SB14, which would set a first-in-the-nation standard that utilities must receive 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, passed the Legislature late last night.
"Increased development of renewable energy in California has tremendous potential as an economic development tool. These are clean, green jobs that belong in California. SB 14 sets a clear target with a real deadline, and then makes it as easy as possible to bring renewable energy on line.
In light of the state's ambitious new carbon emission targets, SB 14 will give energy agencies the flexibility they need in order to meet those goals. Current law "caps" the amount of renewable energy that the Public Utilities Commission may order utilities to buy or build at 20 percent. This bill would remove this cap and require utilities to acquire 33 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2020."
This would make California's renewable energy standard one of the most aggressive in the world. The Governor, feted in magazines and national media as an environmental leader, has vocally backed the 33% standard in the past. But power plant generators have pressured Schwarzenegger to veto the bill. And according to the LA Times, he will.
The Senate did manage to pass the energy bill, which would raise to 33% the amount of energy the utilities must get from renewable sources. Final approval by the Assembly of some minor amendments was expected.
However, a high-ranking administration official said late Friday that the governor may not sign the bill, SB 14 by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), because of provisions limiting the amount of energy that could come from outside California. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the bills were not yet on the governor's desk.
That would really be the icing on the cake to the worst Governorship in California history. The one issue on which he staked his legacy, and he is likely to veto the bill most likely to drive the lowering of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly because it would keep too many jobs in the state. Adding a renewable energy standard and mandating a majority of that energy be generated in state, is probably the only bill passed this year that looks to expand the local economy. And because of that, Schwarzenegger will veto it.
And the same magazines will put him on the cover with the slogan "The Greenenator" and talk up his environmental credentials.
Van Jones, in my book, is a guy who a) knows his stuff and b) can get things done. Just the kind of guy you want in the administration. And as we try to get the Green Jobs thing moving, his role as the green jobs czar will be increasingly important. And Jones tells it like it is. When asked why Republicans were able to pass legislation despite their relatively smaller minorities, Jones answered in a brutally honest fashion:
JONES: Well the answer to that is, they're assholes.
QUESTIONER: I was afraid that was the answer.
JONES: As a technical, political kind of term. And Barack Obama is not an asshole. Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity. (HuffPo)
Now, if you read this whole quote, you will see that he's not really using the term in a pejorative sense, after all he goes on to call himself an asshole as well. As I read it, he is essentially saying that the Republicans were hard-nosed and dedicated to their cause. They pushed it through no matter what. Jones is saying that is what is needed, and that he can do the same thing.
Of course, Fox News and the Gang are UP IN ARMS over this. Of course, they don't look at the whole context, but take away the one line and go play the victim on national TV. Van Jones is a bully, they say, and just plane rude. And a communist, of course!
Steve Poizner, who seems to be growing a little antsy by all the attention that eMeg is getting, thinks that he can tie this all together. A few weeks ago, eMeg commented on Jones and the time that she spent with him on a cruise to the Antarctic for a research/publicity kind of thing. She gave him a few shallow comments, calling him bright, articulate, and passionate.
Poizner is now making it an issue after the leaders of the GOP, aka the radio shock jocks made it an issue. One "Jaz McKay" is having none of this mushy middle:
JAZ MCKAY: Just to do it. I'm just going to. I'm not voting for her. I'm telling you right now. Her position on the 2nd Amendment has already pissed me off to no end. I ain't voting for her.
JOHN HAWKINS: Come on. Who doesn't love a Republican who wants to take your guns?
JAZ MCKAY: Who doesn't love a Republican who goes on global warming cruises with communists, right?
JOHN HAWKINS: And talks about how much she loves them after.
JAZ MCKAY: Ah, just loves them.
Whitman and Poizner have been swapping barbs for a while now over some really petty stuff. But hey, grab a snack, and just enjoy. Jones isn't going to lose sleep over this, and this will make not one iota of difference in the grand scheme of things. It's just another distraction from the real issues that face Californians.
Peep the flip for the radio transcript and a video of Whitman talking about Jones.
