Daily Business Report: Friday, June 13, 2025
Mayor No Longer to Be COO
By Voice of San Diego
About those big San Diego budget changes Tuesday.
One item of particular interest: The new budget passed by the City Council brings back funding for the recently-eliminated position of chief operating officer.
Mayor Todd Gloria previously made a big to-do of axing the position — and taking over the COO’s duties himself. The mayor even set up an office on the 9th floor, where the COO had worked, to meet directly with department heads.
President Trump Signs Resolutions Ending California’s 2035 EV Car Mandate
By Evan Symon | California Globe
President Donald Trump signed off on three resolutions on Thursday, officially eliminating California’s 2035 new gas powered car sales ban mandate, as well as spurring Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta in filing a lawsuit in an attempt to stop it.
Chief amongst the three resolutions signed by Trump on Thursday is the resolution to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waiver for California’s 2035 mandate, which aimed to end the sale of new gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. Since the EPA waiver was first passed in December 2024 as a Biden Administration attempt to “Trump-proof” the mandate, supporters of the mandate deemed it safe because of Congress not being able to change it because of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) being believed to not effect the waiver. The Biden Administration, backed up by reports from the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the Senate Parliamentarian, didn’t think that a House or Senate vote could overturn it. However, this was proven wrong last month following the House voting 246-164 to end the waiver, followed by the Senate voting 51-44 in favor.
CA Department of Insurance: A Warning Shot to Every Free Market Believer
By Stacy Korsgaden | California Globe
Californians are waking up to a hard truth: the Department of Insurance, bloated and broken, has become a hostile force in the state’s economy. Under the failed leadership of Commissioner Ricardo Lara, this out-of-control bureaucracy has devastated the insurance market and driven the state to the edge of collapse.
What was once a department designed to foster fairness and oversight has morphed into a political weapon: slow-moving, expensive, and utterly disconnected from reality. It no longer serves consumers. It punishes businesses, bullies carriers, and micromanages private industry into submission. The result is chaos, uncertainty, and a chilling message to every company watching from the sidelines: stay out of California.
After the worst wildfire disaster in our nation’s history, State Farm, the largest insurer in America, requested a 22% rate increase to cover unprecedented risk and surging reinsurance costs. The Department said no. Why? Because optics and politics matter more than solvency. When a watered-down 17% was finally approved, it was too little, too late. And when State Farm asked for another 30% in 2024, the Department brushed it aside, promising to “review it” sometime in 2025. They still haven’t.
