Last week, I did a wide ranging interview with a new website/blog based out of Placer County. Conservative Rule.Com.

The topics included my thoughts on the status of the Republican party, my thoughts on nationwide emmission standards, the state budget deficit, illegal immigration, and the legalization of marijuana.

I invite you to read the interview here.

I had the opportunity last week to sit in on a panel discussion of the Western Climate Initiative.

According to the Western Climate Initiative website, the The Western Climate Initiative, launched in February 2007, is a collaboration of seven U.S. governors and four Canadian Premiers. WCI was created to identify, evaluate, and implement collective and cooperative ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the region, focusing on a market-based cap-and-trade system.

Below is the video of my opening comments at the hearing.

Niello Western Climate from CA Assembly GOP on Vimeo.

As I’ve reported before, I traveled to Reno, Nevada with a group of my Assembly Republican colleagues to find out why businesses have fled to the Silver State from California. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Swatt on the Comcast Newsmakers program to discuss our findings. The video is included here:

Niello Comcast 5.4.09 from CA Assembly GOP on Vimeo.

The Sacramento Bee has called me out as the ring leader of today’s defeat of the ratification of the new State Employee contract. The Bee claims that political decisions made by the State Employees Union led me to the decision I made to abstain on the MOU.

During today’s floor session, I did urge members of the Republican Caucus to either abstain or vote no on the bill. The bill only received 51 of the necessary 54 votes needed for the 2/3 vote.

The concern I have with this new contract is that this MOU is only one of many pieces of the budget agreement passed in February, and not all of those pieces are yet in place. The May 19 ballot initiatives will provide another piece of the puzzle and the budget puzzle itself keeps changing.

We need to wait until more of the pieces are in place and we have a better idea of the severity of our budget crisis. It is estimated by many that even the best case scenario still puts our budget problem at around $8-10 billion for next year. If the Special Election measures fail to pass, that number would increase by at least $6 billion, with other variables being our caseloads and overall state of the economic recovery.

We can’t lock ourselves into this contract now with the State Employees until we see the full budget picture. And that is why I opposed the passage of AB 964 today. When the full budget picture is seen, this contract may well be appropriate and at that time, I will evaluate its provisions in the context of our budget condition.