The plan for side-by-side casinos in Barstow could have gone belly up today, as a legal settlement crucial to the proposal was set to expire.

But this afternoon, that settlement was extended– even though the casino projects in question still face an uphill battle in the Legislature.

As we reported earlier this week, the proposal for casinos owned by the Humboldt County’s Big Lagoon Rancheria and San Diego County’s Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians remains in limbo at the state Capitol. Neither tribe believes they can open a gambling facility on their respective reservations, and signed an agreement with Governor Schwarzenegger in 2005 to open casinos in Barstow.

That agreement ended a legal battle in the case of Big Lagoon, where the state has argued that the tribe’s coastal reservation is too environmentally fragile for a casino.

But the court settlement was set to expire today. And late last week, Big Lagoon chairman Virgil Moorehead sounded reluctant to keep waiting on the Barstow project.

Now, he’s decided to give it one more shot– an extension of the settlement that will expire on September 17. If the Legislature fails to ratify the two tribes’ formal gaming compact by then, Big Lagoon is likely to resume its efforts to build a casino up north… while Los Coyotes would probably have to go back to the drawing board.

Cliched as it may be, the extension of the settlement is a high-stakes gamble. Several powerful Indian gaming tribes in southern California oppose the Barstow plan, arguing that it sets a bad precedent of off-reservation gaming. And the proposal currently sits in the Senate, and doesn’t appear to be moving.

In fact, the chairman of the committee that oversees Indian gaming was emphatic last week that the Barstow project isn’t on his immediate radar.

“We probably will see that particular compact coming up maybe early next session, but not this session,” said Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter).

If that’s the case, today’s announcement won’t do much good. But others at the Capitol say a deal may still develop… hence, the need for extra time to make such a deal happen.

Filmmaker Michael Moore will bring his new documentary to Sacramento early next month, in a debut that will no doubt add some new fuel to the capital city’s debate over health care reform.

The new documentary, Sicko, debuted this month at the Cannes Film Festival and opens nationwide in late June. But the movie will have a special screening in Sacramento on June 12, hosted by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

You can see the movie trailer here.

Depending on your politics, Moore’s previous movies have made him one of the most loved or hated documentary filmmakers of his era. In Sicko, he chronicles the dark side of the nation’s industry, and takes three ailing 9/11 rescue workers on a trip to Cuba in search of medical attention.

News of Moore’s appearance in Sacramento comes as lawmakers and interest groups continue to grapple with a series of health care reform proposals, with Speaker Nunez carrying one of the prominent plans. “The timing couldn’t be more perfect,” said Nunez spokesman Steve Maviglio.

Maviglio says the Assembly leader will meet with Moore earlier in the day before the showing of the movie, and that Sicko confirms much of what Democrats say is wrong with the system. “This documentary is an unvarnished look at how these companies have made health care unaffordable and inaccessible,” he said.

It will be a busy trip to Sacramento for Moore, as he’s also scheduled to appear at a legislative hearing, and at an afternoon Capitol rally sponsored by the California Nurses Association. The movie premiere, we’re told, is invite-only that evening.

We should also mention that the new PPIC poll finds that a proposed initiative to change the term limits law for legislators has bare majority support, 52%-40%. Those kinds of numbers are, historically at least, a dangerous position for an initiative to be in at this stage in the game.

By the way, the PPIC survey team read the entire title and summary to the respondents… a title and summary that supporters of the current term limits system claim is biased towards the initiative. Supporters of the initiative disagree, as did a Sacramento judge in a recent decision.

But at the same time, 61% of those polled said they think the current system (six years max in the Assembly, eight years max in the Senate) is just peachy. In this audio clip, pollster Mark Baldassare and I discuss what that might mean for a ballot initiative battle on the subject. We also talk about what might be behind the poll’s finding that more Republicans seem to favor the term limit initiative than do Democrats or independents.

The full poll will be here soon. The backers of the term limits initiative see these latest numbers as a positive sign, given that PPIC’s earlier survey showed significantly less interest by voters in approving their proposal.

There may finally be an answer as to why Californians want more government services, but not higher taxes.

And it’s a bummer: they don’t understand how government works.

