IN THIS ISSUE – Answering “The Jerry Question”
GOVERNOR’S LEGACY RISING
Voters Tell Gov Candidates “Keep Doing What Jerry Is Doing”
Brown’s Green Energy Goal A Decade Ahead of Schedule
But His Green State Buildings Prove Costly
Governor to Anti-Frackers: “Let’s Put You in the Ground”
LEGISLATIVE 2018 RAMPS UP
Latino Legislators Shift Climate Change Focus Away from Enviros;
“A Reflection of the Changing Power Structure,” Speaker Says
Sexual Harassment Charges Keep Roiling Legislature
State Budget Season Begins with Good News
CALIFORNIA TRENDING…
California Goes to Pot: Cannabis Business Rules Released
Golden State’s Golden Years – Big Jump in >60 Years Old
WATER FROM THE SKY & DC
Winter Looks Like a Re-Run, Forecasters Predict
Key San Joaquin Valley Water Dispute Lingers in Congress
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FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOV. 17, 2017, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!
Voters Tell Gov Candidates “Keep Doing What Jerry Is Doing”
After running for elected office 12 times since 1970, Gov. Jerry Brown is about to exit the center stage of California politics, no longer the brash upstart but now a senior statesman who could be a model for the next person who will lead the state.
Every successor promises to be better, and different, than the person they replace. In 2018, one of the most wide-open races for governor in some two decades, the “Jerry question” looms large for both candidates and voters.
A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found a tepid reaction to Brown the man. His job approval rating among all Californians was just 44%, and almost one-third of those surveyed said they didn’t have any real impression of him. One possible reason is that he often flies under the radar for weeks at a time. Though he’s made news in recent days for preaching on his visit to Europe about the dangers of climate change, Brown prefers to govern behind the scenes.
When asked whether the next governor should continue Brown’s agenda, 50% of voters said yes. Among Democrats, it was 71%. In several other subsets — young voters, those with a college degree, Latino voters — a majority or even close to a supermajority wanted the next governor to carry on.
So far, the candidate most preferred among the “keep doing what Jerry Brown is doing” crowd is Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, picked by 49% of the primary voters who want to extend the life of the current governor’s agenda. Twenty-six percent of that group supported former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and 14% supported Treasurer John Chiang. The USC/LAT poll finds support for all other candidates in single digits (or less) among the “Brown policies” voters.
Newsom, whose relationship with Brown stretches back a couple of family generations and deep into San Francisco politics, has been the most effusive in his praise. Last week, he repeated one of his favorite quips about Brown’s record as California’s chief executive: “He’s proven you don’t have to be profligate to be progressive.”
But the lieutenant governor is also swinging for the fences when it comes to liberal causes — embracing the Legislature’s stalled single-payer healthcare bill, criticizing President Trump on an almost hourly basis on social media — an activist path far beyond the more cautious Brown. While softening his stance of late, Newsom has sounded at times as though he would reverse course on high-speed rail and water tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — two of the current governor’s toughest policy slogs. Villaraigosa, at this point the other leading candidate, has already tried to paint Newsom’s evolution on some parts of the Brown agenda as a flip-flop.
Then there’s Chiang, the state’s longtime fiscal watchdog, and Eastin, the former schools chief who also must navigate when to praise or pan the legacy of the man about to leave office. For Republican hopefuls Assemblyman Travis Allen and businessman John Cox, of course, the whole campaign is about a break with the status quo.
Because Brown will hand over a state budget in better condition than the one he found in 2011, as well as substantial efforts on a higher minimum wage and the criminal justice system, his fellow Democrats will tread carefully. A lot of voters may not be paying attention to the current governor, but they seem to want more of what he’s been doing.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-road-map-governor-race-jerry-brown-20171112-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter
Brown’s Green Energy Goal A Decade Ahead of Schedule
Two years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed an ambitious law ordering California utility companies to get 50 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
It looks like they may hit that goal a decade ahead of schedule.
An annual report issued Monday by California regulators found that the state’s three big, investor-owned utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. — are collectively on track to reach the 50 percent milestone by 2020, although individual companies could exceed the mark or fall just short of it.
In 2016, 32.9 percent of the electricity PG&E sold to its customers came from renewable sources, according to the report. Edison reached 28.2 percent renewable power in 2016, while SDG&E — the state’s smallest investor-owned utility — hit 43.2 percent.
