IN THIS ISSUE – “Fuzzy Math On All Sides”
POLITICS
- End of Legislative Session Brings Out the Sneaky
- Newsom Defends Changing Positions on Key Issues
- Campaign 2018: “The Year of the Angry Female College Graduate”
- Nation Watches Colorado Oil-Drilling Limit
CLIMATE CHANGE
- Green Job Creation: “Fuzzy Math On All Sides”
- It’s Simple, He Said: “The Warmer It Is, the More Fire We See”
- US EPA Plans Rollback of Power Generation Emission Curbs
GOING WITH THE FLOW, OR NOT…
- US Moves to Rewrite Key Water Management Pact with CA
- State Water Board Hears Comments on River Flow Management
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FOR THE WEEK ENDING AUG. 24, 2018
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End of Legislative Session Brings Out the Sneaky
Commentary from CalMatters
Two of the Legislature’s sneakiest procedures were on display as it began its annual sprint to adjournment.
They have names – “suspense file” and “trailer bill” – that may have little meaning to 40 million Californians outside the Capitol, but are critically important to those inside.
After bills go through the Legislature’s policy committees, most are routinely sent to the “appropriations committees” of both houses and most of those are placed in a sort of limbo called the “suspense file.”
Then, as deadlines for final action approach, the committees meet and their chairpersons run down the list of suspense file bills, simply announcing which will be allowed to proceed to floor votes (and almost certain approval) and which will “be held in committee,” the euphemism for a death sentence.
There are no public discussions, no real votes, no explanations of why bills are given red or green lights – and no fingerprints on the carcasses of those that die. Last week, legislative leaders made decisions in secret on the fate of 635 measures.
Then there are “trailer bills,” measures that in theory are enacted to implement the state budget. They qualify for the fast-track parliamentary treatment accorded the budget itself and therefore are convenient vessels for making political policy that has nothing, really, to do with the budget.
A prime example occurred two months ago when one of the trailer bills was loaded up with a massive rewrite of the state’s criminal laws, allowing virtually anyone convicted of a felony, even rape or murder, to avoid prison if they are declared in need of psychiatric treatment and they receive it for two years.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who has made softening California’s criminal laws a hallmark of his final term, backed the change but prosecutors howled that it was a get-out-of-jail card for vicious criminals and complained, with good reason, about the diversion language being buried in a massive “trailer bill” relating to social services rather than being openly debated and decided.
The backlash was so sharp, the Associated Press reported, that Brown now wants to modify psychiatric diversion, denying it to those charged with particularly vicious crimes and giving judges more leeway to apply it prudently.
“While nothing’s perfect, this version right now solves a majority of the issues,” Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager, the new president of the California District Attorneys Association, told the AP after the revision was circulated.
The issue of mental health diversions aside, what happened is a shameful example of how the trailer bill process is being distorted to enact policies that probably could not make it if handled in the normal – and democratic – way.
However, there’s no reason to believe that legislative leaders and governors won’t continue the practice. In fact, even though the budget was enacted two months ago, 11 new trailer bills popped up last week, some truly relating to the budget but others new examples of expediency.
One provision, for example, would change state law affecting employees of one Kern County hospital; another would exempt California’s efforts on the 2020 census from state contract law; a third would affect San Diego County’s elections for county supervisor, and still another creates a new investigative unit to handle sexual harassment complaints in the Legislature.
Whatever else they may be, those and other pieces of the pending trailer bills have nothing to do with the budget and continue a distortion that becomes more egregious every year.
https://calmatters.org/articles/commentary/legislatures-sneaky-procedures-on-display/
Newsom Defends Changing Positions on Key Issues
While mayor of San Francisco, Democrat Gavin Newsom supported high-speed rail in California so strongly that he partnered with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008 to push for a $10-billion state bond measure to help build it.
Six years later, Newsom pulled his support, citing exploding cost overruns and delays. Two years after that, he was back on board.
Newsom has made several about-faces during his two decades in politics. Early in the 2018 governor’s race, his shifting stances were targeted by Democratic rivals, who accused the lieutenant governor of flip-flopping or equivocating on high-speed rail and other pivotal issues facing California, including a single-payer healthcare system and sanctuary policies. Newsom’s rival in the November election, Republican John Cox, is sure to continue that criticism as he highlights his opposition to the front-runner on several issues.
Similar to other politicians on the campaign trail, Newsom has made pronouncements that can be interpreted in different ways, allowing voters to hear what they want to hear, said political scientist Melissa Michelson of Menlo College. That strategy can create doubt in voters’ minds about what a candidate will really do if elected, she said.