(While the issues within the State Capitol are important, we also need to work on rebuilding a sustainable economy for the future. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
According to Miguel Figueroa, the Executive Director of the Calexico New River Committee (the sponsors of AB 1079), "Despite decades of resolutions, studies and promises, our city has not received the sustained leadership and support from California that we need to solve this problem. We commend Assemblyman Perez for making New River clean-up a priority in his first term in office..."
Perez is doing what he said he'd do for the region no one has served up to now- clean up the New River, the biggest environmental and public health disaster in the 80th since the 1940s. Though Senator Ducheny made progress in 2005, it took Perez to get the full coalition together and the federal funds released.
The Desert Sun, true to form, tucks the credit for this "unprecedented attention" and the "reversal of years of neglect" into the second page:
The California-Mexico Border Relations Council in coming weeks will host a public hearing in Imperial County to get residents' feedback. The relatively new organization, made up of key state secretaries, is tasked with identifying major border issues.
Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez, a Coachella Democrat who secured the state funding and is organizing the coming visits, has authored a bill giving the border council authority to coordinate a restoration plan with locals and oversee the necessary environmental studies.
(btw, If this had been a Benoit or Nestande Republican success, we'd have seen their names in the first line, plus photo. No liberal media here.)
Yes, I'd like him to do all of this and be as far in front on the budget as Nancy Skinner. But reclaiming a healthful environment along the New River is transformative stuff, too. The people who live along the New River have an Assemblymember, finally.
Perez will face a well funded challenger in all likelihood. Can a Republican challenger can peel this constituency off with attacks on Manuel's support for the gay community and women's healthcare rights? Jeandron tried last year and failed. The New River is toxic to the touch, and dooms the whole region to poverty. If Perez can turn that around, he'll have done more than every Republican combined since the 1940s.
On Sunday, my campaign released a new poll of 400 likely 10th Congressional District special primary election voters that found our campaign holds a double digit lead over other Democratic challengers. When initially asked, 31 percent of likely voters chose me, while Senator Mark DeSaulnier, Assemblymember Joan Buchanan, and Anthony Woods received 21, 17, and 9 percent of the vote respectively. When voters were given a rundown of the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, our lead grew to 36 percent, compared to 22, 20, and 9 percent respectively. The poll was conducted by respected California pollster Ben Tulchin. If you are interested in more information, please see our press release and Ben Tulchin's memo. We are understandably excited by the results.
But enough about polls. In three weeks (or now for those who vote-by-mail), the people of the 10th Congressional District will face a choice. The challenges we face in Washington and in our region are as complex as they are diverse. The debates over health care, economic development, and education will shape the course of our society for decades to come, and I think I am the best candidate to fight for our side on each of these issues in Washington.
Yesterday I was excited to announce that the SEIU California State Council has endorsed me in my race to represent California's 10th Congressional District, a Northern California district encompassing parts of Contra Costa, Solano, Alameda, and Sacramento counties. With 700,000 members, SEIU is the largest labor union in California, and their ranks include a broad cross-section of working Californians, including social workers, nurses, classroom aides, security officers, college professors, homecare workers, janitors, and more.
Why I'm motivated to lead on single-payer health care, the Employee Free Choice Act, and green-collar jobs over the flip...
(Some notes on organizing from our LG. Also see his diary from today. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Today I'll be joining Vice President Joe Biden in San Diego to promote job growth in California. At a time when California's unemployment rate is at 11.2 percent, the highest rate on record, it's certainly premature to declare that happy days are here again. But in this time of economic uncertainty, it's nice to know that our leadership in Washington is in tune with the needs of everyday Californians.
President Barack Obama's stimulus package wisely addresses both short term needs and long term goals in a way that prepares our country for an internationally competitive, green by necessity economy. The stimulus package passed in February includes $144 billion for state and local fiscal relief, $53 billion for priority education spending, $111 billion for infrastructure and science projects, $43 billion for energy needs, $81 billion in funds to help protect the vulnerable, and $288 billion in targeted tax cuts. The package also calls for doubling our renewable energy production in three years.
In California alone, it will create or save 396,000 jobs. Job-creating projects include $1.5 million for alternative energy efficiency grants for business and workforce housing in Livermore, $500,000 for affordable housing in Palm Desert, $200 million for flood levy improvements in Natomas, and $250,000 for storm water capture in Pasadena.
