For Clients & Friends of The Gualco Group, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE – “It’s just time after 12 years as chief and 32 years total wearing a black robe.”
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye retires
WATER & AIR
- Water, Fire, Climate Change Top Voter Concerns
- State Water Board Slammed for “Lack of Urgency” in Cleaning Up Drinking Water
- Delta Tunnel Blueprint Unveiled to Instant Controversy
- Newsom Writes Air Board a Letter: Scoping Plan Should Go Farther, Faster
UNDER THE DOME
- California Loves Unions, But Legislature Won’t Let Employees Organize
- State’s Chief Justice to Step Down
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique client service.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING JULY 29, 2022
Water, Fire, Climate Change Top Voter Concerns
Public Policy Institute of California
Amid an ongoing drought, nearly seven in ten Californians say the water supply is a big problem in their part of the state.
More than half of Californians say higher gas prices have been a financial hardship, but a strong majority is opposed to oil drilling off the California coast. More than seven in ten say alternative energy sources should be prioritized over fossil fuels in the nation’s energy supply; unlike a year ago, views on this question are split along party lines. These are among the key findings of a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California.
With a gubernatorial election coming up in November, an overwhelming majority of likely voters say that candidates’ positions on environmental issues are either very important (45%) or somewhat important (42%) in determining their vote. Fifty-nine percent of both adults and likely voters approve of how Governor Newsom is handling environmental issues in California.
Fifty-five percent say that higher gas prices are causing them financial hardship, including 18 percent saying a severe hardship. An overwhelming majority (79%) of those with an annual household income of less than $40,000 say gas price increases have caused financial hardship (63% income $40,000 to $79,999, 37% income $80,000 or more). More than four in ten (44%) are upset about the current rate of inflation, including at least four in ten across regions, while a majority of California adults (53%) say they are concerned but not upset.
When it comes to the nation’s energy supply, an overwhelming majority of Californians (74%) say developing alternative energy sources—such as wind, solar, and hydrogen—should be prioritized over expanding exploration and production of oil, coal, and natural gas. Views are split along party lines (91% Democrats, 70% independents, 39% Republicans). In July 2021, majorities across partisan groups wanted to prioritize alternative energy (93% Democrats, 78% independents, 56% Republicans).
More than two-thirds (69%) believe the effects of climate change have already begun, and an overwhelming majority say that climate change is a very serious (47%) or somewhat serious (33%) threat to California’s future economy and quality of life.
Support for key state climate change policies ranges from nearly half to more than seven in ten: 72 percent favor a state law requiring California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030; 72 percent approve of a state law requiring all California’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2045; 59 percent favor Governor Newsom’s plan to ban new fracking permits starting in 2024; and 48 percent approve of Newsom’s executive order banning the sale of new gas vehicles by 2035. Democrats are far more likely than independents or Republicans to express support for each of these policies.
Fifty-eight percent of Californians say the condition of oceans and beaches is very important for the state’s future economy and quality of life. This includes majorities across regions (69% Inland Empire, 58% Los Angeles, 55% Central Valley, 55% San Francisco Bay Area, 54% Orange/San Diego). Asked about allowing more oil drilling off the California coast, a strong majority (67%) is opposed, with opposition varying across partisan groups (83% Democrats, 66% independents, 31% Republicans).
Slightly less than half of Californians (45%) believe the threat of wildfires is a big problem in their part of the state. This includes 52 percent in the Inland Empire, 45 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area, 44 percent in Orange/San Diego, 42 percent in the Central Valley, and 41 percent in Los Angeles. More than three in four Californians (76%) think climate change has contributed to the state’s recent wildfires.
Complete Poll:
https://www.ppic.org/publication/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-the-environment-july-2022/
State Water Board Slammed for “Lack of Urgency” in Cleaning Up Drinking Water
CalMatters
Under state law, every Californian has the right to safe, clean, affordable and accessible water — but a blistering audit released Tuesday shows just how far the state is from turning that promise into reality.
