My Speech to the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women

February 22, 2023

Californians pay the highest income taxes in the nation, have the highest taxes on the wealthy, highest gas taxes and highest gas prices at the pump, highest housing prices, highest energy prices, most regressive taxes hurting the poor… need we keep going? California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest proposal is a new tax on oil suppliers, and will only serve to make gas prices even higher.

Why? Because “CLIMATE CHANGE!” And “Big Oil Greed.”

Let’s discuss how Democrats and Democrat Supermajority are destroying our quality of life in California — from defunding the police, to allowing 76,000 felons out of state prisons, to trying to take away our legally-owned guns, to the corrupt Soros-funded DAs allowing criminals out with zero bail, to the failing indoctrination centers we call “Public Schools,” to the drug addicted zombie apocalypse of homeless schizophrenics stealing anything that isn’t nailed down, sleeping, shooting up and pooping on the sidewalks…

Democrats are destroying our quality of life. They are wasting precious natural resources or are  forbidding their use. California has an infrastructure crisis, a more than $1.5 trillion of unfunded public employee pension debt, 1/3 of the entire country’s welfare recipients, more than half of the nation’s homeless drug addicts are living on California streets, government created droughts and wildfires, rolling blackouts -

What exactly do Californians get in exchange for our high taxes: terrible roads, faulty unsafe bridges, state government-created droughts, power outages just when we need power in heat or cold, failing schools that rank 48th in the nation - where our schools used to be first in the nation - at a cost of 1/2 of the entire state budget.

The dystopian hellscape that California has become under Governor Gavin Newsom continues to mount…

But let’s start with how Green Radical environmentalists have destroyed California’s forests - one of our natural resources which used to bring in quite a lot of revenue.

For decades, traditional forest management was scientific and successful, until ideological, preservationist zealots wormed their way into government and began the 40-year overhaul of sound federal forest management through abuse of the Endangered Species Act and the “no-use” movement.

California Globe has talked with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) many times about this very issue. Congressman McClintock has warned, “Our forests are now catastrophically overgrown, often carrying four times the number of trees the land can support.  In this stressed and weakened condition, our forests are easy prey for drought, disease, pestilence and fire.”

Traditional forest management had simple guidelines: thin the forest when it becomes too difficult to walk through; too many trees in the woods will compete with one another, because the best trees will grow at a slower rate.

Today, only privately managed forests are maintained through the traditional forest management practices: thinning, cutting, clearing, prescribed burns, and the disposal of the resulting woody waste.

And private lands do not suffer the wildfires the rest of the state does.

Notably, the same climate change the left shrieks about impacts private lands as public lands, but private forests are not burning down because they are properly managed. Or if a fire does break out on privately managed forest land, it is often extinguished more quickly and easily because the trees aren’t so close together, and the underbrush has been cleared away.

We are now living with the result of radical environmentalism ideology – that we should abandon our public lands to overpopulation, overgrowth, and in essence, benign neglect. Forest fires, fueled by decades of pent up overgrowth are now increasing in their frequency and intensity and destruction.

McClintock says, “excess timber WILL come out of the forest in one of only two ways. It is either carried out or it burns out.”

“The U.S. Forest Service used to be a profitable federal agency. Up until the mid-1970’s, we managed our National Forests according to well-established and time-tested forest management practices.”

“But, we replaced these sound management practices with what can only be described as a doctrine of benign neglect. Ponderous, Byzantine laws and regulations administered by a growing cadre of ideological zealots in our land management agencies promised to ‘save the environment.’  The advocates of this doctrine have dominated our law, our policies, our courts and our federal agencies ever since.”

When California is on fire again, it won’t be difficult to look back on recent state policies under eight years of Gov. Jerry Brown, and now California’s current Governor Gavin Newsom, who served as Jerry Brown’s Lieutenant Governor.

Governor Brown claimed that devastating fires were the “new normal,” and openly supported Obama-era regulations which resulted in the new normal: an endless and devastating fire season every year.

As I reported at the Globe during one recent “wildfire season,” “With wildfires burning 1.3 million acres throughout the state, and rolling power blackouts from the weak electrical grid, the California State Senate Appropriations Committee voted to pass a bill to make driving an Electric Vehicle ‘more accessible for all Californians’ through month-to-month memberships without long-term loans or leases.” - instead of addressing the devastating the wildfires.

There is SUCH a total disconnect between California Democrats and the people of the state devastated by wildfires - that electric cars is what they care about.

