Prop 11: The complex ins & outs of this CA initiative and the impact it will have on state government while re-drawing districts --- plus add to the misleading language describing its purpose designed to get over on the public is way beyond me to describe. So I have to rely on the well written post you'll find after the fold to update anyone interested in the latest GOP moves to turn CA bright red. Excuse please that I am mostly withholding my own comment until the best informed weigh in first. This issue needs to be brought to public domain soon and often (every CA initiative will be buried by the Obama - McCain media coverage) and this BATE & SWITCH initiative could sneak by the voters during the fray of presidential electioneering.
Update: Prop 10 after the fold
No on Proposition 10 - It’s About Greed Not Green
http://www.consumerfedofca.org/...
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No on Proposition 10 Information page - It’s About Greed, Not Green
"A corporation owned by a Texas oil tycoon spent three million dollars to put Proposition 10 on the ballot. That corporation will reap a bonanza if Prop 10 passes. California taxpayers will be stuck repaying its ten billion dollar cost."
http://www.mercurynews.com/...
http://www.californiaprogressreport....
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No on Prop 10 – Stop T. Boone’s Pickpocket Initiative
By Richard Holober
Consumer Federation of California
http://www.consumercal.org/
Better hang onto your wallet. Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is spending a fortune promoting Proposition 10 on the November ballot. His initiative would cost California taxpayers $10 billion.
Prop 10 is textbook case of a wealthy special interest abusing the initiative process. Mr. Pickens’ Clean Energy Fuel Corporation wrote Prop 10 and spent $3 million to place it on the ballot. They’re spending millions more on a TV ad blitz.
Prop 10 is the worst kind of corporate raid on the public coffers. We simply cannot afford to cut our schools, our health services and our public safety programs further to enrich a Texas billionaire. Vote No on Prop 10.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/...
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July 27, 2008
Thanks to the mounting cost of statewide political campaigns, the referendum process has increasingly become a vehicle for wealthy individuals or major corporations to sidestep the legislative process and push for pet projects that sometimes provide hidden benefits for the authors.
And so, on the ballot this November, one of the richest men in the world is backing an initiative aimed at getting drivers in the state to shift away from gasoline to other fuels, notably natural gas.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the chief proponent of the idea is the nation's largest supplier of transportation-related natural gas: T. Boone Pickens, a multibillionaire who ranks as the world's 369th-richest person.
Pickens, 80, once a wheeler-dealer in the oil market, more recently has been focusing on wind power and natural gas, and he hopes the state and nation will do the same.
Warning that the United States is too dependent on foreign oil, he has been taking out TV commercials and lobbying politicians to shift away from petroleum to wind-powered electricity and natural gas-powered vehicles.
Nationwide, his Pickens Plan would push the federal government to help private industry build a $1.2 trillion network of windmills – similar to windmills he already is building in Texas – to provide electricity.
Using wind power instead of natural gas for electricity, he says, would allow drivers to start fueling their cars with natural gas – similar to that sold by his Clean Energy Fuels Corp. in California – rather than gasoline.
"I want a federal mandate that any new vehicles should go on natural gas," Pickens said during a question-and-answer meeting with The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, attended by editors and reporters from the newsroom. The board regularly invites newsmakers to discuss current events.
In California, Pickens is behind the campaign for Proposition 10, which would provide subsidies for alternative fuels – with a strong tilt toward natural gas.
The literature for Prop. 10 says it is backed by "a coalition of renewable energy and alternative fuel companies." But the only known contributor to this "coalition" is Clean Energy Fuels Corp. – formerly known as Pickens Fuels Corp. – which has kicked in $3.25 million to support the proposal.
The bill would authorize $5 billion in state-funded bonds to support research and development projects in alternative energy as well as rebates to vehicles using alternative fuels.
According to the state fiscal analysis office, Proposition 10 would cost taxpayers roughly $325 million per year for the next 30 years to finance the bonds, as well as $10 million a year over the next decade for administrative costs.
Critics note that Proposition 10 promotes natural gas over gasoline-electric hybrids, a cleaner and cheaper technology that is already making inroads into the marketplace. Proposition 10 would offer up to $50,000 in rebates to vehicles fueled by natural gas, but far less to hybrids.
Judy Dugan, an energy specialist with Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, said the only hybrid that meets the qualifications specified by the referendum is the Toyota Prius, which could gain a $2,000 rebate. Rebates for natural gas cars, Dugan said, would start at $10,000."On the basis of market distortion alone, this is crazy," Dugan said. "There's already a federal subsidy for natural gas vehicles."
http://www.latimes.com/...
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T. Boone Pickens' 'clean' secret: Proposition 10 would put California taxpayers on the hook for his natural gas plan.
July 29, 2008
Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is pushing a national campaign to make the U.S. "energy independent" through wind power and vehicles that run on natural gas. His blitz of TV ads featuring his own down-home voice has picked up a lot of admiring news coverage. To date, Pickens has yet to explain whose dime will pay for this.
Well, Californians can clarify exactly whose dime it will be: Ours. Along with being the country's biggest wind power developer, Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a natural gas fueling station company that is the sole backerof the stealthy Proposition 10 on California's November ballot. This measure would authorize the sale of $5 billion in general fund bonds to provide alternative energy rebates and incentives -- but by the time the principal and the interest is paid off, it would squander at least $9.8 billion in taxpayer money on Pickens' self-serving natural gas agenda.
The initiative deceptively reads like it's supporting all alternative-fuel vehicles and renewable energy sources. But a closer read finds a laundry list of cash grabs -- from $200 million for a liquefied natural gas terminal to $2.5 billion for rebates of up to $50,000 for each natural gas vehicle.
http://www.calitics.com/...
Truth Now on Arnold's Prop 11 Redistricting Plan to Turn CA Red
by: lindasutton
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Sun Aug 10, 2008
Want to live in a Red State? Want to have gridlock on redistricting in addition to the budget? Want to have the Republicans put in charge of "protecting" our coastline? This is the reality of the so-called "Voters First" proposition being put on the ballot this year by Arnold and his Republican fat cat cronies. The only "voters" who are elevated will be the Republicans who are attempting to circumvent their declining registration statewide by fooling the voters into the idea that Prop 11 is "independent" and "non-partisan." You've got to hand it to them. They come up with such good titles that mean exactly the opposite!!!
Under the guise of "reform," proposition 11 creates a new state bureaucracy with an unlimited budget. This new drain on the state resources would essentially operate as a parallel second set of employees since a redistricting staff already exists in the state legislature. Along with the 14 member Citizens Redistricting Commission (paid $300 per day + expenses to attend a meeting), this new unlimited bureaucracy would include political staffers (civil-service exempt), private contractors, and private attorneys.
If this commission, stacked in the Republicans' favor, does NOT reach agreement, and the rules ensure it will not, redistricting is handed to the California Supreme Court who appoints "special masters" to complete the boundary lines. NOTE that 6 of the 7 justices currently sitting on the court were appointed by Republican governors.