many more manufacturers would be able to use "green" labeling, an increasingly strong selling point with consumers.

Leslie's bill also would strike down the state requirement that a product can be labeled as "biodegradable" only if it degrades naturally within one year. Under Leslie's measure, the term biodegradable would be far more open-ended.

"Now it's just the truth, instead of this artificial standard that makes no sense," Leslie said.

As the more conservative Legislature seeks to unwind some of California's environmental regulations, no lawmaker is taking more hits than Assemblyman Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), a Stanford law professor and veteran chairman of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.

This session, two bills take aim at statutes that Sher sponsored, including the "green" labeling law and the state's Safe Drinking Water Act.

"This is the first wave," Sher said, predicting that more bills he views as anti-environment will come up next year. "This is one of the main changes that last November's election wrought, and we're going to see a continuous effort to undo good bills that were put on the books in the 1980s."

==

Kilby holds a B.A. in political science from California State University, Fresno. He is a graduate of the U.S. Chamber Institutes for Organization Management program and served as 1996 chairman for the Western Institute at UCLA.

--

blue diamnd

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Martin R. Wilson

Executive Vice President, Public Affairs

Marty Wilson is the executive vice president of public affairs for the California Chamber of Commerce, a position he has held for more than four years.

Wilson oversees all of the CalChamber’s public affairs activities, including the Public Affairs Council, a political advisory committee made up of the CalChamber’s major members; its candidate recruitment and support program; and its political action committees: ChamberPAC, which supports pro-jobs candidates and legislators, and CalBusPAC, which qualifies, supports and/or opposes ballot initiatives. He also serves as the CalChamber liaison to JobsPAC, an employer-based independent committee that supports pro-jobs candidates.

Wilson has almost 40 years of experience in California politics, playing leadership roles in the election and re-election of two governors and a U.S. senator. He also has orchestrated numerous successful ballot measure and public affair campaigns.

In addition to his campaign experience, Wilson has served in government as a senior staff member at the local, state and federal levels.

Before joining the CalChamber, Wilson spent seven years as managing partner of Wilson-Miller Communications, where he also advised Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as head of the Governor’s political and initiative committee, the California Recovery Team.

Before founding his own firm, Wilson was managing director forPublic Strategies Inc. in Sacramento for five years and held a similar position with Burson-Marsteller for six years.

Wilson has served as senior fellow for the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Affairs, board member for the California State Fair and director of the Coro Foundation, a public affairs training organization.

He graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. in history.

==...

On Aug. 13, Schwarzenegger shuffled his team, demoting Gorton and adding another consultant embroiled in the Quackenbush scandal, Martin Wilson, who accepted $375,000 from the former insurance commissioner.Gorton's role as Schwarzenegger's chief strategist has been assumed by Bob White, Gov. Wilson's former chief of staff. The move highlights Schwarzegger's close ties to Wilson, who is persona non grata among Latino voters for his support of the anti-immigrant initiative Prop. 187 in 1994.

After The Tonight Show, Gorton told a reporter from the San Francisco Chroniclethat he was unaware of Schwarzenegger's intentions prior to the program. Besides his impending demotion, there are other signs that Gorton may have been telling the truth. Russo recounts a series of private meetings, while Schwarzenegger was in Mexico City promoting Terminator 3, between Gorton and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who lost to Simon in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary. As Russo explained to me, Gorton was planning to jump ship and join Riordan's campaign if Schwarzenegger did not declare, moving from one self-funding client to the next.

But Schwarzenegger's announcement came as the greatest shock to Issa, who had already spent some of his car-alarm fortune to warm up a gubernatorial campaign. He had taken out radio ads, printed up posters and hired a new team of consultants, includingKen Khachigian,a veteran speechwriter who served on President Richard Nixon's 1972 campaign "attack group," and Larry McCarthy, the media producer of the infamous Willie Horton ad that helped elect George Bush Senior in 1988. However, with the Republican Party suddenly lined up behind Schwarzenegger, Issa's ambition was crushed. He found himself at a press conference, the victim of a vast Republican conspiracy, and he cried.

Make way for Schwarzenegger and his team of consultants, whose credo can be best summarized by a statement Gorton made in Mother Jones while working on then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign: "Unless you're going to make some serious money, it's not worth it."

 ===

http://advocacy.calchamber.com/2016/08/26/2030-carbon-caps-to-become-law/

http://advocacy.calchamber.com/2016/04/26/calchamber-opposed-job-killer-bill-discriminates-against-arbitration-agreements/