California first started requiring utilities to increase their use of renewable power in 2002. Brown and his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, ratcheted up the targets over time. Known as the renewable portfolio standard, the requirement has become one of the state’s most important tools for lowering greenhouse gas emissions and fighting climate change.
Brown has touted California’s ability to boost renewable power and lower emissions while growing its economy. Even as President Trump has moved to scale back federal efforts to combat global warming, Brown has been pushing other states and foreign governments to join California.
“We don’t want to do nothing and just sit there and let the climate get worse,” he said Monday by phone from Germany, where he is attending climate talks. “California is all in.”
California’s emissions from electric power generation have declined almost every year since 2008.
The requirement triggered a boom in the construction of solar power plants and wind farms. At the same time, renewable power prices have plunged. The average utility contract price for buying electricity from a large-scale photovoltaic solar facility dropped from $135.90 per megawatt-hour in 2008 to $29.17 in 2016. Wind power prices fell from $97.11 per megawatt-hour in 2007 to $50.99 in 2015, according to the report.
So much solar power now floods the California grid from late morning through mid-afternoon that on many days, there isn’t a need for all of it. But the state is still heavily reliant on conventional power plants burning natural gas, which provide the large majority of California’s electricity during late afternoons and evenings.
The report found that as the renewable power building boom was getting under way, utilities signed contracts with more solar and wind power developers than they needed, expecting many of the projects to fall through.
They also bought more “renewable energy credits” — tradeable certificates generated whenever a solar plant or wind facility produces electricity — than necessary.
In addition, the growing popularity of community choice aggregation projects — in which local governments buy electricity on behalf of their citizens — has cut into the amount of electricity the utilities sell to customers, a trend expected to accelerate. As result, reaching the 50 percent renewable mandate will be easier than anticipated.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-may-reach-50-renewable-power-goal-by-12354313.php
But Governor’s Green Buildings Prove Costly
One of Gov. Jerry Brown’s green-building directives drives up the cost of state construction projects while delivering an uncertain environmental benefit, according to a new study by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The study assessed Brown’s 2012 executive order directing that all state departments design new buildings in such a way that they entirely offset their energy use.
Those so-called “zero net energy” projects tend to include features that limit energy use as well as others that generate power, such as solar panels.
The analysis found that the zero net energy decree adds 17 to 29 percent to the projected cost of some new buildings.
Meanwhile, the report said, the state’s marquee cap-and-trade program presents a more efficient way for California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without expensive construction mandates.
“We find that a mandate for state buildings to be (zero net energy) is not a necessary or cost-effective way for the state to achieve its (greenhouse gas) reduction goals,” the report said.
The report recommended that state departments conduct a cost-benefit analysis before proceeding with zero net energy projects.
Brown’s executive branch controls about 8,000 state buildings. His order directs departments to plan only zero net energy renovations beginning in 2025, and that half renovations beginning in 2020 represent zero net energy projects.
The Brown administration contends the zero net energy designs will save money over time. A 2015 presentation by the Department of General Services estimated the state could save about $200 million a year in energy costs with the new designs.
“This requirement will help ensure that state buildings consume less power, rely more on clean, renewable energy, and demonstrate California’s leadership in sustainable construction, while maintaining fiscal responsibility,” said Monica Hassan, spokeswoman for the Department of General Services.
California’s approach to reducing the impact of climate change features both mandates that direct businesses to use reneweable sources of energy instead of fossil fuels as well as the cap-and-trade program that makes fossil fuels more expensive by requiring companies to either limit their use or buy pollution credits.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the state has completed nine zero net energy projects since Brown issued his executive order. Another 22 are under development.
The study found that zero net energy features swelled the cost of a Department of Motor Vehicles building in Reedley by 29 percent. The goal added about 17 percent to the cost of a California Lottery building in Santa Fe Springs.
The California Military Department planned to spend $18 million on zero net energy features for a headquarters building in Sacramento. Its proposal included a $5 million thermal storage unit, which would help the building retain heat during warm hours for use at later times.
After a cost-benefit analysis suggested by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the Military Department decided to eliminate the thermal storage unit but retain other energy-saving features.