WATER:

California has a long history of squandering its precious water. 165 years ago Mark Twain famously said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.”

California’s drought conditions are actually historically normal however, each of California’s droughts are billed by government and media as the driest period in the state’s recorded rainfall history. Scientists who study the Western United States’ long-term climate patterns say California has been dry for significantly longer periods — more than 200 years.

Droughts are nature’s fault; they are naturally occurring. Water shortages are the fault of government officials.

In 2014, California voters approved $7.12 billion in bonds for state water supply infrastructure projects. Of that, $2.7 billion was designated for water storage projects. But 9 years later, there are no new dams or reservoirs, or other water storage projects to collect and store California’s winter runoff. And even though we’ve had a banner year of rain and snowpack, California is in technically in a drought.

The state officials in charge bow to environmentalists by allowing 50% of the state’s water to flow out to the ocean, leaving farmers and local governments to fight for the other 50%. The state uses about 50% percent of its developed water supply for the environment, including wild river flows, managed wetlands and wildlife preserves, habitat and water quality control for fish, and required Delta outflows, according to the Department of Water Resources. Water is diverted in times of drought and times of plenty to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, leaving much less for irrigation or for Californians to drink.

Of the other 50%, Approximately 10% of the remaining water is used by cities, and 40% is used by agriculture. Yet it is always urban use and agriculture forced to conserve.

In 2021, I reported: Facing Dry Year, CA State Water Board is Draining California Reservoirs

CA reservoirs were designed to provide a steady five year supply for all users, and were filled to the top in June 2019.

Where did it go? According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, statewide water use averages 85 gallons per person per day. But it’s always urban/residential water users ordered to conserve water: let lawns turn brown and landscaping die, limit showers and baths, wash clothing and dishes less frequently, and other absurd “helpful tips.”

But urban water conservation doesn’t ever move the needle on water “savings.”

Here are some of the 2021-2022 budget solutions/water proposals, including drought proposals, from Gov. Newsom:

• $500M spent on incentives for farmers to “re-purpose” their land. Suggestions include wildlife habitat, recreation, or solar panel farms.

• $60 million spent on the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program to help farmers reduce irrigation water use. Farmers north and south of the delta were receiving 0% water, so it’s kind of hard to reduce there, but overall our farmers are already the most productive and water efficient in the world! This proposal and the one above are the same thing, worded differently. They are about giving farmers money not to farm, with contingencies on what they must do with their land instead. It is the equivalent of being forced to “lease” land to the government. Farmers will still pay the taxes on it (unless they sell for pennies on the dollar), but the government would control the land’s use. Once farmland has been intentionally dried up, the choice for desperate landowners will be to sell at a loss, keep valueless land, or take a little something for it from the government.

• $300 million spent for Sustainable Groundwater Management Act implementation. This is to make sure farmers don’t turn to the water under your feet when you have been cut off from your surface supply. This helps to ensure favorable responses from farmers to “land re-purposing” in above proposals.

• $230 million spent on wildlife corridors and fish passage projects to improve the ability of wildlife to migrate safely. “Fish passage projects” is a clever phrase for dam removal. No new water created here. - somehow wildlife now needs the State of California to help them migrate…

• $33 million for fisheries and wildlife support to protect and conserve California’s diverse ecosystems. This means empty more water from reservoirs to protect fish, without any accountability, as has been the failing status quo for 30 years.

• $200 million spent on habitat restoration (yet again!), supporting tidal wetland, floodplains, and multi-benefit flood-risk reduction projects. Seriously?? A drought package with funding for floods? This is about recreating flood plains so when they demolish our dams, the water has someplace to go.

And that is what your State Water Resources Control board has been doing.

Oil and Gas Industry

California’s bet on renewables, along with its shunning of natural gas, hydroelectric generation and nuclear power, is directly responsible for the state’s blackouts and high electricity prices.

Most countries around the world think that it’s a good thing to have cheap energy. But in California, we have plenty of cheap energy available, just not the political will to access it. The state is awash in ultra cheap natural gas, yet in California, our corrupt politicians and government finds a way to create an energy shortage, and charge rate payers the highest rates in the country.

It’s as if Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to destroy California.

California sits on two-thirds of America’s shale oil reserves.  The Monterey Shale Formation is four times the size of the Bakken Shale Reserve in North Dakota, which is the largest oil producer in the country behind Texas, and one of the largest (possibly the largest) continuous oil accumulations in the world.