==

K st Sac

lobbyist directoryhttp://www.californiaiga.org/directory.html=== The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Local Influence in Two MapsSubmitted by Calvin Sloan on May 25, 2016 - 9:29am      In March of 2016, the Center for Media and Democracy exposed how a GOP polling firm is working with state chambers of commerce to defeat workplace reforms like increasing the minimum wage and paid sick leave, despite their own polling that shows that large majorities of state chamber members and CEOs are supportive of such measures. That webinar was hosted by the Council of State Chambers (COSC), a little-known trade association deeply embedded in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce infrastructure that provides ostensibly-autonomous state chambers of commerce with U.S. Chamber policy directives. Research released by CMD in March further documented how the policy synergy provided by groups like COSC is not the exception to the rule; it is the rule. Countless local chambers and essentially every state chamber have been captured by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vast network of councils, government affairs conferences, training centers, executive associations, and membership clubs. So how far does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s policy network extend? Below is a map of the members of CCC 100, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s invite-only group of chamber executives that gather twice a year in lush resorts to attend U.S. Chamber-led policy trainings:Since CMD’s source documents on CCC 100 range from 2011 to 2015, and contain only a handful of CCC 100 registration lists, this map is incomplete. But from what information is available, it is clear that the U.S. Chamber has sought--and most of the time, has been able--to capture the policy direction of local chambers in every major city across the country. Far too often in 2016 America, the local chamber is not representing local interests. Donate to CMD!Further, many local chambers are now highly partisan and transnationally interested. In soliciting CCC 100 "sponsorship opportunities," the U.S. Chamber advertises "three days of unlimited access to the nation's top chamber presidents and CEOs" to the lobbying departments of mega-corporations like Walmart, FedEx and American Express--corporate interests who prioritize shareholder profits, not community development. The state chambers are in worse shape. The following map shows COSC state chamber membership: California Chamber of CommerceStreet Number1215 K Street, 14th FloorCitySacramentoStateCAZip95812 Apart from Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, every state in the country has a COSC-affiliate. These institutions are provided with legal and political expertise from the U.S. Chamber on how to operate political PACs and lobby effectively, and are forces to be reckoned with in state capitols. And U.S. Chamber "expertise" is by no means benign. The latest COSC conference met in wintry January at the Marco Beach Ocean Resort, where state chamber executives attended a political discussion led by the Koch-founded Freedom Partners organization, and a policy training led by a PR firm "on how best to message a free market approach to climate issues." The U.S. Chamber may be infamous for being the largest lobbyist in Washington D.C.--but it is evident that the organization’s influence extends far beyond the Beltway. Read the key documents about CMD's investigation of the state Chambers here. - See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/05/13110/us-chamber-commerce-local-influence-two-maps#sthash.jBHhaMJD.dpuf

OMG  The Manifesto Reverberates

But he left behind a document with unmistakably authoritarian overtones that were to reverberate throughout the business community. In his book The Power of Ideas, Lee Edwards, professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, and the official historian of the Heritage Foundation, reports an account of his interview with the late Joseph Coors, head of the largest brewery west of the Mississippi; specifically, that Coors was "stirred up" after reading it. Coors told Edwards that Powell's manifesto had "convinced" him that American business was "ignoring a crisis." Coors was moved to act. He "invested" the first $250,000 to fund the 1971-72 operations of the Analysis and Research Association (ARA) in Washington, D.C., the original name of the foundation. Other wealthy contributors followed Coors' lead. Their aim was to counter liberal power in Washington, and aggressively market policies and legislative proposals to Congress and the President that reflected the conservative agenda. Heritage became the trend-setting model for scores of policy institutes and lobbying operations that compose the radical-right apparat. Heritage has been a major beneficiary of the Coors' Castle Rock Foundation ever since.In her recent book Slanting the Story, journalist-critic Trudy Lieberman cites the Powell manifesto's call for a focal attack on Ralph Nader. She suggests that as a result of such concerted assaults, the right wing is "well on its way" to victory in the "broad philosophical argument" between liberals and conservatives.In its 1993 paper Justice for Sale, the Alliance for Justice detailed how Powell's legal recommendations inspired "a multi-faceted, comprehensive, and integrated campaign" coordinated and funded by large corporations and rightwing foundations "to create taxpayer subsidized law firms...to rewrite American jurisprudence...advanc[e] their agenda before judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and government policy makers...[and] sought to assure control over the future direction of the law" by installing ideologically friendly faculty in law schools, as well as organizing and rewarding students with scholarships and clerkships under conservative judges, and placing those judges on the bench. The Alliance document reported that the California Chamber of Commerce picked up on Powell and proposed what became in 1973 thePacific Legal Foundation, the first of eight regional litigation centers. The seed money for establishing these centers was provided that year by J. Simon Fluor, founder of the global engineering company that bears his name. The Olin, Scaife, Bradley, Smith Richardson, and Coors' Castle Rock foundations, and others, continue to underwrite these operations. They have wrought great changes in the law - such as weakening affirmative action, and curbing access to courtrooms by death-row prisoners, the handicapped, minorities, and the elderly - to appeal, to sue, to vote. Cases argued up the judicial ladder by radical litigators have often reached the Supreme Court. They tried unsuccessfully to roll back the Miranda rights of prisoners placed under arrest, and to limit the right of states to enforce certain environmental protections. But they have won decisions in Federal courtrooms that endanger public school systems, the rights of women, the separation of church and state, and clean air and water regulations.

