_PKG_Zeldin_Interview_CLEAN)
Is California intent on committing suicide? Indeed, should a state be allowed to consciously self-poison itself to death, or play Russian roulette with no empty cylinders? The state’s electorate seems to be gung ho. It isn’t the only state in the psych ward. Illinois, New York, much of the northeast, share adjoining cells. A cure, though, is on the way in the form of the EPA’s Lee Zeldin reversing Obama’s 2009 “Endangerment Finding” on carbon dioxide despite the kicking and screaming of the patients (see #1).
Oh, they’ll fight it in court, trying to make their last stand on the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision of 2007 (5-4) which concluded in an act of mind reading of the 1970 Congress in its Clean Air Act that the unmentioned carbon dioxide should be included as an “air pollutant”. Carbon dioxide is part of the cycle of life: plants love our waste (carbon dioxide exhalings, fertilizer) and we love theirs (oxygen). One would think that Congress would have devoted special sections in the law declaring that a part of the cycle of life to be “harmful” to human health. Silence on the subject is not proof of inclusion, and so said three of the dissenters in the decision, the only remaining Court members from 2007 (Roberts, Alito, Thomas). It’s very likely that Zeldin’s decision will be upheld.
Zeldin is trying to rescue California from itself. Its grid is a bankrupting mess, and an ugly fire hazard to boot. The state is busy destroying cheap energy – much of it right under their feet – and affordable, reliable transportation. I don’t know what golf courses are going to do with lawnmowers powered by battery packs the size of cinder block walls. California had over 43 refineries in the late 1970s; now the state will be down to 6 producing fuel by 2026 (Philips 66 in Long Beach and Valero in Benicia are set to close in 2026) (see #2). A projected $8-to-$10-per-gallon gas price will dent anybody’s plans for upward mobility (see #3).
California’s shedding of population over the past couple of decades is nothing new. President Biden had an answer in throwing open the borders and producing a tidal wave of illegal immigrants ready to flood into the state’s well-established illegal-immigrant underworld. After all, it promises to protect illegals from federal law. So, after the chaos, some 2024 projections of the state’s population showed a slight uptick. But what happens when the American people get sick of it, elect as president illegal-immigration’s worst nightmare, shuts down the border, and the deportations and self-deportations begin? The ongoing flight of the middle class and their jobs will be glaring as ever.
Back in 2023, one study predicted that California could lose 5 congressional seats after the 2030 census (see #4). The reasons are obvious. The state has made itself inhospitable to the backbone of civilization and prosperity – the strivers, middle class, etc. Though, it must be admitted, based on decades-long election results, that degringolade (a rapid decline or deterioration) is electorally popular. It’s a one-party state not by accident, a one-party state to oblivion.
Please watch the interview of Prof. Marshall Toplansky, Business and Economics professor at Chapman University, on the troubling circumstances which Californians have brought upon themselves. Admitting the problem is the most important step toward to recovery.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “EPA Releases Proposal to Rescind Obama-Era Endangerment Finding, Regulations that Paved the Way for Electric Vehicle Mandates”, EPA bulletin, 7/29/2025, at https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-releases-proposal-rescind-obama-era-endangerment-finding-regulations-paved-way.
2. “California Oil Refinery History”, California Energy Commission, at https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/californias-petroleum-market/californias-oil-refineries/california-oil.
3. “California gas prices could top $8 a gallon by 2026, new study says”, KGO ABC 7, 5/10/2025, at https://abc7news.com/post/california-gas-prices-could-top-8-gallon-2026-university-southern-study-says-heres-what-know/16370075/.
4. “California Could Lose 5 Congressional Seats in 2030 Reapportionment”, The Census Project, 9/21/2023, at https://thecensusproject.org/2023/09/21/california-could-lose-5-congressional-seats-in-2030-apportionment/.