“As a politician, you’re trying to both read and lead the public,” Michelson said. “You certainly don’t want to say things that make you unpopular.”
Newsom campaign spokesman Nathan Click dismissed the criticism, saying the lieutenant governor has a long history of taking bold, risky policy positions, including authorizing same-sex marriages in 2004 while mayor of San Francisco.
“California voters have overwhelmingly supported Gavin Newsom at the ballot box because he has had the political courage to champion bold reforms and aggressively see them through,” Click said.
Michelson said it’s common for political beliefs to evolve, especially for someone who has been in public office a while. For Newsom, that includes his views on aspects of San Francisco’s sanctuary policy. The policy bars the city from spending funds to enforce immigration law, and prohibits local authorities from detaining people based solely on their immigration status, Michelson said.
Throughout the campaign, Newsom has boasted about his support as mayor of San Francisco as a sanctuary city, including extending healthcare coverage to immigrants who entered the country illegally.
“I’m proud to come from a sanctuary city,” Newsom said at a February debate. “Sanctuary cities are about keeping people safe, healthier and more educated. If you’re a victim of crime, if you’re a witness of crime, you’re more than likely to communicate with police officers.”
But while mayor, Newsom directed the city to begin referring juveniles who were in the country illegally and who had been charged with felonies to federal immigration authorities for deportation.
The policy was implemented shortly after the 2008 slaying of Anthony Bologna and his two sons, who were killed on a San Francisco street by Edwin Ramos, a 21-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who had entered the country illegally. Ramos, who was later convicted of first-degree murder, had been released from San Francisco County Jail three months before, and was twice convicted of felonies as a juvenile.
When the Board of Supervisors voted to end the policy, Newsom vetoed the measure. When the board overturned his veto, the Newsom administration continued referring young people to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, former Supervisor David Campos said.
The policy “led to the deportation of many youth, including many youth who were wrongly convicted,” Campos said. “[Newsom has] been trying to position himself as a champion of sanctuary cities. Don’t rewrite history.”
“These were people charged … but not convicted. Some people ultimately were exonerated that got caught up in it,” Newsom told the Sacramento Bee in July. “I’ll just say this to my critics: fair game. Looking back, there were things we could have done differently. I’m very honest about that.”
Part of the foundation of Newsom’s campaign for governor has been his strong support for establishing a single-payer healthcare system in California.
As evidence of his longstanding dedication to the issue, Newsom points to the San Francisco universal healthcare system adopted in 2006 while he was mayor. Healthy San Francisco, as it was known, was the first of its kind in the nation, and at its peak provided affordable care to more than 70,000 uninsured residents in the city.
“People said it couldn’t be done,” Newsom said at a candidate forum hosted by the San Francisco Chronicle in October.
But former San Francisco County Supervisor Tom Ammiano, author of the ordinance that evolved into Healthy San Francisco, said Newsom “tried to undermine it as best he could” while it was being debated, in part because of concerns over cost to employers in the city. After Healthy San Francisco was approved, Newsom embraced it, Ammiano said.
“When something is working, he’ll attach his coattails to it,” Ammiano, a frequent critic of Newsom, said in an interview earlier this year.
Newsom has argued that Ammiano’s initial proposal amounted to a health insurance program that did not cover most of the uninsured in San Francisco. He said he authored a separate proposal focused on providing direct care — not insurance — to everyone without healthcare coverage in the city.
During the gubernatorial campaign, Newsom has been accused of parsing his words when asked about his position on Senate Bill 562, legislation to create a state-sponsored single-payer healthcare system, which was shelved in the Assembly last year. Former Democratic rival Antonio Villaraigosa accused him of being a “snake oil salesman” by tailoring his message for different audiences.
In September, Newsom spoke to the California Nurses Assn., the most vocal advocate for legislation. He told the crowd that the time for single-payer healthcare was now and added: “It’s time to move 562,” setting off a round of cheers.
But minutes later, when talking with reporters, Newsom explained his statement wasn’t a full-fledged endorsement of the legislation. He said he supported moving the bill through the legislative process, but cautioned that there were some major “open-ended” issues, including the plan to finance it.
When the legislation was approved by the state Senate, Newsom praised the move in a tweet: “Thanks to @CASenDems & @CalNurses, CA is one step closer to making universal health access a real right, not an empty platitude.”
