Senator Kevin de Leon, the same Los Angeles State Senator who proclaimed that “no one lives out there in the tumbleweeds” when referring to the Central Valley, has proven that he still doesn’t understand the realities faced by hardworking people who live here.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!His recent op-ed in the Fresno Bee pitching Senate Bill 350 was an unconvincing argument for an economy-stifling nightmare that might excite people living in San Francisco or Newport Beach but would actually be a burden to people living in the Central Valley. This irresponsible mandate includes plans to force cuts to gas and diesel use by 50 percent, as well as increase renewable energy 50 percent in the next 15 years. Many people in the Central Valley, like thousands of farm workers who Senator de León says he is trying to help, have no choice but to gas up and drive long distances to and from work. Any small improvements to the environment would be overshadowed by the strangulation of the oil and gas industry, not to mention the financial impacts on every driver in this state as the cost of filling up cars, trucks or tractors skyrockets.
Families who have chosen to make their living in the Central Valley don’t have the mass transit options like those in the Bay Area and the great majority certainly don’t have the extra cash to spend on a new hybrid or electric car. Had Senator de Leon bothered to concern himself with the differences between the Central Valley and L.A. or the Bay Area he would know that one-third of all electric vehicle owners in California live in just two counties: Los Angeles and Santa Clara. Less than one percent live in the Valley’s two most populated counties: Fresno and Kern, according to the California Air Resources Board. And almost 70 percent of these elusive, electric car owners make more than $100,000 a year – far more than Fresno County’s median annual income of $45,500.
Californians are struggling to afford the highest cost of living in the nation thanks to high taxes, regulations and a growing dependence on new fees like those collected from cap-and-trade. We must continue to be wary of plans intended to help save the environment that aren’t based in reality and don’t offer any markers for success. California’s families, farmers and business owners can’t afford to foot the bill for Senator de Leon’s extreme energy and environmental policies.
Originally published on Fox and Hounds Daily
Assemblyman Jim Patterson represents the 23rd District, which includes portions of Fresno and Tulare counties.
Hey Kevin de Leon, I’ll see your mandate and cap and trade and raise you http://www.spaceandscience.net/
Bruce,
Great website. I have been fighting this stupidity for years. All I ask is that the “warmists” PROVE that the oceans are rising or anything else that is just normal. Germany has just started to realize that their switch to “green power” is putting them right out of business. Their factories can’t compete with other countries that have not jumped on the “green energy” band wagon. As long as we have Confused Moonbeam and the corrupt CARB running the State then we are doomed.
So Kevin DeLeon, talking wooden head for the San Francisco Center for Firearms Violence (’cause he obviously does not understand the gun-ban dribble the lobbyist group pours into the knothole in his head to advocate) has decided he wants to play green too. Oh what will this ‘rising star’ of California progressive socialism do when sharp reality slams into his inflated ego?
Oh well. At least he isn’t planning to deal automatic weapons into the USA like a recent fallen San Francisco gun ban star of his enlightened group.
The idiot deLeon doesn’t appreciate that some of us are isolated in this state. I must drive a 50 mi rd trip to make a photocopy, buy groceries, go to the county seat. The city where I am having daily cancer therapy is a 120 mi rd trip. I fill up every other day. I am on Social Security. But…does he care? No, not so long as he can convince his district voters to keep him in the lifestyle he has come to enjoy. He must keep busy, you know, so the state continues to have these lopsided, screwball propositions.
Please, SOME congressman, introduce a bill which requires legislature to meet EVERY OTHER YEAR…like Texas… whose economy is tops in the nation. and is stealing California’s lunch! Any legislator who would do this would guarantee a drop in state expenditures, based on fewer looneyisms committed by self-gratifying politicians, who don’t vet their props. “You’ve got to pass it to see what’s in it….”
Sadly I don’t think this politician will see the “light”. We have to many dimwit voters who only believe what they hear on the 6 o’clock news. They just jump in that booth and vote, without ever doing any real research on their own. Maybe a new question to ask folks in conversation “Do you want the cost of your grocery bill to rise?” How much? if not VOTE REPUBLICAN. although I don’t see them doing all that much better.
In order to pay for these forced higher taxes, I believe that the Central Valley, and Salinas Valley, needs to form a giant Co-op, and put high tariffs on all products, going to Los Angeles Basin, San Francisco, and Sacramento…. see if they can get an attitude adjustment from all of these liberal politicians….. And, a further adjustment charge a fee for all water that runs thru any part of the central valley….
Although admirable in intent, I’d suggest you check out the Constitutionality concerning local authority and wieghing levies and tariffs.
But even if Constitutional, using taxation as a threat doesn’t work with social progressives in Sacramento. That is their weapon of choice, man. But the abolishment of taxes, and the loss of control over its’ revenues, sets off the children of Jesse Unruh recoiling in horror.
Admirable, as Skeptical pointed out, but the little guy would be tremendously harmed. Taxes and regulations harm the poorest most.
John Casey’s RC Theory all the way!!!
If de Leon was half as smart as he believes he is, he’d be a halfwit. Sadly he’s nowhere up to that level.