During the Memorial Day break, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will invite congressional representatives to tour union job-training centers around the country to show them why they are the right choice when it comes to creating a renewable energy work force.
(A post from Mayor Newsom. As a reminder, elected officials are encouraged to post on Calitics; we'll do our best to promote them to the front page promptly. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Every day more San Francisco residents and businesses are signing up for two San Francisco programs that will cut monthly utility bills and help the City meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals. One is SF Energy Watch, which provides technical assistance and financial incentives that pays over half the cost of energy efficiency upgrades to commercial and multifamily properties. The other is GoSolarSF, which, when combined with federal tax credits and state incentives, can reduce the cost of installing a residential solar power system by more than 50 percent.
Edited by Brian for space. See the flip for the rest of the post.
It's great news that Van Jones has been tapped for a high-level job in the Obama Administration, as a special adviser for green jobs. Having his voice at the Presidential level is bound to be valuable, and great for at-risk communities who will not be forgotten with Jones as their defender. At the same time, I have to agree with the first comment in this Grist story.
If it is more than a rumor, then Van faces some decisions that would keep me awake at night. Would he be more effective where he is, or on the insde of the administration??? How much power would he really have?? Could he go along with the administration the next time it starts talking about "clean coal?"
Indeed, he might have to make that determination almost immediately. Because the FutureGen project, a "clean coal" research facility in Illinois, is likely to be funded with stimulus money in the short term. This is just research, of course, and even Energy Secretary Steven Chu supports it "with modifications." But the fact is that clean coal technology hasn't worked and offers a false sense of hope that we can just keep burning dirty fuels and not get dirty ourselves. It would be nice to have Van Jones' perspective on this, but he's embedded inside the Administration now.
Leadership is self-generating, but leadership like Van Jones' comes around only once in a long while. We have a lot of battles in California over green jobs and alternative energy that could have used a strident voice like Jones'. There's an effort to triple our commitment to clean energy through a renewable portfolio standard. The Senate leader's top priority is career tech education with an eye to green jobs and the new economy. Perhaps Jones' departure means that new leaders will take hold of these issues and push them forward. But perhaps not. It leaves a big hole.
I congratulate him as I've congratulated other Californians who have moved to Washington. But it's interesting, from my perspective, that the two individuals most likely to be able to drive a movement politics in the Golden State - Hilda Solis and Van Jones - have packed up and joined the Obama Administration. I can't say I blame them, this state is a basket case. And their talents will be used well.
Today is Election Day in LA City, and given the turnouts we've seen in other off-year elections, as well as the fact that the mayoral race, the biggest ticket on the ballot, is basically a coronation, turnout is likely to be very small, save for the wide-open 5th District City Council race, which is really anybody's to win (very unusual in LA politics). The expectation is about 15%. Despite the fact that Los Angeles actually has a fairly rich culture of political activism, from the Latino student sit-ins to recent Prop. 8 actions and hundreds more, the recent history is that city elections do not draw much of a crowd. That's a shame in a city that's larger than the total populations of many states, and it reduces accountability on the elected officials.
I don't live in Los Angeles, but I work here, and I have a conflicted view about the way the city runs. I think if every resident were forced to watch The Garden, the Oscar-nominated documentary about South Los Angeles residents being forcibly evicted from a community garden, nobody would vote for anyone currently on the City Council, least of all Mayor Villaraigosa. The film, almost a real-life version of The Wire, revealed a city government of backroom deals and power-brokers able to make their voices heard well beyond the needs of the community. You can add to that the rare bit of journalism from the LA Weekly about the City Council, and you could be convinced that the lack of accountability from the electoral process has bred a toxic atmosphere at City Hall. The likely consolidation of power that would result from Villaraigosa allies in the city attorney and city controller offices would lead you even closer to that conclusion.
