A report by California's Interagency Climate Action Team released this week shows that sea levels can be expected to rise 55 inches by the end of the century, impacting hundreds of thousands of residents along the coast, as well as billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure and construction. The worst areas would be San Mateo and Orange Counties, where over 100,000 people would be affected. The report isn't necessarily looking at how to combat climate change; it's looking at how to deal with its obvious reality.
The group floated several radical proposals: limit coastal development in areas at risk from sea rise; consider phased abandonment of certain areas; halt federally subsidized insurance for property likely to be inundated; and require coastal structures to be built to adapt to climate change.
"Immediate action is needed," said Linda Adams, secretary for environmental protection. "It will cost significantly less to combat climate change than it will to maintain a business-as-usual approach."
We're talking about flood zones in residential neighborhoods in Venice and Marina del Rey. We're talking about the SFO and Oakland airports being covered with water. Same for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It's truly terrifying. And with this being a global problem where the worst scenarios are increasingly being realized, California is little more than a bystander to this calamity, able to plan against the worst disasters and reduce development in the most affected areas, but unable to truly combat the problem without the rest of the world joining in. We will get the worst of this, to the point that livability becomes a question.
The full report, The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast, can be viewed here. They've also prepared detailed maps showing the changes that would result from a 55-inch rise in sea levels.
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the entire State Legislature is in need a new cerbral cortex. They are not thinking straight. We are in a budget crisis and can come to no agreement between Democrats who are afraid that the unions will recall them and Republicans who are afraid that they will be booted out of the party if they vote for a new tax.
Personally, I would rather listen to a scientist like Dr. Chu. At least when he speaks you have more of a chance to hear a fact rather than some BS designed to make you think that the legislature is on your side.
The new Energy Secretary, UC Berkeley physicist Steven Chu, has offered a chilling warning to California of the consequences of unchecked global warming - consequences we're already witnessing:
"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either....
Chu warned of water shortages plaguing the West and Upper Midwest and particularly dire consequences for California, his home state, the nation's leading agricultural producer.
In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.
The oceanside enclave in Marin County has enacted some of the state's toughest water restrictions. Each customer - with the exception of schools and some businesses - may use no more than 150 gallons a day, about 4,500 gallons each month.
A third violation of the order would allow the Bolinas Community Public Utility District to cut off water.
Without drastic cutbacks, officials say, the community of 1,200 could run out of water by the end of April. The town on the southern end of the Point Reyes Peninsula already is drawing from two emergency reservoirs, one of which is effectively empty.
There are a lot of California cities that are nervously watching Bolinas and the dry reservoirs, including Monterey. Sure, we're due to get some rain tonight, but the estimates are that we'll get 1-2 inches tops out of the two storms lined up in the Pacific. At this point we need a deluge reminiscent of March and April 2006 to recharge our reservoirs, severely depleted by three months of drought.
Back to Secretary Chu - he offered a strong warning to Americans about the need to not delay action on global warming and sustainable energy use:
He said the threat of warming is keeping policymakers focused on alternatives to fossil fuel, even though gasoline prices have fallen over the last six months from historic highs. But he said public awareness needs to catch up. He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.
"I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.
As the US Senate fiddles, and as the Yacht Party actively seeks to destroy our state's government, California is going dry. The climate crisis is here.
It seems as if AB 32 is all we are going to have to deal with climate change. That is perhaps the single biggest failure of our generation.
The connections between global warming and our energy policy are well known and only the stubbornest Republicans hold on to the Gospel according to Senator Inhofe. After Secretary Chu says that energy is "the defining issue of our time" you expect something to happen. When Barbara Boxer replaced Inhofe as the Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, most of us who understand ecology greeted the change with a sigh of relief. Now, even Boxer is saying that we will get no legislation on climate change in 2009. At least those words were used in her press conference yesterday as reported by Joe Robb at Climate Progress.
President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.
Mr. Obama's presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration's past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency's regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.
Just to pre-empt the whining from the right, the EPA had never before in its history denied California a waiver under the Clean Air Act. The courts have looked at this from the perspective of the automakers and have ruled repeatedly in favor of California and other states, agreeing that they are well within their rights to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Not only did the Bush Administration deny California the right to implement their tailpipe emissions law, they slow-walked the fuel efficiency standards passed by the Congress and signed by the then-President in 2007. President Obama will direct the Transportation Department to finalize those standards as well.
