IN THIS ISSUE – “It’s A Strange Election for California”

PRE- & POST-ELECTION

RESOURCES

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week, tailored to your business and advocacy interests.  Please feel free to forward.

Stay current daily!  For our focused updates via Twitter: @jrgualco / @robertjgore / @gualcogroup

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FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOV. 4, 2018

 

State Races, Both Boring & Intriguing

It’s a strange election for state offices. The race for governor is a boring jog. The most intriguing contests are for relatively obscure posts.

State insurance commissioner, state superintendent of public instruction and lieutenant governor — those races are much more interesting than the pillow fight for governor.

So are some of the ballot propositions — particularly measures to repeal a gas tax increase, greatly expand rent control and provide residential property tax breaks for seniors.

None of these contests has been drawing nearly as much interest as brawls in previous state elections, for two principal reasons:

One, all eyes and ears have been on President Trump. He’s not on the ballot, but he’s up front in every voter’s mind.

Two, the Republican Party has virtually collapsed in California and isn’t producing competitive statewide candidates. The GOP bench is practically bare.

It’s the opposite with Democrats, whose bench is overflowing with ambitious, frustrated wannabes.

The GOP is now No. 3 in voter registration (24.5%) behind “no party preference,” or “independents,” (26.8%) and Democrats (43.8%). In the last 20 years, Republican registration has fallen by 11 percentage points while independents have soared by 14. Democrats have dropped by 3 points, but are helped by independents leaning left.

There are two reasons why the California GOP has practically cratered: One, it dug a hole on illegal immigration and social issues and didn’t follow voters as they turned left. Two, the electorate has become increasingly diverse. Latinos and Asian Americans — many from immigrant families — are siding with Democrats.

This lopsided voter mix has led to one-party rule in Sacramento. And that isn’t expected to change on election day.

The best the GOP can reasonably hope for is to keep Democrats from gaining supermajorities in both legislative houses. To obtain a two-thirds vote, enough to pass tax hikes without Republican help, Democrats need 54 seats in the Assembly and 27 in the Senate. Going into the election, they have 55 and 26, respectively.

No Republican has won a statewide office since 2006. None is expected to this time either.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, 51, is a heavy favorite to be elected governor, one of the most powerful public offices in America and a potential springboard to the White House.

Newsom may be more liberal than termed-out Gov. Jerry Brown. But he also might be more cautious on mega projects such as the bullet train and delta water tunnels. He’s talking about scaling back both.

Newsom held a comfortable lead — 49% to 38% — over Republican businessman John Cox, 63, in the latest poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. One cautionary note for the Democratic front-runner: Independents favored the Republican by five points.

A more intriguing race is for insurance commissioner because one candidate is showing Republicans how they might win a statewide office. Career-long Republican Steve Poizner reregistered “no party preference.”

“There’s no room in this job for a partisan politician,” Poizner said. In this polarized climate, there wasn’t going to be room for a Republican either.

“He knew if he had that scarlet letter ‘R’ after his name in California he was going to lose,” Democratic strategist Garry South says.

Poizner, 61, was elected insurance commissioner as a Republican in 2006 after making a fortune as a Silicon Valley high-tech entrepreneur. He gave up the office to run for governor in 2010 and was trounced in the primary by Meg Whitman.

His Democratic opponent is state Sen. Ricardo Lara, 43, of Bell Gardens, one of the Legislature’s more liberal members. He co-authored a bill last year to create a state single-payer, universal healthcare plan that would have cost around $400 billion annually It passed the Senate and was shelved in the Assembly.

Lara also has been a strong advocate for immigrants living here illegally.

He would be the first statewide office-holder to come out as gay.

Poizner is the first independent to run statewide in a general election. It’s assumed he can draw independent votes. But political pros are eager to learn whether he can also attract Republicans. Will they vote for a candidate outside their party? How about moderate Democrats?

“If Poizner wins, that becomes the new benchmark,” Republican consultant Rob Stutzman says. “It’ll mean Republicans don’t run anymore for statewide office as Republicans if they’re serious.”