Yet among the morass, there are some very earnest public servants trying to manage a very unwieldy city, with a host of unique problems and challenges that would vex any lawmaking body on Earth. Set aside this year's $1 billion dollar budget; the problems of immigration, gang violence, income inequality, traffic, health care, air pollution, education, and much, much more all converge in this city. From 10,000 feet these problems look intractable, and yet there are gradual, slow steps toward mitigation, and even areas where Los Angeles is a national model. The sales tax receipts from Measure R may finally bring sustainable transit infrastructure to fruition for more than a handful of the city's residents. The Green Trucks Program is an innovative, first-in-the-nation effort to bring labor and environmental groups together to reduce pollution, create living wage jobs and help save the planet. And the city's Green Jobs Training program is seen as so potentially game-changing that it was used as a model in a White House staff report from their Middle Class Task Force:
The City of Los Angeles has undertaken or is in the midst of undertaking several initiatives that, together, begin to constitute a model for how cities can maximize the benefits of "going green" for working families. As is often the case, necessity was the mother of policy innovation. A few years ago, the city faced a number of stark challenges including: a state renewable energy mandate (a statewide "portfolio standard" requiring 20% renewable energy by 2017) and a state cap on greenhouse gas emissions; an impending shortage of skilled construction workers; entrenched poverty and joblessness in many low-income neighborhoods; and toxic levels of diesel pollution that were imposing huge health costs and blocking the growth of the nation's largest port complex.
In the past year, Los Angeles has adopted a comprehensive approach to redevelopment which will ensure that city-subsidized development projects are built green and serve as vehicles for moving low-income residents into middle-class construction careers. The Port of Los Angeles has also begun to implement a comprehensive solution to freight-related air pollution that will increase efficiency, enhance security, and improve work conditions and living standards for port truck drivers. Most important is the fact that these initiatives are being undertaken on a large scale: the city's construction policy is expected to impact 15,000 jobs over five years while the Clean Trucks Program (discussed below) could affect as many as 16,000 port truck drivers.
In 2008, the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) adopted a landmark policy designed to protect the environment, safeguard the interests of taxpayers, and ensure that city-supported projects create good construction jobs and career pathways for city residents. The Construction Careers and Project Stabilization Policy establishes minimum labor standards and a process for avoiding labor disruptions by means of a master agreement between the CRA and local building trades unions. The policy requires participating contractors and unions to make construction job opportunities available to local residents, including individuals who face barriers to employment such as a criminal record or a limited education.
The policy is being implemented alongside a requirement that large subsidized projects meet the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. In this way, city leaders have begun to lay the foundations for building a green-collar construction workforce in Los Angeles. The UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education projects that the policy will make at least 5,000 apprentice-level construction jobs available to residents of neighborhoods with high levels of unemployment over the next five years. At least 1,500 jobs are expected to go to individuals who might otherwise remain homeless, unemployed, dependent on welfare programs, or caught up in the criminal justice system. But the most important result of the Construction Careers policy will be to leverage public investments in economic development to turn short-term jobs into long-term careers in the construction industry.
I wish there was more structural accountability in Los Angeles, from the Mayor on down. I wish the city wasn't so dominated by big-city machine politics and red-letter projects that often fail to follow through on their promise. And where criticism is warranted, I'm sure to be first in line. But Los Angeles is a very complex and hard-to-pigeonhole place, and that is true of its politics as well.
There's an interesting dynamic happening in California. At the national level, the state's power is growing. Californians hold the Speaker of the House and four key committee chairs, including the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and now the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have Californians at the helm. Any energy and environmental policies will have to go through the committees of Californians, and they'll have California allies inside the Administration, with the selection of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Dr. Steven Chu as Energy Secretary and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Other Californians are up for possible Administration jobs, like CA-31's Xavier Becerra (US Trade Representative) and CA-36's Jane Harman (CIA Director). It's a good time to be a California politician in Washington.
