You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2010.
On Monday, a coalition of environmental groups submitted approximately 760,000 signatures to California election officials in support of a ballot measure that would raise funds for state parks. The parks funding campaign needs 433,931 valid signatures of registered voters to qualify the measure for the November 2nd ballot. Election officials now have until June 24 to certify the measure.
If approved by a simply majority of voters in November, the measure would give Californians free admission to all of California’s 278 parks, including redwood forests, historic sites, and beaches in exchange for an increased vehicle registration fees of $18 annually. The measure would raise the state parks operation budget to approximately $500 million a year, compared to the woefully inadequate current budget of $380 million, and would eliminate the need to close parks for a lack of funds.
California’s state parks and beaches have been threatened with closure as the state addresses unprecedented budget shortfalls. Recently, Governor Schwarzenegger drew strong public opposition with his proposal to close as many as 220 of California’s 278 parks to help balance the budget. Even after lawmakers restored the funding, Schwarzenegger proposed closing 100 parks, but then changed course and settled for $14 million in cuts. These costs forced some parks to remain closed longer in the spring and summer, closed visitor centers, and eliminating services at many parks, beaches, and historic sites. Although the Governor proposed and approved a similar $11 million increase in 2008 to vehicle registration fees to fund the California Highway Patrol, Governor Schwarzenegger opposed the parks funding measure.
The Planning and Conservation League supports this parks funding measure, and we are eager to have it placed before voters on November 2, 2010.
Today was the deadline for Senate and Assembly policy committees to hear bills with fiscal impacts. Many water bills faced critical challenges in their respective policy committees before continuing to the appropriations committee or the floor, making the last two weeks a whirlwind of advocacy in the Capitol. Here is a snapshot of the water bills that have moved forward, been held, and failed to pass
Passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
SB 918 (Pavley) [PCL Co-sponsoring]
Requires the California Department of Public Health to create safety criteria for using recycled water for groundwater recharge and surface storage augmentation
Appropriates $30,000,000 from the Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006 for flood protection projects to strengthen the sustainability of the Delta.
Requires the Department of Fish and Game to collaborate with all local agencies that have land use permit authority in a natural community conservation plan.
Passed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:
Requires that individuals using pesticides obtain an identification number for pesticide use from the county agricultural commissioner of each county where pest control work is performed. Identification numbers will be issued only to operators complying with water quality requirements
Requires the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Plan to include a long-run financing plan (including fee proposals) to cover the costs of implementation.
Requires the Department of Water Resources to evaluate and study the implementation of a Delta Corridors Plan and the Two-Gates Fish Demonstration Project.
Passed from the Appropriations Committee to the floor in the house of origin:
Mandates the installation of water meters on individual residential units within a multiunit residential area or a mixed use residential and commercial area as a condition for water delivery.
Referred to committee in second house:
Reimburses local agencies up to 75% of costs for maintenance or improvement of Delta levees in excess of $1,000 per mile of levee until July 1, 2013. On and after that date, up to 50% of costs will be reimbursed.
Re-referred to original committee:
Prohibits the construction of a Peripheral Canal without the approval of the state legislature.
The following bill failed passage:
Called for the formation of a scientific panel to review and recommend updates to the model water efficient landscape ordinance and proposed rules, regulations, and guidelines relating to urban residential water demand management.
Next week, we will take a closer look at the legislation dealing with global warming and energy policy.
A new report, Minding The Climate Gap, authored by Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., Rachel Morello-Frosch, Ph.D., MPH, James Sadd, Ph.D., and Justin Scoggins, M.S. concludes that in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, California’s climate and clean energy law, known as AB 32, could result in air quality benefits for many of the state’s most disadvantaged communities — if properly implemented. The state’s most significant air polluters (power plants, petroleum refineries, cement kilns) are disparately located in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. As a result, these communities bear disproportionate health costs from poor air quality. Minding The Climate Gap finds that AB 32’s greenhouse gas regulations could further environmental justice in California by reducing traditional air pollutants, including particulate matter, sulfates, and volatile organic compounds.
Our clean air and energy law is currently under attack in the California Legislature and by an initiative group led by two Texas-based oil companies, whose facilities would be subject to the new regulations. Several bills threaten to derail successful implement of the law. For example, SB 1263 (Wyland – R) would essentially render AB 32 inoperative, and AB 2529 (Fuentes – D) would create legislative and administrative roadblocks to the law. Notwithstanding a recent report from the California Air Resources Board, which concludes that AB 32 will result in steady job creation and will support modest economic growth over the next ten years, opponents of the law are currently circulating signature petitions to place a measure on the November ballot that would essentially shelve it.
Minding The Climate Gap urges California legislators and air quality regulators to properly implement AB 32 in order to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and traditional air pollutants in communities bearing the brunt of California’s poorest air quality. The report’s authors recommend several policy options aimed at efficiently regulating these pollutants. They advise using AB 32 not only to effect substantial health and air quality benefits, but to create jobs when establishing regulatory mechanisms for California’s most polluted regions. In sum, Minding The Climate Gap details California’s opportunity to remedy one of the state’s most persistently overlooked instances of environmental injustice. The full report can be found here.
February 2010 marked a milestone in Los Angeles water conservation. In its ninth consecutive month of water conservation, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) customers reached 1979 water use levels – despite having added more than a million people to its population in the past three decades. LADWP customers conserved 30 billion gallons (enough for 231,000 homes for a year) in the last nine months and have saved nearly 50 billion gallons of water since July 2007 (enough to serve 381,000 households per year). Los Angeles, like many areas throughout the state, is greatly dependant on imported water. In the past few years imported water has become less reliable, and thus the Governor and the Legislature have called on water utilities to reduce water use by 20% by the year 2020. LADWP’s achievement demonstrates that this is possible.
The next obvious tier in water use efficiency is recycled water and reuse. Throughout California, nearly four million acre feet of potentially recyclable water are discharged to the ocean and bays each year. This water can easily be captured, cleaned up and reused within the system.
Water Recycling has long been recognized as a cost-effective and drought-proof method of helping to meet California’s water needs, while reducing reliance on imported sources. Senate Bill 918 (Pavley), a bill sponsored by the Planning and Conservation League and WaterReuse, will help the Department of Public Health develop and adopt uniform water recycling criteria for supplementing water storage while ensuring that new facilities are fully protective of public health. SB 918 will smooth out the process to increase recycled water use and help California reach our 20-by-2020 targets.