This will be announced in the East Room tomorrow. We now have a President who understands the need to act swiftly to combat the worst effects of climate change. California will finally be allowed to lead this effort.
It's worthwhile every so often to look for the silver lining in the storm clouds over this state. After all, we do have a new President! That seems to be working out! And his pick for EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, was confirmed last night. Which means that it's probably only a matter of days before California gets its long-sought waiver to regulate tailpipe emissions.
With a new occupant in the White House, California could soon start enforcing its landmark 2002 law requiring a sharp reduction in vehicle emissions.
State leaders and environmentalists are pressing for quick approval of a waiver that would let California and at least 13 other states impose tougher air-quality standards than allowed under federal law. The Bush administration rejected the request a year ago, but that could be reversed by President Barack Obama and his environmental team.
During the presidential campaign, Obama said he backed the California law. Last year, he co-sponsored a bill by Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California to approve the waiver.
"If I'm confirmed, I will immediately revisit the waiver," Lisa Jackson, Obama's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, told Boxer at her confirmation hearing last week.
This would set in motion a program to reduce emissions from vehicles by 30 percent over the next seven years. It would spur alternative transportation development like SUPERTRAINS out of necessity, and force the production of clean-energy vehicles. Industry was not going to innovate on their own; they had 30 years to recognize this problem but they sat on their hands. It's not a question of whether or not we can afford to implement this; given the natural disasters like wildfires that hit the state with increasing frequency, given the melting of the Sierra snowpack which decreases our access to water resources, given the public health effects of dirty air (a recent report showed that clean air increases lifespans by up to three years), given all the ancillary costs of climte change, we can't afford not to.
The Governor and state leaders have been lobbying for the waiver since President Obama's inauguration, and I'm confident that we'll see granting within the next week.
For years, one of the big projects for Mayor Newsom was the re-development of Treasure Island. It was important enough, or excuse enough, to fire Tony Hall. The choice of a project leader for that site has been one political nightmare after another. Now, it appears that the whole thing may have been a good idea in the wrong place.
Yesterday's adoption by the California Air Resources Board of a comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is really worthy of praise. Ignoring the bleatings of neo-Hooverists and apologists for polluters who insist that concern for the environment is a "job-killer," the board, led by Mary Nichols, put forward 31 rules designed to cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. This will force innovation and provide a boost to the economy and the burgeoning industry of green technology, as the Governor noted in his remarks.
INDUSTRY:
• Impose an emissions cap on utilities, refineries and other large industrial sources of greenhouse gases.
• Allow those large polluters to gradually lower emissions by participating in a cap-and-trade market.
TRANSPORTATION:
• Put into effect a 2002 California law requiring automakes to produce cleaner vehicles. The Bush administration has blocked the law, but state regulators expect President-elect Barack Obama's administration will back it.
• Require fuel companies to reformulate fuels so they are a combined 10 percent less carbon-intensive by 2020.
• Give local governments incentives to curb urban sprawl and reduce how far people drive to work or school.
• Require cargo and cruise ships to turn off their engines while docked.
ENERGY:
• Require utilities to generate one-third of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal by 2020.
• Strengthen energy-efficiency standards for appliances, as well as for existing and new buildings.
The fact that a renewable standard, cap and trade, green building, smart growth and development, energy efficiency and clean fuels are all combined into this large agreement is very hopeful. While the political sector is a mess, this is truly one area where California can become a model for the nation. And while there will be up-front costs, those can be mitigated by expected federal attention to renewable energy and green jobs, which could allow consumers to be eligible for federal tax incentives to implement these ideas. What's more, as Nichols argued, this is a big-picture savings over the long term.
But Air Resource Board chairwoman Mary Nichols said California's plan would save its residents and businesses money in the long run.
"We believe that California, again and again, has pushed for higher levels of efficiency in our electric sector, our buildings and appliances, and time after time it turns out efficiency measures have not only saved us money but leaped our economy ahead," Nichols said after the vote.
A board report found that the average household would save $400 a year by driving more fuel-efficient vehicles and living in more energy-efficient homes. And already, private investors have given more than $2.5 billion this year to new companies that have sprung up in California, in part to respond to the state's environmental goals, said Bob Epstein, co-founder of Environmental Entrepreneurs.