It's a TERRIBLE time to be a California politician in California, as it dawns on everyone in Sacramento that the state is ungovernable and hurtling toward total chaos. The two parties are miles apart from a budget deal, and even their biggest and boldest efforts would only fill about half the budget gap. The peculiar mechanisms of state government, with its 2/3 rule for budget and tax provisions, and its artificial deadlines for bills to get through the legislature, which causes remarkable bottlenecks and "gut and amend" legislation changed wholesale in a matter of hours, and the failed experiment with direct democracy which has created unsustainable demands and mandates, make the state impossible to reform and even get working semi-coherently. The state's citizens hate their government and hate virtually everyone in it with almost equal fervor, yet find themselves helpless to actually change anything about it, and believe it or not, ACTUALLY THINK THEY'RE DOING A GOOD JOB setting policy through the initiative process, which is simply ignorant (though they paradoxically think that other voters aren't doing a good job on initiatives). The activist base does amazing grassroots work, very little of it in this state. We have a political trade deficit where money and volunteerism leaves the state and nothing returns. And the political media for a state of 38 million consists of a handful of reporters in Sacramento and a couple dudes with blogs.
Many of these problems have accumulated over a number of years and cannot be laid at the feet of anybody in particular. But in general, the reason that we've gotten to this crisis point, the reason that California is a failed state, is because by and large the dominant political parties WANT IT THAT WAY. I'm not saying that the state Democratic Party or its elected officials, for example, wants the state to be flung into the sea, metaphorically speaking, but there's certainly a tendency toward the closed loops of insiders that prefer a predictable and stable status quo, that naturally restricts reform and leads to corruption, gridlock and crisis. I'll give you an example. Last night I was on a conference call where Eric Bauman, Chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, announced that he would drop out of the race for state party Chair and run for Vice-Chair, because when 78 year-old former State Senator John Burton entered the race, all his labor, organizational and elected support dried up. Fitting that he didn't mention his grassroots support, because it clearly doesn't matter who they prefer.
There is little doubt in my mind that John Burton will run the party, or rather delegate it to whatever lieutenant will run the party, in the exact same way it has been run for the last decade or so, characterized by missed opportunities to expand majorities, a lost recall election for Governor, cave-in after cave-in on key budget priorities and a failure to capitalize on the progressive wave of the last two electoral cycles. These are not abstractions, and they have real-world effects, $41.8 billion of them at last count. And honestly, the Special Assistant to Gray Davis didn't represent all that much change, either.
We have an ossified party structure, and a phlegmatic legislative leadership that is unable to get its objectives met because the deck is essentially stacked against them. The times call for a completely new vision, one that can energize a grassroots base and use citizen action to leverage the necessary unraveling of this dysfunctional government to make it work again. The work on Prop. 8 since the election has been tremendous, but ultimately, if public schools are closing and unemployment is above 10% and the uninsured are rising and the pain felt in local communities is acute, then we have a much larger problem, one that requires a bigger movement allied with the civil rights movement to make change.
The key flashpoint is the 2010 Governor's race. There is currently no one in the field with the ability to break the lock that the status quo has on California and deliver a new majority empowered to bring the state back from the brink. In an article published last month, Randy Shaw put it best.
None of the current field appears likely to galvanize a grassroots base, or to be willing to take on the "third rails" of California politics: massive prison spending, Prop 13 funding restrictions, or the need for major new education funding. Dianne Feinstein? She'll be 77 years old on Election Day 2010, and she has long resisted, rather than supported, progressive change.
Jerry Brown just finished campaigning to defeat Proposition 5, which would have saved billions of unnecessary spending on the state's prison industrial complex. This follows Brown's television ads for the 2004 election, which helped narrowly defeat a reform of the draconian and extremely expensive "three strikes" law. Brown's consistent coddling up to the prison guards union is the smoking gun showing that he is not a candidate for change.
Gavin Newsom came out against Prop 5 on the eve of the election, undermining his own "break from the past" image. He also spent another local election cycle opposing the very constituencies who an Obama-style grassroots campaign would need to attract.
With her Senate Intel. Committee post, it is unlikely that Feinstein will run. He forgets John Garamendi, who supported Prop. 2 (!) because of his fealty to farming interests and who first ran for governor in 1982.
