News Articles
Until earlier this month, Congress hadn’t acted to protect a single new acre of public land as a national park, national conservation area or wilderness area since 2009.
This congressional failure is not for lack of opportunity. A report by the advocacy groups Center for American Progress and Center for Western Priorities highlights 10 high-profile conservation bills, including two on federal public lands in California, that have languished despite strong backing at the local level and from members of Congress.
Gov. Jerry Brown and Rep. Mike Thompson are involved in separate efforts to boost Sonoma County's groundbreaking program to help residents pay for energy-saving improvements to their homes.
The highly touted program, which has funded more than $50 million worth of residential projects since it started in 2009, sustained a major setback in 2010 when federal housing officials said it jeopardized the nation's major source of home mortgages.
Proposals to make financing clean energy production at individual homes and buildings first showed up in 2001 in San Francisco as a voter-approved solar bond program, and in 2005 in the Monterey Bay Regional Energy Plan.
These strategies were seen as a way to help property owners avoid up-front costs to install or retrofit energy-efficient or clean-energy equipment. But a 2010 decision at the federal level has prevented most homeowners from participating.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson’s (D-CA-5) bipartisan Philippines Charitable Giving Assistance Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously this week.
The legislation, H.R. 3771 provides expedited tax relief for Americans making charitable donations in support of Typhoon Haiyan recovery efforts in the Philippines.
President Barack Obama signed a bill Tuesday that allows taxpayers to get expedited tax credit for donations made to the Philippines typhoon recovery effort, Rep. Mike Thompson's office said.
The bill, initially co-sponsored by Thompson, D-St. Helena, and three other congressmen, allows taxpayers to claim a charitable deduction on their 2013 tax returns for donations made by April 15.
Taxpayers usually must wait until the following year to claim any deduction for charitable donations.
By Donna Beth Weilenman
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson has introduced alternative drought relief legislation that would provide $255 million in emergency appropriations and counters the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act that calls for pumping water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Thompson’s bill, co-authored by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, is designed to help farmers, ranchers, businesses and communities affected by the drought in California and other Western states, Benicia’s representative said.
If you're old enough to remember 50-cents-a-gallon fuel, you probably recognize this advertising slogan: You can pay me now, or you can me later.
Cheap gas may be a thing of the past, but there's still a lot to be said for investing a little up front to avoid big expenses down the line.
Our subject today isn't advertising jingles or oil filters. It's the crushing social and monetary cost of incarceration and the comparatively small expense of breaking the cradle-to-prison pipeline.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5) on Thursday introduced comprehensive drought relief legislation he co-authored with Rep. Jared Huffman (CA-2) that will provide assistance to farmers and ranchers, businesses, and communities suffering from the record drought in California and other Western states.
Reps. Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman are urging President Barack Obama not to eliminate geothermal royalty payments totaling nearly $2 million a year to Sonoma and Lake counties.
Four other congressmen, including two Republicans, joined the call to preserve the payments, which amount to $2.2 million for eight California counties involved in steam power production.
With a stroke of his pen — six pens, actually — President Barack Obama turned a remote piece of the Mendocino Coast into a national destination Tuesday in an Oval Office ceremony that locals in attendance described as something right out of a dream.