In the contest for superintendent of public instruction, there’s a fierce fight between teachers unions and charter schools.

The office is officially nonpartisan, but both contenders are Democrats.

Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, 50, of Richmond is the unions’ candidate. Education consultant Marshall Tuck, 45, is backed by charter school advocates. He previously managed turnaround efforts at some low-performing Los Angeles schools.

It’s a big bucks contest. There could be total campaign spending of around $50 million.

For teachers unions, the proliferation of nonunion charter schools is a threat. They want more state control over these schools and Thurmond agrees. Tuck advocates paying higher salaries to teachers in troubled schools, and the unions object to that special treatment.

Tuck narrowly lost to incumbent Tom Torlakson, the unions’ candidate, in 2014. A Tuck victory this time would be felt in the education world as a moderate earthquake.

The candidates for lieutenant governor have distinctly different résumés.

State Sen. Ed Hernandez, 61, an Azusa optometrist, has been a legislator for 12 years and pushed through important bills on healthcare.

Eleni Kounalakis, 52, is a Sacramento land developer and former U.S. ambassador to Hungary. She’s a longtime Democratic activist and heavy contributor to party candidates.

Both are policy wonks competing for a job with little power — but offering a convenient stepping stone to higher office.

California voters are riled up over Trump, but don’t seem to be in a rebellious mood about the state. A recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found that 53% think California is going in the right direction, while 47% believe it’s on the wrong track.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-voter-guide-20181030-story.html

 

For Congress, California Holds the Keys to the Speaker’s Office

California — big, bounteous, beautiful — is pretty much used to irrelevancy come election day.

Sure, the state has produced many leaders of national import and helped countless more finance their political pursuits. But it’s been two decades since California was a presidential battleground, and longer still since the state played a meaningful role choosing a major party presidential nominee.

Successive congressional wave elections have come and passed, cresting without ever breaching the Sierra Nevada.

This year is different.

Unaccustomed as it may be, California stands at the center of the fight for control of the House, with at least half a dozen seats up for grabs, or more than a quarter of the 23 that Democrats need to seize the majority. A handful more could tip the party’s way if Nov. 6 produces a blue tsunami.

History favors the Democrats. With rare exception, the party holding the presidency loses House seats at the midpoint of a president’s first term. The current occupant could, of course, defy expectations; Donald Trump wouldn’t be in the Oval Office if he hadn’t managed to upend a number of political verities.

Trump won the White House while buried in a California landslide — no surprise there — and six of the seven congressional districts he lost to Hillary Clinton are key to Democrats’ hopes of taking over the House, which they last controlled in 2010. (The seventh, the mostly rural Central Valley district represented by three-term GOP incumbent and perennial target David Valadao, seems like a considerably further reach.)

Midterm elections are typically a referendum on the nation’s chief executive, and that dynamic has not helped Republicans in California, where the president remains deeply unpopular. Call it the Trump undertow.

Embattled GOP Reps. Mimi Walters in Orange County and Jeff Denham in the San Joaquin Valley would probably be headed to relatively easy reelection if the president hadn’t stirred such an outpouring of Democratic antipathy. Republicans would also be much better positioned to hang on to the northern Orange County seat of Rep. Ed Royce, who is retiring after more than 20 years in office.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who hasn’t faced much of a threat since his first election during the Reagan era, might not have his back to the wall in coastal Orange County but for his cozy relationship with Russia, which interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump.

Setting the president aside, the competition also reflects political and demographic changes that have transformed California.

The state’s burgeoning Latino population has grown more politically active and pro-Democratic in response to the belligerent tone sounded by many Republicans. The GOP’s embrace of religious conservatism also pushed many live-and-let-live Californians away from the party.

That helped turn Orange County, a onetime Republican bastion, into a congressional battleground, along with the high desert outside Los Angeles, where two-term GOP incumbent Steve Knight is fighting for reelection, and northern San Diego County, where Republicans are struggling to hold the seat being vacated by Rep. Darrell Issa after nine terms.

