Daily Business Report: April 28 2026
by Josh Koehn | NY Post
Calls are growing for California’s high-speed rail to be abandoned completely after revelations the estimated cost of completing Gavin Newsom’s fantasy train project has ballooned to a staggering $231 billion.
The latest cost revisions for the project — revealed during a Senate Transportation Committee meeting — left lawmakers fuming after the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office flagged numerous concerns.
State Sen. Tony Strickland, vice chair of the STC, said the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan continues to obscure true costs — and now he’s calling for the entire project to be scrapped.
By Gavin Walsh | California Globe
There is a ritual in San Diego households. Each month the SDG&E bill arrives and the total registers sharply because San Diego carries the highest residential electricity rates in the nation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, SDG&E customers pay nearly 46 cents per kilowatt-hour, roughly 70% above the national average, a rate that exceeds even Hawaii. And the company whose name is on the envelope absorbs the blame for everything wrong with California energy policy.
San Diego Gas & Electric is among the most disliked companies in the region — a distinction earned not through malfeasance but through visibility. The monthly electric bill reflects decisions made entirely by our political class. The legislature sets policy; the California Public Utilities Commission converts policy into mandate. SDG&E executes the mandate and recovers its authorized costs through rates the CPUC itself approves. The driving force is Sacramento’s climate policy adventurism — renewable mandates, emissions targets, and the accelerated retirement of dispatchable generation — with the bill for that transformation landing on the ratepayer at every step.
Consider the two largest mandated costs embedded in an SDG&E bill. Wildfire mitigation — grid hardening, vegetation management, weather networks, public safety shutoffs — accounts for up to 20% of the company’s revenue requirement. It is a legitimate cost of operating in difficult terrain, and no reasonable person disputes the need. San Diego County sits in some of the most fire-prone terrain in the country — chaparral, Santa Ana winds, and a wildland-urban interface that has turned downed lines into regional catastrophes, killing people and destroying property. The geography imposes a cost; the regulatory structure requires consumers to pay for it.
Antique anniversary — Couple celebrates 50 years in the business
By Dave Schwab | Times of San Diego
Antiques and collectibles are how Ocean Beach entrepreneurs Ken and Nancy Freeman met, what they draw sustenance from, and what keeps them going — and going and going.
“We moved here from downtown San Diego,” said Ken Freeman, before finally settling in permanently at the Ocean Beach Antique Mall at 4926 Newport Ave.
Earlier this month, the couple marked their 50th anniversary dealing in antiques, half of that time in OB. It’s an occupation that began with the opening of their first antiques business on April 1, 1976.
