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California’s doom loop versus original no kings movement

July 4, 2025

Andy Caldwell

OPINION by ANDY CALDWELL

I have written previously about California’s war on energy which is destroying our economy. Yet, the war on energy is but one facet of the war on our liberties and freedoms.

I sat in on a meeting decades ago with members of the Santa Barbara County Cattlemen’s Association as they listened to a warden with California Fish and Game explain to them the diktat, “You may own the land, but we own the resources.” What did she mean by that?

Unfortunately, what she meant by that is no mystery, especially, these many years later. The state lays claim to air, land (including trees, brush, and wildlife) and the use of water (both surface and below-ground) on so-called private property.

For instance, if a rancher wanted to clear his land to plant something, he could run afoul of the law protecting trees, brush, wildlife, and animal migration paths referred to as “wildlife corridors,” not to mention the need to get a permit to “grade,” that is to adjust the scope and lay of the land.

If he wants to water the crop, he will soon have to give the state the authority to monitor his water well to make sure he is not using more water than the government says he is entitled to via the State Ground Water Management Act.

If he needs to burn the brush he cleared off the land, he will have to get a permit from the Air Pollution Control District. If he allows his cows to access a creek for water or to move from one pasture to another, he will have to reckon with the Water Quality Control Board because the cows could contaminate the creek water.

If a mountain lion is killing calves, he would have to obtain a depredation permit from the State Fish and Game Department to protect his livestock.

All this reminds me of the quote, “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed,” by Ayn Rand.

When the Brits were coming, we had to look for them by land or sea. The assault on our freedoms these days is by way of air, land, and sea.

For the air, we have the California Air Resources Board which has set up draconian and far-reaching regs affecting air quality in the state, including flatulence from cows!

For the coast lands, we have the California Coastal Commission which is the most unaccountable regulatory body in the country. They are experts at regulating things of minutia such as maintaining stairs to the beach. They have also killed projects of ultimate importance to meet pressing needs such as drought-busting desalination plants.

Then there is the infamous state and local Water Quality Control Boards that are trying to force farmers and ranchers to somehow maintain water quality standards so strict that the pure driven snow in the Sierras can’t meet the standards.

Farmers and pest management companies also must contend with the State Department of Pesticide regulations which keeps taking away the tools needed to protect our food and homes from dangerous and deadly pests. The oil industry now suffers from the fiats from CalGem that are regulating the oil industry to death by arbitrary and capricious standards that involve prohibitions against drilling.

Besides all that, we have Prop 65 which regulates the storage, use, and disposal of most all chemicals in our state because of their potential to be hazardous. Then there is the American Disability Act, which in California has been used to bludgeon the business community by way of serial litigants allowed to sue businesses time and time again for minor infractions.

Prop. 65 and the ADA, plus several other laws, including PAGA lawsuits, which allow private attorneys to sue private companies for violating various laws, means that California is always listed as the number one or two judicial hell-hole in America, year after year, because our businesses get sued and prosecuted more than in any other state.

Time and space fails me to mention the black hole of environmental review, which also leads to the paralysis of analysis and unlimited lawsuits, aka, the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA. Then there is the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, which in California are used as excuses to control the use of land and water in a most draconian fashion.

Our complaint against King George this July 4th holiday week comes to mind, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…….He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

That, my friends, was the original no king movement that needs to be revived.

Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB in Santa Barbara County and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on  FM 98.5, FM 99.5, AM 1240, AM 1290 and FM 96.9.

 


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Wouldn’t be great if the people who hate what the state of what California has become just left?


California has the world’s 5th largest economy, and is by any realistic measure the nation’s most important and productive state in the Union.

Is it perfect? No. But if we followed Andy’s recipe we would be Alabama or Texas where all you get from government are Hopes and Prayers.


Regulation saves lives Andy. And it spurs ancillary industry. Yes. Regulation affects your individual stock’s prices. Boohoo.

Fire regulations means the guy that comes by your office to make sure the fire extinguisher works makes a living and also help protect you from yourself.


Why do we regulate fire suppression devices for business Andy? Because some cheap SOB in the past decided it was too expensive and his employees ended up being crispy critters. That’s why.


In your world the grieving family can sue for restitution. In mine, we make sure to reduce the greiviing families.


California rocks. Time to go if you don’t like it.


7

At some point, the pain will becomes so great, even the elitists who vote for this feel good-failure crap will balk. Are we there yet?!!