“Analyses that prevent the state from undertaking (zero net energy) projects that are not cost-effective would save state funds that could be used in other ways, whether that is to achieve GHG emission reductions from other projects or other state purposes,” the report said.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article184621553.html#storylink=cpy
Governor to Anti-Frackers: “Let’s Put You in the Ground”
Opponents of a controversial form of oil extraction repeatedly interrupted California Gov. Jerry Brown’s speech pledging support for the Paris agreement on Saturday, unfurling signs and arguing that his refusal to ban hydraulic fracturing was a stain on his environmental record.
About a dozen protesters chanted “carbon trading is no solution,” a criticism of his cap-and-trade system, and “poisoned wastewater” and “keep it in the ground,” shots at his permissive stance on fracking, at an event with Brown and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg called “America’s Pledge.”
Brown, who was less than a minute into a speech that was to mark the historic collaboration of states, cities, business and philanthropic leaders in countering Trump’s planned Paris pullout, responded to the demonstrators in real time.
“I wish we could have no pollution, but we have to have our automobiles,” said Brown, who is on a two-week tour of Europe, preaching about the perils of climate change to largely receptive audiences.
“I agree with you, ‘in the ground,’” Brown shot back as the heckling dragged on. “Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “This is very California. Thank you for coming. Actually, that’s very mild.”
But the protests continued for much of Brown’s address. At one point, when some in the crowd of hundreds rallied behind the Democratic governor, he led a chant of “We’re still in.”
Brown, improvising, added his own twist: “Trump’s still out. Trump is still out. Trump is still out.”
“We love Brown! We love Brown!” his supporters interjected.
Despite being held up as an environmental leader and championing environmental causes going back to his first time as governor, from 1975 to 1983, Brown’s refusal to ban fracking has prompted protests for years.
In 2014, activists chanting feet from the podium where Brown spoke interrupted his speech to the state Democratic Party convention, provoking Brown to defend his environmental record and accuse environmentalists of driving too much.
“All you guys who like to make noise, just listen a moment,” Brown said then. “Californians, and most of you included, are driving over 330 billion miles a year. Three hundred and thirty billion miles a year, and 99 percent is fossil fuel.”
Much of the activity, which has cropped up from time to time, followed Brown’s approval of legislation establishing a permitting a fracking system and regulating it.
On Saturday, a group aligned with the demonstration, the Center for Biological Diversity, issued a prepared statement, saying, “We support our allies from frontline communities who called out Gov. Jerry Brown on his false climate leadership today.”
“California oil companies are producing millions of barrels per year of some of the most climate-damaging crude on the planet,” said Jean Su, a director with the organization. “The governor won’t be a real climate hero until he changes course to keep California’s dirty oil in the ground.”
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article184094046.html#emlnl=Alerts_Newsletter#storylink=cpy
Latino Legislators Shift Climate Change Focus to Communities, Away From Enviros;
“A Reflection of the Changing Power Structure,” Speaker Says
State Sen. Ricardo Lara’s environmental awakening came when he left home and realized he didn’t have to shut his windows to avoid the dirty air.
Lara said he learned that not everyone played in rail yards, or had trucks idling in their neighborhoods because of the heavy congestion. When he asked his parents why they lived so close to the freeway, they told him it was out of convenience.
“The people that come from these communities are the ones that are having these discussions,” Lara said, reflecting on his upbringing this week at the UN climate talks in Germany. “There’s a been a big push for us to talk about how the policies are impacting people.”
Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, whose past brush with environmentalism came when she formed a club with her sister in high school, said she was told early on in Sacramento by white environmentalists that her approach meant “you don’t get it.” It inspired her to talk about the stories of her neighbors as she began to prioritize climate change.
“We’re dealing with real clean-air issues, real health issues tied to that (in) these communities that have been left behind,” said Garcia, also a Democrat from Bell Gardens. They are “communities of color, communities that are low-income and more importantly communities that do not have the resources … to adjust and be ready for these events that are coming and their mitigation.”
The legislators, attending the international climate conference this week, are part of a group of Latino officials from California at the vanguard of climate policy in the U.S., shepherding legislation while working to redefine what it means to be an environmentalist.
“It’s a reflection of the changing power structure of the state,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said of his colleagues’ prominence on the cause.
Others pressing the issue are Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, who joined with his namesake in carrying the cap-and-trade package, and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, who is running for U.S. Senate and was in Rome this month with Gov. Jerry Brown for a Vatican climate summit.
In Bonn, Lara announced new legislation designed to cut down on dangerous gases in refrigerants and air conditioners he cast as a “a silent assassin.”