This is along the Western side of the San Joaquin Valley in the middle of the state, the Monterey Shale Formation encompasses several hundred miles, where water has dried up and unemployment is the highest in the state.”

A USC study almost 10 years ago found that exploiting Monterey shale could generate up to 3 million new jobs and add 14 percent to the state’s GDP, near the peak of production. Instead, California’s last and current Governor have been working to ban the sale of internal combustion passenger vehicles in the state, and signed legislation to mandate 100% renewable energy by 2035.

Gov. Newsom continues to demonize the oil and gas industry for “windfall oil company profits,” while patting himself on the back for “taking action to lower prices at the pump, by ordering the switch to winter-blend gasoline.” He also “demands accountability from oil companies and refiners that do business in California,” by calling for a windfall tax on oil companies, claiming that money “would go directly back to California taxpayers.” - in the form of welfare checks?

We don’t believe for a minute that Gov. Newsom is woefully ignorant of the supply and demand economic model of price determination in a market. So that means the governor is relying on politics and deceit.

California’s on-again/off-again record-high gas prices have been as high as nearly $8.00 per gallon in some locations of the state.

Newsom cannot legislate a better climate by increasing energy costs, and turning over more energy decisions to unelected state bureaucrats, lobbyists, and activists. This is one of the worst things California’s Governor and politicians can do while claiming they are  “saving the planet,” but really, they are harming Californians economically. (More control measures)

Environmentalists claim global warming can be mitigated, but only if humans are forced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This pseudo-science is what California’s leftist politicians have adopted to control human activity, and the unelected bureaucrats at the California Air Resources Board based its cap-and-trade carbon auction program on.

The cap and trade funds extorted from California businesses by way of carbon offset auctions, are being laundered through Western Climate Initiative, Inc., “WCI Inc.,” a Delaware Corporation formed by the California Air Resources Board under Mary Nichols, the last CARB Chairwoman. What is a state agency doing funneling public money to a Delaware shell Corporation? That’s easy. Wealthy individuals and businesses who want to mask their ownership stash billions of dollars in tax havens in Delaware, or offshore accounts. Nichols never explained why WCI Inc. was registered as a Delaware corporation, and not registered instead in California, just as the businesses the California Air Resources Board regulates are.

Energy providers currently direct electric car owners to NOT charge their vehicles during hot summer days when they anticipate energy shortages and possible rolling blackouts.

The California Air Resources Board is leading this charge to fulfill Gov. Newsom’s executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. This order, if it actually is implemented, will cause the collapse of California.

When caught in moments of honesty, these climate radicals admit that they down’t really support electric cars, but that it’s just a stopgap measure for eradicating the state of all cars.

California is rich in natural resources which once powered the state: natural gas deposits in the Monterey Shale formation; geothermal energy, abundant rivers and waterways such as the San Joaquin River Delta and hydroelectric dams; the Pacific coastline; 85 million acres of wildlands with 17 million of those used as commercial timberland; mines and mineral resources, vast farming and agricultural lands, and hunting and fishing.

But California politicians and appointed agency officials, under pressure from radical environmental organizations and lobbyists, decided to ignore the energy producing natural resources, and instead move to an all-electric grid, and the only approved “renewable energy:” solar and wind energy, or “boutique fuels” - for 40 million residents?

Recently, The Sacramento Bee published an article claiming that it’s not true that Californians are paying higher gas prices because the state no longer produces most of its own oil and instead imports the majority of its supply.

In fact, in the late 1980’s California had 55 refineries - today we have 11.

The Bee said an advertisement by Californians for Energy Independence, “an organization tied to the Western States Petroleum Association and the California Independent Petroleum Association” claims California has “shut down about 25% of local oil production in the last four years” and says California imports 75% of its oil, resulting in an “unstable energy supply and even higher gas prices for working families.”

They say “This is accurate only if you count Alaskan oil as ‘imported,’ which the industry seems to do. California produced about 29% of its own crude in 2021, according to data from the California Energy Commission (CEC). Nearly 15% came from Alaska and the remaining 56% was imported from other countries.

The Brain Trust at the Bee editorial board says Alaskan oil imports aren’t really “imports.”

California now imports 75% of the oil we use, mostly from foreign countries. California only produces enough oil to power around 25% of our state, the rest must be imported - from Alaska and beyond.

