Monthly Archives: August 2018

Air Quality, California Regulation, Clean energy, Fossil fuels, Sen. Kevin de León

SB100 – California Assembly Passes Historic 100% Carbon-Free Electricity Bill

Repost from the Sacramento Bee
[From GreenTechMedia.com: “The world’s 5th largest economy will have to eliminate carbon emissions from electricity by 2045.”]

Plan to power California with all renewable energy clears major hurdle

By Taryn Luna, August 28, 2018 05:29 PM

The California Legislature is poised to send a bill to the governor that would require all retail electricity to be generated from solar, wind and other renewable energy sources by 2045.

Despite objections from utilities and oil companies, the Assembly voted 43-32 to eliminate fossil fuels in the state’s energy sector on Tuesday. Senate Bill 100, introduced by Sen. Kevin de León, must return to the Senate, and is all but guaranteed to reach the Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk before the legislative session ends this week.

“When it comes to fighting climate change and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, California won’t back down, ” de León said. “We have taken another great stride toward a 100% clean energy future.”

Climate activists and environmental groups have hailed the plan as a critical step forward in the battle against climate change. The bill’s passage in California will serve as a symbolic strike against the Trump administration, which has steadily attempted to erode environmental protections, roll back fuel economy standards and weaken existing rules meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fire plants.

Opponents have long argued that California’s efforts to combat climate change are futile and fail to make a substantial difference as the planet continues to warm. Some Assembly members warned the bill would hurt workers in the fossil fuel industry and raise prices for utility customers.

“We pass all these goals for renewables, but at the same time our families back home will pay the cost with an increase in the electric bills every year as we try to achieve this,” said Assemblyman Devon Mathis, is, R-Visalia.

The bill is opposed by Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Diego Gas And Electric Company, Western States Petroleum Association, Agricultural Council of California and more than two dozen others.

The proposal toughens regulations in a state seen as a global leader on climate change.

State lawmakers set a goal two years ago of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders last year extended the state’s cap-and-trade program, a market-based system that allows polluters to buy permits for the greenhouse gases they emit, through 2030. Lawmakers described the cap-and-trade program as the state’s best tool to encourage companies to reduce their carbon footprint and allow the state to reach its greenhouse gas goals.

De León initially introduced SB 100 in 2017 and the Assembly held the bill, effectively killing it for the year. In addition to setting the no-carbon standard, the bill would revise interim goals along the way. The bill bumps up an existing target by four years to hit 50 percent renewable energy in 2027 and sets the state on track to meet the 60 percent threshold by the end of 2030.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore wrote separate letters of support for SB 100. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom pledges to issue a directive on his first day of office, if elected, to put California on target to achieve 100 percent renewable energy. He has not publicly endorsed SB 100.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who is hosting a global climate summit in San Francisco next month, has also remained silent on the proposal.

Benicia CA, Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, California Governor Jerry Brown, California Regulation, Chevron Refinery, Climate Change, Fossil fuels, Oil producers, Oil refineries, Richmond CA, Richmond Vice Mayor Melvin Willis, San Francisco Bay Area, Valero Benicia Refinery

SF Chronicle opinion: Mayors urge governor to end fossil fuel production in California

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle

Mayors urge governor to end fossil fuel production in California

By Elizabeth Patterson and Melvin Willis, Aug. 24, 2018 3:31 p.m.
FILE – This March 9, 2010, file photo shows a tanker truck passing the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, Calif. A U.S. judge who held a hearing about climate change that received widespread attention has thrown …

As San Francisco prepares to host Gov. Jerry Brown’s historic Global Climate Action Summit in September, we, the San Francisco Bay Area mayors of cities impacted by the toxic consequences of fossil fuel production, are standing with elected representatives from frontline communities and throughout California in calling on the governor to phase out fossil fuel production.

Benicia and Richmond both face the toxic consequences of California’s complicity in one of the most toxic, polluting, dangerous industries on Earth and the primary driver of climate change: the oil and gas industry.

Benicia is home to the Valero oil refinery, and our residents are regularly exposed to emissions during standard operations. In May 2017, a power outage sent flames, heavy black smoke and toxic gases spewing into the air for two straight weeks. Among the pollutants were nearly 80,000 pounds of toxic sulfur dioxide — five years’ worth of “normal” emissions — and carbonyl sulfide, a highly toxic and extremely flammable gas. Accidents are only the most visible of the toxic pollution that impacts our public health, day after day. Our asthma rates are three times the state average.

The Valero refinery in Bencia,Ca., as seen on Tuesday June 20, 2017. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District on Wednesday is expected to approve the nation’s first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from …

The Texas-based petroleum giant’s Benicia refinery employs 480 people and supplies nearly a quarter of our city’s tax revenue, but at what cost?

When Valero proposed a crude-by-rail project to bring 70,000 barrels of tar sands and Bakken crude oil per day by rail through the Sierra, Sacramento and Davis to Benicia, our residents resisted, and our small, historic town stood up to our biggest employer and taxpayer. After three years of environmental review, national attention and a failed effort by Valero to get the federal government involved, the City Council voted unanimously against it.