Garcia, chair of the Natural Resources Committee, sought to focus attention on the “human disasters” of climate change: Eight of the 10 most polluted cities in the U.S. are in California, she said. As temperatures rise, smog levels increase, she told attendees at an event on responding to disasters.
“We were the original urban farmers. You couldn’t go to an aunt’s house without … walking away with a pot of something,” she said. “Or, having something grown. It was, ‘Go get me a chili from the backyard.’ … We have to be at the table.”
Brown pointed her out from the stage as one of the “ladies” he reckoned with when the Democratic governor this summer pushed the controversial plan to extend the state’s cap-and-trade system for another decade.
Garcia talked about her work with Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, suggesting the diversity of the California Legislature has shifted power from coastal liberals to representatives whose districts are choked by freeways, rail yards and concrete riverbeds where residents bear the brunt of the pollution.
“They are living the impacts every time they go home,” said Jena Price, a partner at a consulting firm representing the California League of Conservation Voters.
Eduardo Garcia said he believes the conversation in the state mirrors talks at the international level: How do large developed parts of the world help developing areas where climate change is exacerbating poverty, inequality and migration patterns?
His inspiration came at the United Nations Climate Change Conference outside Paris, when Rendon, citing his temperament and work ethic, recommended to former Sen. Fran Pavley that she team up with him to work on Senate Bill 32. Pavley had carried Assembly Bill 32, establishing the nation’s first cap on greenhouse gases. Her follow-up SB 32 measure to extend the targets was scuttled by a moderate bloc of Assembly Democrats in 2015 over oil industry concerns.
In Paris, “you could just see his eyes were wide open. He was taking it all in,” recalled Pavley. To Eduardo Garcia, it was “not about polar bears, but people, and particularly people in his district.”
They returned the next year and helped pass SB 32 and a companion measure, Garcia’s Assembly Bill 197, boosting legislative oversight of the Air Resources Board and ensuring commissioners prioritize the most impacted and disadvantaged communities.
The bill “was a very important benchmark to hit for environmental justice communities that today are playing a much bigger role and stronger voice,” he said.
This year, Cristina Garcia set out to make her mark, introducing a cap-and-trade extension that paired renewal of the state’s carbon market with curbs on air pollution and potential limits on industrial facilities. Her effort died in the Assembly in June.
Protracted talks between Brown, industry and environmental groups later in the year culminated in the narrow passage of Eduardo Garcia’s cap-and-trade extension, AB 398, and Cristina Garcia’s AB 617 to reduce air pollution impacting disadvantaged communities.
Still, their legislative successes have been scrutinized by some environmental activists. Gladys Limón, executive director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, called Cristina Garcia’s bill “insufficient” to create real emission reductions locally and to justify the “regressive impacts” of Eduardo Garcia’s effort.
“These leaders generally have very strong environmental records and have been critical stewards in developing the state’s climate and energy policy,” Limón said in an interview. But “cap-and-trade is not a blueprint climate policy that we should be touting to other states, or internationally.”
Rendon said he understands the disappointment from some, but added the compromise package that passed with bipartisan support was “the best we were going to do.”
“We couldn’t have done any more,” he said.
Lara was in Paris nearly two years ago when he unveiled legislation to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, also known as “super-pollutants” because of their potent heat-trapping ability. He joined Brown this week in Germany to accept an award for California’s effort.
“We were able to quickly link the health of Californians with environmental policies for the first time,” he told climate scientists and public health officials from around the world. “It was important to bring that message home as we think globally, but act locally.”
He believes the word is getting out. On panels and in conversations in Bonn, he said attending scientists and policy experts fixated on California. Lawmakers from Massachusetts were asking about including transportation fuel suppliers into their cap-and-trade system.
Lara’s new proposal would reduce hydrofluorocarbons, used in such products as air conditioners and refrigerators, which disproportionately contribute to global warming. He said his ultimate goal is to change the conversation around climate change.
“There’s a discussion here about changing the metrics: Making it not just about temperature, but about how many lives we can save, how many tons of rice we can save in terms of agricultural land, how many homes can we save,” he said.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article184819973.html#emlnl=Alerts_Newsletter#storylink=cpy
Sexual Harassment Charges Continue to Roil Legislature
The California Senate, its process for addressing complaints against lawmakers under fire, announced that an outside legal firm will handle all investigations of sexual harassment in the house going forward, shifting some control away from a committee of senators who previously controlled the process.
