Newsroom

The bill would allow family farms and ranches to pass down their land and farms, which is meant to preserve California's strong agricultural heritage.

The National Beer Wholesalers Association has mounted a full-court lobbying offensive to find co-sponsors for legislation that supports state-based alcohol regulation and makes it much tougher to file legal challenges to states' distribution laws.

On Thursday Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) voted in favor of the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010, which passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 246-161.

This bill would offer rebates to households that renovate their homes to be more energy efficient. In addition to benefiting home owners, this bill will create local jobs in construction, retail, and manufacturing.

"This is not 1965, the oil and gas companies can drill offshore now with all the new technology they have and do it safely and not cause accidents," a constituent wrote to me recently in an e-mail.