completed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry as an isolated incident. But this was really

just the latest skirmish in an economic war the Lone Star state has waged

endured between 2000 and 2002 was the earliest episode in this conflict. One

year-2000 scene in a waiting area of Houston’s Intercontinental Airport (now

named for the first President George Bush) indicated the mindset behind

milled around in expensive suits, mocking California as they awaited a

Continental Airlines flight to Los Angeles. Many were employed by big energy

trading companies like Enron and Dynegy (both now defunct in large part due to

throng, themed on how their companies were ripping off California “grandmas” for

what would eventually amount to more than $10 billion in excessive electricity

reeling through an unprecedented crisis of rolling blackouts and escalating

rates. A steady barrage of attacks on California’s reputation and economy has

speak publicly of calling up the California National Guard to force the restart

of power plants in this state that had been purchased and then temporarily shut

Californians: The Consumer Watchdog advocacy group has claimed that Valero, for

example, averages a 37 percent higher profit on every barrel of oil it produces

in California than at its refineries elsewhere. Is that one reason gas costs

more here than anywhere else in the Lower 48

which he took some shots at California’s business

trying to recover from his goof-up presidential campaign of last year, when he

quickly went from early favorite to early dropout in the race for the Republican

move to Texas and away from this state, America’s largest market for most

serious story…it’s not a burp, it’s barely a fart.” He mockingly invited Perry

to try harder. “Everyone with half a brain is coming to California, home of

Apple, Google, Hollywood studios,” he said, adding an invitation for Texans to

laughing matters. California consumers got back pennies on the dollars extorted

by corrupt energy traders during the electricity crunch. Some California

companies have relocated to or placed new plants in Texas, to the extent that

Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom went there shortly after taking office in 2011

companies big incentives to locate there, from subsidized land to years of tax

exemptions. The state has lower taxes on corporations and individuals than

California mostly because of its oil and gas depletion levies, which more than

Meanwhile, Texas- and Oklahoma-based oil operators like billionaire T. Boone

Pickens resist fiercely every time California considers imposing a similar levy.

California is now the only major oil producing state without such a

DeVore, a former Republican California assemblyman who migrated to the Lone Star

state and became vice president of policy for the conservative Texas Public

example being the fact that his adopted state ranks last in percentage of adults

with high school diplomas. He points out that California is third from last, but

ignores the fact that the numbers in both states are pulled down by their vast

populace of immigrants, many with minimal formal

a study to find ways of enticing California businesses to their state, targeting

California and no other state. Why only California, and not Oregon or New York

inflicted on California, so this is more than a mere joke. It’s time for Brown

and the California Legislature to stop laughing and do something about Texas,

whose denizens have schemed for more than a decade to harm this state and all