For Clients & Friends of The Gualco Group, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE – “Administration of @GavinNewsom has zero commitment to transparency”
Journalist expresses frustration with Governor’s lack of response
- Union Push for Strike Unemployment & Other Benefits Could Consume Last Month of Legislative Session
- US Justice Dept Probes State Water Board Discrimination Charges
- Newsom Orders Flood-Damaged Infrastructure Repairs Accelerated
- Wind Energy Projects Blowing Away in Funding Crisis
- “Sunshine Giving Way to Darkness”: Is California Government Secrecy Increasing?
- Hunger Crisis Hits Nation’s #1 Food-Growing State (California)
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 AUG. 11, 2023
Union Push for Strike Unemployment & Other Benefits Could Consume Last Month of Legislative Session
Politico
Striking workers in California would get to draw unemployment benefits under a proposal Democrats are preparing to introduce in the final stretch of the legislative session.
The last-minute push, first reported by POLITICO, is likely to cause friction in the Democratic caucus, which often finds itself squeezed between labor and business interests.
The legislation, which is not yet in print, will be carried by Senate Appropriations Chair Anthony Portantino, a Southern California Democrat, and co-authored by Democratic Assemblymembers Laura Friedman and Chris Holden. It’s backed by the powerful California Labor Federation, whose leader, former state Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, tried to pass similar legislation in 2019.
Portantino, in an interview Thursday, said he hopes the recent momentum around workers’ rights will help propel the bill to the governor’s desk.
“Coming out of Covid, I think there’s more of a recognition that hardworking men and women need to have a seat at the table to discuss economic expansion,” he said.
Massive labor movements this summer have put pressure on state officials and critical industries — especially in Los Angeles, where both screenwriters and actors are on strike for the first time since 1960 and hotel workers are embroiled in a contract fight.
“This is embarrassing for California that we don’t have unemployment insurance for striking workers,” Gonzalez said in an interview, noting that New York and New Jersey offer benefits for striking workers in certain circumstances.
Legislators are already juggling several other proposals backed by mighty labor interests this session, including a bill related to fast food workers and a push to ensure a $25 minimum wage for health care workers.
It’s too late in the year for lawmakers to introduce entirely new legislation, but they can can get around those missed deadlines by repurposing unrelated bills they no longer care to advance — a maneuver colloquially known as a “gut-and-amend.” Portantino said he is still working on gathering support for his proposal, and that he expects to move forward with the plan in about two weeks.
Gonzalez’s 2019 bill was vehemently opposed by business interests, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau Federation, which argued it would politicize benefits and threaten the solvency of the state’s unemployment insurance fund.
Both groups confirmed to POLITICO Thursday that they have been visiting legislators this week to alert them about the upcoming legislation and urge them to vote against it.
US Justice Dept Probes State Water Board Discrimination Charges
CalMatters
The Biden administration’s environmental justice office is investigating whether California’s water agency has discriminated against Native Americans and other people of color by failing to protect the water quality of San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by tribes and environmental justice organizations that says the the state Water Resources Control Board for over a decade “has failed to uphold its statutory duty” to review and update water quality standards in the Bay-Delta.
“It’s pretty bad when California Indians have to file a complaint with the Federal Government so that the State doesn’t violate our civil rights,” Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said in a statement.
The state water agency has allowed “waterways to descend into ecological crisis, with the resulting environmental burdens falling most heavily on Native tribes and other communities of color,” the complaint says.
The groups also said the agency “has intentionally excluded local Native Tribes and Black, Asian and Latino residents from participation in the policymaking process associated with the Bay-Delta Plan,” according to an EPA letter to the state dated Tuesday.
Jackie Carpenter, a spokesperson for the water board, said the agency will cooperate fully and “believes U.S. EPA will ultimately conclude the board has acted appropriately.”
“The State Water Board deeply values its partnership with tribes to protect and preserve California’s water resources. The board’s highest water quality planning priority has been restoring native fish species in the Delta watershed that many tribes rely upon,” Carpenter said in an emailed statement.
The watershed is the heart of California’s water supply: Covering about 20% of California, it includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems and is a vital source of water for 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland.
The Bay-Delta is experiencing an “ecological crisis,” state water regulators have said, including a “prolonged and precipitous decline in numerous native species,” such as endangered winter-run Chinook salmon and the tiny Delta smelt. Intensifying water development, diversions and dwindling freshwater flows have exacerbated the crisis. And the relentless push of saltwater into the Delta and blossoming harmful algal blooms have left farmers and residents desperate for solutions.
Healthy waterways and fisheries are critical to the culture and diet of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians’ and Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Harmful algal blooms, low flows and water contamination also prevent people of color in South Stockton and other communities from using waterways in their neighborhoods for recreation or subsistence fishing.
