03/19/2024

News

Here’s how much California is spending to put electric cars on the road

California policymakers are committed to making sure that electric vehicles — and the charging stations and other infrastructure needs associated with them — transform the state’s transportation sector. But it won’t come cheaply. A review conducted by the San Diego Union-Tribune showed various state agencies have committed $2.46 billion in public funds — some of […]

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Why SDG&E wants to get out of the business of buying electricity

With California’s grid going through dramatic changes, San Diego Gas & Electric has approached the Legislature in Sacramento with a proposal that, at least at first blush, sounds pretty radical — it wants to get out of the business of buying and selling electricity. Instead, the company is calling on the state to create a […]

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Judge blasts San Diego County’s pay-to-pollute plan — putting 10,000 new suburban units in limbo

Acounty plan that would allow housing developers to pay their way around restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions looks increasingly to be on shaky legal ground. The Sierra Club has challenged the plan in court as part of its longstanding fight with the agency over its so-called climate action plan. A superior court judge issued a tentative […]

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San Diego again has 4th-largest homeless population in nation

San Diego County again had the fourth-largest homeless population in the country and there has been little change in the nationwide number of people on the street and in shelters since last year, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The numbers come from an annual one-night […]

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UTC Aerospace to end aircraft systems manufacturing in Chula Vista, cutting 300 jobs

UTC Aerospace Systems plans to wind down manufacturing at its Chula Vista aircraft plant beginning early next year, eliminating around 300 jobs. The company — a division of Farmington, Conn.-based conglomerate United Technologies — said the decision stems from ending production of certain commercial aircraft models. The Chula Vista plant builds aerodynamic engine pods and […]

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Meant to help with mental illness, money from tax on millionaires piles up

While the hepatitis A virus ran unchecked through the streets and homeless camps of San Diego last year, claiming 20 lives and sickening hundreds of others before it was corralled, $170 million in special funding for mentally ill people sat in a county bank account. So much Mental Health Services Act revenue piled up, San […]

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Why are SDG&E’s rates higher than other California utilities?

A year-over-year review by the Union-Tribune of electricity rate charges by the three investor-owned utilities shows SDG&E’s rates are not only higher than their cohorts but they have also been rising faster. Residential baseline rates during the summer months from June 1 through Oct. 1 have gone up 80.7 percent since January 2014. . . […]

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California’s carbon-credit market often pays for greenhouse gas reductions that would’ve happened anyway

However, reporting by the San Diego Union-Tribune has revealed numerous instances where companies and nonprofits selling offsets didn’t shrink their carbon footprint as a result of the program — raising questions about the ability of the program to fight climate change. In some situations, groups maintained green business practices that long preceded the offset program, […]

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San Diego paying out nearly $1M to settle falling tree, cracked sidewalk injury suits

The payouts highlight the fact that sidewalks in many city neighborhoods are crumbling, partly because city officials neglected infrastructure for many years before reviving it as a high priority in 2014. Some council members lobbied last year for a 90-day deadline to fix reported sidewalk damage, and for a policy change eliminating the responsibility of […]

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San Onofre emails show history of private meetings between regulators, energy insiders and advisers to Gov. Jerry Brown

Emails that California utility regulators withheld for years — and recently released under a court order — show that political appointees of Gov. Jerry Brown met privately to discuss state energy policy. . . .Critics were quick to condemn the meetings, which according to the emails were held through most of 2014. “They are not […]

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California speeding toward fight over driving limits in age of climate change and electric cars

Top air-quality regulators at the state Capitol may be on a collision course with local power players when it comes to how frequently Californians should drive their cars in the state’s internationally lauded fight against climate change. Many regional lawmakers and other officials have started pushing back on the notion that commuters need to limit […]

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California’s ranking as an oil-producing state is slipping

In many ways, the oil business in the U.S. has never been better, with domestic producers in a growing number of states churning out barrels of crude in record numbers. But California’s output is going in the opposite direction — part of a larger, steady decline that began in the mid-1980s. For all of its […]

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Plan for 14-state power grid faces key Senate hearing on Tuesday

The legislation, now known as Assembly Bill 813, will be considered by the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications committee, the influential panel chaired by Hueso. It was also referred to the Senate Judiciary committee because the bill rewrites terms of the state-controlled nonprofit that now governs most of the state power grid. Supporters say the […]

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Teradata Corp. to move headquarters from Ohio to San Diego

Teradata Corp., a publicly traded data storage and analytics firm, said Wednesday it is moving its corporate headquarters from Dayton, Ohio, to San Diego – where it already employs more than 1,000 workers. The move is part of Teradata’s ongoing transition from being primarily a data warehousing company to a data analytics firm, where it […]

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Much of San Diego’s Recycling Goes to China and Now China Doesn’t Want It

Unbeknownst to most people, about half of San Diego’s recycled material is sent across the ocean to China. Now, that’s a problem. China no longer wants all of it. Unless city officials can quickly figure out another way to recycle material, some recyclables could end up in landfills. In recent months, China imposed new restrictions […]

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