"Our president-elect has called for stimulating our economy," said Bill Mcgavern, director of California's Sierra Club. "I think he and the Congress will be looking to the state of California, and these measures can serve as a model for the rest of the country."
This is one area where we can be proud to be Californians. The SacBee has more.
I guess Henry Waxman, a key ally to Nancy Pelosi, wouldn't have made the move to unseat John Dingell if he didn't count the votes.
Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) has ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (Mich.), as Democratic lawmakers voted 137-122 Thursday morning to hand the gavel of the powerhouse panel to its second-ranking member.
This, more than anything, could be the biggest change in the federal government in 2009 and beyond. Waxman's Safe Climate Act sets the targets needed to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. It now becomes the working document in the House for anti-global warming legislation. And his constituency doesn't include a major polluting industry.
From a policy standpoint, it's a major progressive victory.
This is a very big deal. Henry Waxman has been nominated by the House's Steering Committee to be the head of the House panel on Energy and Commerce, ahead of longtime chair John Dingell. The implications for such a change would be huge, but it's not over yet.
The House Democratic Steering Committee has nominated Henry A. Waxman to be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year - a stinging rebuke of the sitting chairman, John D. Dingell .
Waxman won a 25-22 vote over Dingell in a closed-door meeting Wednesday by the Steering panel. Because Dingell got more than 13 votes in the secret balloting, he can be nominated to run against Waxman at Thursday's Democratic Caucus meeting, at which all of the Democrats elected to the 111th Congress are eligible to vote.
That means we have one day to whip our Congresspeople on this vote. Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act and who has an understanding of what is needed to be done on global warming and the post-carbon future, would make a great chairman, as opposed to the Dingellsaurus, who is still trying to protect the auto industry from moving into the 21st century, even as the verdict on their approach is defined by their trudging to Capitol Hill for a bailout. A majority of the caucus has signed a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking for greater efforts to combat climate change. Waxman at Energy is a key to that happening. We must eliminate this roadblock.
Marc Ambinder sets the scene (this was written before today's vote)
Waxman wants the job for obvious reasons: the committee will be the most powerful in the new Congress, one that'll deal with health care and energy legislation. (Ways and Means? Pleghghgh.) A lot of impatient liberal Democrats want to see Dingell go; he is too old, too blinkered in his thinking and too at odds with the party on energy, they say; just as many, it seems, want him to say, including some influential members of the leadership, even if for reasons of preserving the integrity of the seniority system.
Senior Democratic aides expect that the vote will go to the full caucus; all the loser of the steering committee vote has to do is present a letter with 35 House members. The full vote would be Thursday via secret ballot.
Lots of members of Congress put themselves in the position of someone like Dingell, who earned his chairmanship with seniority, and they don't want to see him pushed out because they wouldn't want it to happen to them. That's the kind of institutional thinking that must be vanquished, as it restricts change. The enviro groups are backing away from this fight because they don't want to feel Dingell's wrath if he wins. There is nobody else left to step in but us. I was skeptical that House Democrats would be pushed in the direction of progress, but with Waxman's former chief of staff, Phil Schiliro, in the Obama White House, some pressure may be coming down from the top. It's in all of our interests to have Henry Waxman atop this committee.
Call Congress and tell them you want to see a committee chair with bold ideas on energy as the head of the Energy Committee. If you want some extra incentive, read the smugness of the Blue Dogs who are fighting for their roadblock:
Dingell's supporters said they are not worried by the vote of the Steering panel, which they say is stocked with left-leaning members who do not represent the broader makeup of Democratic caucus.
"If you look at the makeup of that committee in terms of geography and political leanings, this is not the same dynamic as our whole caucus," said Jim Matheson , D-Utah, who is part of a team working the phones for Dingell, D-Mich.
In particular, if your member is in the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, both of which are supporting Dingell, ask them if they want their constituents to breathe clean air in the future.
While this recent spate of wildfires have been put relatively under control today, the devastation is pretty severe. The number of houses destroyed in Yorba Linda shot up yesterday, the fire in Montecito claimed several dozen more homes, and the mobile home park in Sylmar is a near-total loss.
Even without getting back to his home, Mr. Grieb is fairly certain that all is lost.
He and his neighbors have seen aerial photos of the devastated development and, in stark black and white, a chalkboard at an evacuation center lists the homes, by lot numbers, that were spared. About 124 out of 600 homes are on the list, and Mr. Grieb's home is not among them.
