10/13/2024

News

California cedes water to feds in Delta deal with Trump

Southern Californians could lose billions of gallons of water a year to Central Valley farmers under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has struck with water officials working for President Donald Trump. There’s no guarantee the agreement with Trump will accomplish what Brown’s team is seeking: a lasting compromise on environmental regulations that could stave […]

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” CARB Must Consider Those Living in Poverty “

While California is experiencing tremendous growth and historically low unemployment rates, our state’s poverty rate is still the highest in the country. In fact, one of every five Californians today lives in poverty, including two million children. CARB has to take into consideration all the households that are at and below poverty that will be […]

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California bus agencies ordered to make fleets emission-free

The days when urban life in California involved regular inhalations of diesel smoke from rumbling buses will soon be history after the California Air Resources Board ordered transit agencies to make their fleets entirely emission-free within two decades. The ruling, handed down by a unanimous vote Friday, is the latest move by California to seize […]

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Don’t Kill the Growing Gig Economy

What was the biggest local business story of the year? With a sigh, I vote for the state Supreme Court’s decision in April that basically outlawed the gig economy in California. I sigh because the ruling truly may disrupt the way business increasingly is being done today, especially here in the San Fernando Valley area. […]

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Big polluters get help from the state, renewing doubts about California’s climate goals

The 2017 deal, for subsidies worth as much as $350 million, rescued a cliffhanger vote in the Legislature that extended the state’s cap-and-trade program to 2030. Under cap and trade, industries may pay to pollute by buying allowances in a carbon-trading market. In addition, some receive free allowances from the state. The state Air Resources […]

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Water districts were so close to deal. Now, lawsuits will contest ‘water grab’

Some water districts would like to keep negotiating with state officials over river flows. But lawsuits replaced settlements as the most likely path forward, the day after a crucial vote in Sacramento approving the “water grab.” The Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts had no agreement for flows on the Stanislaus River before Wednesday’s […]

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Opinion: The Supreme Court May Begin to Tame the Administrative State

If the court overturns Auer, a logical next step would be to reconsider deference for agency interpretations of the statutes that authorize their actions. In Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), the justices directed lower courts to defer to any agency interpretations of laws enacted by Congress, so long as the interpretation is deemed […]

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New SF City Hall employee has one goal: To approve housing

On Thursday, Mayor London Breed announced the appointment of the city’s first director of housing delivery, a new position created specifically to “ensure that new housing projects are not held up in San Francisco’s complicated approval and permitting system.” . . . While inexperienced builders might assume that once the Planning Commission approves a building, […]

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California shifts water from farms, cities to fish. But a Jerry Brown compromise plan isn’t dead

Despite an epic last-minute compromise brokered by Gov. Jerry Brown, state water regulators voted Wednesday to reallocate billions of gallons of San Joaquin River water from farms and cities to revive struggling fish populations. After hours of testimony, the State Water Resources Control board voted to deliver hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water from […]

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Rethinking California’s electric utilities

Beginning with a misbegotten and misnamed “deregulation” of the utilities 22 years ago – which drove PG&E into bankruptcy – the state has been, by legislation and regulatory decrees, increasingly micromanaging how they generate, distribute and price electric power. They have slowly evolved into quasi-governmental entities while maintaining the façade of private ownership, but without […]

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The first shots in the climate wars

Macron’s policies rest on the notion on-going climate catastrophe embraced by media, the academy and the intelligentsia. Every time weather takes a nasty turn as it often does — heat waves, downpours, forest fires, floods — it’s often attributed to climate change. This leads to the notion that we need to embrace climate “hysteria,” as […]

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San Francisco, other Bay Area cities will see water supply cuts under new plan

Dozens of California communities dependent on the cool, clear water of the High Sierra, from Central Valley farm towns to San Francisco, will see cuts to their water supplies under a plan approved Wednesday by state water regulators. The reductions, which could force households in the Bay Area to curb water use by 20 percent […]

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Fight against greenhouse gases stalls as emissions soar to new record

Progress in the fight against global warming has taken a big step backward, according to research published Wednesday, which projects greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels will hit a record high this year after a recent and promising lull. And next year, emissions are expected to be even higher. The research by the Global Carbon Project, […]

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California lawmaker tries again to gradually ban gas cars

After an unsuccessful legislative effort this year that would have eventually banned the sale of new gas-powered cars in California, Assemblyman Phil Ting returned Monday with a more modest proposal he hopes will move the state toward the same goal. AB40, introduced by the San Francisco Democrat, asks the state Air Resources Board to come […]

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Americans continued ugly breakup with passenger cars in November as auto sales decline

Americans continued to abandon passenger cars in November, transitioning rapidly into crossovers, SUVs and pickups as automakers increasingly catered their products to shifting driver preferences. Automakers sold slightly fewer vehicles overall in November, compared with last year, according to analysts’ forecasts, including one from Edmunds.com, which projected auto sales fell 1.3 percent last month, and […]

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