But none of that would matter as much if California voters hadn’t taken matters into their own hands.

For decades, lawmakers drew the state’s political boundaries, using those powers to benefit incumbent lawmakers by all but eradicating serious competition. Between 2002 and 2010, only a single California House seat changed parties despite three national wave elections.

Fed up, voters turned the line drawing after the last census over to a nonpartisan, independent commission that ended the congressional free ride.

The result is something many living here have never seen: an election in which the rest of the country will stay up late, watching to see what happens when the final polls close in California.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-midterm-california-house-races-20181029-story.html

 

Election 2018 Forecasting: Data Expert Gives You Access to “Analytical Landmines”

Literally minutes after Donald Trump’s election in 2016, political pundits, consultants and prospective candidates started a march toward the mid-term elections.

The expectations were set extremely high, with Democratic hopes of taking back the House of Representatives led, in part, by a huge gain in the limited number of remaining Republican-held congressional seats in California.

Yet today, less than a week out from election day, we are still unsure what will happen here in California or nationally.

The polling and fundraising figures in the last several weeks have strongly reinforced this idea that we are in the middle of a big Democratic year.

The New York Times Upshot poll concluded in the 45thCongressional District that first-time candidate Katie Porter (D) is set to defeat incumbent Mimi Walters (R) in nearly every turnout scenario – from low turnout to absolutely every voter in the district casting a ballot.

We have also seen fundraising figures that are tenfold above what has been raised previously for Democrats in these districts.  In total, the 10 most heavily targeted seats have seen $65 million in fundraising for Democrats, compared to under $35 million for Republicans.

While we have these strong indicators, others in campaigns throughout California are looking at a new set of data – the state’s relatively large early absentee vote – and doing a little second-guessing.

You can track the returns yourself, using this public tracker from Political Data for Legislative and Congressional districts. To look at local breakdowns at the city council, school board, county or statewide level, click here.

While the tracker is informative, there are good reasons that viewers of this data should take it with a grain of salt and not fall into the trap of over-analyzing it.

First, the 2018 general election is the largest by-mail voting election California has ever seen.  Nearly 13 million voters have received a ballot in the mail, compared to just 9 million in the last gubernatorial election in 2014.

This increase in the number of ballots sent to voters primarily reflects young, Latino and independent voters. In 2014, 2.7 million voters aged 18-to-39 received a ballot in the mail. In 2018, this number increased to 4.6 million.  There were a million more ballots sent to Latinos and 1.5 million more sent to no-party-preference voters.

Because the by-mail voter population has changed so dramatically, a comparison with 2014 numbers may not be as informative as we’d like.

Secondly, much of what it is being measured involves the mechanics of the elections.

For example, let’s say that in the first week of voting one county loses the staff person who processes ballots, while another county has a new team in place devoted to speedily getting this data processed.

One might quickly jump to the conclusion based on the early processed returns that voters in one county are motivated, while those in the other they aren’t. This kind of analysis would be measuring mechanics of processing ballots and misinterpret it as enthusiasm.

And this year in California the mechanics are actually much larger than this example.

In California, we have five counties that have converted to all-mail elections, with voting centers instead of traditional precincts.  This means that a lot of voters are being pushed into voting by mail for the first time.

Another forceful argument came from Nate Silver on the FiveThirtyEight elections podcast, in which he argued strongly that the early vote is a kind of fool’s gold, and that it isn’t “new” data since the pollsters are already accounting for it.

His colleague Nathaniel Rakich makes a similar refrain on twitter, stating “Sigh. I guess everyone is going to overreact to early-voting numbers again. Here are all the ways that can go wrong.”  Even the New York Times’ Nate Cohn last night got in on the act, announcing the CA 45 polling results with his own twitter stream on the early vote.

All three Nathans are right.

One function of this data is to help the state’s best pollsters understand the vote that is coming in, and this is clearly reflected in their polling. This data is not independent of the other survey work that is being done to interpret where our elections are headed. It’s part of the larger whole.