For the park's residents, it was as if an entire village had vanished in the flames.
"I used to refer to it as our little Mayberry," said Tracey Burns, 47. She and her partner, Wendy Dannenberg, 46, lived in Oakridge for 15 years. Ms. Burns's parents lived nearby in a part of the complex that was spared by the fire.
"It was just a very nice community," Ms. Burns said. "Someplace safe with a lot to offer from the pool to the tennis courts to bingo on Tuesday nights. It was a very nice way of living. People waved not because they had to but because they wanted to. We always took offense to people calling it a trailer park because you had a yard, a porch, a garage, a garden. It was a home, not a trailer."
While some scientists are dismissing the idea that climate change has something to do with the increasing frequency of fires in the region, clearly the reduction of the snowpack in the Sierras, combined with the extended drought conditions, have extended the fire season to the point where it is year-round and unsustainable. And that is expecteed to only worsen in the future.
The current drought in the Southwest may simply be part of the normal cycle of wet and dry spells. But looking over the next century, Cayan said, regions with a Mediterranean climate such as Southern California are expected to get drier.
"I have to believe that is going to make us more vulnerable to some of these more intense fire episodes."
While the relief efforts of the local communities are admirable, it's simply not sustainable to have major parts of the region go up in smoke at regular intervals. We have barely enough money in the kitty to provide basic services, let alone a year-round fire season.
Through global warming, we have now fire season all year round. We used to have fire seasons only in the fall, but now the fire seasons start in February already, so this means that we have to really upgrade, have more resources, more fire engines, more manpower and all of this, which does cost extra money.
The scientists may want to be circumspect, but this is global boiling, a consequence of rising temperatures and a drier climate. And while myopic conservatives like Dan Walters don't realize it, a massive shift to green technologies is essential for financial reasons as well as environmental ones. Fighting massive fires costs lots and lots of money that can be avoided if we reduce emissions and protect the planet. Backwards-looking folks like Walters always examine the up-front costs while paying no attention to the externalities. Burning the earth has severe monetary consequences, and on the flip side, creating greener ways to power our lives and transport our people is exportable technology that can make California a global economic leader.
Of course, it's going to take more than one state, and fortunately we have a new President-elect who understands the need for immediate action. Not only is he raising money for relief organizations helping with the current wildfires, but today he made a surprise appearance at the Bi-Partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, calling for "a new chapter of American leadership on climate change." I've put the video and transcript below. We finally have leadership to heal the planet, which is as beneficial for California as it is for anywhere in the country.
That's if you believe Tim Fernholz, who talked to a couple people in the know.
2. At least two people who would know (blind quotes suck but that's the way of the world) don't expect the Waxman challenge to Dingell at the Energy committee to get anywhere, in part because the last two classes of new representatives are more conservative on the whole than other members and will support the incumbent. The leadership hopes that it won't come to a vote, because Waxman, who is more closely identified with Pelosi (who isn't taking a position on the challenge) will drop out when he realizes he doesn't have the votes.
I want to push back on the idea that the most recent classes of Reps. are all conservative, because while that is ossified conventional wisdom inside the Beltway it's simply not true. Alan Grayson is not conservative. Tom Perriello is not conservative. Larry Kissell is not conservative. In fact, in this cycle the four Democrats who lost Congressional elections were all deeply conservative - Tim Mahoney, Nick Lampson, Don Cazayoux and Nancy Boyda.
This isn't totally about right-left, it's about those in the status quo who want to protect the seniority system in the event that they stick around Congress look enough to secure a plum post. That's why you have liberals in the Congressional Black Caucus like John Lewis pushing for Dingell to stay in his chairmanship. Dingell is trying to sucker new members by saying he is good on health care, but of course that's not totally true.
But Dingell is good on health care. Well, by good, I mean he has pushed 'single-payer' for literally decades, while preventing action on drug prices and appointing most of the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee that killed Clinton's health care plan, because they were reliable pro-auto industry votes on other issues Dingell prioritized (there aren't a lot of single payer pro-polluting members out there). But health care is all Dingell has, so he's emphasizing his willingness to work on health care with Obama in return for keeping his chairmanship of the enormously powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.
