"An East Bay lawmaker wants to tax oil pumped from the California ground and give the proceeds to colleges and universities, but the proposal has run afoul of the very people it was supposed to help.
Assembly Bill 656 initially would have taxed companies 12.5 percent for oil and gas extracted from the state. The money would have been divided among the three public systems: community colleges, California State University and the University of California.
But the bill's other requirements — including an inequitable division of the money and a mandate that it be spent only on classroom instruction — riled some education officials. The lawmaker advocating the tax, Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, has since gutted the bill, but said he plans to bring back the original proposal soon.
'We didn't have the votes in the Assembly,' Torrico said. 'But we've always treated this bill as part of a larger campaign to raise awareness.'
College and university leaders agree that Tor"