When you see the statewide poll from Mark DiCamillo’s team at UC Berkeley, for example, you will find that a portion of the voters have been matched to this “already voted” set of data and are appropriately accounted for in their surveys.

So it wouldn’t be appropriate to then go back and say, “Republicans are voting two points higher than last cycle, so let’s take the UC Berkeley poll and adjust it two points more Republican.”

Finally, there is the very Halloween-appropriate term that experts use called “voter cannibalization,” in which you see a high turnout in early vote and conclude, wrongly, that there is a trend. Actually, it’s just the early voters cannibalizing the poll vote and giving a misleading turnout picture.

There was a great example of this in Texas last year when the early vote showed incredibly high Democratic turnout.

But in the weeks after the election, it was determined that the final overall turnout wasn’t nearly as high as the early data was suggesting. There was an increase, to be sure, but there were also just a lot of would-be poll voters casting their ballots early.

Despite all these caveats, and there are many, the early data is useful for testing the early expectations, getting an early read on which parts of the state appear motivated and to see how age, gender, party and ethnic subgroups are performing in what potentially is an historic election.

While tracking back to the 2014 cycle might have a lot of analytical landmines, we can reduce the error associated with the changing rates of absentee voting by also making comparisons to the June 2018 primary and even the 2016 general (albeit that was a presidential election).

Looking at those elections for comparison, we see a week out from election cay that turnout is up 80% among these early voters compared to the primary, which had 37% total turnout.

However, compared to this point in the 2016 general, turnout is actually down 23%.  In a way, this is typical of a gubernatorial election cycle which is usually around 55-to-60% turnout, compared to primary elections at around 35% turnout, and presidential elections in the mid- to high-70% range.

Looking at it through a different lens, one-in-five absentee voters have returned their ballots so far, compared to one-in-eight who had done so at this point before the primary – a significant increase.  But it isn’t greater than the one-in-four range we saw at this point before the 2016 general.

Based on the same one-week pre-election window, this increase is greatest in the competitive congressional districts, particularly those in Orange County.

And more:

http://capitolweekly.net/close-look-california-early-vote/

 

Oil Industry Invests in Mods

The California Democratic Party no longer accepts donations from the oil industry, viewing that as politically unsavory for a party pushing to curb climate change. But that hasn’t stopped oil companies from spending millions to help California Democrats win on Tuesday.

Instead of giving money to the party, oil companies are donating directly to Democratic candidates and pouring huge sums into outside groups that campaign for a mix of Democrats and Republicans.

The petroleum industry has put $19.2 million into California politics in the 2017-18 election cycle, according to a CALmatters analysis of campaign finance data. Much of it is helping Republicans, including $2 million to the California Republican Party and a portion of the roughly $14 million the industry has put into independent committees supporting some politicians from both parties.

But the oil money helping California Democrats is significant. It includes:

  • More than $853,000 in direct contributions to 47 Democrats running for Assembly and Senate—including powerful leaders of both houses of the Legislature—and to the campaigns of Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra and to Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Ed Hernandez.
  • More than $2.8 million on an independent campaign to help Democrat Susan Rubio win a Los Angeles-area state Senate seat
  • More than $343,000 on an independent campaign supporting the re-election of Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas of Bakersfield
  • Nearly $160,000 to a committee that campaigns for business-friendly Democrats

In addition, oil companies and other business interests are pooling funds on campaigns supporting other Democrats running for the Legislature: Tasha Boerner-Horvath of Encinitas, Sabrina Cervantes of Riverside, James Ramos of San Bernardino, Bob Archuleta of Pico Rivera, Vanessa Delgado of Montebello, Freddie Rodriguez of Pomona and Sydney Kamlager of Los Angeles.

It’s all part of a broader push by business interests in recent years to shape the type of Democrats who hold power in the state Capitol. As the Republican Party has diminished in California and progressive activists nudge the Democratic Party leftward, big business has helped foster a cadre of more conservative Democrats in the Legislature. This “mod squad” amounts to a bloc that can kill or water-down environmental legislation.

