Tag Archive for: CALmatters

OPINION: In California, we long ago ended the ‘War on Coal’

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Jan Smutny-Jones

In a series of demagogic tweets, President Donald Trump recently attacked Obama-era “clean power plan” policies as a “war on coal” and danger to U.S. energy independence. If there is a war on coal—as the president thinks—it’s long been decided in California and most of the West.

In 2008, coal comprised 18.2% of California’s electricity mix. By 2018, that number had fallen to 3%, with virtually all the coal coming from a single plant in Utah. This plant is scheduled to be retired within five years and replaced with cleaner resources pushing California coal generation to zero

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OPINION: California Refuses To Enlist Clean, Cheap Hydropower In Fight Against Climate Change. It Makes No Sense

/in , , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Adam Gray

Is the cleanest, greenest electricity in the world green enough for California? For years, the people of the Northern San Joaquin Valley have been trying to get hydropower recognized for what it is: the original source of clean electricity. Our efforts have been stymied by people who feel entitled to decide what is, or isn’t, green enough. That’s why I have begun the process of modifying our state Constitution to recognize safe, abundant, carbon-free hydropower as a reliable source of renewable energy in our fight against climate change. I have authored Assembly Constitutional Amendment 17 to place this question before California’s voters.

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OPINION: California Needs Sites Reservoir. Here’s Why

/in , , /by /CALmattersby Frist Durst and Douglas Headrick

California’s aging water infrastructure desperately needs an upgrade.

Shorter, more intense rain storms, less snowpack and more prolonged stretches of drought reflect the reality of climate change. There’s no one project, no single action, that will save California from a dry and unreliable water future.

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OPINION: Why California’s Fight Against Climate Change Must Include Clean Water

/in , , /by /Calmattersby David Festa

California’s political leaders have made the long-overdue decision to clean up the Central Valley’s contaminated drinking water, and help cash-strapped rural water districts.

The catch: rather than assess a fee on water users or tapping into the state’s budget surplus, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature relied on cap-and-trade money to pay for a portion of the operation.

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OPINION: California Wildfires Threaten Water Supply. Here’s How

/in , , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Marc Marcantonio

The fire was started by a car on the side of the freeway–a fluke which gave the fire its name, the Freeway Complex Fire.Ten years later, while firefighters and communities are gearing up for another wildfire season, California’s lawmakers are grappling with tough questions over how to assign financial responsibility for wildfire damages. The Freeway Complex Fire holds important lessons for all. Among the many victims of the fire was a public drinking water supplier that serves about 80,000 residents in Orange County, the Yorba Linda Water District, where I work as general manager. Of the hundreds of structures damaged by the Freeway Complex Fire, one was the water district’s facilities needed to pump water through portions of the system.

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Why Fighting For Clean Water With Climate Change Money Worries Some California Lawmakers

/in , , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Rachel Becker

Combat climate change, or clean up California’s water? Those alarmed by the Legislature’s decision to dip into a greenhouse gas fund to pay for clean drinking water may need to get used to it: constitutional restrictions on spending that money are set to expire in 2021. At issue is the decision to address one environmental crisis—the lack of clean water for one million Californians—with money set aside for fighting another: climate change. It’s a move that pits those committed to curbing greenhouse gases against environmental allies over $1.4 billion dollars of polluters’ money, even as the state boasts a $20.6 billion surplus.

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OPINION: California Legislature Must Act To Protect Environment From Trump’s Assaults

/in , , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Terry Tamminen

California is facing an unprecedented and reckless assault by the federal government on our water quality, air quality, worker safety, fish and wildlife and public lands. Existing federal protections in those areas keep California a special place and keep Californians healthy. But those protections are threatened. Our state government is fighting back, but the past two years have revealed where state law must be strengthened. For decades, state regulators have relied on federal protections for endangered species to meet California’s independent state legal requirement to protect imperiled species like Northern California’s spring run Chinook salmon.

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OPINION: Budget Expediency Overwhelms Logic

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Dan Walters

Many factors go into making political deals – ideology, self-interest, expediency and emotion to mention just a few. Logic rarely enters the equation, and if it does, it usually dwells at the bottom in importance. Two cases in point are to be found in the final deal on a $213 billion state budget that was hammered out last weekend, just a few days before the June 15 deadline, by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders.

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“Electability” In The 2020 Primary, Polling On Housing, And Newsom’s Office Budget

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Dan Morain

At the same time Republicans in Washington are threatening to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis is counting the wounds inflicted on California by the White House’s “Molotov cocktail of policy.” Kounalakis, who is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s point person on trade, says the Trump administration’s tariffs on China have been deeply disruptive and costly to California’s $323 billion export market. The dollar volume of shipments to China declined 14% during the first three months of 2019 compared with last year at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s largest container port complex. And last year, California’s wine exports to China fell nearly 25%. Kounalakis says the Chinese simply bought more wine from Chile and Australia instead.

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OPINION: A Political Deal Comes Full Circle

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Dan Walters

It was late one night 40 years ago and Gov. Jerry Brown’s most important piece of legislation was in trouble. Brown wanted the Legislature to approve a 42-mile-long “peripheral canal” to carry water around the environmentally fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, thus closing the last major gap in the massive state water system that had been the proudest achievement of his father, ex-Gov. Pat Brown. The canal authorization bill, however, was stuck in the state Senate Finance Committee. Twelve of its 13 members were evenly divided and the 13th, a cantankerous Democrat from San Jose named Alfred Alquist, wasn’t even in attendance.

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