The Assembly later shelved the bill over concerns about cost and the lack of a comprehensive plan to pay for such a massive new government program.
Garry South, who was a political consultant for Newsom’s short-lived 2010 gubernatorial run, said the front-runner’s message has always been crystal clear.
“Gavin Newsom has publicly affirmed that he supports a single-payer system,” South said. “He’s not coy about it. He’s not cute about it.”
South also said that Newsom’s positions on some issues were bound to change over his two decades in office. As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom was primarily concerned with local political issues. As lieutenant governor and now a candidate for governor, he examines policy decisions from a statewide perspective, South said.
As a San Francisco County supervisor in 2002, Newsom argued in favor of higher bail schedules, saying drug dealers were coming into the city because they knew bail was lower there than in the surrounding counties.
But as a candidate for California governor, Newsom been been a strong proponent of bail reform.
The early 2000s were also a different political era, a time when issues such as bail reform were not part of an intense national debate. Public support for California’s high-speed rail system has also fluctuated over the last decade.
When California voters approved funding for the high-speed rail project, they were promised that the system would transport passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes. As mayor, Newsom hailed the rail line as a game-changer for California, and said it was a “generation overdue.”
“Finally California is going to get it right with this high-speed rail,” Newsom said at the 2010 groundbreaking ceremony of the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco.
But by 2014, Newsom had become disenchanted with the project because of myriad funding problems, and polls showed many Californians felt the same way. During an interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro that aired on a Seattle radio station, the lieutenant governor said he would redirect the high-speed rail funding to other infrastructure needs. Coming from one of the highest ranking Democratic politicians in the state, Newsom’s criticism was a gut punch to a project staunchly supported by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Two years later, Newsom told the audience at a Sacramento Press Club event that he was no longer opposed to the project — then estimated to cost $64 billion — and that while he still had concerns, he would try to find a public funding source for it if elected governor. Newsom said he decided to back the project again after the planning and management had been improved.
Newsom has been needled throughout the campaign about his back-and-forth on the rail project, and was asked point-blank during a May gubernatorial debate if he would tell Californians where he stood on the issue.
“I’ve long supported the vision, but I’ve been honest about the financing,” Newsom responded.
Joseph Tuman, a professor of political and legal communication at San Francisco State, compared Newsom’s tentative embrace of high-speed rail — he supports it, but says he still has reservations — to President Trump saying he accepted the U.S. intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, but that it “could be other people also.”
“You can’t be in a situation where you’re trying to have it both ways,” Tuman said.
Campaign 2018: “The Year of the Angry Female College Graduate”
Dave Wasserman, the Cook Political Report’s House analyst, says the most under-covered aspect of 2018 is that “a blue wave is obscuring a red exodus.” Republican House members are retiring at a startling clip — a trend that senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told me earlier this year was worrying her more than any other trend affecting the midterms.
What’s happening: There are 43 Republican seats now without an incumbent on the ballot. That’s more than one out of every six Republicans in the House — a record in at least a century, Wasserman says.
Why this matters: Just in the past eight months, the number of vulnerable Republican seats has almost doubled, according to Wasserman. Democrats need to win 23 seats to claim control of the House. Today, the Cook Political Report rates 37 Republican-held seats as toss-ups or worse. At the beginning of the year, it was only 20.
The big picture: Wasserman says the most important sign that 2018 will be a “wave” year — with Democrats winning control of the House — is the intensity gap between the two parties. In polls, Democrats consistently rate their interest in voting as significantly higher than Republicans. And Democrats have voted in extraordinary numbers in the special elections held the past year, despite Republicans holding on to win almost all of these races.
- “There’s a bit of over-caution, perhaps, on the part of the punditocracy, after what happened in 2016,” Wasserman told Axios. “But if anything most media could be under-rating Democrats’ potential to gain a lot of seats. They could be caught being cautious in the wrong direction.”
Wasserman has a vivid way of describing the most harmful dynamic for Republicans in November. “This election is the year of the angry female college graduate,” he said.
- “The most telling number in the most recent NBC/WSJ poll is that Trump’s approval rating among women with college degrees was 26 percent. That’s absolutely awful and the intensity of that group is extraordinary. They’re already the most likely demographic to turn out to vote in midterms. But never have they been this fervently anti-Republican.”
- “In 2010 when Republicans won back control of the House, I would argue that was the year of the angry white senior … and yes, there was a lot of consternation and upset about Obamacare.”
- “But the main reason for that was who wasn’t It was the young, and non-white Obama surge voter from 2008, who stayed home, and it lost Democrats the election in 2010.”