“For years I would have to convince the business community every election cycle that a moderate Democrat is good for them. Not as great as a Republican who would do everything they tell them to, but better than a liberal Democrat,” said David Townsend, a political consultant who runs a business-backed political action committee that works to elect Democrats.

“I don’t have to make that argument anymore. It’s patently clear,” he said. “Now it’s a question of who is a mod and how much can (business) help?”

Chevron, Valero and Phillips 66 are among the businesses working to elect Democrats through Townsend’s PAC and others like it. The companies are members of the Western States Petroleum Association, which doesn’t give political donations but lobbies in Sacramento.

“We’re focused on bringing the conversation around energy back to the middle and away from the polarized extremes,” Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the petroleum association, said in a statement.

But many environmentalists see this kind of centrism as anathema to Democratic party principles. The California Democratic Party’s platform calls for a moratorium on fracking and a new tax on fossil fuel extraction—ideas that have failed in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

“Our fear is that if oil companies are pouring money into candidates even before they’re elected, if they are elected, what will be their moral compass when there are issues with the refineries or natural gas power plants?” said Diana Vazquez, a policy manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance.

The group ranks legislators every year on their environmental records. One of the low-scoring Democrats this year is Salas, the Bakersfield assemblyman benefitting from big spending by the oil industry, a major employer in his oil-rich region.

The environmental group gave an even lower score to Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio—the sister of Susan Rubio, who is running for state Senate with more than $2.8 million in support from petroleum. Environmentalists are supporting her Democratic opponent, Mike Eng.

Susan Rubio’s spokesman touted her work on parks funding and other environmental issues as a Baldwin Park council member, and said her sister’s track record doesn’t indicate how she’ll vote.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said that despite campaign support from Big Oil, Democrats have passed environmental measures that oil companies opposed—including legislation to curb offshore drilling and expand renewable energy.

“Does it influence individual members? I’m not sure,” Rendon said. “But as a body, I think we have a good record of standing up to oil.”

Yet Big Oil’s influence in the state Capitol is why the chair of the California Democratic Party’s environmental caucus pushed the party to ban oil company money at the end of 2016.  (The Democratic National Committee followed suit earlier this year but, facing blowback from labor unions that rely on oil industry jobs, quickly reversed course and overturned the ban.)

R.L. Miller, the party’s state environmental caucus chair, said she’s not surprised the petroleum industry has found other channels for spending on California Democrats this year.

“I’ve always known that it would be a long road,” she said. “Getting the party not to take the money is a step, but the end goal here is to remove their influence in Democratic politics.”

https://calmatters.org/articles/blog/california-democrats-big-oil-money/

 

Counties Welcome New Governor; Seek More Money for Healthcare, Felon Rehab, Housing, Education…

When California became the 31st state in 1850, the Legislature quickly created 27 counties to provide basic local services, such as roads, sheriffs and courts, to a sparse, mostly rural population.

Over the next 57 years, as California’s population grew, the Legislature carved up the original 27, some of them quite immense, to form 31 more counties.

Mariposa County, which had originally covered a sixth of the state, eventually became all or part of 12 new counties, but the formation of new counties stopped in 1907 when Imperial County was sliced off San Diego County.

Counties’ primary role as local service providers continued until the latter half of the 20th century, when they evolved, not always willingly, into managers of an ever-expanding array of health care and social services created by state and federal governments.

This bifurcated role created obvious conflicts. Local services, such as parks and police and fire protection, were priorities of local voters, but mandates from Washington and Sacramento took budgetary precedence.

The conflicts could be papered over as long as counties controlled revenues via property tax rates, but when Proposition 13, which limited property taxes, was enacted in 1978, their dual role became acutely difficult.

County and state officials have staged a slow-motion wrestling match over finances ever since, with occasional periods of open warfare and others of relative comity. One major blowup occurred in the early 1990s when a severe recession hammered the state budget and then-Gov. Pete Wilson and legislators reacted by stealing, in effect, property taxes from local governments and giving them to the schools, thereby reducing the state’s education aid.

Since then, there have been several “realignments,” a wonky term referring to deals under which the state shifted some programmatic duties to counties, with a shift of tax money to pay for them, and/or relieved counties of some financial burdens.

