Obama takes on energy security. Boehner backs school vouchers for D.C students, but is his bill too narrow? Do kids benefit from full-day kindergarten? Jerry Brown abandons budget bipartisanship. New research helps ready California for “The Big One.”
Obama takes on energy security
At a time when the president is defending his policy in the Middle East and Japan is still reeling from that country's nuclear worst case scenario, Obama is going ahead with an ambitious plan to address US energy security. The president begins his campaign today by outlining a plan designed to create at least 80 percent of the electricity in the US using clean energy sources by 2035. How exactly does he plan to do this? Will nuclear fears be appeased or aggravated? Republicans claim that Obama is stifling offshore energy production, but he counters this by pointing to last year's seven high in domestic oil production. What about a recent Department of the Interior report showing that more than two thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are inactive and an estimated 11 billion barrels of oil could be generated from these areas? How does the president plan to incentivize increased production?
Guests:
Congressman Henry Waxman, D-30th District of California; Ranking Member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee
Congressman Brian Bilbray, R-50th District of California; Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee
Boehner backs school vouchers for D.C students
Today the very first bill to be sponsored by new speaker of the House, John Boehner, is expected to go up for a vote. It’s not just Boehner’s first, it’s also likely to be his only bill sent to the floor for this Congressional session, and for that reason it’s a bit of a surprise. The speaker has chosen to throw his political capital behind the issue of school vouchers for students in Washington D.C. The bill affects1100 hundred students total. Critics are slamming Boehner for focusing on a narrow cause, while advocates are saying it shows his commitment to broad education reform. But this bill serves one other purpose: it’s put the controversial concept of school vouchers back in the news. We’ll take a look at the pros and cons of voucher systems and find out if this bill is the one the speaker should have hung his hat on.
Guests:
Lindsey Burke, Policy Analyst for the Heritage Foundation
Richard Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation
Do kids benefit from full-day kindergarten?
Full-day kindergarten is a growing trend in school districts across the country. In California, nearly half of the state’s kindergartners attended full-day classes in 2007-2008. That’s up dramatically from only 11% in 2000-2001. While parents and educators perceive an academic benefit, research support is actually limited. In 2006, researchers at USC and the Public Policy Institute of California released a national study indicating that full-day kindergarten provided some initial educational gains for kids and parents. But by the third grade, those who attended half-day classes had caught up to their peers. Now, a new study that focused on English-language learners in the Los Angeles Unified School District, found no meaningful gains on second-grade test scores or improvement in English fluency. Given the deep budget cuts school districts face, does our national push towards longer kindergarten days make sense? What are the pros and cons of longer kindergarten days? Might there be benefits these studies are missing? Do working parents have the luxury of considering these questions?
Guest:
Jill Cannon, Research Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC); lead author of the new PPIC study “Full-Day Kindergarten in California Lessons from Los Angeles”
Jerry Brown pulls the plug on budget bipartisanship
After months of debate on California’s continuing budget crisis, Governor Jerry Brown Tuesday walked away from the negotiating table citing an inability to come to an agreement with Republican lawmakers on the details of exactly how to close California’s $26-billion deficit gap. Brown’s plan managed to trim $11.2 billion, and the governor was hoping to stage a special election to allow voters to help determine how to close the gap before the cutoff date to approve a new budget in June. But Republican lawmakers wanted what Brown called "an ever-changing list of collateral demands." Republicans had a similar response to the budget breakdown, with Sen. Bill Emmerson (R-Hemet) stating, "We gave it our best. We're very disappointed. It's done." The impasse is the latest in an ongoing crisis that may find California in a serious cash bind by fall. How will the budget progress without bipartisan support? Should Brown have been more willing to concede to Republican demands? Will the state's economy be put in further peril?
Guest
Tom Del Beccaro, Chairman of the California Republican Party
H.D. Palmer, Deputy Director of External Affairs for the California Department of Finance
Darrell Steinberg, (Democrat) California State Senate President Pro Tem. He represents Senate District 6
New research helps ready California for “The Big One”
The San Andreas Fault starts at the Gulf of California in Mexico and winds its way through 810 miles of cities, towns and wilderness to end at the Mendocino coast. It’s the place where two tectonic plates, the Pacific and the North American, have been rubbing against each other for millennia, causing massive temblors like the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. Scientists have been studying the fault for years, trying to predict when the next big one is coming and how bad the damage will be when it does, but the picture has been incomplete before now. A group of geophysicists from the United States Geological Survey are undertaking the very ambitious Seismic Imaging Project. Their goal is to create an actual image of the earth’s crust beneath our state that will provide an accurate picture of how an earthquake’s energy will affect different areas of California. The information can then be used to create better building codes and disaster preparedness plans. We’ll find out how the data will be collected and why it involves setting off explosives in the dead of night.
Guest:
Joann Stock, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, California Institute of Technology