Daily Archive
Stories Posted on July 22, 2008
Critics Assail 'Self-Serving' Ballot Measure
Category: Rent-Seeking · State: California · Source: Contra Costa Times
Texas billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens has made no secret of his desire to open up the market for natural gas-powered vehicles. The founder of a company that develops natural gas vehicles, Pickens believes he has a foothold in an emerging field of clean energy resources — just as soaring gas prices and carbon emissions are causing many to look for alternatives. He's gotten kudos from environmental leaders for mounting a national campaign to lead the country away from its reliance on foreign oil. But, critics are howling at what they're saying is Pickens' brazen attempt to get California voters to foot the bill for a $5 billion bond measure, Proposition 10, that would expedite natural gas development — and line his already-gilded pockets. Pickens wrote the ballot measure, and his company, Seal Beach-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp., solely bankrolled the $3.25 million drive to get the initiative on November's ballot — and is expected to spend millions more to get it approved by voters.
S.F. Ballot Will Get Bush-Sewage Measure
Category: City Government · State: California · Source: United Press International
A measure to name a city sewage plant for President George W. Bush has qualified for the November ballot in San Francisco, officials said. A group calling itself the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco said in June it had collected enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot, and then turned the signatures in to elections officials July 7. The Department of Elections Thursday informed the group it had collected enough valid signatures -- so city voters will be asked in November whether to change the name of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.