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When the words 'Monsanto Company' and 'lawsuit' converge in a news story, you can expect to hear about the biotechnology/chemical giant pursuing a patent infringement case against a farmer. Now, the tables have turned. The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), on behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations (several of whom represent California-based interests), have filed suit against Monsanto to protect themselves from liability if their crops are contamina

CoolPlanetBiofuels has received $20 million in funding from Google Ventures and other venture capital funds. This Camarillo-based business is developing innovative mobile refineries that turn biomass, agricultural leftovers, and wood processing byproducts into useful biofuel. This is quite separate from biofuel originating from corn, which has deservedly come under attack for being expensive, unworkable, environmentally unfriendly, and quite possibly lethal as well.  The Association of American

Today, the Assembly Public Safety Committee will take up AB 144, legislation introduced by Anthony Portantino (D-Pasadena) to ban the open carry of a handgun in the state of California. The controversial legislation has reinvigorated the decades-long debate over the effects of gun legislation on public safety. Writing Monday at the California Progress Report, Dr. Dallas Stout, President of the California Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, argued that open carry laws actually make Californi

For eight years following the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the singular narrative and driving issue behind public policy in America was national defense and the Global War on Terrorism. In the final months of the Bush Administration, however, disillusioned from body counts and slow progress in two wars that were supposed to be short and decisive, the American people turned their attention to the fiscal disaster happening in Washington and many of America's state capitols. The advent of the Tea Party

A  little-noticed incident in Ellicott City, Maryland highlights the  institutional hurdles and biases against minor political parties,  the harassment of citizens engaged in constitutionally protected  activities by public employees, the hostility on the part of the police  toward those who record their interactions with the public, and the  inaccuracies common in mainstream media reporting. On  December 18th, a professional petition circulator by the name of Andy  Jacobs was collecting signat

1,300 miles of ancient, earthen levees protect and encircle the Sacramento Delta.  Some say this leaves the area, and its crucial water supply vulnerable to an earthquake. Others opine that the levees are sturdy enough. That something seemingly as simple as agreement over the safety of levees can't be reached is a telling indication of how politically contentious the Delta is. It's been this way for decades too. It's all about the water, and who will control it and where will it go. Delta resid

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resources Inventory has been analyzed by the American Farmland Trust (AFT), an agricultural conservation group working to aid farmers, ranchers and their communities. The numbers, published in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of American Farmland Magazine, reveal California's dismal performance over the past quarter-century in protecting its rural legacy from suburban sprawl resulting in a risk to domestic specialty crop production. “During the

The first snow survey results are in for the 2010 – 2011 season. Measurements taken by the state Department of Water Resources show the snowpack on California's Sierra mountain range is standing at 198 percent the average for the date. That is up from 85 percent of the average the snowpack's water content showed this time last year. “This boosts our hopes that we will have an adequate water supply for our cities and farms as we continue to shake off effects of the 2007-2009 drought,” said DWR D

Even though the Dream Act failed in the Senate and is not likely to come up in the near future with Republicans taking the House, young proponents of the law are thinking that California could be one of the ripe states to pass provisions in the spirit of the shot-down federal bill. "With the highest number of undocumented young people in the nation, California is already the epicenter for student advocacy on the issue and for legal breakthroughs granting them in-state tuition. Now the students-

The ever-saltier Salton Sea could be saved by a simple one word solution -- algae.  At least that's what a trio of scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego believe. Their idea -- to have farmers in the Imperial Valley grow algae, which uses less water than traditional feed crops like alfalfa -- would allow more water to flow into the Sea, hopefully stabilizing its salinity.   As part of a 2003 water transfer between the Imperial Irrigation District and San Diego Coun