by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

It is official, Rep. Dingell and Rep. Boucher have dropped their effort to overrule California's tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions law, at least for now. Their proposal ran into the strong opposition from Speaker Pelosi, environmentalist and California elected officials. They had continued pushing the issue until yesterday, when they pulled it out of the energy bill currently under consideration in the House. SFChron:

The pair sent a memo on Monday to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, saying they would soon release a final version of the Democratic energy bill that would not contain the proposal to pre-empt California and other states from their plan to cut greenhouse gases. Other contentious provisions also would be dropped, the lawmakers said.

"You will note that a number of the more controversial issues we raised, such as coal-to-liquid fuels, fuel economy standards, a low-carbon fuel standard, various mandates, and the role of federal and state programs, are not included," Dingell, the committee chairman, and Boucher wrote in the memo.

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[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

California elected officials got a raise yesterday, with a 5% hike going to the Attorney  General and Superintendent ofPublic Instruction and 2.75% hike going to just about everyone else,the Los Angeles Times reports. Gov. Schwarzenegger has never accepted astate salary, but if he ever changes his mind, he can now cash in with$212,179 a year. John Garamendi, meanwhile, is busy saving the whales(see above) for a price of $159,134. Legislative leaders will receive $133,639while rank and file members get $116,208. A reasonable increase, givenmany of these politicians have families. But (and no disrespect to Mr.Garamendi) is saving the whales really worth $159 grand?