The Senate Rules Committee said the changes were announced in light of allegations against Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, by two former female employees, which were first reported by The Sacramento Bee. One of the incidents, involving a 23-year-old Sacramento State fellow working in his Capitol office this year, raised questions about the way the Senate Rules Committee responded to allegations about Mendoza’s behavior.
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, under mounting pressure to take action, moved out of the house he shares with Mendoza in Natomas on Saturday, according to his press secretary Jonathan Underland. The Bee reported that the fellow told others Mendoza invited her to come to the home in August to go over resumes as she sought a permanent job in his office.
A spokesman for de León, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s 2018 re-election bid, said he was unaware of any allegations involving Mendoza until The Bee approached the pro tem’s office for comment a week ago.
His denial raised questions. Senate Secretary Daniel Alvarez told The Bee that the committee, which de León chairs, had been investigating Mendoza since Sept. 22.
“This State Senate is a sacred place of public service and it must also be a safe place for everyone who works here,” de León said in a statement with the announcement of the policy changes. “The people who work here and the public we serve must have complete confidence that no public official is above the law or our strict zero-tolerance harassment policies. Those who violate these policies will be held to account – swiftly and justly.”
The Senate will ask anyone coming forward to direct all sexual abuse, assault or harassment allegations and complaints to an outside law firm, according to the pro tem’s office. The outside firm “will investigate any and all allegations and make findings and recommendations to resolve and, where appropriate, discipline,” essentially replacing the prior role of the Senate Rules Committee in the investigation process.
“This process will be designed to protect the privacy of victims and whistleblowers, transparency for the public, and adequate due process for all parties involved,” said the Senate Rules Committee in a statement. “While – at the discretion of victims and whistleblowers – names and details might be redacted, the general findings will be made public.”
The Rules Committee will ultimately act on the recommendations for the final response, according to the pro tem’s office.
The Senate’s Rules Committee and Senate Democratic Women’s Caucus will work together to select legal counsel and investigators, the committee said.
The Capitol has been under intense scrutiny since hundreds of women lobbyists, publicists, lawmakers and legislative employees signed a “We Said Enough” letter calling out a Sacramento political culture they said allows rampant sexual harassment and leaves many women afraid to speak up about their experiences. In response to a public records request by The Bee, the Senate said it investigated 14 complaints of sexual harassment in the last decade.
The women offered suggestions to both houses of the Legislature to reform its harassment policies to ensure that women feel comfortable coming forward with complaints. The recommendations included a confidential hotline to report incidents, independent investigators to review and make determinations on claims, public disclosure of tax money spent on court fees and settlements and laws that protect Capitol workers from retaliation.
Unlike state employees, legislative workers have no civil service protection, and efforts to grant them more workplace rights repeatedly falter.
A bill to provide legislative employees with whistleblower protections for reporting misconduct has died in the Senate the last four years in a row. Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, has refused to discuss its repeated demise in his committee, and de León left an event at the Vatican last weekend without addressing questions about the measure.
Last month de León responded to the “We Said Enough” letter by hiring the Law Offices of Amy Oppenheimer, which specialize in investigations into workplace harassment, to launch a probe into incidents that emerged in the press in recent weeks. At the same time, the Senate said it also hired CPS HR Consulting to review its harassment, discrimination and retaliation polices and practices.
A coalition of women behind the letter criticized the Senate’s approach for not going far enough and lacking transparency regarding how the findings would be publicly reported, among other concerns.
Sources allege that Mendoza invited a fellow over to his house on at least two occasions to go over her resume and suggested she stay in his hotel room before an early morning fundraiser this year. The Senate fired three employees who knew about the situation, and sources said at least two had reported that Mendoza engaged in inappropriate behavior. The Senate denied any connection between the firings and the complaints.
Another woman, Jennifer Kwart, said Mendoza’s office invited her to attend the California Democratic Party convention in San Jose in 2008. She was 19 and interning in the then-assemblyman’s Norwalk office.
Kwart assumed other employees were attending, but arrived to Mendoza picking her up alone from the airport and driving her back to a hotel suite. He suggested they drink from the mini-bar in the suite and asked her personal questions about her dating habits, she said. Feeling uncomfortable, she said, she pretended her grandfather suffered a stroke and left the convention early.
At least two of the 118 other lawmakers currently serving in the California Legislature have spoken out against Mendoza.