UPDATE:  The California Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against CARB declaring Cap and Trade to be illegal.  The case is pending.  Assemblywoman  Shannon Grove (R) 34th District has  introduced AB245 — CARB’s Open Meeting Transparency… specific to their agreement with Canada under WCI, Inc. (Western Climate Initiative) and the trading of carbon credits, etc.  Contact your State Assembly and Senate to support Assemblywoman Grove’s bill  AB245!God Bless America!

==oops, see also CCoC

bs

Loren Kaye President California Foundation for Commerce and EducationLoren Kaye was appointed president of the Foundation in January 2006. Kaye has devoted his career to developing, analyzing and implementing public policy issues in California, with a special emphasis on improving the state's business and economic climate.Kaye is also a gubernatorial appointee to the state's Little Hoover Commission, charged with evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of state agencies and programs. He served in senior policy positions for Governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, including Cabinet Secretary to the Governor and Undersecretary of the California Trade and Commerce Agency. Kaye has also represented numerous private sector interests, managing issues that affect specific business sectors to promote an improved business climate or to resist further regulation or costs on business. Kaye lives in Sacramento with his wife and daughter.The California Foundation for Commerce and Education is affiliated with the California Chamber of Commerce and serves as a "think tank" for the California business community. The Foundation is dedicated to preserving and strengthening the California business climate and private enterprise through accurate, impartial and objective research and analysis of public policy issues of interest to the California business and public policy communities.

Related Top Stories  07/07/2014 - New State Sales Tax Exemption Now in Place for Some Purchases06/17/2014 - Record State Budget Includes Healthy Reserve, No New Taxes06/09/2014 - Sluggish First Quarter Below Expectations, But Weakness May Prove Short-Lived06/03/2014 - California Roads, Highways Losing Their Financial Base​​​​03/24/2014 - Following Slow Start, Economy Appears Poised for Stronger Gains03/10/2014 - Farewell to a Towering Californian01/17/2014 - Prudent Budget Proposed by Governor for 2014–1510/01/2013 - New Study Shows Smuggling Rate Will Double With $2 a Pack Tax Increase09/05/2013 - Guest Commentary: Legislation Would Reduce Access to Justice08/12/2013 - Guest Commentary: State Needs to Plan Before It Taxes When Updating Aging Infrastructure

==

stinktank/lobby armPresident and Chief Executive Officer  Allan Zaremberg, President and Chief Executive OfficerBiographyDebi Hobson, Executive Assistant to the President Contact Form  Executive Vice Presidents    Dave Kilby Corporate Affairs: Dave Kilby, Executive Vice President, Corporate AffairsCorporate Affairs serves as a liaison with CalChamber major members, in addition to encompassing activities such as CalChamber corporate secretary and Board relations.BiographyLarry Dicke Finance: Larry Dicke, Executive Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial OfficerThe Finance Department is responsible for interpreting and reporting all financial information timely and accurately, controlling and protecting assets, and maintaining a sound and reliable computer system and hardware infrastructure for CalChamber.BiographyJeanne CainGovernment Relations: Jeanne Cain, Executive Vice President, PolicyThe Public Policy Unit is responsible for all public policy and regulatory legislative issues. Policy staff also direct the work of CalChamber policy committees.Biography   Executive Team  Ann Amioka Communications: Ann Amioka, Vice President, CommunicationsThe Communications Department is responsible for producing CalChamber's legislative publications and related communications, including Alert.BiographyDrew Savage Corporate Affairs: Drew Savage, Vice President, Corporate RelationsCorporate Relations focuses on working with the CalChamber's larger members, and those companies and individuals whose primary interest is affecting public policy at the highest levels.BiographySusanne StirlingInternational Trade: Susanne Thorsen Stirling, Vice President, International AffairsThe department’s priority issues include support for negotiating fair and equitable market access for state agricultural and manufactured products, as well as services.Biography  Erika Frank Legal Affairs: Erika Frank, Vice President, Legal Affairs, and General CounselThe Legal Affairs Department reviews and participates in court cases having a broad impact on California's economy and business climate.Biography  Local Chamber Relations: The Local Chamber Relations Department is responsible for local chamber relations and staffs the Western Association of Chamber Executives and Southern California Association of Chamber Executives programs.    Karen Olson Marketing: Karen Olson, Vice President, MarketingThe Marketing Department develops strategies for promoting CalChamber products and services to current and potential customers and members.BiographyDenise Davis Media Relations: Denise Davis, Vice President, Media Relations and External AffairsThe Media Relations Department ensures that the CalChamber's positions on public policy issues — in the legislative, regulatory or judicial arenas — are well-known to the media and to the public. BiographyMartin WilsonPublic Affairs: Martin R. Wilson, Vice President, Public AffairsThe Public Affairs Department is responsible for the CalChamber’s political activities, including its Public Affairs Council, ChamberPAC, CalBusPAC and JobsPAC, as well as the Candidate Recruitment and Development Program.BiographyCalChamber Policy StaffLegal Affairs Staffhttp://www.calchamber.com/AboutUs/Pages/ExecutiveTeam.aspx