Acting State Auditor Michael Tilden slammed regulators at the State Water Resources Control Board for what he characterized as their “lack of urgency to provide needed assistance to failing water systems,” even as the state funnels hundreds of millions of dollars into drinking water projects.
Among the audit’s key findings:
More than 920,000 people face an increased risk of cancer and liver and kidney problems because they get drinking water from one of the more than 370 systems that didn’t meet water quality standards as of December 2021. More than 150 of those systems have failed to meet those standards for at least five years, and an additional 432 systems serving more than 1 million people are currently at risk of failing. (The Golden State has roughly 7,400 drinking water systems, according to the report.)
More than two-thirds of the failing water systems are located in low-income, disadvantaged communities, primarily in eight Central Valley counties, San Bernardino County, and Imperial County — forcing residents who can least afford it to “purchase more expensive bottled water for drinking and cooking purposes.”
Although the state water board has funding available to help these systems improve their water quality, it took an average of 33 months in 2021 for systems to apply for and the board to award that money — nearly double the 17-month average in 2017. (Tilden acknowledged the delays are partly due to a change in state law prompting the state water board to work with “smaller, potentially less sophisticated” water systems. But he noted that surveys of water systems also suggest the board’s “cumbersome” application process is a factor: One respondent described it as “a nightmare,” saying “no one … can decipher what is required.”)
Making matters worse, “California is in the midst of a historic drought, which will only increase the strain on many struggling water systems,” Tilden wrote. “As their water quality worsens, or their water dries up altogether, struggling water systems will urgently need funding and solutions from the State Water Board. Any delays will expose even more Californians to unsafe drinking water.”
Among Tilden’s recommendations to the water board were that it trim unnecessary documents and steps from its application process and develop a way to fast-track projects deemed especially urgent.
In a letter to the auditor’s office, water board executive director Eileen Sobeck acknowledged there was room for improvement, but pushed back against the accusation that the board showed a lack of urgency in helping failing water systems.
Since 2019, she said, the board has “reduced the population impacted by failing water systems from 1.6 million people to 934,000 — a 40% reduction in the first three years of a 10-year program. This means that 650,000 Californians in 120 communities now have access to safe drinking water that they did not have three years ago.”
But state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Hanford Democrat, suggested the water board’s progress isn’t good enough.
Hurtado: “Earlier this year, I called for the State Water Board to be abolished and revamped, but it is clear that the situation is only getting worse. The State Water Board is an antiquated governing body with no oversight, and it appears incapable of addressing our urgent water situation. We should declare an emergency situation and provide all the funding and resources necessary to urgently address our faulty water systems.”
Audit:
http://auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2021-118.pdf
Delta Tunnel Blueprint Unveiled to Instant Controversy
Sacramento Bee
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration revived the Delta tunnel project Wednesday, unveiling a downsized version of the controversial, multibillion-dollar plan to re-engineer the fragile estuary on Sacramento’s doorstep that serves as the hub of California’s over-stressed water-delivery network.
The state released an environmental blueprint for what’s now called the Delta Conveyance — a 45-mile tunnel that would divert water from the Sacramento River and route it under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta so that it can be shipped to farms and cities hundreds of miles away. The blueprint, a 3,000-page draft version of an environmental impact report, is a necessary initial step in securing approvals for the project.
Officials said the single-tunnel proposal, running roughly parallel to Interstate 5, is simpler and creates fewer disruptions than the twin-tunnel plan championed by former Gov. Jerry Brown. Newsom scrapped that plan within weeks of taking office in early 2019 and directed his administration to begin developing a Delta project with a smaller footprint.
The tunnel, proponents say, would ease the stress on endangered fish species that ply the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.
Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, called the project “essential to California’s water future.”
The plan arrives with the state in the throes of one of the worst droughts ever recorded. But a proposal to replumb the Delta, in one form or another, has been under consideration since Gov. Pat Brown, elected in 1959, began building the pumping stations, dams and canals that make up the State Water Project.