Shaw mentions that the state is ready for a Latina governor, and mentions the Sanchez sisters. He's right in part, but has the wrong individual in mind. I am more convinced than ever that the only person with the strength, talent, grassroots appeal and forward-thinking progressive mindset to fundamentally change the electorate and work toward reform is Congresswoman Hilda Solis. She authored the green jobs bill that Barack Obama is using as a national model. She is a national leader on the issue of environmental justice and has the connections to working Californians that can inspire a new set of voters. She beat an 18-year Democratic incumbent, Matthew Martinez, by 38 points to win her first Congressional primary. She has worked tirelessly for progressive candidates across the state and the country. In a state whose demographics are rapidly changing, she could be a powerful symbol of progress that could grab a mandate to finally overhaul this rot at the heart of California's politial system once and for all. This is not about one woman as a magic bullet that can change the system; this is about a woman at the heart of a movement. A movement for justice and equality and dignity and respect. A movement for boldness and progressive principles and inclusiveness and openness. A movement that can spark across the state.
I know that Solis is interested in the Vice Chair of the Democratic caucus if Becerra takes the job in the Obama Administration. Congresswoman, your state needs you desperately. Please consider running for Governor and leaving a legacy of progress in California.
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.
Scott Gold at the LA Times reports today on a massive solar project that may alleviate some of the pain felt in the Antelope Valley:
The buzz in the Antelope Valley these days is about a company called eSolar, which is putting the finishing touches on a thermal solar energy facility here -- 24,000 mirrors that glitter like diamonds when you approach on Avenue G. There are plans for several more facilities in the area, all larger, the company says.
Local officials are atwitter at the possibilities. Visitors and investors are expected from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A slew of jobs would be created; there were 225 people working last week on the Avenue G facility alone, most of them locals. Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said the solar plants could be the catalyst to restoring the sort of "intellectual excitement" that existed when aerospace, still a vital industry here, was the only game in town -- when "if it went up, it came out of here," he said.
"Now, we're going to go a long way toward saving this world," the mayor said. "Right here in Lancaster."
I think it's important to classify projects like this as what they are - INFRASTRUCTURE projects. Too often we confine ourselves to thinking about infrastructure as solely referring to fixing roads or building physical structures like bridges. A 21st-century energy creation system is the most important infrastructure improvement we can make, one that will not only create jobs but save billions in public health and environmental degradation costs. Any stimulus from the federal government that includes infrastructure improvements should help incentivize companies like eSolar, as well as laying down high-speed broadband lines throughout the country, building a transferable energy grid, etc.
In the recent past in California, the way a depressed city could revitalize their economy was to bring a prison into town. Now, the potential of green jobs is being realized, making the future (pardon the pun) sunnier:
It's heady talk, and people are listening. Lancaster and the surrounding valley are suffering, even by the standards of a community that long ago acclimated to a boom-and-bust cycle. Many here are living on the edge, and some beyond, with tens of thousands more expected to arrive in coming years.
There is a sense that development cannot come fast enough, not with shops closing, one in five people living in poverty, high unemployment and the highest mortality rate in Los Angeles County. Not with so many houses falling into foreclosure that the city of Lancaster has gone into real estate -- buying and renovating empty homes to slow the decline of neighborhoods.
"It's bad," said William Turner, 21, who got a job installing eSolar mirrors through a temp agency. He is among those vying for one of the full-time positions the company will offer soon; competition will be fierce and many of those hired will be overqualified for their jobs, officials said.
"People around here are really hurting," Turner said. "We need a change."
The new energy economy is California's way out of the economic crisis. Whether it's building solar and wind plants or transferable energy grids or carbon capture and sequestration retrofitting or green building add-ons or the next generation of green cars, the potential for bringing hope to downtrodden communities, creating millions of jobs and protecting the planet is great.
The past few days have seen another spate of "OMG, Republican incumbents are in trouble!" stories in the traditional media. Aside from them not understanding and internalizing the theory of coattails, this problem is particularly acute among the California media, where gerrymandering is just supposed to lock up Congressional and legislative seats airtight, except when, you know, it doesn't. Peculiar to this rendering of the world is the idea that nobody ever moves, dies, or reaches the age of 18 in any particular district, and thus voter registration statistics are completely static. But of course this is not true, and once the Democratic Party started putting resources into registering new and lapsed voters, why look what happened:
One of the major reasons for these competitive contests has been the narrowing gap in registered voters between the parties. While Republicans still enjoy a substantial advantage over Democrats in all three districts, their leads have shrunk significantly.