(July 2, 2014) Legislation mandating consultation with Native American tribes as part of the environmental regulatory process passed a Senate committee last week. The Senate Environmental Quality Committee reviewed and recommended on June 25 a number of amendments toAB 52 ​(Gatto; D-Los Angeles) for the author's consideration.The California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business groups continue to oppose AB 52 as a "job killer" because it increases the potential for litigation related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The "job killer" status of the bill will be evaluated when the amendments suggested by the committee appear in print. AB 52 as currently written creates more opportunities for litigation and substantially increases project cost and delay by creating mandatory consultation requirements with Native American Tribes and by requiring lead agencies to analyze a project's impacts to an entirely new resource area called Tribal Cultural Resources. The CalChamber and coalition argued that AB 52 will create a disincentive to invest in land, whether to build affordable housing, schools and universities, or construct needed infrastructure such as renewal energy projects, or roads and highways. Staff Contact: Anthony Samson==no position on prop 30?bsThere’s a reason the Wall Street Journal dubbed California Chamber President Allan Zaremberg “coalition man.” For decades, the CalChamber has effectively built support around pro-business candidates and initiatives. Our members trust us to pave the way for a healthy business environment. We do this through our powerful political action committees and ballot initiative campaigns.For more information, contact the California Chamber of Commerce.CandidatesJobsPACThe CalChamber co-chairs this employer-based PAC, which meets during the election year to interview candidates and review the progress of their campaigns. JobsPAC has won bipartisan approval for its efforts to support pro-business candidates running in open legislative seats.

ChamberPACFormed in 1995, ChamberPAC is a bipartisan political action committee that has historically supported business-friendly incumbent legislators and makes recommendations to the CalChamber Board on primary candidate endorsements. Contribute to help elect pro-jobs legislators who support improving the business climate for the employer community.

Initiatives

When the legislative process fails, pro-business and anti-business forces turn to the initiative process to take proposals directly to California voters. The CalChamber has backed initiatives to enact tax relief and tort reform, successfully challenged split roll property tax proposals and defeated security litigation. We will continue to lead efforts to fight anti-business proposals, including those that threaten to increase taxes, health care expenses and frivolous lawsuits. Pending ballot measuresCalBusPACThe California Business Political Action Committee (CalBusPAC) was established in 1976 to qualify, support and/or oppose statewide ballot initiatives. Contributions to CalBusPAC will aid California employers in preparing for future ballot battles. Contribute to CalBusPAC