The Bee fact checkers admitted that the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported the state’s crude oil production did decline by about 25% from 2018 to 2022,

But actually, it’s far worse than that.

In 1985, California produced a high of 34,228 barrels of oil.

That dropped to 23,877 only 10 years later in 1995.

By 2005 California only produced 18,782 barrels of oil.

By 2015 it was down to 16,336 barrels of oil produced.

By September 2022, only 9,934 barrels of oil were produced by California – and our population has grown significantly.

In 1985, California’s population was 26.4 million – when we were producing 34,228 barrels of oil.

By 2020, California had 39,501,653 residents and produced 11,609 barrels of oil, which dropped to 39,029,342 residents by 2022, when we produced only 9,934 barrels of oil.

California is going backwards – by more than 2/3rds in oil production.

Electricity Production

California’s electric grid faces years of potential blackouts and failure as the governor and Legislature continue denying oil permits at the same time pushing aggressive renewable energy measures.

“The state’s grid, which is still mainly powered by fossil fuels, is undergoing a major shift from natural gas and coal power to renewable power like wind and solar,” Fox reports. “Simultaneously, state officials are pushing an electrification of the economy, particularly in the transportation sector through electric vehicle mandates, which is expected to increase pressure on the grid.”

Governor Gavin Newsom takes every opportunity he can to demonize “Big Oil,” as well as actively working to destroy California’s oil and gas industry.

Gov. Newsom signed Senate Bill 1137, a gut-and-amend bill by Democrat Senators Lena Gonzalez and Monique Limón, to require 3,200-foot mandatory setbacks around California oil and gas wells. “Greedy oil companies know that drilling results in more kids getting asthma, more children born with birth defects, and more communities exposed to toxic, dangerous chemicals,” Gov. Newsom said in a statement. “But they would rather put our health at risk than sacrifice a single cent of their billions in profits.”

Just in the City of Los Angeles:

• there are 26 oil and gas fields that intersect city boundaries, and 5,229 oil and gas wells, according to the CA DOGGR and verified by the City’s Petroleum Administrator.

• There are approximately 819 active, 296 idle, 3,181 plugged, and 933 buried wells.

• There are oil and gas facilities in nearly every section of the 503 square miles of the City.

• The City of Los Angeles produces 2% of California’s total production.

The “lunacy” behind this bill stems from untrue claims frequently repeated by media, that “the fossil fuel industry contributes to public health harms that kill hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. each year and disproportionately endanger Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities,” as LA City Council President Nury Martinez said when the City of Los Angeles was proposing a ban on all new oil and gas extraction, as well as phasing out all existing wells over the next twenty years.

The Globe asked in August when reporting on SB 1137, “Why now when oil production has responsibly occurred in Los Angeles County and around the state for more than 100 years?”

It’s the green policies imposed by California, including surcharges, taxes and fees, that are causing the cost of energy to skyrocket – which is what the green energy proponents want. Banning oil fields would only greatly exacerbate the problem straight into a full crisis as we are seeing in real time in Europe.

The rush to go green in Europe is a fantasy. In its attempt to build “a climate-friendly future,” Europe has shunned oil, natural gas, and nuclear power, to its own detriment – and is now paying 80% higher energy bills.

For those sincerely interested in reducing carbon emissions, the global textile industry has a much larger carbon footprint than the aviation industry. Notably, the “invisible waste” for one laptop computer is 1,200 kilograms, which is 2,645.5 pounds. For one Electric Vehicle, there are 500,000 pounds of “invisible waste.”

Newsom’s fight with “Big Oil” is shameless. And he left out his important role in escalating oil and gas prices in California, the Globe recently reported.

In October 2022, Gov. Newsom addressed the $2.50 difference between California’s highest-in-the-nation gas prices, over $7.00 in some California locations, and the rest of the country in a video. “This degree of divergence from the national prices has never happened before. And oil companies? They provide no explanation. The fact is, they’re ripping you off,” he said. “Their record profits are coming at your expense.”

Newsom left out the part where in 2021 he largely killed hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in California as part of his overall plan to end oil extraction. He also announced his action to halt issuance of fracking permits by 2024 – next year.

Gov. Newsom also signed a package of “sweeping legislation” in September 2022 to achieve statewide carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2045, by establishing an 85% emissions reduction target, capping oil wells, slowing oil and gas permitting, making it impossible to increase refining capacity, and entirely phasing out oil and gas starting in two years.