Four years ago, Republicans led Democrats among registered voters by margins of 17 percent in the Orange County-based 46th, 15 percent in the San Diego-area 50th and 11 percent in the Riverside County-based 45th. By this year's registration deadline of Oct. 20, those leads had shrunk by 6 percent in the 50th, 5 percent in the 46th and 6 percent in the 45th.
There are still the conventional wisdom-besotted punditocracy that simply can't conceive of these major shifts in the electorate (it's not like anything has happened the past eight years that would lead people to desert the Republican Party in droves, right?), who believe that incumbents just win and that's the end of it. But just ask one of those incumbents what he fears on Tuesday:
HUNTINGTON BEACH - Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach/Long Beach said Friday he's concerned that Republicans will be discouraged by a possible Democratic landslide at the polls, affecting his re-election bid.
"If (Republican nominee John) McCain does not do well, and Republicans stay home, my lead could evaporate," the nine-term incumbent of the 46th Congressional District said.
Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, the Democratic challenger, said the race is a "statistical dead heat," and agreed that a solid turnout for change - from the economic problems facing the country - could be the difference in Tuesday's hotly contested race.
"All the uncertainty that's going on now is helping," she said, adding that incumbents who have been "part of the system for the past 20 years" could be vulnerable.
This is all the more reason why Democrats and progressives need to remember Jim Corman and get as many voters to the polls as possible. And Don't Stop At The Top, of course.
And if the scenario is bright in the Congressional races, the Assembly looks even brighter. Why, even Dan Walters has figured this one out.
Voters may not realize that they could dramatically alter that balance, but interest groups that are pouring millions of dollars into legislative and ballot measure campaigns certainly get it.
Democrats could pick up one seat in the Senate and are so certain of gaining three to five seats in the Assembly that they've diverted resources into several marginal districts, taking advantage of Obamania-inspired voter registration gains, to shoot for the six added seats that would give them a two-thirds majority. That margin is required for the budget and tax increases and could happen as the Capitol wrestles with a rapidly deteriorating economy and a fast-growing budget deficit.
We know about those top-line seats: AD-80, AD-78, AD-15, AD-10, AD-26. But it's Linda Jones' race in AD-36 that has captured my attention. She represents the ultimate swing vote as the potential 54th Democrat in the State Assembly, the vote that would give us a 2/3 majority, which in California is a governing majority. And Linda Jones happens to be really great, campaiging on a message of green jobs in the waning days of the race.
As part of her campaign to create a stronger economy for the region, Democratic Assembly Candidate Linda Jones (36th District) today announced her "High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative" - using 'green jobs' to increase opportunities for unemployed and underemployed adults in the High Desert communities. Lt. Governor John Garamendi, a longtime advocate for environmental protection and renewable energy, offered his full support of the plan, calling it a "giant leap forward" for the region's economy.
"Investing in the 'green economy' is a win-win because it will create jobs and increase our clean energy efficiency," said Linda Jones. "The High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative will create outreach, educational, and training programs to recruit, develop, and sustain a green industry that will create jobs, increase our clean energy efficiency, and grow our economy for the region."
There's a website, High Desert Green Jobs, that details the initiative. It's fantastic that someone in a swing district trying to become the first Democratic member of the Assembly from this region in 34 years is offering such a bold agenda.
This district had an eight-point GOP lean just two years ago. Now the registration gap is GONE. 400 votes separate Democrats and Republicans. Don't give me that redistricting stuff, nothing's stopping this progressive wave. I'm excited for Linda Jones and so is her community.
There's just one day to go. You need to Stay for Change because you can have a major impact right here in California. I'm going to give predictions on everything in the morning. But right now, I'm psyched.
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.
Some great people have been sashaying through the Big Tent to huddle up with the bloggers. And the traditional media has joined them, to take exciting pictures of people typing to show how the bloggers kick it. Rockin'!
I did get a chance to spend a few minutes with Van Jones, an environmental and green jobs activist, to talk about the future of energy and how we can beat the Republicans at their own game. He also offered a candid assessment of the state of the Presidential campaign.