Kwart, now 28, works for Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco. Chiu posted a statement on Facebook Saturday night standing up for Kwart and calling her a “professional of utmost integrity.”
“Coupled with recent allegations and continued denials, I have serious doubts about whether the Senator should continue to serve in public office,” Chiu wrote.
Chiu follows Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, who said she would no longer work with Mendoza.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article184293838.html#storylink=cpy
State Budget Season Begins With Good News
The Legislative Analyst’s Office kicked off the annual budget season by releasing its near-term State financial outlook, which is positive:
“Under our current estimates, the state would have $19.3 billion in total reserves (including $7.5 billion in discretionary reserves) at the end of 2018-19, assuming the Legislature makes no additional budget commitments. The Legislature can use discretionary resources to build more budget reserves, increase spending, and/or reduce taxes. We also estimate the Legislature will have $5.3 billion in uncommitted school and community college (Proposition 98) funds to allocate in 2018-19. We provide more detail on our estimates of Proposition 98 funding in a separate report accompanying this outlook.
“The state has made significant progress in preparing for the next recession. To assess the longer-term budget outlook, we present two illustrative economic scenarios for fiscal years after 2018-19. Under a moderate recession scenario, the state has enough reserves to cover its deficits until 2021-22, assuming the Legislature makes no additional budget commitments. Additional budget commitments in the near term could cause the state to exhaust its reserves earlier in the next recession.”
http://lao.ca.gov/Budget?year=2018&subjectArea=outlook&utm_source=laowww&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fiscal-outlook-collection
California Goes to Pot: Cannabis Business Rules Released
There will be no cannabis cappuccinos or drone deliveries in California under the new pot rules state officials released Thursday that regulate everything from who can legally sell and deliver marijuana to how it must be packaged and transported.
The rules released by three licensing agencies — the Department of Health, Department of Food and Agriculture and the Bureau of Cannabis Control — offer the first glimpse of the future in which pot is legal throughout California.
Big farms will continue to thrive in Mendocino and Monterey. Small delivery services will finally operate legally. Pot won’t be transported in self-driving cars or on bicycles, and it isn’t allowed in strip clubs.
Those guidelines come amid confusion among cities that haven’t put together their own regulations for the sale of recreational marijuana, which will be legal Jan. 1.
California’s regulations dealt a win to cannabis-delivery businesses, which for years have operated in the shadows. They will now be allowed to apply for licenses once the new rules take effect next month.
Edible cannabis products can contain only 100 milligrams of euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol — commonly known as THC — in each 10-serving package under the new rules. Other products, such as lotions and tinctures, are limited to 2,000 milligrams of THC in the medicinal market, or 1,000 milligrams for regular adult use.
That means some popular but extremely potent items, like the Black Bar brownie by Korova Edibles — which has 1,000 mg of THC — will be illegal.
Cannabis labels can’t be decorated with cartoons or other marketing that appeals to children. Manufacturers also can’t use the term “candy” in any of their branding language. The new regulations also prohibit businesses from mixing cannabis with alcohol, nicotine, caffeine or seafood.
That provision won’t affect brews like SuperCritical Ale, a new cannabis beer by Lagunitas Brewing Co. in Petaluma. It’s made with terpenes — plant-oil compounds — which have a strong flavor but contain no THC.
The state also clamped down on the aesthetics of cannabis products, which “cannot be (made) in the shape of a human being, animal, insect or fruit,” Miren Klein of the Department of Public Health said at a Cannabis Advisory Committee meeting in Sacramento on Thursday.
The rules didn’t include size restrictions for marijuana farms and nurseries — a notable shift from the one-acre cap that the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture had proposed in an environmental impact report published Monday.
The idea of limiting cannabis agriculture to one-acre plots had become a major point of debate in the industry. It would have benefited small businesses and blocked corporations from setting up huge farms or greenhouses in the Salinas Valley.
But now that the cap has been tossed, California has set the stage for marijuana to be the next major industrial crop.
Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, called the decision “a catastrophe.”
“Simply put, there will be too much supply,” he said, noting that federal law still prohibits interstate shipment of controlled substances — and reports from the Department of Food and Agriculture show that the state already produces far more marijuana than it consumes.
Even so, the state has set up a sliding-scale fee system so that large companies pay much more for licenses than their mom-and-pop counterparts. The biggest distributors — companies that expect to earn more than $80 million in gross revenue — will pay $125,000 annually.