The new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California finds that many citizens need a crash course in California Civics 101, and may not understand the implications of some of the biggest measures they’re asked to vote on at each election.

Most notable are the PPIC’s findings that while 67% of respondents favor Governor Schwarzenegger’s call for a new round of infrastructure bonds (another $43.3 billion to be exact), a full 64% of those surveyed admit they know little or nothing about how bonds work. That certainly seems troubling, given the amount of bond debt currently on the books; payments on past borrowing now account for as many taxpayer dollars as those spent on the entire University of California system.

Meantime, 51% of all respondents chose either social services or prisons when asked to name where the largest chunk of state spending goes. Neither answer is right; it’s actually K-12 education (30% chose this answer). Similarly, slightly less than a third of those surveyed knew that most state revenues come from personal income taxes.

None of these findings, alone, is cataclysmic. But taken together, the poll results show some real holes in the knowledge of voters about how things work. And that’s troubling in a state where so many big policy issues are decided at the ballot box, says pollster Mark Baldassare. You can hear our conversation about those findings here.

The above is one of the standards which federal officials will use to determine the fate of California’s landmark tailpipe emissions law.

This morning, a panel of regulators from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency traveled to Sacramento to hear more testimony on whether California should be granted permission to enact tougher greenhouse gas emission standards than allowed under federal law.

Last week, EPA officials held a similar hearing back east. Today, many of the same witnesses testified both in support, and opposition, to the request.

State officials requested the waiver of the federal law some 16 months ago, arguing that California’s specific climate change issues need extra attention; 11 other states are now pursuing similar regulations.

So does California have “extraordinary and compelling conditions” for the EPA waiver? Yes, said countless witnesses, including Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Attorney General Jerry Brown.

“California is the only place where real action is being taken to control greenhouse gases,” Brown said in comments to reporters.

The only real opposition at the hearing came from the auto industry, which is also pursuing a lawsuit against the state over the 2002 law. An industry attorney used video footage in today’s hearing of depositions from that lawsuit to try to make his point– depositions of California government officials that, the auto industry says, casts doubt on whether the emissions law will actually help reduce global warming.

The 2002 law “only has symbolic effects on global warming,” said Andrew Clubok, an attorney representing the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Some of Brown’s comments to reporters can be heard here. Some of auto attorney Clubok’s comments to reporters can be heard here.

The EPA must make a decision by late October… and even if it denies the request, California officials have promised a lawsuit.

[update: audio is here]

For almost two years, a pair of Indian tribes have watched their gaming agreements sit in limbo in the Legislature. And time may be running out.

On this morning’s edition of The California Report, my story examines the status of the gaming agreement that would allow two tribes to open side-by-side casinos in the desert city of Barstow. Of course, neither of those tribes– San Diego County’s Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians or Humboldt County’s Big Lagoon Rancheria– hails from Barstow.

And that’s been the problem.

The gaming compact, signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2005, has been criticized as a precedent that would pave the way for additional off-reservation gaming in the state. And those same critics say it’s simply not enough that the tribes, the governor, and Barstow city leaders all back the proposal.

Still, the two tribes have pushed on in their efforts to gain support for the deal in the Legislature… maintaining that their respective tribal lands aren’t a good fit for casinos, and that a new site is crucial. In the case of Los Coyotes, the reservation is in a mountainous, remote region… away from almost any real roadway. And in Big Lagoon’s case, the Barstow plan is the solution to a long running legal battle… with the state and environmental groups arguing that the coastal Humboldt reservation has too fragile of an ecosystem for a casino.

It’s that legal battle that may threaten the deal in the short term.

Big Lagoon must decide in the next two days whether they want to extend the court settlement, and keep cajoling legislators for the Barstow deal. Chairman Virgil Moorehead said late last week he’s not sure he wants to keep waiting.

Moorehead said he’s particularly unhappy that while his agreement has sat in limbo for almost two years, gaming expansion deals for other tribes have been on a relatively fast track at the Capitol this spring. “We can’t even get a hearing scheduled,” he said.

The bill carrying the Barstow compacts is in the Senate, and Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) says he remains concerned about the off-reservation gambling issue.

If Big Lagoon walks away from the settlement of the environmental lawsuit, then it’s likely his tribe’s quest for a casino heads back to court.