==

members of the California Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors are elected by the CalChamber’s members and are ranking executives in their organizations, representing many of the state’s leading firms and industries, as well as the small business segment. These executives provide leadership as the CalChamber pursues its aggressive agenda to protect employers' rights and interests in the legislative and regulatory arenas, and to foster a strong and growing economy in the state and nation.  Executive CommitteeChairAnne BuettnerSenior Vice PresidentThe Walt Disney Company Past ChairTimothy S. DuboisPresidentThe Edward Thomas CollectionFirst Vice ChairJoseph OttingPresident and Chief Executive OfficerOneWest Bank, FSB Past Chair  S. Shariq YosufzaiVice PresidentChevron Corporation  Second Vice ChairMichael W. MurphyPresident and Chief Executive OfficerSharp Health Care At-Large MemberTerry MacRaeChief Executive Officer, President and FounderHornblower Cruises & EventsThird Vice ChairSusan Corrales-DiazPresidentSystems Integrated At-Large MemberPeter C. NelsonChairman of the BoardCalifornia Water Service CompanyImmediate Past ChairFrederick E. HitchcockChairman and Chief Executive OfficerHitchcock Automotive ResourcesPresident and Chief Executive OfficerAllan Zaremberg   Board MembersGregory A. AdamsPresidentKaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.  Jacqueline F. AkerblomWest Region Managing PartnerGrant Thornton LLP  E. Jane Arnault-Factor, Ph.D.President and Chief Executive OfficerJurEcon, Inc.  Karen A. AustinSenior Vice President and Chief Information OfficerPacific Gas & Electric Company  Roger J. BaccigaluppiChairman and Chief Executive OfficerRB International  Ted J. BalestreriChairman and Chief Executive OfficerCannery Row Company  Gaurdie E. BanisterPresident and Chief Executive OfficerAera Energy LLC  Rodney F. BanksExecutive Vice President, Commercial Banking ServicesCity National Bank  John A. BelliManaging PartnerErnst & Young LLP  Daniel W. BoydPrincipalBoyd Consulting Services  Michael CahillPresident, Rail Systems DivisionSiemens Industry, Inc.  Grace Evans CherashoreChief Executive OfficerEvans Hotels  Patricia T. ClareySenior Vice PresidentHealth Net. Inc.  Mary Ann CloydPartner, Center for Board GovernancePriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP  Sheila CondonTerritory DirectorIBM Corporation  Thomas ConleySenior Vice PresidentState Farm Insurance Companies  Thomas J. CroslinVice President - EngineeringThe Boeing Company  John F. DaegeleVice President - Space SystemsNorthrop Grumman Aerospace Systems  Weili DaiPresident and Co-FounderMarvell Technology Group  Steven D. DavisPresident and Chief Operating OfficerSan Diego Gas & Electric  Jose A. ElgorriagaVice President/General ManagerUnivision KFTV and UniMas KTFF  Michael FeldmanExecutive Vice PresidentUnion Bank  Sandra O. FloydPresident and Chief Executive OfficerOutsource Consulting Services  Henry (Hank) R. ForeRegional Senior Vice PresidentComcast Cable  Richard B. Fowler IIChief Operating OfficerKronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard  Richard B. Fowler IIIDirector, California OperationsAntea Group  Paul GabbardGeneral Manager, Shell Martinez RefineryShell Oil Products US  Dan GordonChief Operating OfficerGordon Biersch Brewing Company  Lloyd GreifPresident and Chief Executive OfficerGreif & Co.  Edwin A. GuilesDirectorCubic Corporation  Kourosh HangafarinDirector, Mergers and AcquisitionsAmerican Logistics International  Brice HarrisChancellorCalifornia Community Colleges  Robert E. Hertzka, M.D.DirectorAnesthesia Service Medical Group  Raymond W. HoldsworthChairman and Chief Executive OfficerHandbook Holdings, Inc.  Mark HutchinsManaging PartnerKPMG LLP  Mark JansenPresident and Chief Executive OfficerBlue Diamond Growers  Sylvia Sue JohnsonVice PresidentJohnson Machinery Co.  Paul KaufmanWest Segment Manager, Commercial BankingJP Morgan Chase  John H. KautzChairmanKautz Ironstone Vineyards  George David KiefferPartnerManatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP  John W. KoebererChief Executive Officer/PresidentThe California Parks Company  Laurel KrzeminskiSenior Vice President and Chief Financial OfficerGranite Construction  Janet W. LamkinCalifornia State PresidentBank of America  Jonathan K. LaynePartnerGibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP  Ronald L. LitzingerPresidentSouthern California Edison  Xiaoling LiuPresident and Chief Executive OfficerRio Tinto Minerals  Michael LizárragaPresident and Chief Executive OfficerTELACU?  John F. LlewellynChairmanForest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries  Gregory N. LongstreetPresident and Chief Executive OfficerFarmer John Foods  Donna LucasChief Executive Officer and PresidentLucas Public Affairs  William M. LylesPresident and Chief Executive OfficerLyles Diversified, Inc.  William (Bill) J. Lyons Jr.Chief Executive Officer and General ManagerMapes Ranch/Lyons Investments  Rebecca Macieira-KaufmannPresident and Chief Executive OfficerBanamex USA  Robert MacleanPresidentCalifornia American Water and Hawaii American Water  Timothy J. McCallionPresident - West RegionVerizon  Thomas V. McKernanChairmanAutomobile Club of Southern California  Ken McNeelyPresident-AT&T CaliforniaAT&T  Gregory H. McWilliamsPresidentNewhall Land  Steven A. MerksamerSenior PartnerNielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Gross & Leoni, LLP  Diane D. MillerPresidentWilcox, Miller & Nelson  Kristine MillerPartnerBain & Company  Mark MorganPresidentAnthem Blue Cross  Janet NapolitanoPresidentUniversity of California  Dr. Richard PattenaudePresident and Chief Executive OfficerAshford University  Joan A. PaydenPresident and Chief Executive OfficerPayden & Rygel  Philip V. PetrocelliPresident, West DivisionHNTB Corporation  Julie C. QuinnManaging DirectorDeloitte & Touche LLP  Larree M. RendaExecutive Vice President, Chief Strategist and Administrative OfficerSafeway, Inc.  Christopher P. ReynoldsGroup Vice President and General CounselToyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.  Gary D. RobertsExecutive Vice PresidentFox Entertainment Group  Frederick R. RuizChairman Emeritus/Co-FounderRuiz Foods  Joe Russ IVOwnerRuss Ranch & Timber Company  Anthony L. SabatinoRegion PresidentSecuritas Security Services USA Inc.  Donna SankerVice President, MarketingBP am pm  Julie A. SattlerVice PresidentLockheed Martin Space Systems Company  Kent SavagianManaging Director and FounderMoelis & Company  ?John R. ShinerPartnerBryan Cave, LLP  John SotoodehExecutive Vice PresidentWells Fargo  Lucinda StarrettPartner, Environment, Land and ResourcesLatham & Watkins, LLP  Berton SteirVice President, Corporate DevelopmentParamount Farms/Roll Global LLC  Phillip J. TelgenhoffField Vice PresidentAllstate Insurance Company  Gail ThomasVice PresidentUS West Region Enterprise and Partner GroupMicrosoft Corporation  Steve Van DornChairman-ElectWestern Association of Chamber ExecutivesSanta Clara Chamber of Commerce& Convention-Visitors Bureau  Eugene J. VoilandPrincipalVoiland Enterprises, LLC  Frank WashingtonChief Executive OfficerMoon Shot Communications, LLC  Michael E. WashingtonGeneral ManagerSheraton Gateway LAX  Dr. Timothy P. WhiteChancellorThe California State University  Margaret WongPresident and Chief Executive OfficerMcWong International, Inc.  Michael ZieglerPresident and Chief Executive OfficerPRIDE Industries  Gillian ZuckerPresidentAuto Club Speedway==Calif.