Though California’s rural areas may soon be exploding with marijuana, San Francisco and other Bay Area cities appear to be lagging behind. Dispensaries in those cities won’t immediately enter the adult-use market, since the state will only issue licenses to businesses that have local permits.
However, regulators offered some flexibility for the first four months, allowing any licensed farm or nursery to sell cannabis products to any licensed dispensary, regardless of whether the licenses are classified as medicinal or recreational.
That added grace period will help jump-start the market, even though few recreational permits have been issued throughout the state.
The extension is “very necessary,” said industry consultant Sean Donahoe, who was watching a livestream of the meeting from the top floor of the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, where thousands of industry bigwigs gathered this week.
“Regrettably, most localities have not moved forward with adult-use licensing,” Donahoe said. “They’re apprehensive. They fear a rush of new business.”
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/California-s-releases-long-awaited-cannabis-12363619.php
Golden State’s Golden Years; Big Jump Ahead in >60 Years Old
In a state known for youth, a recently released report unmasks the face of California and reveals we’re getting more wrinkled by the minute.
The number of people age 60 and older will jump 40 percent by 2030, says the federally mandated California State Plan on Aging.
Within the next 13 years, the number of people 85 and over will soar by 37 percent and hit the 1 million mark.
Forget the Golden State moniker. Call it the state of Golden Years.
By the end of the next decade, according to the new study, there will be 11.1 million Californians age 60 or older. In three decades, that number will skyrocket to 14 million.
And this aging boom — a result of both a glut of aging baby boomers and the trend of people living longer — figures to touch everything from health care to fashion to food.
“The impact of an aging population, described by some as an age wave, and others as an aging tsunami,” says the report, “will be felt in every aspect of society.”
Making matters worse, the state must cope with the triple threat of reduced federal funds for seniors, higher costs of living and more people living on fixed incomes.
The report highlights some potentially expensive statistics: “Approximately 92 percent of older adults have at least one chronic condition and 77 percent have at least two.”
Currently, two-thirds of the state’s older population is concentrated in either the San Francisco Bay or Los Angeles areas. But in the next decade, experts predict, that concentration will spread to Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Along with health care, many aging adults will struggle with other basic necessities such as shelter, transportation, utilities.
The report suggests that’s already happening: “Twenty-six percent of the seniors face a housing cost burden (and) spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing expenses.”
Additionally, the report notes, many non-English speakers — Latinos and Asians in particular — currently require assistance in their native languages.
Los Angeles ranks near the top, statewide, with about 48 percent of seniors who speak little or no English, according to the report. That’s true of about 25 percent of the aging residents in Orange County, while the rates dip to between 13 and 22 percent in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Yet the biggest challenge for our already strained health care system will be caring for an increasingly large percentage of people who live beyond age 85.
That’s an age when health issues — and related expenses — kick in in a big way, the report notes.
And that’s coming, too. In Los Angeles and Orange counties, the number of the super-aged, 85-and-older residents will grow by roughly 70 to 75 percent over the next three decades. In Riverside and San Bernardino, the super-aged population will more than double.
The statistics are enough to give you worry lines. Yet there are no simple face cream fixes for our aging population.
Family, friendship and funding, however, could make a difference.
Report:
https://www.aging.ca.gov/Docs/About_CDA/California_State_Plan.pdf
Winter Looks Like a Re-Run, Forecasters Predict
La Niña has officially arrived, with mixed messages for California.
If the weather phenomenon behaves as expected, the Pacific Northwest and far Northern California will enjoy a wetter than normal winter, while the southern swath of the state will remain dry.
Federal climate scientists on Thursday declared La Niña conditions, saying they lacked strength and would probably last only a few months.
“The weak La Niña is likely to contribute to persisting or developing drought across much of the southern U.S. this winter,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Characterized by a cooling of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, La Niña triggers atmospheric changes that generally favor below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures in the country’s southern band. That is bad news for the Southland, which missed out on last winter’s El Niño rains that eased the drought in much of California.
On the bright side, NOAA’s La Niña map shows the area of above-average precipitation reaching down into far Northern California, into watersheds that feed the state’s largest reservoirs.
And the rainy season has gotten off to a good start in the northern Sierra Nevada, where precipitation is 250% of average for the date. In the Central Sierra, it is 180% of the norm.