Meantime, the people of Los Coyotes wonder whether this is what voters really intended when they approved Indian gaming. Francine Kupsch is a member of Los Coyotes whose economic struggles were the subject of one of those TV ads for Proposition 5 in 1998. Nine years after she appeared in that ad, she and her tribe are still waiting.

“We’re still here, waiting to be heard,” she said. “That’s what we want. We want to be heard.”

You can hear the story this morning on public radio stations statewide. Audio will be online later in the day.

California is facing a pretty severe shortage of skilled workers… so severe, suggests a new study, that state leaders may need to trim their hopes for economic expansion over the next two decades.

The new study from the Public Policy Institute of California projects that 32% of working-age adults will have a college degree by 2025… even though 41% of the state’s jobs will require a college degree.

Beneath those top numbers in the PPIC study is data that confirms a very slow growth in college-educated workers over the next 20 years… too slow to meet the demands of the state’s economy.

Import workers from other states? PPIC’s researchers say… think again. They point to data that shows more college degree holding workers are leaving the Golden State than the number who are arriving– a net loss, they say, of 46,000 over the last five years.

Import skilled workers from other countries? Unlikely, say researchers… as that segment of the workforce would have to more than double to meet demand.

The policy dilemma posed by this study may not be easy to solve, as it seems to require tough questions for both the state’s higher education system, and for lawmakers when it comes to the levels of funding for higher ed. Throw into that mix the cost of housing, gas, etc… and it’s likely going to be hard to find enough college grads to keep the California economic engine running.

The full report is here.

Just so we’re clear on the lingo, “CNP” is my new shorthand for the Capital Notes Podcast… the new weekly politics podcast featured here (and soon, via subscription/download through NPR).

And yes, we’ve changed the name. Hence, the “soft” rollout. This week, we chat about this week’s budget news, health care analysis, and… in our lighthearted end-o-the-week moment, the leader of the effort to save those whales.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political campaign bank account keeps on growing… in most cases, from what could be called some familiar sources.

In the last 10 days alone, the governor’s California Recovery Team account has taken in $475,000. If you’re keeping score at home (and you are, aren’t you?) that’s more than $700,000 in May and more than $2.7 million since January 1.

Among the notable checks written: $250,000 from southern California investment fund manager William Powers… $25,000 each from Hollywood moguls Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg… $100,000 from Chevron… and two notable health care industry contributions– $100,000 from the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, and $25,000 from Pacificare.

It was standing room only today in one Capitol hearing room, but the man sitting in the middle of the dais wasn’t someone you would recognize… and probably is someone you haven’t heard of.

His name is Jon Gruber, a researcher from M.I.T. And for the rest of the year, every time you hear someone quote the price tag of a major health care reform proposal… chances are that he came up with the number.

Gruber, who just completed a cost and coverage analysis of the two bills written by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate President pro Tem Don Perata, traveled to Sacramento today to explain his research.

He’s also the one who earlier this year pegged the cost of Governor Schwarzenegger’s reform idea at $12 billion, a plan which was never introduced as legislation. And as mentioned yesterday, he has now pegged the cost of the Nunez plan at $8.3 billion, and the Perata plan at $10.9 billion.

The roughly 90 minute presentation this morning was deep– too deep, perhaps into health care wonkdom for a blog posting. But a few items are worth pondering.

Gruber believes the governor’s suggested plan would cover all but about 800,000 of the uninsured, while both Democratic leaders’ plans would cover all but about 1.5 million of the uninsured.

Speaking of the uninsured in California… Gruber says that about 1.2 million of the 4.9 million without coverage are undocumented immigrants. But of those immigrants, he estimates only about 100,000 are kids. Remember that number when the debate over health care for all kids, regardless of immigration status, heats back up this year.

You can click here to listen to Gruber explain where all of the uninsured end up under the governor’s framework (interestingly, he says there would be no net change in how many are covered by employer-provided health care). And, for comparison, click here to listen to Gruber explain what happens to the uninsured under the Nunez and Perata plans.

Gruber’s complete presentation is supposed to be online here later today. Yes, this is weighty stuff to get through. But as everyone agrees, now the real negotiations will begin.