With the Senate appearing to take the lead on health care anyway, and Waxman just as solid on the issue, this is an irrelevant argument. What should be far more central to the debate is this:
The California economy loses about $28 billion annually due to premature deaths and illnesses linked to ozone and particulates spewed from hundreds of locations in the South Coast and San Joaquin air basins, according to findings released Wednesday by a Cal State Fullerton research team.
Most of those costs, about $25 billion, are connected to roughly 3,000 smog-related deaths each year, but additional factors include work and school absences, emergency room visits, and asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses, said team leader Jane Hall, a professor of economics and co-director of the university's Institute for Economics and Environment Studies.
The decades of shameless defense of a heavily polluting auto industry should be grounds for Dingell's resignation, not just for booting him from this key committee (especially because it's resulted in the car companies being broke and looking for a government handout). But it's awful hard to impact an insider caucus battle with anything resembling reason.
However, we must keep trying. Call Congress and tell them you'd rather have someone concerned about catastrophic climate change in charge of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, instead of someone who uses it as a pretext to keep his failing auto industry executive buddies happy.
Among the many executive orders that Barack Obama will seek to overturn to rack up some quick victories at the beginning of his term, none may have a more lasting impact than granting the waiver to California to regulate their tailpipe emissions.
The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. "Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer," Obama said in January.
California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California's rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation's automobile market. Environmentalists cheered the California initiative because it would stoke innovation that would potentially benefit the entire country.
"An early move by the Obama administration to sign the California waiver would signal the seriousness of intent to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and build a future for the domestic auto market," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
There are two reasons this is a major change. One, by granting that carbon dioxide emissions threaten human welfare, you open up a whole toolkit of innovative policy choices to follow to restrict them. Cap and trade or a carbon tax becomes not just a policy option but a madate under the EPA. The second, as noted in the article, is that dozens of states will seek to follow the California ruling on tailpipe emissions over the federal government. And once you have 45% of the market mandating a higher fuel efficiency standard, it is unlikely that automakers will create a secondary market at the lower standard. You will have raised the CAFE number by default.
All of this is a recognition that the dangers of global warming is real, and that an Obama Administration will not stand in the way of sound science that declares the danger and seeks to mitigate it. For all of the effort by polluters to save John Dingell's chairmanship from the clutches of Henry Waxman (and they're enlisting all the legislators they've bought off to that end), this executive order would have lots of reach regardless who controls global warming legislation in the Congress. It would mean that California can control its own destiny and regulate its own air. It will force innovation and create economic opportunity and improve public health and possibly save lives.
A couple weeks ago I wrote about three looming battles that we had to think about after the election. Two of them have already fizzled. The open primary ballot initiative filed with the state has been withdrawn. That's probably because the Governor wanted to present it himself, so we'll see where that goes, and a lot of it might have to do with whether or not Prop. 11 actually passes. Second, Bush Republican and rich developer Rick Caruso decided against running for Mayor of Los Angeles against Antonio Villaraigosa. There is now no credible candidate running against the incumbent. Caruso may figure that Villaraigosa is primed for bigger and better things (he's in Washington today with President-Elect Obama's council of economic advisers), and if Villaraigosa vacates the seat he'd have a better shot of capturing it.
However, there are a couple other looming battles that are out there. First, Jane Harman, Congresswoman from the 36th Congressional District, is in line for a top intelligence post with the Obama Administration, and the odds are extremely likely that she'd take it. Laura Rozen has a profile here. After a tough primary against Marcy Winograd in 2006, Harman has been a moderately better vote in Congress, but this represents a real opportunity to put a progressive in that seat. Winograd has recently moved into the district, and would certainly be my first choice if it comes open (or if it doesn't - Harman voted for the FISA bill this year).
The other major news is that Henry Waxman, my Congressman, is looking to oust John Dingell from his post atop the Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a long time coming, and I don't think Waxman would go for it without the support of the Speaker. The Dingellsaurus, while a decent liberal on most issues (and also a former representative of mine in Ann Arbor, MI), has blocked progress on climate change and modernizing the auto industry for years. We were finally able to get a modest increase in CAFE standards last year, but Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act of 1990, would obviously be a major step up. And with the auto industry on life support and asking for handouts as a result of the old ways of doing business, it's clearly time for a Democratic committee chair who isn't protecting their interests at the expense of the planet. Waxman's "Safe Climate Act" introduced last year would mandate a cut in greenhouse gases of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. That's exactly the right attitude from the committee chair, and with energy issues obviously so crucial in an Obama Administration, we need someone in that post who recognizes the scope of the problem. It should also be clear that the committee has likely jurisdiction over health care reform.
