Daily Business Report: May 21, 2026
Newsom’s tightfisted final budget faces a rough reception in the Legislature
by Dan Walters| California Globe
Since the turn of the century, California’s state budget has been plagued by a boom-and-bust syndrome rooted in its lopsided revenue system and a lack of political discipline.
The budget became increasingly dependent on taxes paid by the state’s most affluent residents, whose incomes increasingly came from investments rather than salaries.
Thus state revenues would often spike upwards, only to level off or decline. But governors and legislators would make new spending commitments during the spikes that would become liabilities during the downturns.
By Brooke Binkowski | Times of San Diego
Officials have identified the three people killed in Monday’s shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego in Clairemont Mesa.
Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad were killed Monday morning while protecting people inside the center from two gunmen, law enforcement officials outlined Tuesday.
Amin Abdullah — a husband and father described by as a familiar and beloved fixture at the mosque’s doors — was working as a security guard when the suspected shooters ran past him seemingly without noticing him, SDPD Chief Scott Wahl said at a Tuesday press conference.
California’s Plans for Energy and Water Can be Misleading
By Edward Ring | California Globe
When Governor Gavin Newsom’s water plan calls for nine million acre feet of new water supply, it turns out part of that total is increased storage capacity in reservoirs, which will not result in an equivalent amount of available water. When the California Energy Commission announces plans to float twenty gigawatts of wind capacity in waters off the coast, that does not equate to twenty gigawatts of reliable electricity.
Whether it’s an energy project or a water project, it’s important to avoid conflating capacity with actual production, or yield. With energy projects, that difference is much more certain than with water projects.
For example, in 2024, California’s lone remaining nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon, with an output capacity of 2.4 gigawatts, would have produced 20.9 terawatt-hours (TWh) if it had ran 100 percent of the time. In reality, its uptime was 88 percent, and it generated 18.4 TWh.