The movement gained new momentum under his son’s two stints as governor. A Delta water-delivery project — one tunnel or two — has been touted by Jerry Brown and Newsom’s teams as a way of correcting a fundamental problem with California’s delivery system that supplies water to millions of acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland and 25 million people in Southern California and Silicon Valley.
Two arena-sized pumping stations built in the south Delta near Tracy decades ago are so powerful they alter the currents inside the estuary and cause problems for migrating fish. As fish numbers have dipped closer and closer to extinction over the years, regulators have forced the pumping stations to ratchet back the amount of Delta water that gets pumped into state and federal canals.
To address the growing Delta water-delivery bottleneck, both Newsom’s and Brown’s plans would build intakes a few miles south of Sacramento that would siphon off a portion of the Sacramento River’s flows during heavy storms and route it under the Delta so that fresh, clean water could head to the south state without as many environmental harms.
The plan has come to embody everything that’s tedious and slow about modernizing California’s outdated water infrastructure. Water projects can take decades to plan, finance and build, if they get done at all. California’s influential army of well-funded environmentalists oppose almost any new large-scale water infrastructure project, and the tunnels are no exception.
At the same time, Delta farmers and community leaders fear any tunneling project would degrade their estuary even more.
Doug Obegi, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the project will lead to “far worse ecological conditions for native fish and wildlife in the Delta.” Wednesday’s release of the 3,000-page environmental document is an attempt to address the opponents’ concerns.
As it stands, it will take as much as 20 years to complete and will have to overcome enormous regulatory and political hurdles. Besides concerns raised by environmentalists and Delta residents, many Northern California elected officials are suspicious of anything that facilitates the movement of water to the southern half of the state. Construction would begin in 2028 at the earliest.
“This is a complicated, challenging project that would be built in a terribly environmentally sensitive part of the state … so it has required a lot of review,” Crowfoot said. “But I can tell you that Gov. Newsom is resolved and has been steadfast on moving this forward.”
Without the tunnel, the Delta as a water-delivery hub will become increasingly hostage to the impacts from climate change, he said, making it harder to ship water to urban Southern California and other regions that rely on the existing pumps. “The status quo is less and less reliability,” Crowfoot said.
The project still lacks permits, environmental clearances — and a cost estimate. Carrie Buckman, the project’s environmental project manager, said a similar version of the project that’s been considered would be expected to cost $15.9 billion — nearly as much as the twin-tunnel plan contemplated several years ago.
But Crowfoot said the version of the project the Newsom team now supports would probably cost less money. The 2022 version of the Delta project also is lacking a potentially vital partner: the San Joaquin Valley farmers who also receive water from the Delta, but through a parallel system run by the federal government’s Central Valley Project.
Unlike Brown’s tunnels plan, California would build this project on its own, without any financial help from those Valley farmers who belong to the federal system. Agencies that are part of the State Water Project would reimburse the state for the costs.
An umbrella organization for those agencies, including those serving Silicon Valley and Southern California, quickly rallied behind the plan. “This project is critical to ensuring Californians have access to high-quality, affordable and reliable water supplies amidst the growing impacts of climate change,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, in a prepared statement. The biggest agency of all, the deep-pocketed Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, has long been a big supporter of a plan to re-pipe the Delta.
Jeff Mount, a water expert with the Public Policy Institute of California, said a Delta tunneling project has always made more financial sense for urban Southern Californians than it does for San Joaquin Valley farmers — who’ve resisted participating in the project.
Urban water districts are more easily able to absorb the billions of dollars in costs, since millions of individual customers’ monthly water bills would only need to increase a few dollars a month. By comparison, a comparatively small number of farmers have to absorb their share, cutting too deeply into their farms’ bottom lines.
Plus, all signs point to urban water supplies in Southern California becoming increasingly unreliable because of climate change — representing an unprecedented challenge for one of the world’s largest economies, he said. “You’re faced with two stark choices: either reduce (water) demand or increase reliability,” Mount said. “One way or another, the reliability of those supplies is going to steadily go down. So, hey, it might not get built this generation. But I’d be willing to bet in a future generation, they’re going to do it.”