Jones thinks that the progressive movement and Democratic groups have been "hurt by having a good candidate. We were so galvanized against Bush in 2004 that every outside group went nuts, threw everything we had at the Republicans, and we almost came up with the win despite a less inspiring candidate. This year, the spirit of 2004 has been lost. Obama made the mistake of defunding the outside groups and we've become complacent to an extent." Jones said that last week's hit by the Obama campaign on the McCain housing issue was good, but it needs to be a 10-week phenomenon, not a 1-week phenomenon.
On green jobs, which is Jones' real focus area, he stressed that we need to move the environmental conversation from a cultural one to a political one. The green-collar economy "can be a place for people to earn money, not spend money. We need collective action for green citizenship, to create the jobs of the future in a Green New Deal. As long as carbon is free we're never going to move forward." He was pleased by the recent efforts by municipalities and states (green jobs bills have been passed in Massachusetts and Washington state, and the US Conference of Mayors is on board as well), but recognizes that the federal government must be involved as well. "This is about laws, not gizmos. Technology cannot be the savior. This has to be a bottom-up, inside-outside AND a top-down strategy. If the Feds are MIA, human life will be MIA in the future."
We talked about the offshore drilling debate, where Jones clearly stated that the Republicans won the day by lying to the American people. He had three major points:
• There is no such thing as American oil. There is oil drilled by multinationals that is sent overseas to China and India. American offshore driling will do nothing to solve any American oil problems.
• We banned drilling in offshore areas not to save birds and fish, but because of coastal families and coastal communities, because kids were walking into the water and coming out with oil on them, because property values were plunging. Democrats should not be willing to throw away America's beauty for a 2-cent solution in 10 years.
• We've seen the new phenomenon of the "dirty greens," who want to have an "all of the above strategy" on energy, with solar and wind, but also clean coal and drilling offshore and shale and all these dirty polluters. "All of the above" is not a strategy. It's not a wise choice, but a stupid swipe at a persistent problem.
Democrats are right on price - if you cut demand and expand supply through renewables, the price will drop. They are right on people, because those steps will create millions of jobs. And they're right on the planet, because it's the only solution to preserve our environmental future. What the Republicans are offering is Happy Meal Politics, the kind of politics that offers everything for free with no residual consequences.
Jones is a great messenger, and a real leader in the green movement. Democrats would do well to listen to him.
(Like Al Gore has always said, the climate crisis is both a danger and an opportunity. As an aside, here at yKos, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Reid were held up by Shrub's FISA demands. We here at Calitics wish Rep. Solis the best of luck in helping to advocate a reasonable and balanced approach towards the use of eavesdropping. Rep. Solis is always somebody we can count on to work for good, progressive public policy. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Well, the Republican Minority is intent on obstructing our progress on important health, appropriations, and energy bills, so we find ourselves in session on this Saturday morning.
Today the House is considering H.R. 3220, The New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act. I'm very pleased that Title I of this comprehensive bill is the Green Jobs Act, legislation (H.R. 2847) I introduced to authorize $125 million for workforce training targeted at veterans, displaced workers, and individuals - including at risk youth - who seek employment pathways out of poverty. Training would be for jobs in such sectors as green building, energy efficiency and retrofit - jobs that can lead to self-sufficiency and prosperity through higher wages, access to benefits and more career choices.
The Green Jobs Act also creates groundbreaking "Pathways Out of Poverty" grants to specifically target individuals in families under 200 percent of the federal poverty line or self-sufficiency standard for local areas where the training occurs. The Pathways Out of Poverty grants will help ensure that this new and profitable green collar sector of the American workforce is open to all Americans, regardless of their current income level. With proper training and targeted work force investment, we can help retrain existing workers whose current jobs are becoming obsolete and lift low-income workers out of poverty and into the expanding field of green collar jobs.
The strength of our nation's economy depends on the availability of a highly skilled and well trained workforce. We owe it to future generations to have the courage and commitment to choose a path toward a sustainable, secure energy future through a commitment to a green collar economy.
I look forward to the House passing this important legislation today and urge you to contact President Bush to express your support for it too.