The bottom line: “Yes, it’s about how upset suburban professional women are, with regard to family separations at the border and Trump’s temperament and behavior. But it’s also about who’s not voting. And that’s primarily men without college degrees who are Trump true believers.”
- “They believed in Trump fervently, but they’ve never liked congressional Republicans at all. In fact, Trump gained ground by running against them in 2016. So why are they going to turn out this year for congressional Republicans?
Nation Watches Colorado Oil-Drilling Limit
Colorado’s Democratic candidate for governor once bankrolled efforts to restrict fracking. Now, he’s working hard to reassure the state’s oil explorers that he’s on their side.
A ballot proposal to limit drilling in the state has sent stocks of oil and gas producers on a roller coaster ride during the past month. U.S. Representative Jared Polis, running for the state’s top office, has come out strongly against the proposal, defying his own party. His opposition highlights what’s at stake for the energy industry, which is pumping record volumes of oil and gas as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling propel Colorado into the upper echelon of shale producers.
So-called Initiative 97 would increase the buffer zone between oil wells and occupied structures, and could block drilling in half the state, according to Colorado’s energy agency.
“Initiative 97 would all but ban fracking in Colorado — a position I have never supported,” Polis said at the annual Colorado Oil and Gas Conference in Denver on Wednesday. “Let me be very clear where I stand on this: As I said during the Democratic primary, I oppose Initiative 97.”
Producers are nervous about the prospect of Polis, a millionaire businessman from Boulder, occupying the state’s highest office. In 2014, he personally financed campaigns to tighten regulations on fracking, although he later backed away from those efforts. And he continues to insist that communities should have more control over oil and gas development, a position that’s discomfiting to drillers active in Denver’s growing suburbs.
Explorer stocks rose after Polis’s remarks in Denver. Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. climbed 3.3 percent, PDC Energy Inc. advanced 4.9 percent and SRC Energy Inc. was up 1.1 percent.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton, also speaking in Denver on Wednesday, sought to remind the energy industry of Polis’s shifting stance on oil and gas development. He also challenged Polis’s position on Initiative 97, questioning whether the Democrat’s opposition to the measure would change if he wins office.
If enacted, the measure could curb output in one of the country’s most prolific shale plays, the Denver-Julesburg Basin, which helped drive Colorado oil production to a record-high 447,000 barrels a day in April.
“It has the potential to be nothing but catastrophic to the energy industry,” Crystal Heter, president of natural gas transportation at Tallgrass Energy Partners LP, said Tuesday.
Highpoint Resources Corp., which is focused in the D.J. basin, is already evaluating how it would comply with the ballot measure if it becomes law in November. Would drilling three-mile laterals suffice, mused Chief Financial Officer Bill Crawford during a panel Tuesday. “We’re trying to plan for making the ballot” while hoping it won’t succeed, he said.
By contrast, DCP Midstream LLC is speeding up projects ahead of the election. “There are some decisions to make in the first week of November,” Chief Executive Officer Wouter Van Kempen said Tuesday. “Hopefully this is going the right direction so we don’t have to course correct.”
Green Job Creation: “Fuzzy Math”
It was Arnold Schwarzenegger at his most persuasive: The then-California governor laid out an audacious vision, borrowed from legislators, of the Golden State leading the world in fighting the damaging effects of climate change.
The proposal’s sweep was as expansive as the Governator’s sculpted chest. The Global Warming Solutions Act passed on the last day of the legislative session in 2006, with a promise that its suite of carbon-cutting goals would not only do no harm to California’s economy but would expand it, ushering in green jobs and attracting investment.
The law also required state agencies to consult with experts to provide periodic analysis of any effect on California’s economic health. But those infrequent and complex reports have merely proved why economics is the dismal science: There’s fuzzy math on all sides.
California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, spends billions of dollars every year to support its dozens of climate-change programs but has trouble demonstrating whether the promise of the law that spawned them has been kept.
Environmental authorities calculate projections rather than audit the past, a problem identified by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which is preparing its own analysis for release later this year.
So it has been virtually impossible to tell whether the state’s regulations to reduce industrial emissions, its demand that utilities use renewable energy and its push for residential solar panels have saved consumers money or added costs, driven businesses out or created new ones.
Even Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, which developed the blueprint for implementation of the original law and those that have built on it, has expressed frustration. In a meeting last year, she appeared dissatisfied that the agency’s broad claims of economic benefit weren’t reflected more clearly in its projections, particularly concerning the state-run cap-and-trade system that limits how much companies are permitted to pollute.