10

Slow progress I know, but those clowns in Sacramento have finally moved to reign in CEQA. CEQA is the litigant’s dream where anyone, for any reason, can sue to stop a project from being built. It is a significant reason why there is a severe shortage of affordable housing in California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_m9Nb_4UoU&t=637s&ab_channel=CaliforniaInsider


5

Andy, It would be great if we each person lived in a vacuum and their actions did not effect any one else. But if I burned off my place to clear brush, then the rains washed down and flooded someone else, You would be the first person saying “we need regulation to stop irresponsible burning”. Regulations are the result of someone was inconsiderate or unaware of those effected “downstream” .


15

If you failed to make any effort to mitigate flooding or landslides, after deliberately burning off your “fire fuel” undergrowth and grasses, then yes, you can be held liable for damages that could have, and should have been prevented. Regardless of your intent to save property, you created the avoidable disaster.


It’s the same, as if I had re-routed a creek to prevent flooding on my property, by excavating the stream bed right up to the edge of a paved road, and the road fell into the creek at the first newly diverted flood. That would be my fault (not to mention the apparent thousands of environmental laws broken).


Now, I do agree that we don’t need any more legislation to curtail each and every possible scenario of liability, as we have hundreds, if not thousands of laws that already cover, well, everything, many times over.


2

Total BS. Cattlemen and farmers have basically done whatever they wanted to the land in the last 50 years. Sure, there are regulations, but you can always skirt them. If you had driven south out of Santa Maria on the 101 30-40 years ago you saw a plethora of old growth oak trees on those rolling hills that were visible from the freeway. Take that route today and you’ll see a few oaks, but it’s primarily thousands of acres of grapevines. Until recently, wine revenues were very high and owners could pay for expensive experts who could come up with reasons why the trees were superfluous.


I farmed in Guadalupe for 40 years and my father 40 before that and, believe me, there’s always a way around things to improve your land (not for the environment) for more profit. Don’t be fooled, the ranchers and farmers in our area are making big profits if they know what they’re doing. But, I get it, they pay Andy’s salary and they all pat him on the back when he comes up with a new way to say that property rights take precedent over everything else, including the environment and the different ecosystems on the Central Coast. Let’s go ahead and take chlorpyrifos off the banned list and let all the idiot farmers use it because they lack the skills to defeat pests in a better way. Real farmers will move on and continue to grow for a profit.


Currently, however, Andy’s side has won and the federal government is pulling back on the regulations that have kept our air and water clean—California is fighting it, but it’s a definite step backwards. Some of you who are old enough might also remember driving into the Los Angeles area and seeing that constant haze of stifling smog that would hang over city, especially in the summer. Today, it is not nearly as bad because for many years California has been able to set its own emissions’ levels and over the years, much of that heavy pollution has been mitigated. Regardless of these rules, California’s economy continues to grow. Unfortunately, the feds have now turned their back on clean air and water in a frenzy to capitalize on deregulation which will line many pockets but will be paid for ten-fold later when the health consequences, environmental consequences and insurance consequences are finally realized.


9

Once again Andy is screaming doom at regulation and quoting Ayn Rand. Hopefully he reads some other books soon so we can move on from this.

California is the 4th largest economy in the world. We’ve done this with a vastly smaller population than anyone else in the top 10, with the exception of #10 Canada, which has only slightly fewer residents. This means we are a very good place to do business.

Source:


https://engaging-data.com/california-4th-largest-economy/


Anyone downvoting please add a quick note and tell me if you, like Andy, would prefer to have dirtier air, more dangerous pesticides on you food, have you aquifers sucked dry by the Resnicks and Big Carrot, or would just prefer California return to the 1880’s.


-20

Still, the leftists, liberals, socialist, communists, Marxists, Maoists, democrats, and blue hair people (but I digress) will soon come along and give their “expert opinions” on how Andy is wrong, telling lies about history, doesn’t know all the “environmental good” these agencies do, how evil farmers and ranchers are destroying everything and anything, and how nobody THEY know in their tiny circle of comrade vegans likes grass fed steak anyway!


-3

Perfect day to post this piece, Andy. Thanks


39

I love that your handle is Petrobaron. Are you actually an oil tycoon?


-29

Heh – not a tycoon, but a proud oilman who helped engineer projects that brought clean cheap energy to California and America for over 40 years. I then watched California destroy my industry in this state, as the DOG, then DOGGR, them CALGEMS was transformed from a professional regulatory agency to a punitive organ of the state, packed with overpaid apparatchiks.


We now have the highest gas prices in the nation, and they’ll continue to skyrocket as more refineries close. Soon, the remaining refineries will hold the State hostage, as Diablo Canyon does now. Eventually, even idiots will be forced to recognize that oil, and commerce, and capitalism, are necessary for a high quality of life.


14