Measure R on the Los Angeles ballot would impose a 1/2 cent sales tax on county residents to pay for increased transit lines and services. This couldn't come at a more crucial time, as the MTA is poised to become a casualty of the financial crisis:
The next potential victims of the nation's credit crunch: nearly 1.5 million people who ride buses and trains each weekday in Los Angeles County. Transit officials say riders could soon be facing serious service cuts.
That's because the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority might have to quickly come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to pay investors under terms of deals it made involving American International Group, the troubled financial and insurance giant.
"I've lost a lot of sleep over this," said Terry Matsumoto, the chief financial service officer and treasurer for the MTA. He said it was "absolutely" certain the agency would have to cut service if the deals sour.
The state is already cutting transit funding in the budget, and sales tax revenues, which already partially fund the MTA, are seizing up, as the economy slows and job loss increases (fortunately unemployment flattened out in September, albeit at 7.7%).
This is not the time for cutbacks in service at the MTA. Ridership is at record highs, as people both avoid still-high gas prices (historically speaking) and more attention is paid individually to greenhouse gas emissions. The Air Resources Board just released their final draft for compliance with AB32, and I can't see how they could possibly reach their goals for greenhouse gas emission cuts without an increase in transit. That includes passing high-speed rail, of course, but obviously the existing transit structures, can't be pulled back at this important time.
Speaker Bass has been calling for the Governor to prioritize a federal stimulus package and has also been making noises about a state-based stimulus as well. That has to include protections for transit concerns like the MTA, and increased funding flowing to them as well. It's a job creation engine, an economic sustainability engine, and an engine to a better environment.
We can all do our part in Los Angeles County by passing Measure R as well.
We're all still choking on the speed and enormity of the trillion-dollar bailout about to be given to executives on Wall Street instead of to homeowners who got snookered into teaser rates and ARMs. It's important to note that there is another way on this. Faced with a collapse of the financial markets in the 1930s, the solution was not seen in paying off the investor class for the bad decisions they've made, but paying workers to produce and create, and building up the backbone of the economy again, allowing prosperity to trickle up instead of down. We are at another crossroads across the nation and in California, and yet the answer is so clear. We have an imminent fight to mitigate the effects of global warming, and whoever solves this puzzle will not only save the world trillions in collateral damage from the disastrous fallout, but make a tidy profit besides. In fact, as a recent study has shown, the effort here in California will unquestionably improve the long-term prospects for the economy.
Costly as it may seem, California's mandate to cut climate-altering exhausts from vehicles and industry by nearly one-third in the next 12 years actually will boost the economy, a state analysis released Wednesday predicts.
The improvements in fuel and energy efficiency and extra clean-technology jobs needed to achieve the required 30 percent emissions reduction would result in a net household savings of $400 to $500 a year and a net 0.2 percent or $4 billion gain in the total annual output of goods and services, according to the report.
The view that says we have to freeze short-term cash outlays to stop the catastrophic effects of climate change ought to be discredited on this of all days as reductivist and shortsighted. The cost of the kinds of damage you would see from a sustained rise in global temperature is so astronomical that investing in green technology is incredibly efficient in the long run. And it's a jobs program to boot:
Most sectors of the economy, including transportation and warehousing, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and construction, would by 2020 see moderate increases in employment and production as a result of investing in the more expensive but efficient building designs, lighting, vehicles and equipment, the study said.
The major exception would be the electric power companies that would experience about 16 percent less production and about 14 percent fewer jobs.
Which of course would be more than offset by the increase in jobs in the same sector through solar and wind and biomass and tidal and geothermal production.
The financial mess puts into stark relief the need for a long-view approach to the economic future. Investments that seem unaffordable now hold massive potential in just a few short years. We have to be bold and become the center for green jobs in the United States and around the world. In uncertain times, it's the only way to secure California's future.
Few events have proven the folly of letting people who hate government run government like Hurricane Katrina. Everyone predicted the flooding of New Orleans was one of the "three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters" along with a terrorist attack on NYC (Bin Laden determined to strike US) and a San Francisco earthquake, yet the Republican Party's focus on hating government has already crossed off 2/3 of the worst case list.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched Wednesday as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid a Katrina-style chaos.