Chamber of Commerce Sues to Invalidate Cap-and-Trade Auctions

KQED News Staff and Wires | November 13, 2012http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/11/13/calif-chamber-of-commerce-sues-to-invalidate-cap-and-trade-auctions/The California Chamber of Commerce launched a legal torpedo at the state’s new carbon trading market, set to begin Wednesday.The group, which represents 13,000 businesses in the state, is asking the Sacramento Superior Court to invalidate the state’s first official auction of permits for large emitters of greenhouse gases.The suit challenges the California Air Resources Board’s authority under the state’s 2006 climate-change law, AB 32, to sell the permits, called “allowances,” for the purpose of generating revenue for the state.“It’s not about AB 32, it’s not about cap-and-trade, it’s not about climate science. It’s about the revenue-raising auction. We think it’s illegal. We think that in the fullness of time, a judge is going to agree with us. We want AB 32 implemented cost-effectively like the law,” said Loren Kaye, president of California Foundation for Commerce and Education, a think tank associated with the Chamber.The group was not seeking an injunction to halt the program immediately, said Kaye....

Sunday, July 08, 2007

grabbed frm other node 10 23

not sure what this was but bad code?

will include big city eg LA wspa astr

wspa astro

ab 32 implementation gp, califirnians for energy indep; care, alliance for ca biz, tank the tax, ca drivers alliance; ca mfg and tehnol assoc; californians aginst higher taxes; fed up at the pump; califirnians against higher oil taxes; fueling ca

cmta calif mfg technol assoc

Status: Dormant

Spawned: 2006

Info: The ironically named group works to kill AB 32. It’s a c4, meaning they don’t have to reveal their funding, but the principle organizations running AB32IG are the California Chamber of Commerce, CMTA and WSPA.

Contact: @AB32_IG

stop fooling ca

1/22 slapped down ash kalra singlepayer?

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17924014/california-women-corporate-boards-jerry-brown (https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17924014/california-women-corporate-boards-jerry-brown)

Women are dramatically outnumbered on the boards of directors for the nation’s biggest companies. California just passed a law trying to change that.

On Sunday, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 826 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB826), which requires publicly held companies based in California to have a minimum of one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. From there, women’s representation will have to increase: By the end of July 2021, companies have to have at least two women on boards of five members and at least three women on boards with six or more.

The law would mean 684 women would be needed for just the boards of the publicly traded companies that rank among the nation’s 3,000 largest — plus many more for smaller companies, Annalisa Barrett, a clinical professor of finance at the University of San Diego’s School of Business, told the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-governor-women-corporate-boards-20180930-story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top).

But it’s not clear that hundreds of women will actually join boards in the state. More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law. Critics point out it might not pass legal muster (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3248791) if challenged in the courts. There are questions about how many companies in California it would apply to at all.

Even Brown seemed skeptical about the law’s long-term prospects, acknowledging “serious legal concerns”: “I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation,” he wrote in an accompanying message (https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SB-826-signing-message.pdf) upon signing the bill. “Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, DC — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message.”

As if to eliminate any doubt about the message he meant to send by signing the law, Brown referenced the US Senate Judiciary Committee on his statement (https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SB-826-signing-message.pdf).

Brown is likely sincere in his desire for more gender diversity, Loyola University law professor Jessica Levinson said. “If this were a month ago, I don’t think he would have been as eager to sign the bill,” she added. “But he has to continue to show California is the capitol of ‘the resistance.’”

Still, the bill — which mimics requirements that European countries have passed to increase women’s representation in business governance — has already drawn attention to women’s underrepresentation on corporate boards.

“If nothing else, what this law is doing is increasing the visibility and awareness on the issue itself and the importance, and that is a win in and of itself,” said Serena Fong, the vice president of strategic engagement at Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on promoting women in business.

The legislation requires companies to add women to their boards or pay a fine

One-quarter of the publicly traded companies headquartered in California don’t have any women on their boards, according to the bill’s authors, California state Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson and Senate President Toni Atkins, who are both Democrats.

Nationally, women on boards are dramatically underrepresented: According to Catalyst, women make up about 20 percent (https://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2016-catalyst-census-women-and-men-board-directors) of S&P 500 board seats. There are 12 Fortune 500 (http://fortune.com/2018/05/22/fortune-500-companies-women-boards/) companies with no women on their boards whatsoever, and the number of Fortune 500 CEOs dropped by 25 percent this year (http://fortune.com/2018/05/21/women-fortune-500-2018/), from 32 to 24.