Considering the stakes, hers was a breathtakingly candid admission: “We still don’t have the ability to capture, in any kind of models that seem to be available to us, at least some of the elements that we are intuitively claiming,” Nichols said.
“And I’m wondering,” she went on, “if we have failed, in some way, to…do the kind of research that needs to be done, whether there’s a way to get that kind of research done, so that we’d have a better basis to use economics in decision making.”
The board’s most recent projections are for the year 2030, outlined in a 132-page report. With most factors weighed, the document says, California’s climate policies could reduce the economy by .03 percent—a negligible effect, according to economists.
And California appears well on the way to meeting its nearest goals for cutting greenhouse gases: reducing them over the next two years to what they were in 1990.
Still, said James Bushnell, an environmental economist at the University of California, Davis, “I think we oversold the argument this was going to cause growth.”
“All we can really say is that the California economy is growing and doing well” right now, said Bushnell, who has twice participated in state review panels on the economic impact of environmental policy. “Everything else I would take with a huge boulder of salt.”
“There are a million things influencing these numbers,” said Chris Thornberg, founding partner at the Beacon Economics consulting firm. The idea that it’s possible to measure the influence of climate policies “is ridiculous.”
Schwarzenegger has been steadfast in saying the environmental laws he helped put in motion have outperformed expectations.
“We were told so many times by business leaders when we passed these environmental laws that businesses were going to leave the state, that the unemployment rate is going to rise, and it would be the end of our economy,” the former governor said in a speech in Vienna in June. “Quite the opposite has happened.”
Among the promised benefits were that gross state product would increase on the order of $7 billion in 2020, and 100,000 new jobs would be added.
But with 2020 only 16 months away, it’s unclear whether those numbers will pan out. The state has produced no reliable evidence linking growth so far to climate policies. And economists say it’s nearly impossible to parse whether California’s good fortunes are the result of the environmental laws or despite them.
State Sen. Kevin de León says jobs growth can be traced directly to California’s continuing climate policies.
“Coming off the worst economic recession we had, we created upwards of 500,000 jobs in the clean-energy space. That’s 500,000 jobs that didn’t exist were it not for the policies of the Senate, Assembly and the governor,” said de León, a Democrat from Los Angeles who is running to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November.
His claim is an oft-cited statistic. But many researchers say that measurement doesn’t distinguish between new jobs that add to the workforce and jobs that merely supplant old ones.
Researchers at UC Berkeley estimate the state’s mandate that utilities get half of their power from renewable sources by 2030 will have created as many as 429,000 construction jobs from 2015 to 2030.
Indeed, labor unions and trade groups cite employment bumps whenever renewable-energy projects or other green mandates are rolled out. But much of that work is temporary.
The tricky task of projecting employment was noted by the legislative analyst in 2010, when it found that the air board “was not able to provide reliable estimates of the jobs impacts.”
One mandate of the 2006 law was that the state consider the “maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reduction” of greenhouse gases. That caution was meant to protect California companies from suddenly absorbing undue burdens to comply.
Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which represents major employers in the state, said he supports the climate goals and agrees that so far the implementation of related policies hasn’t harmed the economy.
But he added that companies have spent billions undertaking expensive changes to processing plants and manufacturing facilities in order to lower their emissions. And business leaders are concerned about what happens as greenhouse-gas restrictions become even tougher.
“They understand that the next round of implementation could have Draconian impacts to cost,” Lapsley said, adding that some companies are reluctant to relocate to the state because of that uncertainty.
He declined to name any of those firms. And some experts say there’s often a host of reasons, including high taxes and soaring housing costs, that companies shy from establishing themselves in California.
State officials insist that California has wisely positioned itself to capitalize on the economy of the future, and they note that technology firms are busy developing next-generation batteries and innovating other carbon-free responses to climate change.
Many benefits derived from California’s climate policies come at a price. The Air Resources Board says the state has spent more than $8 billion in the last four years to keep the programs running.
In fiscal year 2017-18, the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown appropriated more than $2.7 billion to support greenhouse-gas reduction. The current budget allocates $1.5 billion. Nearly $53 million goes to the air board.
State support takes many forms. Since 2009, for example, California has offered rebates on the purchase of electric or hydrogen-fuel vehicles, which may cost more than others.