The most notable example of the latter was the state’s assumption, a couple of decades ago, of the court system’s costs. The last big realignment came early in Gov. Jerry Brown’s current governorship when he and the  Legislature, under pressure from the federal courts to reduce prison overcrowding, redirected new felons into county jails and local probation, along with money to pay for the new burdens.

How have these realignments worked out?

A new report from the Legislature’s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, cites continuing problems in the state-county relationship, focusing on the original 1991 realignment and its successors.

“Due to the various changes to 1991 realignment programs without corresponding changes to the funding structure, 1991 realignment today no longer meets many of the core principles of a successful state‑county fiscal partnership,” the report concludes.

Another indication of a troubled relationship is found in a new report from State Auditor Elaine Howle about $4 billion in “questionable” payments for medical services to the poor over four years because the state failed to resolve “discrepancies between the state and county Medi-Cal eligibility systems.”

Wonky though they may be, county-state relations affect millions of Californians from poor welfare and Medi-Cal recipients, the latter a third of the state’s population, to those facing felony criminal charges, not to mention taxpayers.

Thus, the jousting between state and counties could flare up again after Brown departs from the Capitol in January.

https://calmatters.org/articles/commentary/state-county-conflict-could-flare-up-again-soon/

 

SF Mayor Opposes State River Flow Restrictions; Rebukes Board of Supervisors

San Francisco Mayor London Breed broke her silence on California’s latest water war Friday, saying she wouldn’t support a state river restoration plan that would mean giving up some of the city’s pristine Hetch Hetchy water.

In addition to her unexpected announcement, Breed vetoed a resolution passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors earlier this week that offered the city’s blessing for the little-known, but far-reaching state initiative.

The city’s now-conflicting positions on the matter, which are unlikely to be resolved before the State Water Board takes up its plan to protect degraded rivers and threatened salmon, underscores the emerging divide at City Hall over how much environmental concerns should interfere with Bay Area water supplies.

The Bay-Delta Plan calls for limiting the draws of cities and farms from California’s waterways to prevent what the state sees as an impending collapse of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The estuary is the hub of the state’s river flows and an ecological hot spot. The State Water Resources Control Board is scheduled to vote on the plan Wednesday.

“We all want the same outcome for the Bay-Delta — a healthy ecosystem that both supports fish and wildlife and provides reliable water delivery,” Breed said in a statement. But “it is deeply irresponsible for San Francisco to take a position that would jeopardize our water supply.”

Supervisor Aaron Peskin authored the now-vetoed resolution in support of the Bay-Delta Plan amid worries by environmental groups that the city’s Water Department was impeding efforts to revive California’s river system.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has aligned with Central Valley farm groups and their allies in the Trump administration to create a powerful bloc in opposition to the plan.

While state leaders, environmentalists and fishing groups contend that cities and farms need to make sacrifices to save California’s rivers, opponents of the restoration effort say the proposal by the State Water Resources Control Board goes too far.

The SFPUC, which relies on the Tuolumne River high in the mountains of Yosemite National Park for most of its water, claims that the Bay-Delta Plan would necessitate water rationing of up to 40 percent during dry spells. Officials also expect higher rates for customers as the agency invests money into developing new water sources, like desalination.

The impacts would go beyond the city to the more than two dozen Bay Area communities that buy their water from San Francisco, officials say.

On Thursday, SFPUC General Manager Harlan Kelly wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors, calling the board’s resolution “counterproductive” to efforts by his agency to protect city water in closed-door talks with the state.

Breed agreed with Kelly, saying the Public Utilities Commission should not be handicapped by environmental concerns.

“We must keep every alternative available, including legal options to protect the city’s interests in the event that the negotiations fail,” she said in her statement.

Several supervisors said Friday that they were reconsidering their position on this week’s resolution after hearing from the Public Utilities Commission.

Peskin, however, remained convinced that supporting the state’s restoration effort was the right thing to do.

