While California is the fifth-largest economy in the world, its days of being a business haven have long passed. More and more, companies big and small are forced to either shut down or move to a more business-friendly state. Take, for instance, like Tesla, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or a recent survey of CEOs ranking California as the worst state in which to do business. Things have gotten so bad that even providers of critical municipal services have been forced to stop doing business in the state. And in Los Angeles, the city may soon become a giant Skid Row, a dumping ground in every way.
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The company that operates the Chiquita Canyon landfill, the second-largest landfill in Los Angeles County, says the current regulatory environment caused it to cease operations. Admittedly, there has been an ongoing rare Elevated Temperature Landfill (ETLF) event impacting the communities surrounding Chiquita Canyon with noxious odors that may have given regulators pause in moving forward with the necessary approvals. Studies to date have shown “no anticipated short- or long-term health impacts” due to the ETLF. Nonetheless, the operators of the landfill have put aside nearly $25 million to address this issue.
Unfortunately, California regulators do not seem open to finding reasonable solutions that would maintain active waste disposal operations. And now that the landfill has been forced to close, funding for the community assistance program has dried up. This decline is mirrored by the state’s water system, which was once considered an engineering marvel but is now plagued by chronic water shortages. Political resistance to new reservoir construction and desalination plants has left the state increasingly vulnerable to drought, while tone-deaf environmental requirements and miscalculations by the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Resources Control Board have caused the state to lose hundreds of billions of gallons of water.
One of the main issues that has been complicating response efforts has been the sheer number of overlapping California state regulatory agencies. If this process were streamlined and overseen by Trump’s EPA, it would improve the regulatory process for everyone.
In the aftermath of the California wildfires, President Trump signed Executive Order 14181, calling for the EPA to “expedite the bulk removal of contaminated and general debris” from the zones affected by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in order to accelerate efforts to help the survivors recover and rebuild their lives. The Trump Administration has shown extreme governing competence in helping Los Angeles recover from the wildfires and could do similarly for the Chiquita Canyon landfill.
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The over-bureaucratic governing style in California has even been detrimental to its most distinguished and historic industry: film and television. In a podcast interview, actor and producer Rob Lowe, who has been a bedrock in the entertainment industry for over five decades, said, “There are no tax credits [in California], so like, all those other places are offering 40 percent—40 percent.” And then on top of that, there’s other stuff that they do.” He later went on to say, “Why do I shoot my American game show ‘The Floor’ in Ireland? It’s cheaper to bring in 100 people to Ireland than to walk across the lot at Fox.”
California, which previously had a reputation as a business and economic powerhouse, is rapidly declining. The state’s excessive taxation, burdensome regulations, and deteriorating quality of life are driving businesses and residents to better opportunities.
As companies continue to relocate and individuals opt for more affordable and less restrictive states, California’s economic future becomes increasingly less certain. The Trump administration has an opportunity to bring some common sense to California and stop this runaway bureaucracy before things get even worse for the state and its residents, and it spreads elsewhere in the country. The time to act is now.
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