Previous generations have said no. California voters in 1982 killed then-Gov. Brown’s plan for a “peripheral canal” that would route water from the Sacramento River completely around the Delta until it reached the pumps.
Newsom’s version is significantly more scaled-down with less water flowing through it. It also seeks to become less controversial to Delta landowners and environmental groups fearful of the project’s environmental harms.
For instance, Newsom’s plan calls for the tunnel to be routed under the estuary’s eastern edge, instead of going under the heart of the ecologically sensitive central Delta the way Brown’s plan did.
The water tunnel also would feed directly into the California Aqueduct, the canal that supplies Southern California with Delta water, eliminating the need to build two new reservoirs called “forebays” that Brown’s version of the twin tunnels called for. It’s also going to be governed differently than the plan Newsom inherited when he succeeded Brown in 2019.
Brown’s twin tunnels were going to be run and financed by the State Water Project and its federal counterpart, the Central Valley Project. But none of the water districts in the CVP wanted to pay their share of the estimated $16 billion cost — and have shown no interest in participating in this new version, either, said Carrie Buckman, the project’s environmental program manager.
The CVP districts, mainly farm irrigation agencies in the San Joaquin Valley, have chronic water shortages and are desperate for more reliable deliveries from the Delta — but have balked at paying the considerable cost of the tunnel project. As a result, Buckman said, the single tunnel would be built and operated solely by the State Water Project – and would deliver water only to State Water Project member agencies, such as Metropolitan.
Crowfoot said the state is continuing to talk with federal officials about contributing, but has decided “we can’t wait any longer to move this project forward.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article263856627.html#storylink=cpy
DWR Project Website:
https://www.deltaconveyanceproject.com
Newsom Writes Air Board a Letter: Scoping Plan Should Go Farther, Faster
Sacramento Bee
For weeks, environmentalists have been grumbling that California’s air-pollution agency has been too timid about charting the next chapter in the state’s ongoing fight against climate change. Gov. Gavin Newsom seems to agree. Newsom said Friday he believes the plan being developed by the California Air Resources Board “doesn’t go far enough or fast enough” toward achieving the state’s over-arching goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. He called for an end to new gas-fired power plants, a push for offshore wind generation and the construction of millions of “climate-friendly homes” as a way of curbing carbon emissions.
In a letter to the air board’s chairwoman, Liane Randolph, the governor took aim at the agency’s proposed “scoping plan,” an elaborate blueprint to flesh out a host of laws and other rules that are already on the books. They include a 2016 law that requires dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and an executive order, signed by Newsom’s predecessor Jerry Brown, that sets a goal of making the entire California economy carbon neutral by 2045.
“We need to up our game,” Newsom wrote. It was a rare rebuke from the governor’s office for the Air Resources Board, which is considered a national leader on climate change and air pollution. Randolph’s predecessor Mary Nichols was on President Joe Biden’s shortlist of candidates to run the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
On Monday, the agency said it will regroup. “CARB welcomes the Governor’s input, thanks him for his leadership, and recognizing the ever-increasing urgency of addressing the climate emergency, will adjust the plan accordingly,” air board spokesman Stanley Young said in an email.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article263804918.html#storylink=cpy
Governor’s letter to CARB:
California Loves Unions, But Legislature Won’t Let Employees Organize
LA Times California Politics
California loves unions.
And Democrats, who hold a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature, especially love the ones that donate to and endorse their campaigns. But the same lawmakers have so far shown no such love for a union within their own workplace.
Not once or twice, but three times the Legislature has rejected a bill to provide collective bargaining rights for its employees, in what advocates have characterized as a blatant display of hypocrisy.
So why should dues-paying hopefuls in the Capitol have any reason to believe this year’s Assembly Bill 1577 will end any differently?