Evidence suggests that having more gender and racial diversity in the boardroom is good for business. A Peterson Institutestudy (https://piie.com/publications/wp/wp16-3.pdf) found that the presence of women on corporate boards and in the C-suite may contribute to firm performance, and that among profitable companies, a move from no women leaders to 30 percent representation was associated with a 15 percent jump in profit.

Credit Suisse (https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=8128F3C0-99BC-22E6-838E2A5B1E4366DF) estimates that companies with more gender diversity in the boardroom see better stock market returns and valuations, and McKinsey (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters) found that the most gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to outperform their peers.

Amanda Packel, co-director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, cautioned that these findings can be overstated — a correlation between diversity and business performance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean causation.

“Companies that are more prominent and have better performance might be under more scrutiny, or are more focused on the issue, or are able to attract more women or diverse directors,” she said. “That being said, there is certainly a business case in terms of the need for diversity on the board, whether you can prove it in a regression analysis or not.”

But evidence alone hasn’t been enough to get companies in California to act. In 2013, Jackson sponsored a nonbinding resolution urging each public company to increase the number of women on its boards by 2017. But by December 31, 2016,less than 20 percent of them had followed the recommendation.

Europe has required women on corporate boards

Some European countries (https://www.racked.com/2018/6/12/17453198/women-on-boards-california), including Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and France, have quotas and fines requiring to add women to their boards. Norway in 2008 required companies listed there to give at least 40 percent (https://www.economist.com/business/2018/02/17/ten-years-on-from-norways-quota-for-women-on-corporate-boards) of their director seats to women.

Aaron Dhir, an associate professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and the author of a book about boardroom diversity (https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/corporate-law/challenging-boardroom-homogeneity-corporate-law-governance-and-diversity?itemAdded=1), has studied the issue extensively.

“Like the California quota, the Norwegian quota was hugely controversial, but the directors who I interviewed, most of whom were initially against it, it was only after they saw the law in action and actually experienced it that they actually changed their minds and warmed to the quota,” he said.

Norwegian companies came to understand that sometimes such a blunt instrument is necessary, given implicit biases, and diversity improved the overall quality of governance and decision-making.

Women and people of color have different life experiences and perspectives than white men who typically comprise boards, and that makes a difference. Quotas force companies to look outside of the normal places for diverse candidates who might not have the typical background for such a position.

“Companies expanded their one-dimensional picture of what a qualified board member should be,” Dhir said.

The bill is controversial — and it might not hold up in court

Because so many companies are headquartered in California — 377 of the largest 3,000 publicly held companies in the US are located there — the bill could make a difference if companies comply. But it could also face legal challenges.

More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law, according to the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-governor-women-corporate-boards-20180930-story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top). The businesses argue that the law will “displace an existing member of the board of directors solely on the basis of gender” and that it focuses too narrowly (https://www.recode.net/2018/9/13/17841606/california-law-women-board) only on gender instead of other aspects of diversity, including race and sexual orientation.

Successful equal protection challenges under the US and California constitutions could nullify the law: The government would have to prove not only that there is disparity in board representation among men and women but also that such a divide is a sufficient reason to create a special law for women.

“It makes a categorization based on gender, which is subject to increased scrutiny if the law is challenged, and it’s not 100 percent clear how that would play out,” Packel, from Stanford, said. “The state would have to meet a burden in terms of showing the reason that legislation is needed and why this methodology is necessary.”

There are also questions about whether it will apply to companies that are headquartered in California but incorporated elsewhere. (Most US companies are incorporated in Delaware for tax reasons.)

The “internal affairs doctrine” ensures the state in which a company is incorporated governs issues such as voting rights, dividends, and investor relations,Joseph Grundfest, a Stanford University law professor and former commissioner for the Securities and Exchange Commission, argued a recent paper (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3248791) outlining the legal case against the bill. That would limit the law’s application to just 72 corporations headquartered and chartered in California.

Most of those companies already comply with the bill’s mandates. But one doesn’t: Apple (https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/9/13/17851052/apple-iphone-price-china-trump-us-trade), which has two women on its eight-member board. Apple is one of the most recognized brands in the world and became the first $1 trillion publicly traded company (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/apple-hits-1-trillion-in-market-value.html) in the US. Adding more diversity to its board would not be insignificant.

Still, if the law does stand, there is also a chance that companies will just pay the fine and move on — a few hundred thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for a lot of companies, particularly Apple.

“I do think for big companies, it could be like any other fine, where it’s just the cost of doing business,” Levinson said. “But for smaller companies, this is a big hit.”

If we wait for the market to just figure this out, we’ll be waiting a while

Waiting for boardrooms to eventually become diverse will take a long time: the Government Accountability Office in 2016 estimated (https://www.equilar.com/blogs/61-gender-parity.html) that women in S&P 1500 companies will reach parity with men in 40 years.

Grundfest argues that shareholder activism, not a state requirement, is the way to get more women on boards. Essentially, that means big funds insisting the companies they invest in having diverse boards, engaging with companies to increase diversity, and potentially withholding votes.

