If lawmakers follow through on pending legislation in Washington, it could mean a boost for business for Capital Region credit unions.

Critiquing the federal government is something I usually consider outside my bailiwick. After all, what can I do sitting here in my Sacramento office to influence the actions of our president and Congress?

For years, the debate over climate change centered almost exclusively on science: Is global warming occurring, and if so, are humans causing it? But with the economy still struggling, the argument has shifted to one of dollars and cents.

In 2006 the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger enacted the California Global Warming Solutions Act. The objective of the act was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California to 1990 levels by 2020 and further reduce emissions by 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. The California Air Resources Board is charged with implementing the regulations.

It has been almost a year since California lawmakers reached an agreement on the most comprehensive overhaul of the state’s water management system in more than four decades.

Smaller landfills, fewer forest fires and more renewable energy — these are just a few perks California would get from increasing biomass energy, some experts say.

Sometimes success is about seeing the potential of a hole in the ground. Well, it also takes a lot of meetings too; just ask the guys who turned the gravel pit on Power Inn Road into what is now Granite Regional Park.

South of Mather Airport is a grassy field popular with nature lovers and school field trips, particularly in the spring when the vernal pools are in bloom.

When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he vowed that if elected he would take up George Bush’s failed 2007 effort to reform the nation’s immigration policy, secure U.S. borders and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented persons who had lived in America for years. Since then, however, issues such as health care reform have pushed immigration to the back burner.

Two years ago, I wrote in this column saying that Republican Congressman Dan Lungren might be in trouble in the November 2008 election. It seemed like a stretch at the time. Lungren had won re-election in 2006 with 59.5 percent of the vote against a weak Democrat, emergency room physician Bill Durston. However, a look at party registration trends showed that the district was trending Democratic. By 2008, the large registration edge enjoyed by Republicans this decade had all but disappeared.