[burkaman]

Really difficult to say because it doesn't make many concrete claims. It doesn't mention any regulations or say what chemicals or processes are actually banned. These are not easy things to look up. I can tell you that at least the semiconductor fabrication stuff is false, there are many fabs in California and here's a new one as of a few days ago: https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/02/19/san-jose-tech-nokia-i....

I realize it isn't completed yet but I don't think anyone is buying sites for something that's impossible to build.

Here's another one: https://www.bosch-semiconductors.com/roseville/

[_2d30]

I can tell you that your two articles that intended to refute the semiconductor fabrication stuff fail to do so. Both sites were existing facilities and would therefore fall under the granfathered in point in the site.

[burkaman]

That's true they are not new buildings. Here's one that is: https://www.appliedmaterials.com/us/en/semiconductor/epic-pl...

The Infinera one is described as a "new fab" though (https://www.nist.gov/chips/infinera-california-san-jose) and the Bosch one is adding a new type of fabrication to an existing site. If you can do all that without getting new permits then that makes California sound like a pretty lenient place to do business. I'm assuming they did have to get new permits though.

[_2d30]

> Here's one that is: https://www.appliedmaterials.com/us/en/semiconductor/epic-pl...

This might be a refutation but it's not super clear. It's definitely not a commercial semiconductor fab but it might do all of or some subset of what a commercial fab does at R&D scale. Hard to know for sure how this jives with the claim in the main website.

> If you can do all that without getting new permits then that makes California sound like a pretty lenient place to do business.

Being able to retool under original zoning/permitting is specifically lenient? That's extremely basic. If you're a co-Californian with me, though, it does help to understand that many people think that anyone doing anything without a permit is "lenient".

> I'm assuming they did have to get new permits though.

Well, that makes it really easy to be "right". I should try this more.

[saghm]

> This might be a refutation but it's not super clear.

As others have pointed out, the article itself fails to provide any direct citations of the regulations either. This is classic Russell's teapot territory; the one making the initial claim shouldn't have a lower burden of evidence than the one refuting it.