The EPA’s decision to investigate comes as water board scientists prepare a staff report on updating the Bay-Delta’s water quality plan. Carpenter said the report will evaluate certain tribal beneficial uses.
Among the possible approaches considered in the updated plan will be a $2.6 billion deal that Gov. Gavin Newsom struck last March with major water suppliers and agricultural irrigation districts, which voluntarily agreed to address flows and habitats in the Delta.
Tribes and environmental organizations said the deal came from backroom negotiations between water suppliers and officials that excluded people of color, and that it “fails to protect the health of the estuary, its native fish and wildlife, and the jobs and communities that depend on its health.”
The complaint mentions Newsom’s voluntary agreements 52 times.
“As long as the state upholds historic water rights, that we all know to be racist and unfair, we will continue to have first- and second-class California communities,” Dillon Delvo, executive director of Little Manila Rising, an organization based in Stockton, said in a statement.
The EPA said in its letter that while an investigation “is not a decision on the merits,” the complaint meets the requirements for initiating its probe, including that “it alleges discriminatory acts by the Board which is a recipient of EPA financial assistance.”
California’s water board will have 30 days to respond, and the EPA will issue its findings within the next six months unless both sides agree to resolve the issue informally.
Newsom Orders Flood-Damaged Infrastructure Repairs Accelerated
LA Times
As forecasters sound the alarm about another potentially wet California winter fueled by El Niño, Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking urgent but controversial measures to prevent a repeat of the devastating floods that befell the state this year.
An executive order signed by the governor this month will streamline levee repairs and debris removal to help protect and prepare communities for another inundation. Last winter, dozens of levee breaches around the state sent stormwater rushing into communities — killing several people and causing considerable damage.
Restoring levees, river channels and other elements of the state’s aged flood infrastructure is crucial to public safety. But critics say Newsom’s order also comes at the expense of several rules and regulations designed to protect the environment.
“Managing California water by executive order is bad business,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta. “Whether it’s drought or flood, we have to set proper science-based environmental standards and regulate according to those standards for the protection of people.”
Among the items outlined in the executive order are emergency repairs to levees directly affected by this year’s floods, including portions of the Tulare Lake Basin and areas along the Pajaro and San Joaquin rivers.
Such work is needed. In March, water spilled from canals and broken levees into farm fields in Tulare County, spurring the rebirth of the long-dry Tulare Lake and leaving thousands of acres under feet of water, which officials say could take years to dissipate.
Only weeks earlier, the swollen Pajaro River burst through its worn-down levee, flooding the entire town of Pajaro and sending its roughly 3,000 residents into a months-long exile from their homes.
Officials in Pajaro said the executive order was long in the making, as politicians in flood-prone regions have been urging the governor to make it easier to protect their communities.
“The governor made clear after the storms that he would do whatever was necessary to help expedite efforts along the levee and basin, and this was our key ask,” said Zach Friend, Santa Cruz County supervisor and a member of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency Board.
The levee that was breached in March had been slated for an upgrade and new construction when the flooding happened, but the work had not yet begun. With a new threat of storms later this year, he said that every burden removed to make the project a reality “has the potential to save lives and livelihoods in the Pajaro Valley.”
But the order will also suspend a number of environmental laws, regulations and criteria — including elements of the California Environmental Quality Act — to fast-track the work.
Among the suspended items are laws and regulations that guide alterations to lakes and streambeds. Certain water quality rules and permitting procedures were also waived to help expedite clearing and maintenance of flood control channels.
Barrigan-Parrilla said such decisions reflect a lack of long-term flood planning and emergency preparations.
“Environmental regulations are always the first to go, rather than doing the hard, long-term work of building water sustainability and flood management plans,” she said.
However, some experts said the fast-tracked rules could make sense when applied judiciously. The onset of the state’s wet season is only months away, and future storms could bring considerable flood risk.
California has long had an updated flood infrastructure plan. (Link below.)
“The high-flood-risk areas that were so dramatically exposed during this last rain and snow season, those are areas where those projects have just got to get done, and they’ve got to get done quickly,” said Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“As we saw, low-income communities were disproportionately impacted in such a major way, and we just can’t let that happen.”
Gold also voiced concerns about some of the strategies outlined in the order, including an item that allows for as much as 30% of native vegetation to be removed from stream channels. The rule doesn’t include any recommendations or requirements for how the removed material should be disposed of, meaning it could end up in a landfill, he said.
“We have a state that’s doubling down on nature-based solutions, we’re seeing vulnerability with sea level rise that’s hugely concerning … and yet, there’s not a sentence in here on beneficial reuse of the sediment that’s removed,” Gold said.
What’s more, the order defers many permitting decisions to the federal Army Corps of Engineers, which helps manage many of the state’s dams, reservoirs and other water infrastructure.