Forecasters warned that Gustav could grow into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane in the next several days and hit somewhere along a swath of the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Texas - with New Orleans smack in the middle.
Taking no chances, city officials began preliminary planning to evacuate and lock down the city in hopes of avoiding the catastrophe that followed the 2005 storm. Mayor Ray Nagin left the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home for the preparations.
This is looking to hit on the eve of the GOP Convention. Yet I doubt Republicans will change the program to talk about global warming and effective government and protecting America. And speaking of the RNCC, are any obstructionist legislators planning to go to the convention while still holding the state hostage to the tyranny of the minority?
In the past week there has been an emerging coalition of environmental justice and mainline environmental groups opposing the CEQA revisions of SB375. Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) have come out against the bill. The Sierra Club and the Planning and Conservation League have withdrawn their support. Other environmental justice groups - spearheaded by California Communities Against Toxics (CCAT) are also mobilizing to oppose the bill. I am not affiliated with any of these groups.
The nut of their argument is that SB375 creates a two tier CEQA process - with urban communities receiving less review and protection than suburban and rural ones. As such, it privileges wealthier and whiter suburban areas at the expense of the working class communities of color in the inner cities.
The details are of course more complex than this simple one paragraph explanation. Follow below the fold to read an EJ analysis being circulated by Jane Williams of CCAT.
I will be on KRXA 540 AM at 8 AM to discuss this and other California political issues
Today Darrell Steinberg is expected to finally be elected as Senate President Pro Tem, bringing the failed leadership of Don Perata to a welcome end. George Skelton welcomes him to office with a column the landmark smart growth bill that Steinberg has been pushing through the legislature. Although the bill won't pass this year, it has a big head of steam behind it, and faces good prospects in the 2009 session.
Steinberg's bill would link land use planning in California to the AB 32 global warming targets:
"One issue everyone has been afraid to touch is land use," Steinberg says. "Everyone understands about using alternative fuel. But land use has been the third rail. AB 32 changed the equation because now land use has to be part of the solution to global warming. You can't meet our goal just with alternative fuels. You have to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.
"If people are going to drive -- and they are going to drive -- we need to plan in ways to get them out of their cars faster. That means shrinking -- not the amount of housing, not economic development, not growth -- but shrinking the footprint on which that growth occurs."
Steinberg wants it to occur within a smaller circle around downtown.
Basically the bill would work like this: Each metropolitan region would adopt a "sustainable community strategy" to encourage compact development. They'd mesh it with greenhouse emissions targets set by the California Air Resources Board, which is charged with commanding the state's fight against global warming.
Also included are preferential funding for transportation projects that fit with the "sustainable community strategy" and an expedited permitting process for those developments that fit the law's and the community strategy's goals.
Tom Adams of the California League of Conservation Voters called the plan "the most important land-use bill in California since enactment of the Coastal Act three decades ago" and he's right to say it. But the plan does more than help the environment and reduce carbon emissions.
One year ago I called for "redefining the California dream" - restoring the economic security of California workers by abandoning sprawl and turning to urban density and mass transit. This is not just an environmental move, but it is absolutely necessary for job growth, affordable housing, and basic financial security.
California can no longer afford sprawl. The national housing bubble burst right here, in the exurbs of Stockton, Modesto, and Moreno Valley. As gas prices rise at a rate of 30% every year since 2002, sprawl becomes literally unaffordable for most Californians, with a devastating ripple effect throughout the economy.
Republicans will predictably be furious with Steinberg's plan, but that's because they represent the emergent "homeowner aristocracy" - certain (by no means all) households that bought their home prior to 1990 or so, those who want to preserve the conditions of the 20th century at all costs.
As Jerry Brown recognized when he was governor 30 years ago, and still recognizes today, density done right is the key to maintaining the middle-class California dream for the 21st century. Only by following the Portland model of strictly limiting sprawl and encouraging infill development and providing the transportation options needed to serve that development can we bring affordability back to California, and secure the economic future for new generations of Californians.
Steinberg's genius move is to link that strategy to the fight against global warming. It's nice to finally see some real leadership from Democrats on this matter and particularly from the new leader of the State Senate. SB 375 may not make it to the governor's desk this year, but it deserves our strong support in the 2009 session. It will transform California for the better, and there are few bills aside from SB 840 that can credibly make that claim.