That’s part of an effort to meet the governor’s target of putting 5 million electric cars on California roads in the next 12 years. The state plans to put $1.4 billion into electric-vehicle infrastructure and more rebates over the next seven years.
Officials say these are all monies well spent, that every dollar used to fight climate change attracts $6 of investment. That figure reflects, in part, investment generated by state-funded grants to help companies retrofit or buy new emissions-reducing equipment.
Officials say carbon-cutting measures protect public health. Source: Air Resources Board
Officials also say climate laws will save the state as much as $11 billion in “avoided social costs”—lost productivity and even public health outlays—by 2030.
And the state says businesses and consumers alike will save money over time, through lower costs for power. For example, the mandate that beginning in 2020 new homes must have solar panels could add as much as $10,000 to house prices, but officials say those sums can be recouped over years of ownership.
In 2014, the board convened a symposium of esteemed economists, put them in a room for two days and asked them to devise the most effective formula to measure the economic effect of California’s environmental policies. They failed, disagreeing about which model to use, which assumptions to include and even about the advisability of making projections so far into the future about something as volatile as California’s nation-state economy.
The absence of any consensus then or since suggests how difficult real analysis is. “It’s an issue that we’ve been wrestling with,” said Emily Wimberger, the air board’s chief economist.
It’s Simple, He Said: “The Warmer It Is, the More Fire We See”
As temperatures rise in the U.S. West, so do the flames.
The years with the most acres burned by wildfires have some of the hottest temperatures, an Associated Press analysis of fire and weather data found. As human-caused climate change has warmed the world over the past 35 years, the land consumed by flames has more than doubled.
Experts say the way global warming worsens wildfires comes down to the basic dynamics of fire. Fires need ignition, oxygen and fuel. And what’s really changed is fuel — the trees, brush and other plants that go up in flames.
“Hotter, drier weather means our fuels are drier, so it’s easier for fires to start and spread and burn more intensely,” said University of Alberta fire scientist Mike Flannigan.
It’s simple, he said: “The warmer it is, the more fire we see.”
Federal fire and weather data show higher air temperatures are turbocharging fire season.
The five hottest Aprils to Septembers out West produced years that on average burned more than 13,500 square miles (35,000 square kilometers), according to data at the National Interagency Fire Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .
That’s triple the average for the five coldest Aprils to Septembers.
The Western summer so far is more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average. California in July logged its hottest month in 124 years of record-keeping.
The five years with the most acres burned since 1983 averaged 63.4 degrees from April to September. That’s 1.2 degrees warmer than average and 2.4 degrees hotter than the years with the least acres burned, AP’s data analysis shows.
In California, the five years with the most acres burned (not including this year) average 2.1 degrees warmer than the five years with the least acres burned.
A degree or two may seem like not much, but it is crucial for fuel. The hotter it is, the more water evaporates from plants. When fuel dries faster, fires spread more and burn more intensely, experts said.
For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit that the air warms, it needs 15 percent more rain to make up for the drying of the fuel, Flannigan said.
Fuel moisture levels in California and Oregon are flirting with record dry levels, NOAA western regional climate center director Tim Brown said.
And low humidity is “the key driver of wildfire spread,” according to University of Colorado fire scientist Jennifer Balch who says the Western U.S. soon will start to see wildfires of 1 million acres (1,562 square miles).
Veteran Colorado hotshot firefighter Mike Sugaski used to consider 10,000-acre (16-square-mile) fires big, now he fights ones 10 times that or more.
“You kind of keep saying, ‘How can they get much worse?’ But they do,” Sugaski said.
The number of U.S. wildfires hasn’t changed much over the last few decades, but the area consumed has soared.
“The year 2000 seemed to be some kind of turning point,” said Randy Eardley, the fire center’s chief spokesman.
From 1983 to 1999, the United States didn’t reach 10,000 square miles burned annually. Since then, 10 years have had more than 10,000 square miles burned, including 2017, 2015 and 2006 when more than 15,000 square miles burned.
Some people who reject mainstream climate science point to statistics that seem to show far more acres burned in the 1930s and 1940s. But Eardley said statistics before 1983 are not reliable because fires “may be double-counted, tripled-counted or more.”
Nationally, more than 8,900 square miles (23,050 kilometers) have burned this year, about 28 percent more than the 10-year average as of mid-August. California is having one of its worst years.
Scientists generally avoid blaming global warming for specific extreme events without extensive analysis, but scientists have done those extensive examinations on wildfire.