I’ve talked in recent weeks with current and former staffers about the state of work in the Legislature, and why they’re more optimistic than ever about forming a union. Their confidence is buoyed by recent scrutiny of how the Capitol handles alleged workplace issues, and an upcoming election that promises a massive turnover of lawmakers. This week, eight U.S. House offices started the unionization process, which advocates said reflects a broader push to improve labor standards in political offices.
“[AB 1577] is definitely a step in the right direction,” said one Assembly Democratic staffer, who like several others spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid potential retaliation. “It will not resolve these problems completely, but it is absolutely necessary.”
The proposal would change staffers’ “at will” status — which means they can be terminated for a legal reason at any time without an explanation — and allow them to start the process of forming a union. It’s just a first step, said bill author Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley). The legislation doesn’t dictate what collective bargaining must look like in the future, but does exclude top staffers such as district directors, chiefs of staff and chief consultants.
Proponents have reason to feel optimistic. The bill passed through two Senate committees in June, with just one “no” vote.
“It’s so scary for workers, any workers, to stand up and say we need a union,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, who wrote the previous three versions of the bill during her tenure in the Assembly. Gonzalez is now advocating for its passage as the incoming chief officer of the California Labor Federation, which is sponsoring AB 1577.
“They’re risking a lot, and I’m just really really proud of them,” she said. “And I think that’s the main difference in why it’s going to be successful this year.”
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) both said they support staff efforts to unionize.
California Chief Justice to Step Down
Associated Press & Politico
The California Supreme Court’s chief justice said Wednesday that she will not seek a second 12-year term in November and will conclude her current term of office on January 1.
The announcement by Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye will give Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, his third opportunity to appoint a justice to the seven-member high court, and his first to pick a new chief justice.
Cantil-Sakauye was sworn in to office in January 2011 after she was nominated by former Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and was elected in the November 2010 general election.
She is the first Asian-Filipina American and the second woman to serve as the state’s chief justice. She said Newsom will be able to select from a diverse pool of qualified successors and that she believes she is leaving the courts “in a solid, sustainable place.”
Cantil-Sakauye told reporters that she is still having anxiety about her decision, but “I’ve accomplished much and started the ball rolling on many things that are of interest to us as a (judicial) branch.”
“It’s just time after 12 years as chief and 32 years total wearing a black robe,” she said.
“I am proud to have served the people of California to the best of my ability at every level of our state court system. I have said before that I hold my office in trust until it is time for the next leaders to protect and expand access to justice — that time is now.” Asked about her future plans, she told reporters politics are not in her future.
Cantil-Sakauye also said she hasn’t given Newsom a list of possible successors: “He did not ask me for a name or a list, and I happen to think responding with a name or list is more impactful when someone asks.” In a statement, she added, “He will have a diverse pool of exceptionally well qualified jurists and legal professionals to choose from, and I believe the judiciary, the courts, and access to justice in California will be in good hands.”
Newsom said in a statement: “A fierce defender of access to the courts, (Cantil-Sakauye) fought against immigrant enforcement raids at courthouses targeting vulnerable victims and witnesses of crime. …(She) has been a leading voice for bail reform, calling out its disproportionate impacts on low-income people, and has raised awareness about the unfair financial hardships caused by fines and fees on those unable to afford them.”
Cantil-Sakauye’s departure gives Newsom the opportunity to appoint another Democrat — and potentially a member of another underrepresented community — to the state’s highest court. In March, Newsom nominated Patricia Guerrero, the court’s first Latina justice; in 2020, he tapped Martin Jenkins, the court’s first openly gay justice. Of the court’s four remaining justices, three were appointed by former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. After Cantil-Sakauye departs, just one Republican-appointed justice will remain: Justice Carol Corrigan, who was nominated by former Gov. Pete Wilson.
Unlike U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges, California judges do not hold lifetime positions. She would have had to run for retention by voters in November’s election.
Cantil-Sakauye, 62, made her announcement as the filing deadline is approaching.