That “sweeping set of laws” Newsom touts is 40 new climate change bills regulating California businesses and its people. And that’s just the start.

The Bee also neglected to address why the Governor and state officials won’t acknowledge that hydro-electric and nuclear power are greenhouse gas-free, but are not considered “renewable” by the state.

Rather than analyzing actual legislation supported and signed into law by Gov. Newsom harming the state’s energy production, SacBee “fact checkers” pivoted to the “Bad Big Oil” message and deferred to the highly politicized California Air Resources Board for support:

“Less California crude may be better for the environment,” the Bee said. “David Clegern, a California Air Resources Board spokesman, said state’s crude oil is ‘generally more carbon-intensive than imported crude.’ (This is a huge lie.)

‘The higher the carbon intensity generates more (greenhouse gases) and is worse for air quality because it requires more energy to refine,’ Clegern said.

The US oil is much cleaner and takes much less refinement than foreign oil.

Even Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace has warned if you eliminated fossil fuels, every tree in the world would be cut for fuel. There is no other source for heating and cooking once you eliminate fossil fuels. “It is quite amazing that someone that is in government — actually elected to the government of the United States of America — would propose that we eliminate all fossil fuels in 12 years,” he said in an on-camera interview with The New American from Canada. “This would basically result, if we did it on a global level, it would result in the decimation of the human population from 7-odd billion down to who knows how few people.” It would end up killing almost everyone on the planet, he added.

The “Green New Deal” is a massive scheme to, among other goals, restructure the U.S. economy. It is being advanced by a coalition of radical communist and socialist Democrats.

This web of wealthy foundations and individuals bankroll these radical activists, making the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Food & Water Watch among the most powerful (and radical) voices pushing the green agenda.

Big Green Radicals will eliminate the energy sources that provide 95 percent of our current electricity needs, raising prices dramatically and reducing reliability.

If Big Green Radicals get their way, domestic food prices will rise, and we’ll lose the ability to develop new foods to feed vitamin-deficient citizens of developing countries.

So what is Democrats’ end game? It’s always the same - Power and Control. They just create new labels and schemes to achieve this. And if they can’t control all of us, and can't control everything, they’ll burn it down - destroy as much as possible.

As Mark Levin says, “Look at every institution under attack. Our school systems are under attack. A vaccine is under attack. Our borders are under attack. The courts are under attack. Everything's under attack with the current Democrat Party because their attitude is, if we can't control everything, then burn it down. They're the mob in the street without Molotov cocktails -- that's exactly what the modern Democrat Party is today.”

But there is good news - cracks in the wall, if you will.

Look at what We are seeing:

Angry parents pushing back at school boards all over North America for their woke/trans agendas and indoctrination of our kids.

Climate data stubbornly showing cooling,, not warming.

Biden crime family corruption exposed, laptop from hell confirmed true/accurate.

AND

California has lost Nearly 700,000 Residents Since 2020

California has not only lost hundreds of thousands of voters and residents through outbound migration to Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Florida, the state has shifted to a part-time economy, and a threatened agriculture industry, Democrats in California have shunned manufacturing jobs, and replaced them with part-time, minimum wage workers who need welfare to make ends meet.

This is unsustainable, even though more Americans are learning just how bad California politics and politicians are.

Open the Books Exposes the ‘Legalized’ Pay-to-Play Scheme by ‘Newsom Inc.’

Newsom’s divisive Covid policies and Jennifer’s films/curricula arguably fueled the youth mental health problem.

The recent report in January found California’s First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom produces ‘Gender Justice’ films, and then sells them to the state’s public schools.

Can you imagine as child having to sit through the Social/Emotional/Learning, gender bender lesson plans? I was a tomboy as an elementary student… I shudder to think how that would be manipulated today by some really sick educators… and Mrs. Newsom.

Elon Musk Twitter files releases exposing Big Tech collusion with government (fascism) to restrict freedom of speech.

Female athletes speaking out against biological male participation in women's sports,

Repeated Biden lies about economy, inflation.

GOP taking back the House and the initiation of investigations,

Exposure of Pfizer clinical trial data in spite of attempts to prevent release for 75 years or so,

Exposure of Pfizer fraud in trial data (should lead to elimination of liability shield),

“Plant-based” meat companies layoff 20% and face bankruptcy,

The people are pushing back. We can save California but it will be a long, difficult fight.

“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, government destroys freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.”

~ Chris Hedges