San Francisco Bay Area Citizens protest SB-1 and Darrell Steinberg responds in 2013.

Skeptical Citizens are not buying SB-1- California's Redevelopment Land Grab Legislation in 2013.
The Measure was tabled but new MORE POWERFUL land grab legislation passed this year HERE

The colorful Jimmy Fishbob Geraghty watches over the proceeding.

The State wants to increase your cost of Gas to pay for trains and low income apartments

Editor's Note: Crony Developers are lining up for their ladle full of government freebies.  There are literally 200 billion dollars worth of contracts and subsidies PLUS Cap and Trade funds.  Never before has their been such a wholesale fleecing of the taxpayers.  Of course it is all wrapped up in a pretty package of "environment, economy and "equity" but it boils down to corporate welfare for the politically connected developers.  We will not let this happen in Marin. We will Save Marin Again!

State: Affordable housing at issue in cap-and-trade talks

By Matthew Artz Oakland Tribune

Posted:   05/16/2014 06:35:09 AM PDT0 Comments | Updated:   14 days ago

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California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, (D-Sacramento) center, speaks during a press conference on green gas emissions at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2014. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) speaks during a press conference on green gas emissions at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2014. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

Consruction is underway as California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and others speak during a press conference on green gas emissions at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2014. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan speaks during a press conference on green gas emissions at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2014. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

See additional gallery images here.

California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) speaks during a press conference on green gas emissions at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2014. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND -- With billions of dollars forecast to flow into state coffers under a landmark clean air act, there is a battle underway over how to allocate the money.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, was in Oakland on Thursday promoting his plan that includes setting aside one-fifth of the funds for affordable housing construction near transit hubs.

Steinberg's plan differs from a proposal laid out earlier this year by Gov. Jerry Brown, who suggested spending more on high-speed rail and didn't include money for transit-oriented affordable housing development.

Starting next year, the state's cap-and-trade program for major polluters will be expanded to include gasoline producers. That is expected to increase the price of gas by about 12 cents a gallon. But the requirement for the industry to buy carbon credits from the state is expected to produce more than $1 billion next year for clean air programs. The cap-and-trade law is expected to generate up to $5 billion a year by the end of the decade.

Steinberg, who will be termed out this year, said it was important to specify funding percentages for various programs so politicians and developers can plan projects knowing exactly how much money will be available. "This is the antidote to the feeding frenzy," he said at a rally at the MacArthur BART station, where an affordable housing project is being constructed in the station's parking lot.

The BART project was subsidized with state redevelopment dollars, but with redevelopment eliminated, transportation and affordable housing advocates are backing Steinberg's proposal to set aside 20 percent of the cap-and-trade funds for transit-oriented affordable housing.

"With this proposal, we can begin to have true affordability. That means low-cost transportation right near affordable housing," said Stuart Cohen of transit advocacy group TransForm.

On Thursday, the organization released a study backed by the Ford Foundation that showed poorer people living within a quarter-mile of transit drove about half as often and owned less than half as many cars as wealthier people living the same distance from transit.

While Steinberg is planning to tinker with his plan to address issues faced in rural communities, the key negotiations are expected to be with the governor, who proposed allocating one-third of the funds for the state's high-speed rail program. Steinberg has proposed a 20 percent allocation.

Jim Evans, a spokesman for Brown, wrote that "the administration looks forward to working with the legislature on an overall cap-and-trade funding plan."
Steinberg said of the upcoming negotiations, "There is give and take. I think we'll do fine with the governor."

 

Senator Steinberg not happy with low gas prices

By Dennis Wyatt Contributing Editor dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com

POSTED April 16, 2014 9:57 a.m.

"Higher prices discourage demand."

Those four words uttered by State Senator Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento back in February in support of his proposal to slap a carbon tax on motorists at the pump pretty much sums up the California Legislature's contempt for commuters, farmers, the working man who needs his truck to ply his trade, minimum wage workers, farm workers, as well as the working-class that's struggling from paycheck to paycheck.

Actually we are already paying the tax indirectly. The state currently taxes for emissions on gasoline sold from Valero, Chevron, Shell and other oil companies. That tax is passed on to consumers at the pump. Economists estimate it at an effective tax rate of 12 cents a gallon that is collapsed into the non-tax portion of the retail price paid per gallon.

The morally upstanding state senate leader who waited until three of his political cronies were either convicted or indicted on corruption charges to stop blocking minority party efforts to suspend them believes his buddies at the oil companies that grease political campaigns will reduce the price per gallon accordingly. That will happen about the same time Sacramento politicians emulate Mother Teresa instead of Al Capone.

Steinberg believes if another 15 cents per gallon is slapped on the 41.75 cents you currently pay per gallon in taxes that you will cut back your driving and therefore reduce greenhouse emissions.

Anybody gullible enough to think Steinberg and his buddies filling their vehicles with gas paid by the taxpayers will cut back their driving? Or how about the rich folks that keep lining the campaign pockets of Steinberg & Co? Think another 15 cents a gallon is going to stop them from driving imported Italian sports cars that get 7 miles per gallon?

Steinberg isn't too sure that 15 cents per gallon will be painful enough for you. So his proposal includes jacking the tax up to 24 cents per gallon by 2020.

So where will the $3.6 billion annually that Steinberg wants to siphon out of your pocket go?

First, he wants a third or $1.2 billion to go to subsidy public transit. High speed rail, in case you are wondering, qualifies as public transit.

As for the other two-thirds, he wants it to fund a state earned income tax credit for families making $75,000 or less a year. The obvious question is how does that reduce greenhouse emissions or help clean the air?

But more importantly does Steinberg have any idea of who populates California? The median household income for the state is $61,400. That means more than half of the state's population would qualify for money from a state earned income tax credit that's capped at $75,000 and financed by gasoline taxes. And guess who in California proportionately drives and/or consumes more fuel per mile? There are two primary groups. There are low-income workers who tend to drive older cars that are more often than not gas hogs. The others are those desperately trying to hold onto a middle class lifestyle by commuting longer distances. They do so either to secure somewhat better paying jobs or, if they work in the Bay Area, to find a place where they can actually live on $70,000 a year.

The end result would be the majority of Californians would be paying a tax that would then be redistributed in part back to them.

If Steinberg is worried about the financial health of Californians making less than $75,000 a year shouldn't he simply try his best not to raise taxes?

That, though, goes against the grain of politicians like Steinberg.

It wouldn't allow the state to hire a small army of rank-and-file bureaucrats to essentially monitor the taking of money from struggling taxpayers, skim money off the top for their salaries, and then return pennies on the dollar to them. The state also wouldn't be able to exert even more control over your day-to-day life and your ability to survive independent of government help through dubious transfers of wealth.

Remember the good old days when wealth transfer through the tax code was the equivalent of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor? Now they want to tax the poor to put them more on the financial edge. Then once a year they'll give part of the money back to them so they can buy bread and milk to feed their families and purchase shoes for their kids. It effectively cultivates the illusion that the government is critical for many families to survive financially.

Perhaps more families would be better off if Steinberg and his buddies stop thinking about more ways to take money out of our collective pockets in a bid not to provide essential government services but to reengineer the market, spending patterns, and personal habits.

This column is the opinion of Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Courier or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.