“The feds’ review of these types of projects is generally a lot less rigorous than the state,” Gold said. “And so that’s why this matters.”
Much of the executive order is predicated on the arrival of a second wet winter, which looks likely but is not guaranteed.
El Niño, the climate pattern in the tropical Pacific, arrived earlier this summer and is expected to gain strength as the year progresses. El Niño is associated with hotter global temperatures and wetter conditions in the state, particularly Southern California.
Long-term precipitation outlooks from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are inconclusive about what to expect in most of the country. However, the agency says there is a 90% chance that El Niño will persist through the winter.
There is reason to expect wetter conditions from the system. The El Niño winter of 1997-98 brought powerful precipitation to California, including a series of storms that ended with 17 deaths and more than half a billion dollars of damage in the state.
The 1982-83 El Niño was linked to near-record-setting precipitation in the northern Sierra and one of the state’s costliest flood seasons in decades, which saw decimated piers and thousands of damaged homes.
But in 2015-16, a strong El Niño failed to deliver significant rain, flooding and other anticipated effects in Southern California, ultimately dropping only about 6 inches of rain.
Newsom’s order follows other actions taken in response to this year’s flooding. In May, the governor allocated $17.2 million to help fortify the Corcoran levee, a critical piece of flood control infrastructure that protects the city of Corcoran — and its sprawling prison complex — from the flooded Tulare Lake.
He also signed executive orders in February and March that allowed the state to reroute hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water from the storms into areas where it could percolate into the ground and replenish aquifers drained by years of drought.
That move also stoked the ire of some environmental groups, which said the diversions allowed for lower flows in the San Joaquin River and would probably be harmful for Chinook salmon, among other concerns.
EXECUTIVE ORDER:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/8.4.23-Executive-Order-water.pdf
FLOOD MANAGEMENT PLAN:
Wind Energy Projects Blowing Away in Funding Crisis
Wall Street Journal excerpt
The wind-energy business, viewed by governments as key to meeting climate targets and boosting electricity supplies, is facing a dangerous market squall.
After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions.
The setbacks are piling up for both onshore and offshore projects, but the latter’s problems are more acute. In recent weeks, at least 10 offshore projects totaling around $33 billion in planned spending have been delayed or otherwise hit the doldrums across the U.S. and Europe.”
At the moment, we are seeing the industry’s first crisis,” said Anders Opedal, chief executive of Equinor, in an interview.
The Norwegian energy major and BP are developing three wind farms off the coast of New York to power around two million homes but told the state in June that it will need to renegotiate power prices or else the projects won’t get financing.
The holdup of projects that could generate 11.7 gigawatts — enough to power roughly all Texas households and then some — likely pushes 2030 offshore wind targets out of reach for the Biden administration and European governments. The technology is considered vital in the transition toward cleaner electricity supplies and away from fossil fuels.
The U.S. has the largest onshore wind market outside of China but just seven turbines producing electricity offshore. President Biden hopes to jump-start the offshore industry and targets 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power this decade.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Biden said last month about his administration’s plans to pursue more wind projects, including the first auction in the Gulf of Mexico later this month.
Europe’s strong winds and shallow waters have made offshore wind one of its fastest-growing renewable technologies. But a 40% cost increase recently halted a giant project in the U.K., a global leader in offshore wind, while developers delayed two investment decisions in the Baltic Sea.
Another three projects in the North Sea totaling about $19 billion in planned spending are potentially delayed or revising terms too, said Peter Lloyd-Williams, a senior analyst at Westwood Global Energy Group.
“If the soundest projects in the most mature markets start to sink, that is a major red flag,” he said.
The list of woes is long: inflation, supply-chain backlogs, rising interest rates, long permit and grid connection timelines. The increasing pace of the energy transition has created a loop of escalating costs.
Avangrid, a U.S. subsidiary of Spanish utility Iberdrola, this month agreed to pay $48 million to back out of an offshore wind-power deal in Massachusetts that it bid in September 2021, when outlooks were rosier.
“What happened of course is that the world changed dramatically,” said Ken Kimmell, vice president of offshore wind development with Avangrid.
The war in Ukraine sent the price of steel and other supplies higher at the same time that European countries accelerated plans for offshore wind. A series of interest-rate increases has made borrowing more expensive, Kimmell said.
When Massachusetts launches another round of bidding for offshore wind energy in January, Kimmell expects contracts there — and in other states — to include clauses that account for possible cost increases or dips. He called the industry’s troubles a “speed bump, not a brick wall.”
Another Massachusetts project backed by Shell, Engie and EDP Renewables is negotiating with utilities after saying it wanted to cancel and rebid its agreements to provide power, while Rhode Island’s largest utility bowed out of an offshore project.