John Abatzgolou of the University of Idaho looked at forest fires and dry conditions in the Western United States from 1979 to 2015 and compared that to computer simulations of what would be expected with no human-caused climate change. He concluded that global warming had a role in an extra 16,200 square miles (42,000 square kilometers) of forests burning since 1984.
A study of the 2015 Alaska fire season — the second biggest on record — did a similar simulation analysis, concluding that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas increased the risk of the fire season being that severe by 34 to 60 percent.
One 2015 study said globally fire seasons are about 18.7 percent longer since 1979. Another study that year says climate change is increasing extreme wildfire risk in California where wildfires already are year-round.
Also, drought and bark beetles have killed 129 million trees in California since 2016, creating more fuel.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/science-warmer-fire-57270614
US EPA Plans Rollback of Power Generation Emission Curbs
The Trump administration rolled out its proposal for gutting former President Barack Obama’s most sweeping climate change regulation — a move that could also block any future Democratic president from trying to put it back together.
The proposal from the EPA goes to the core of the criticisms that the coal industry and conservatives lodged against Obama’s 2015 regulation, which used a novel reading of the Clean Air Act to require states to cut greenhouse gas pollution from the power sector. The replacement from President Donald Trump’s EPA would give states far more leeway to meet more modest climate goals — or even to opt of the program entirely.
But the new rule’s biggest impact could come from the inevitable lawsuits that environmental groups and Democratic-leaning states will file against Trump’s proposal. If they lose, the result could be a court decision enshrining the Trump administration’s hobbled approach to climate regulation as the only reasonable approach under the law — slamming the door shut on any later attempts to recreate Obama’s handiwork.
At the very least, experts say, the proposal from Trump’s regulators would mean years of delay in curbing one of the world’s most dire problems — the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change.
“They’re trying to put in place approaches that would undermine in the long term EPA’s ability to do what many of us think is its responsibility under environmental laws to protect the public health,” said Janet McCabe, the EPA air chief under Obama who oversaw the 2015 rule’s development.
EPA said the proposed rule would “more appropriately balance federal and state responsibilities” to regulate air pollution.
“Today’s proposal provides the states and regulated community the certainty they need to continue environmental progress while fulfilling President Trump’s goal of energy dominance,” said EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a statement Tuesday.
Climate advocates are already complaining that the Trump EPA plan won’t put the country on a path toward seriously addressing greenhouse gas pollution. Under Obama, EPA pushed for a regulatory scheme that targeted the electricity sector as a whole with a goal of cutting carbon dioxide, pushing power companies to take steps such as helping their customers become more energy-efficient or replacing coal plants with wind or natural gas.
Instead, the Trump plan relies solely on making individual coal-fired power plants more efficient — a move that would achieve far shallower cuts in carbon dioxide pollution.
US Moves to Rewrite Water Allocation Pact with CA
In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation served notice to California officials Aug. 17, stating it wants to renegotiate a landmark 1986 agreement governing the big federal and state water projects and how they pump water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to their member agencies in southern half of the state.
Reclamation’s efforts could significantly alter the balance of power between the state and federal governments as they share control of the water that flows through the Delta. The estuary is the hub of California’s complex north-to-south water delivery system.
The complicated 1986 deal requires both sides to surrender water at times from their reservoirs, to serve Delta environmental needs and other purposes. Now the feds want to keep more of their water on hand, for delivery to Valley farm-irrigation districts and other customers of the federal government’s Central Valley Project, leaving less for the State Water Project. Experts say hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water could be at stake.
The feds recently threatened to sue the state over a proposal to reallocate the flows on the San Joaquin River, giving more water to fish and less to Valley farmers. (See next story.)
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who oversees Reclamation, then ordered aides to develop an action plan aimed at “maximizing water deliveries” to agriculture and other Central Valley Project customers.
The two sides have been discussing possible revisions to the agreement for a while, and there’s considerable uncertainty whether the feds can successfully wrest more water away from the state. But Reclamation’s move is clearly ratcheting up tensions between state and federal officials over how to divide and deliver the state’s precious water supply.
State officials “were hoping this day would not come,” said Greg Gartrell, a Bay Area water policy expert with 30 years of experience in Delta issues.
During the 2016 campaign, President Donald Trump told a rally in Fresno he would deliver more water to Valley farmers, who have struggled for years with reduced supplies.
Meanwhile, Central Valley Project and State Water Project members are in conflict over Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans to build the Delta tunnels, which are supposed to ease the estuary’s environmental troubles and enable both projects to pump water more reliably. So far the big farm-irrigation districts in the CVP have refused to help pay for the tunnels, increasing the burden on State Water Project agencies.