Last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that a rainy October in Northern California had lifted about a quarter of the state out of drought conditions, the best picture since the spring of 2013. Still, much of Central and Southern California remains locked in what the drought monitor called “exceptional or extreme drought.”
La Niña has developed on the heels of one of the strongest El Niños on record, which helped recharge California’s dangerously low reservoirs but failed to live up to predictions of blockbuster storms.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-la-nina-20161110-story.html
and
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
Key San Joaquin Valley Water Dispute Lingers in Congress
Lawmakers finished resolving the differences between the House and Senate versions of the military bill, legislation that addresses troop numbers and overseas operations, on Wednesday. They considered — but ultimately dropped — a rider, the San Luis Unit Drainage Resolution Act, that would have confirmed a 2015 settlement transferring federal responsibility for dealing with contaminated water in California’s Westlands Water District to the district.
Under the settlement, Westlands, the largest supplier of agricultural water in the U.S., would take on preventing or treating the contaminated runoff, as well as legal liability for lands damaged by excess drain water. In exchange, the federal government would forgive $375 million in debt. But the agreement, which requires congressional approval, is now in limbo — another example of the often-convoluted nature of Western water policy.
In parts of the San Joaquin Valley, irrigation water, trapped by a layer of impermeable clay, accumulates in soil instead of draining deeper into the ground. That can smother crop roots; excess dissolved salts in the water can also damage plants. To remove the water, in 1968 the federal government began building a drain emptying into Kesterson Reservoir, about 50 miles east of San Jose. Then, in the early 1980s, hundreds of ducks and other waterfowl died at Kesterson; many bird embryos showed severe abnormalities, including missing eyes and beaks. The culprit was selenium — a naturally occurring mineral that became concentrated to lethal levels through evaporation on fields, then washed into the reservoir with the farm runoff.
“We know exactly what improper storage, conveyance and disposal of these contaminated drainage waters does to the environment,” says Noah Oppenheim, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “We saw it in Kesterson, and we don’t want to see it again.” Because the environmental stakes are so high, Oppenheim’s organization is wary of the settlement’s stipulation that the water district manage drainage cleanup. “We don’t think that Westlands is going to have fish and the environment top of mind when they implement their plans,” he says.
But Johnny Amaral, Westlands’ deputy general manager for external affairs, points out that it was a federal plan that caused the disaster at Kesterson. “The government has failed miserably,” he says. “And when it comes to managing the water resource, we’re experts at it.”
In fact, Westlands has already put a dent in the drainage problem. Nearly all of the irrigated land in the district is watered by efficient methods like sprinklers or drip irrigation, reducing runoff. Westlands has also purchased or otherwise permanently retired about 40,000 acres of farmland, and another 50,000 or so acres could be farmed in ways that don’t require irrigation. The settlement would continue that progress by requiring that Westlands dry up at least 10,000 additional acres. Amaral says the district may choose to retire even more; federal management would have required that nearly 200,000 acres be retired from irrigation.
Under the settlement, the Interior Department would oversee Westlands’ drainage management. If the district falls short, “they have the ultimate hammer,” Amaral says. “They can cut off our water supply.” But critics of the settlement say it should include more oversight and monitoring — and that cutting off all water deliveries to the district is such an extreme remedy that the federal government would be loath to do it under almost any circumstances.
The settlement would also alter Westlands’ contract for water deliveries from the Central Valley Project, one of California’s major water delivery systems. It would make the district’s contract — currently renewed every two years — permanent. It would also cut Westlands’ allocation by 25 percent.
But the Hoopa Valley Tribe, along with many environmental groups, sees the settlement as another chapter in a decades-long history of southern California water districts fighting for control of rivers in the north. They say Westlands is making a small sacrifice in return for secure, long-term access to water from the Trinity River, which winds through the Hoopa Reservation, and other rivers. “It is very apparent to me that there’s a major shift in wealth because of the value of this water,” says Mike Orcutt, the tribe’s fisheries director.
While the settlement was dropped from this week’s must-pass military legislation, Westlands is still hoping for congressional confirmation. And a deadline is looming: The agreement expires on Jan. 15, although that cutoff has been extended before. “It’s a problem that just needs to be resolved,” Amaral says. “Whether it’s the National Defense Authorization Act or any other vehicle moving through Congress, we think it’s the right thing and it’s the responsible thing to push this thing through and to try to get it done.”
http://www.hcn.org/articles/water-california-westlands-water-settlement-in-limbo