Executives say the challenges are merely short-term. Offshore wind could provide as much as one-quarter of U.S. power by 2050 without affecting wholesale electricity costs, according to a recent University of California, Berkeley study. New auctions, in which developers can factor in recent cost increases, continue drawing bidders.
In Europe, energy majors BP and TotalEnergies won development rights in the North Sea worth $14 billion in July.
Several U.S. coastal states hope to become hubs for new domestic manufacturing for offshore wind components, snaring a share of a new industry and a slice of $1 trillion in federal tax incentives and loans for a green-energy industrial economy, made available under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Long-term conviction isn’t enough for suppliers that have been unnerved by delays, though.
“It is frustrating right now,” said Morten Dyrholm, senior vice president at Vestas, the largest Western turbine maker. “We cannot just go ahead and build a lot of factories if we don’t see clear investment signals from developers.”
Things have become choppy onshore, too. Wind installations on land halved in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, the slowest quarter in four years, according to the American Clean Power Association.
Manufacturers have been struggling with profitability as they deliver ever larger and more-advanced machines, which are more efficient at making electricity. Now some say they are running into problems with wear and tear.
“Sunshine Giving Way to Darkness”: Is California Government Secrecy Increasing?
CalMatters commentary from Dan Walters
Bill McEwen, a columnist for San Joaquin Valley news site GV Wire, posed several of what he considered to be routine factual questions to the state Department of Public Health last week about a mysterious laboratory discovered in the small town of Reedley.
The laboratory, in an abandoned warehouse, contained mice, biological fluids and samples of dreaded diseases including HIV, malaria and COVID-19. Federal and state investigators are delving into the situation, which surfaced when a city building code inspector noticed a hose snaking out of a wall in the warehouse.
McEwen wanted to know how the department oversees laboratories, how often they are inspected and how illegal labs get discovered. But he got nowhere. Department officials refused to answer even the most basic operational questions and told McEwen to search their website to find answers.
“Administration of @GavinNewsom has zero commitment to transparency,” McEwen tweeted in frustration.
It was an example of what reporters and others have increasingly experienced in recent years as they attempt to decipher what politicians and bureaucrats are doing. It’s not hyperbole to say that a wall of secrecy has been erected around the state Capitol and the surrounding complex of buildings housing state agencies.
It was beginning to happen before COVID-19 struck the state in 2020 but it worsened during the pandemic as Gov. Gavin Newsom wielded emergency powers that suspended many of the “sunshine laws” governing open meetings, open records and other forms of access.
Newsom and other officials became used to operating out of public view and even after the pandemic eased, they continued the same practices.
The post-pandemic syndrome manifests itself not only in politicians and other officials seeking to avoid the give-and-take of direct questioning by reporters, as McEwen learned, but in the proliferation of meetings that are accessible only via internet.
California’s First Amendment Coalition, which attempts to preserve access to governmental records and meetings, may be fighting an uphill battle as the Legislature moves several measures that would reinforce closed door government, to wit:
- Senate Bill 544, which passed the Senate on a 26-3 vote and now pending in the Assembly, would amend the state Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, which governs state boards and commissions, by permanently allowing them to conduct meetings without in-person attendance, allowing only internet or telephonic access by the public.
- Senate Bill 537, also pending in the Assembly after 32-8 Senate approval, would amend the Ralph M. Brown Act, which governs local governments, to similarly allow “multi-jurisdictional, cross-county local agencies with appointed members” to meet via teleconference “without posting agendas at each teleconference location, identifying each teleconference location in the notice and agenda, making each teleconference location accessible to the public, and requiring at least a quorum of the eligible legislative body to participate from within the local agency’s jurisdiction…”
- Senate Bill 411, approved by the Senate on a 30-5 vote and also pending in the Assembly, would allow such teleconference meetings by “neighborhood councils” without in-person access and is specifically aimed at 99 such bodies in Los Angeles.
Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director of the First Amendment Coalition, captured the essence of these measures in her comment on SB 544: “SB 544 rewrites the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act to allow officials serving on any state body – think CPUC, POST, State Bar and many more – to never again show up in person to a physical meeting location. This is government by telephone.”
The three bills have garnered a string of critical newspaper editorials – reflecting the fact that journalists are particularly affected by creeping official secrecy – but they nevertheless continue to advance.
In California, sunshine is giving way to darkness.
(NOTE TO READERS: The Gualco Group, Inc. co-founded and leads the CA Food Waste Roundtable, a pro bono group of private, nonprofit and government executives dedicated to reducing food waste and feeding hungry people.)
Hunger Crisis Hits Nation’s #1 Food-Growing State (California)
CalMatters
“A catastrophic hunger crisis.” That’s the dire warning from the California Association of Food Banks, after federal pandemic food aid ended earlier this spring.
But why does a state with so much food — California produces nearly half the country’s fruits and vegetables — and that spends so much on food aid have so many residents still going hungry?
MUCH MORE: