California’s superstate creates waste, not solutions

California loves to pretend its problems don’t exist. Power shortages, housing shortages, suffocating regulation, wildfires, polluted waterways, and the nation’s largest homeless population all make the Golden State look less like a paradise and more like a failed state.

Yet, its politicians keep picking fights with Donald Trump while ignoring the rot at home.

Once an issue becomes symbolic in California, solutions no longer matter. Every crisis becomes a stage for politicians to declare themselves protectors of the people.

That’s why Bed Bath & Beyond executive chairman Marcus Lemonis made waves in August. “We will not open retail stores in California,” Lemonis said. “This isn’t about politics — it’s about reality. California’s system makes it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won’t put our company, our employees, or our customers in that position.”

Unlike the political class, Lemonis acknowledged what business leaders see clearly: The state’s promises don’t match its reality.

California’s theater of waste

Take the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in northwest Los Angeles County. In operation since the early 1970s, it stopped taking trash on Dec. 31, 2024, and formally closed in January. Regulators had blocked expansion a year earlier, citing odor and earthquake risks. Residents and politicians then piled on with lawsuits, claiming health harms and price gouging in new waste contracts.

Now, a federal judge is hinting at a preliminary injunction — against a landfill that’s already closed. The legal circus has little to do with waste management and everything to do with California’s political theater. The real waste that needs to be disposed of is the state’s broken system of governance.

California masks its failures with glossy headlines about “protecting communities” while courts and agencies bankrupt operators with lawsuits. That’s not stewardship. It’s damage control dressed up as virtue.

I’ve worked for decades as an investor with a focus on sustainability. Real stewardship balances safety, markets, and management. When the state cripples businesses caught in its crosshairs, it destroys the very resources needed for remediation. Mining provides a clear example: If regulators bury companies in red tape after they scar mountainsides, no one has the money left to restore the land.

But California prefers to bankrupt operators, create thousands of plaintiffs, and unleash a regulatory swarm. At Chiquita alone, more than 9,000 plaintiffs are attached to multiple lawsuits, and at least 10 agencies — from the EPA to the California Air Resources Board — have swarmed the site. With that many bureaucrats involved, solving problems takes a back seat to turf wars and political maneuvering for credit.

Image over impact

I saw this dynamic firsthand in 2015, when I led takeover attempts of American Apparel, then one of the nation’s largest manufacturers. Regulators in Los Angeles didn’t care about managing waste or energy use. They cared about projecting the right social image. Meanwhile, toxic dyes, chemical runoff, and hazardous waste poured into the basin.

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Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The pattern repeats. Los Angeles “fixed” diversity in its fire department just before wildfires swept the city. San Francisco “fixed” homelessness just in time for a visit by China’s Xi Jinping. And Gavin Newsom is scrambling to “fix” his reputation by backtracking on Medicaid for illegal immigrants.

Once an issue becomes symbolic in California, solutions no longer matter. Every crisis — from wildfires to homelessness to waste management — becomes a stage for politicians to declare themselves protectors of the people. The real beneficiaries are trial lawyers, regulators, and politicians themselves.

Lemonis is not alone in seeing through the charade. Californians deserve better than endless lawsuits and performative fixes. Until the state values results over theater, it will keep hemorrhaging businesses, people, and trust.