Farther south on San Francisco Bay is Richmond, one of the poorest communities in the Bay Area. Our city of largely Hispanic, African American and Asian residents fought against toxic industrial pollution from Chevron’s Richmond refinery that processes 250,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Chevron is our largest employer and taxpayer. Nonetheless, our community has risen up, defeating Chevron-backed candidates in 2014 that outspent us 5 to 1 in our local election, and elected true champions for our community. Richmond forced major environmental conditions on Chevron as it expands the refinery and strengthened our Industrial Safety Ordinance in response to the refinery’s toxic explosion and fire in 2012 that sent 15,000 residents to seek medical treatment.

Toxic pollution isn’t the only threat we face. With 32 miles of shoreline, more than any other city on San Francisco Bay, Richmond is at extreme risk from sea level rise that will soon cost our community far more than we can afford. So, Richmond, home to an oil giant, became the ninth city in less than a year to bring major fossil fuel companies to court over climate change. We filed a lawsuit against 29 oil, gas and coal companies — including Chevron, along with BP and Exxon — to hold them accountable for their role in climate change and its impacts on the community.

The fossil fuel industry’s business plan is destroying not only our health and communities, but also the survival of our species.

Yet, under Gov. Jerry Brown, the state of California has not only tolerated the fossil fuel industry, but expanded it — granting permits for drilling 20,000 new oil wells.

The Bay Area has had enough of this climate hypocrisy. It is wrong to make communities sick. As one of the top oil-producing states, it is time to bring the fossil fuel era to an end.

While our small towns have the courage to stand up to a billion-dollar fossil fuel industry to protect our public health and climate, why hasn’t Brown?

On the toxic front lines of climate change, we stand with 150 local elected officials from a majority of counties in California that are taking bold steps to stop fossil fuels. We all are urging Brown to make a plan to phase out oil and gas production in California, to clean up our cities, towns and agricultural lands, and protect our people.

If our cities can say “no” to expanding fossil fuels, Gov. Brown, you can, too — and we’ll have your back.

Elizabeth Patterson is mayor of Benicia. Melvin Willis is vice mayor of Richmond.
Free press, Trump, Trump lies

SFChron editorial: Why the Chronicle didn’t join the editorial crowd on Trump

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle

Why the San Francisco Chronicle isn’t joining the editorial crowd on Trump

By John Diaz Aug. 16, 2018
President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters outside the White House, in Washington on March 13. ,More than 200 newspapers have committed to publishing editorials on the same day, Aug. 16, on the dangers of the Trump administrations assault on the press. Photo: Tom Brenner / New York Times

When the Boston Globe called on the nation’s newspaper editorial boards to come together against President Trump’s “dirty war on the free press,” regular readers of The San Francisco Chronicle no doubt assumed we would be among the first in line.

After all, in our unsigned editorials and in my Sunday column, this newspaper’s criticism of Trump’s efforts to delegitimize, threaten and neuter independent journalism has been clear, emphatic and repeated since the early days of his presidential campaign.

But our editorial board will not be joining the estimated 300 newspapers which have signed on to the Globe’s pitch for a coordinated editorial campaign in Thursday’s editions.

It’s not that we take issue with the argument that Trump’s assault on the truth generally, and his efforts to diminish the free press specifically, pose a serious threat to American democracy. I wholeheartedly agree with Marjorie Pritchard, the Globe’s deputy editorial page editor, that such unprecedented attacks on press freedom by the president of the United States “are alarming.”

Here is our board’s thinking:

One of our most essential values is independence. The Globe’s argument is that having a united front on the issue — with voices from Boise to Boston taking a stand for the First Amendment, each in a newspaper’s own words — makes a powerful statement. However, I would counter that answering a call to join the crowd, no matter how worthy the cause, is not the same as an institution deciding on its own to raise a matter.

Our decision might have been different had we not weighed in so often on Trump’s myriad moves to undermine journalism: from calling us “enemies of the American people” to invoking the term “fake news” against real news to denying access to reporters who dare do their jobs to slapping tariffs on newsprint to requesting the prosecution of reporters who reveal classified information to threatening punitive actions against the business interest of owners of CNN and the Washington Post.

The list goes on.

It’s worth pausing to note the role of the editorial board. At The Chronicle, as with most American newspapers, the position on the unsigned pieces on the editorial page reflect the consensus of a board that includes the publisher and the editors and writers in the opinion department. That operation is kept separate from the news side, where editors and reporters make their judgments without regard to the newspaper’s editorial positions. This includes the endorsements we make in elections.

I am well aware that this “separation of church and state” — as we call it — is well understood and enforced within the building, but is not universally known or accepted by Americans, especially on the far left and right, who might be skeptical of mainstream media.

