
Where Credit’s Due
Lifing the lending cap on credit unions
If lawmakers follow through on pending legislation in Washington, it could mean a boost for business for Capital Region credit unions.
A Challenge to National Leaders
The private sector has a role to play
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?

Day on the Green
The political fate of climate-change legislation
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.

Getting Warmer
Does California need its own climate change policy
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.

Troubled Waters
Will the state build or falter on the legislature's historic compromise?
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.

Turned On
Will the state's renewable energy goals spark more biomass projects?
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.

Solid as a Rock
Public-private partnerships spawn Granite Regional Park
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.

Call of the Wild
A long-awaited conservation plan in the south county
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.

Immigration Reform
Arizona laws spark local dialogue
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.

Election Dissection
How safe is Congressman Dan Lungren
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.