New standards for replacement automobile tires will “save California drivers nearly $1 billion per year in gasoline and electricity costs, putting money back in their pockets. The standards will also reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2 million metric tons per year, equivalent to taking approximately 400,000 gasoline cars off California roads.”
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That is the claim of the California Energy Commission, whose commissioners, allegedly experts in energy issues, are appointed by the governor. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointee Nancy Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat, is listed as an “engineer/scientist.” Californians in the market for new tires have cause to wonder.
The California Energy Commission produces no energy but wants to limit the people’s choices in the tire and car markets.
Skinner boasts a degree in “conservation and resource studies,” and a masters in “education.” Degrees in dubious disciplines hardly qualify Skinner as an engineer or scientist. She is first and foremost a politician, in the state legislature since 2008, and like other commissioners shrink-wrapped in climate-change superstition.
The Commission seems unaware that tire manufacturers strive to deliver the best possible mileage. Unelected government commissions played no role in that process, and drivers are fully capable of selecting the tires that best meet their needs. With California enforcing the nation’s highest gasoline prices, that tends to be the best possible mileage. Even so, the commissioners want Californians to get only the tires the government wants them to have.
In similar style, by 2035 Gov. Newsom wants all new cars sold in the state to be electric. As Californians have noted, the electrical grid is prone to blackouts, and in 2022 the state told electric car drivers not to charge their cars during peak hours. Based on that reality, Californians might prefer hybrids, or fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars.
The California Energy Commission doesn’t produce or deliver energy. On the other hand, the CEC proves adept at restricting the choices of the people and increasing their cost of living. In that role the energy commission is hardly alone.
The California Coastal Commission, an appointed body, overrides scores of elected city and county government officials on land-use issues. The CCC also rides roughshod over property rights and quashes key desalination projects. Commissioner Dayna Bochco told reporters “the ocean is under attack” from climate change.
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A coastal commissioner since 2011, Bochco served as an entertainment lawyer for her late husband’s production company, producer of shows such as “Doogie Howser M.D.” If Californians thought she was unqualified it would be hard to blame them.
Like Nancy Skinner, Bochco fancies herself an “environmentalist” but that is a misnomer. The California Coastal Commission effectively excludes people from the benefits of the state’s major asset, the Pacific Ocean, and the energy reserves in the ground. So “exclusionist” is the more accurate designation.
The California Energy Commission produces no energy but wants to limit the people’s choices in the tire and car markets. Californians can be forgiven for believing that both commissions should be eliminated at first opportunity, and there are more unelected bodies to consider.
October 18 will mark 50 years since San Francisco mayor George Moscone appointed Jim Jones to the San Francisco Housing Authority. The authority holds jurisdiction over “public” housing in the city but produces no housing for the wider marketplace. Jones served for less than a year then departed for Guyana, where in 1978 he led more than 900 people, including 300 children, in a mass murder-suicide at “Jonestown.”
In 2026 moving forward, it’s all about memory against forgetting.
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Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
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