Levinson, from Loyola, said the California law is “government overreach” and what matters more is corporate culture. “It feels like kind of a sledge hammer when you actually need a thousand tiny little stitches,” she said.

There are some institutions that have taken more of an interest in diversity as of late, including pension funds CalPERS (https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2017/engagement-corporate-board-diversity) and CalSTRS (https://www.calstrs.com/board-diversity) and investment giants State Street (https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-street-pushed-400-companies-to-put-women-on-boards-most-shrugged-1501100453) and BlackRock (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/blackrock-asks-companies-to-explain-dearth-of-women-on-boards). And the #MeToo movement has also brought attention to the issue of women in corporate America.

“The bottom line is, we need to make [board diversity] a reality, and the only way you make it a reality is if the marketplace demands it,” David Katz, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City, said.

Still, waiting for the markets to come around and corporate culture to change isn’t exactly a satisfying answer for women who want more equal representation now, not when they’re old or dead. The fact that women need to make an evidence-based case for their inclusion on boards, in some ways, proves the point.

Nobody asks the opposite question, said Fong, the Catalyst vice president: “Where is the business case for keeping a board all white and all male?”

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off bs

https://www.cbrt.org/

Prior to joining the Roundtable, Rob served as the vice president of public affairs for CalChamber. During this time, he also served as executive director of JobsPAC, a broad, employer-based, bipartisan independent expenditure committee for CalChamber. lapsly sp

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The biggest test of oil’s power could come this year, as Brown seeks legislation to save the state’s embattled cap-and-trade program, the linchpin of California’s climate-change efforts. The program, which requires companies to purchase permits in order to emit greenhouse gases, provides a key source of revenue for the state’s anti-pollution efforts, but the California Chamber of Commerce has challenged it in court, alleging that cap-and-trade is an unconstitutional tax, passed without the required two-thirds majority of the Legislature.

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The Manifesto Reverberates

But he left behind a document with unmistakably authoritarian overtones that were to reverberate throughout the business community. In his book The Power of Ideas, Lee Edwards, professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, and the official historian of the Heritage Foundation, reports an account of his interview with the late Joseph Coors, head of the largest brewery west of the Mississippi; specifically, that Coors was "stirred up" after reading it.

Coors told Edwards that Powell's manifesto had "convinced" him that American business was "ignoring a crisis." Coors was moved to act. He "invested" the first $250,000 to fund the 1971-72 operations of the Analysis and Research Association (ARA) in Washington, D.C., the original name of the foundation. Other wealthy contributors followed Coors' lead. Their aim was to counter liberal power in Washington, and aggressively market policies and legislative proposals to Congress and the President that reflected the conservative agenda.Heritage became the trend-setting model for scores of policy institutes and lobbying operations that compose the radical-right apparat. Heritage has been a major beneficiary of the Coors' Castle Rock Foundation ever since.

In her recent book Slanting the Story, journalist-critic Trudy Lieberman cites the Powell manifesto's call for a focal attack on Ralph Nader. She suggests that as a result of such concerted assaults, the right wing is "well on its way" to victory in the "broad philosophical argument" between liberals and conservatives.

In its 1993 paper Justice for Sale, the Alliance for Justice detailed how Powell's legal recommendations inspired "a multi-faceted, comprehensive, and integrated campaign" coordinated and funded by large corporations and rightwing foundations "to create taxpayer subsidized law firms...to rewrite American jurisprudence...advanc[e] their agenda before judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and government policy makers...[and] sought to assure control over the future direction of the law" by installing ideologically friendly faculty in law schools, as well as organizing and rewarding students with scholarships and clerkships under conservative judges, and placing those judges on the bench.

The Alliance document reported that the California Chamber of Commerce picked up on Powell and proposed what became in 1973 the Pacific Legal Foundation, the first of eight regional litigation centers. The seed money for establishing these centers was provided that year by J. Simon Fluor, founder of the global engineering company that bears his name. The Olin, Scaife, Bradley, Smith Richardson, and Coors' Castle Rock foundations, and others, continue to underwrite these operations. They have wrought great changes in the law - such as weakening affirmative action, and curbing access to courtrooms by death-row prisoners, the handicapped, minorities, and the elderly - to appeal, to sue, to vote. Cases argued up the judicial ladder by radical litigators have often reached the Supreme Court. They tried unsuccessfully to roll back the Miranda rights of prisoners placed under arrest, and to limit the right of states to enforce certain environmental protections. But they have won decisions in Federal courtrooms that endanger public school systems, the rights of women, the separation of church and state, and clean air and water regulations.

:UPDATE:  The California Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against CARB declaring Cap and Trade to be illegal.  The case is pending.  Assemblywoman  Shannon Grove (R) 34th District has  introduced AB245 — CARB’s Open Meeting Transparency… specific to their agreement with Canada under WCI, Inc. (Western Climate Initiative) and the trading of carbon credits, etc.  Contact your State Assembly and Senate to support Assemblywoman Grove’s bill  AB245

God Bless America!