Now comes the attempt by Reclamation to rewrite the rules on Delta pumping. Although the two sides informally have been discussing revisions for two years, Reclamation’s formal “notice of negotiation” landed the same day as Zinke’s bluntly worded memo on water deliveries and sent a jolt through the halls of state government.
If the feds get their way in the Delta, there would be less water for the State Water Project and its most important customer: the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million residents of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. That leaves state officials anxious, experts say.
“You have 19 million people who are caught up in the State Water Project,” said Sacramento water lawyer Stuart Somach, who helped negotiate the 1986 agreement while serving in the federal government. “If you have leverage over 19 million Californians … you’ve got quite a bit of leverage.”
State Water Board Hears Comments on River Flow Management
Two days of hearings before the State Water Resources Control Board created some hope of voluntary agreements with local irrigation districts, which are under pressure to release more water in rivers to help salmon.
Tuesday and Wednesday, the state board heard heartfelt comments from people concerned about collapsing fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and fears about job losses and economic calamity in the Northern San Joaquin Valley if water rights are stripped from communities.
One speaker said the board’s proposal for delta water quality sent a shockwave through rural California, as evidenced by a rally Monday in Sacramento that drew more than 1,000 people from a Central Valley area stretching from Tulare to Redding.
Stanislaus County Supervisor Vito Chiesa said the proposal to double the unimpaired flow in the Tuolumne River will have a human toll in a county with high unemployment. “I know you heard from angry people,” Chiesa said. “It’s because they are scared … I believe we can do better as farmers, but we have to weigh the costs.”
Chiesa said he believes there’s hope of a settlement but “ask you not to push too far too early.”
Board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus said the board will take into consideration the local economic impacts. “There is plenty to be concerned about, which is why we are not going for that top number,” she said.
The board sparked an uproar in July in releasing a final plan calling for 40 percent of unimpaired river flows, within a range of 30 to 50 percent, from February through June to help young salmon swim downstream to the ocean. Many speakers from environmental and sportfishing groups urged the board to seek flows of 50 to 60 percent or higher to reverse the historic effects of dam construction on the delta ecosystem.
The board made no decision on the proposal. Its staff recommends adoption of the plan at a future meeting. Some water district officials said they prefer to reach voluntary settlements with the state rather than litigation.
Board member Steven Morris asked the top manager of the Merced Irrigation District if it could live with an annual water budget for environmental purposes. District General Manager John Sweigard said he’s open to the concept but the district can’t accept losing control of operations at McClure Reservoir.
Sweigard said attempts to lower water temperature in the Merced River would have limited success. And a proposed requirement to keep 180,000 acre-feet of “cold storage” in the reservoir for environmental purposes would limit water deliveries to farmers in drought years, the general manager said.
The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts face a steeper climb with increasing flows in the Tuolumne River, which often are 20 percent of the runoff in the watershed. The districts say the plan would force much larger releases from Don Pedro Reservoir than what’s indicated by the water board, forcing growers to fallow ground and pump groundwater to preserve orchards.
There was a minor exchange Tuesday between a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation official and the board over New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River. The bureau says the federally operated dam won’t comply with the plan if it’s inconsistent with congressional priorities for New Melones, which include flood control and storage for agricultural and drinking water.
On a cue from Marcus, board member Tam Doduc asked if the bureau will comply with the state’s water quality standards. The bureau official said the U.S. Department of Interior will review the requirements when they’re released. It could seek legal action over the issue.
Attorney Tim O’Laughlin, representing water districts in the San Joaquin Tributaries Authority, said the group has submitted a solid proposal to the state Department of Water Resources for improving conditions for salmon.
O’Laughlin tried to reach agreement with the board on how much water will be available for customers in multiple-year droughts. The board has suggested the impact on agricultural diversions is 7 to 14 percent for districts with rights on the Stanislaus River. The attorney argued the impact would grow to much larger amounts in extended droughts.
From 30 to 40 percent of unimpaired flow is often released from New Melones because of a responsibility for meeting water quality standards in the lower San Joaquin River.
Groups concerned with the ecological health of the delta said voluntary settlement deals with water districts have failed in the past and only larger flows will achieve good results.
Peter Moyle, a watershed sciences expert with the University of California, Davis, wrote in a blog this week that large-scale habitat improvements in the south and central delta are key to improving salmon survival. Higher flows alone won’t be successful, he wrote.
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