Russ Steele
Our local left leaning blogger thinks that Assemblyman Dan Logue should not be looking at business development in Texas as a model for California, but should be looking at California’s past under former Governor Pat Brown for the right model.
“For a better model than Texas, we need only look to California under former Gov. Pat Brown, whose investments in schools, services and infrastructure underpinned a prosperity that lasted for decades.”
Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown, Sr. was the Governor of California from 1959 to 1967. His tenure was highlighted by enormous water-resources development program which later evolved into the Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct. He enacted the California Master Plan for Higher Education, and laws creating the fair employment practices and state economic development commissions. He established a consumer's council and more than doubled state highway mileage. A time of great prosperity in the state.
The question is could we replicate this past performance? I do not think so as this prosperity was not hindered by a plethora of environmental laws, friction that is hampering our current economic recovery. Pat Brown left office in 1967. The California Environmental Quality Act was signed by Governor Reagan in 1970. CEQA has allowed every environmental organization to stop any project they did not like, increasing business development friction. A restaurant owner in Texas can get a permit of open his business in six to eight week, in California it can take a year or more.
Texas has an Texas Commission on Environmental Quality similar to the California Air Quality Board, but it’s focus is more in protecting the right of citizens to access Texas natural resources, principally surface water. Over time it mission was expanded to protect public health and conservation of natural resources. However TCEQ is NOT attempting to save the planet from CO2 emissions like CARB. All the CO2 reduction regulations like AB32, SB375 and 1493 are not not killing jobs in Texas like they are in California.
In addition, the Texas Legislature passed Sunset legislation in 2001, which continued the TEQC until 2013 and changed its name to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. During the special session of the 81st Legislature (2009), legislation was adopted amending the 2013 termination date to 2011, transferring responsibilities to existing agencies, like the Public Utilities Commission and the Rail Road Commission. Like New Mexico, Texas is making sure that they do not have a CARB to increase business and job development friction.
What Dan Logue is going to find in Texas is a Legislature focused on job creation and not one that is focused on knuckling under to every environmental group in the State, like we are in California. He is going to find a Governor well grounded in reality who is not a sock puppet for the government unions. However, those are not models we are likely to adopt in California, at least not untill we clean out the political swamp in Sacramento.