This brings me to my other concern of the Globe-led campaign: It plays into Trump’s narrative that the media are aligned against him. I can just anticipate his Thursday morning tweets accusing the “FAKE NEWS MEDIA” of “COLLUSION!” and “BIAS!” He surely will attempt to cite this day of editorials to discredit critical and factual news stories in the future, even though no one involved in those pieces had anything to do with this campaign.

Yes, those of us in the journalism profession do have a bias that the health of our democracy depends on vigorous reporting that can keep the people in power accountable. That is no less essential whether an elected official is Republican or Democrat, hostile or friendly to the press.

Our editorial page will continue to speak out against this president’s war on the free press. Our silence on Thursday is testament to our commitment to do it in our own way, on our own timetable.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor.
Free press, Trump, Trump lies

Vallejo Times-Herald Editorial: The only thing ‘fake’ is calling us ‘the enemy’

Repost from the Vallejo Times-Herald
[Editor: Our president’s foul mouth and shameful behavior is dangerous.  A free and unfettered press is incredibly important. Note that local news is also an issue of great significance.  Recent cutbacks at both the Benicia Herald and the Vallejo Times-Herald leave Benicia largely unreported. See my editorial, Loss of local news coverage by Benicia Herald & Vallejo Times-Herald.  – RS]

Our View: The only thing ‘fake’ is calling us ‘the enemy’

By the Editor, 08/15/18, 2:58 PM PDT

We are not the enemy.

It’s shocking that in this country, built on the foundation of a free press, we would ever have to say that. But we live in shocking times. And we are under attack — from our president.

He has called us “the enemy of the American people.” He disparages our work as “fake news.”

At his rallies, he verbally abuses us. Not surprisingly, some of his supporters have taken it to the next step, threatening violence.

Last week, he tweeted about the press: “They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”

Enough. This isn’t OK.

We can’t sit here and be silent. The notion that we are the enemy fomenting division domestically and abroad is absurd. When someone says something that wrong, that egregious, we can’t just let it go — especially when that person is the president.

Understand, as much delight as he seems to bask in while taking shots at us, the president isn’t lobbing “fake news” charges at us for the sport of it. There’s a method to this madness — and it’s centered by the only thing being “fake” in this equation is what continually comes out of the president’s mouth.

The president, through his constant Twitter use and his public statements, spews half-truths, falsehoods and outright lies at an historic rate for a United States President. According to PolitiFact, Trump’s statements are “mostly false” 22 percent of the time, “false” 33 percent of the time and “pants on fire” false 14 percent of the time. That’s an astounding 69 percent of the time where the president is not telling the entire truth.

But don’t just take PolitiFact’s word for it. Just listen to the president, just the other day.

“The head of U.S. Steel called me the other day, and he said, ‘We’re opening up six major facilities and expanding facilities that have never been expanded.’ They haven’t been opened in many, many years.” the president told a round table of American workers.

Except U.S. Steel is doing no such thing. All U.S. Steel has announced is that it will restart two blast furnaces and steelmaking facilities at the company’s Granite City Works integrated plant in Illinois — one in March and the other in October.

And the ridiculous things Trump said about the latest round of devastating California wildfires? We won’t even justify that by repeating it.

These lies are important to remember, because they are why Trump attacks the media with such zealousness: To discredit us. To get his base to believe his lies, not the fourth estate’s carefully sourced stories, many of which feature the president’s own words contradicting himself and others in the White House.

Journalists are trying to do a job. We’re not trying to tear down our nation. We’re trying to strengthen it. For we believe in the foundational premise behind the First Amendment — that our nation is stronger if its people are informed.

That’s just as true when talking about the local city council and school board as it is when discussing national and international policymaking and politics.

We sincerely believe that most of you understand that — otherwise you wouldn’t be reading our newspapers and websites. For that, we are deeply grateful.

You understand that we express our opinions on the editorial pages, but the reporters whose articles appear in the rest of the newspaper seek to present their work without bias.

You understand that there’s a qualitative difference between the reporting of mainstream journalists and the unchecked information — and disinformation — that flows alongside our work on Facebook and Twitter.

We wish the president could focus on fixing the threats to our democracy that stream through social media, rather than conflating social media and professional journalists to insinuate that somehow we’re all the same.

Yes, we make mistakes. We’re human. But we try to correct our errors as quickly as possible. And we’re certainly not purveyors of made-up information.

Today, we, and scores of other news organizations across the country, at the urging of the Boston Globe editorial page, are speaking up — defending the integrity of our journalists against the incessant onslaught from the president.

It’s a remarkable, unprecedented moment. Frankly, it’s scary. We’re afraid, for our personal safety and for the future of our country. These attacks on the press are an attack on our nation’s foundation.

And we’re angry. Angry that we work so hard to carry out the mission our Founding Fathers envisioned, to provide the free flow of information so critical to a well-functioning democracy, only to be demonized by our president for doing our jobs.

Today, we ask readers to keep supporting us. And, whatever your political leanings or feelings about the president’s policies, recognize that the press has an important role to play in our nation.

We take it very seriously. We wish Trump did, too.