Tag Archive for: Politics

San Diego County Creates Office for Environmental and Climate Justice

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Deborah Sullivan Brennan

A new county office will focus on areas of San Diego most affected by pollution, health disparities and the effects of climate change, the County Board of Supervisors decided Wednesday.

In a unanimous vote, the board agreed to create an office of climate and environmental justice within its land use and environmental group. It will work with the San Diego Air Pollution Control District and other agencies to address air pollutants, toxics, hazardous waste and other risks to sensitive populations.

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Column: Drought is Upon Us. California’s Senate Leader has a Plan to Keep it from Becoming a Crisis

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby George Skelton

California’s big reservoirs are about half empty. We’re heading into another drought. But Sacramento’s vault is overflowing while Washington is pumping in more dollars. Here’s an idea: Spend some windfall money on no-brainer, quickie public works projects to help us confront the drought and prepare for an unstable climate future. Credit state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). It’s her idea.

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How a Beachfront Gas Plant Explains California’s Energy Problems

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Sammy Roth

When the California Public Utilities Commission recommended 17 months ago that a gas-fired power plant on the Redondo Beach waterfront remain open beyond 2020 — over the objections of local officials and clean energy activists — Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves made a commitment to the city’s mayor.

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California Agencies Will Reap Windfall from Biden Infrastructure Plan — If It Gets Traction

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ralph Vartabedian

A Biden initiative expected to pour up to $3 trillion into repairing America’s decrepit infrastructure and funding other programs has sparked a scramble across the nation for the federal funds — with California expecting to reap the biggest piece.

The potential federal bounty opens the door to a list of ambitious projects: electrifying the Burbank-to-Anaheim passenger rail system, straightening the Los Angeles-to-San Diego rail line to cut travel time, and building a 1.3-mile tunnel to extend a passenger line to downtown San Francisco.

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Attempts to Protect Arizona’s Groundwater and Rivers Meet Legislative Resistance

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Ian James

The Arizona Legislature has taken up a range of water-related measures this year, but some bills that would strengthen the state’s water rules to protect declining groundwater and desert streams have run into opposition and have failed to move forward.

Republican and Democratic legislators introduced several bills that would establish some groundwater rules in unregulated rural areas where there are no limits on pumping and where water levels are dropping.

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Colorado River Authority Bill Moves To Full Senate, Some Still Concerned About Transparency

/in , /by /KUERby Lexi Peery

A Senate committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday to create Utah’s Colorado River Authority, which would be tasked with helping the state renegotiate its share of the river.

Originally the bill allowed broad reasons to close meetings and protect records. It’s since been changed twice to come more into compliance with the state’s open meeting and record laws. Critics of the bill said it’s still not enough.

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Pendulum Swings in Clean Water Act Regulation

/in , , /by /Capital Pressby Mateusz Perkouwski

The regulatory pendulum is expected to swing toward stricter Clean Water Act enforcement, though experts say the Biden administration’s changes probably won’t be immediate. Farmers and environmentalists have been in a political tug-of-war over the law’s scope for years, largely due to ambiguous legal interpretations of the statute. While Democrats will now have power over Congress, their majority is too slim to make changes to the law, said Don Parrish, the American Farm Bureau Federation’s senior director of regulatory relations.

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Nathan Fletcher Selected Chair of County Board of Supervisors

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Gary Warth

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously selected as their new chair Nathan Fletcher, who quickly outlined a more-progressive agenda than those followed by past boards. “As the new chair of the board, I will work tirelessly for a county with more opportunity, more fairness, more equity and more justice,” he said.

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California’s Relationship with the Animal Kingdom is Broken. Can it be Fixed?

/in , /by /The Sacramento Bee

There’s an ecological crisis underway in California’s lonely corner of the American West.

Invasive grasses are causing fires to explode. Wild horses are trampling fragile habitats. Thousands of water birds are dying miserable deaths. Wolves are settling down in hostile territory.

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2020 May Be The Hottest Year On Record. Here’s The Damage It Did

/in , /by /Cap Radioby Rebecca Hersher and Lauren Sommer

With just a few weeks left, 2020 is in a dead-heat tie for the hottest year on record. But whether it claims the top spot misses the point, climate scientists say. There is no shortage of disquieting statistics about what is happening to the Earth. The hottest decade on record is coming to a close, with the last five years being the hottest since 1880. 2020 is just two-hundredths of a degree cooler than 2016, the hottest year ever recorded.

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