“Frankly, vetoing this resolution just makes San Francisco look like its house is not in order and, quite frankly, makes the city look a little goofy,” he said. “Besides, I think we’ve already sent our message to the State Water Board.”

San Francisco’s position on the Bay-Delta Plan has been watched closely by those on all sides of the debate, but it’s likely to play a limited role in the state’s final decision.

While State Water Board officials have said they would like to have city support for their plan and they continue to work behind the scenes to get it, they also have said they intend to take action next week.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/SF-Mayor-Breed-vetoes-supes-resolution-that-13359441.php?utm_campaign=email-premium&utm_source=CMS%20Sharing%20Button&utm_medium=social

 

Wildfires Not at Records Levels, New Study Finds

Wildfires tearing through the Western U.S. in recent years have burned whole communities to the ground, claimed countless lives and busted government firefighting budgets.

The destruction looks and feels unprecedented — and compared to the last several decades, today’s fires are extremely destructive and expansive, according to satellite data and other measures cited by Utah State University researchers.

But in a new study published by the American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future, those researchers argue that Western blazes today (even if they’re bigger than in the 1980s) are still consuming “a small fraction” of the land fires consumed before European settlers arrived en masse in the West.

Researchers compiled long-term data on wildfires in the West to complete the study, and found that by the mid-20th Century as little as 500,000 hectares burned yearly in Western ecosystems. Compare that with the 7 million to 18 million hectares that burned each year before modern fire suppression began in the area — meaning as much as 36 times more land area burned in the West annually before the 1920s, according to researchers.
“Specifically, these records show that historically 4 to 12 percent of the entire western U.S. would burn each year,” Brendan Murphy, postdoctoral fellow in watershed science at Utah State University and the study’s lead author, said in a statement.

So while headlines often suggest the West’s blazes today are “unprecedented,” that’s only compared to data that was relatively recently collected, the study found.

That’s not to say wildfires haven’t inflicted unprecedented damage: Researchers note that more and more people live in the West. And they’re in areas that couldn’t have supported such high populations without modern water management.

But why did the number of acres burned fall so precipitously by the mid-20th Century?

Researchers said it was a combination of livestock eating up the plant material that fuels fires, the expansion of firefighting infrastructure like water towers and forest roads, new technologies like fire retardant and successful campaigns like Smokey Bear.

Now, however, fuel that’s built up from years of suppression is conspiring with climate change to increase the number of acres that burn again, researchers said.

Researchers said it’s important to point out the West’s fiery past because it highlights that wildfires are “an inevitable part of the future in the western U.S.,” and not simply a modern anomaly exacerbated by climate change.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2018EF001006

 

Federal Judge Rejects California Ban on Sales of US Land to Private Sector

The Trump administration scored a court victory over California officials Friday when a judge in Sacramento tossed out a law giving the state the right to thwart sales of federal lands to private interests.

U.S. District Judge William Shubb threw out SB 50, a year-old state law that gave the State Lands Commission first right of refusal of the sale of federal lands in California.

State officials, who’ve been battling the Trump administration over immigration, environmental issues and more, had seen the law as a way to protect California land against the machinations of the White House.

“We will use every legal and administrative tool to thwart Trump’s plans to auction off California’s heritage to the highest bidder,” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic candidate for governor and a member of the Lands Commission, when the Trump administration filed its lawsuit last spring to halt enforcement of the law.

The judge’s ruling said SB 50 is unconstitutional because it “trespasses on the federal government’s ability to convey land to whomever it wants.”

The Trump administration was quick to celebrate the court victory against California. “The court’s ruling is a firm rejection of California’s assertion that, by legislation, it could dictate how and when the federal government sells federal land,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a prepared statement. “This (law) was a stunning assertion of constitutional power by California, and it was properly and promptly dismissed by the district judge.”

The federal government was preparing to auction off several pieces of land around the state, including an undeveloped 1.7-acre parcel on Corporate Way in Sacramento. The government was also about to auction off a Postal Service property in the Pocket area, but the auction was scrapped when the state announced that it had first rights to the land under the new law.

SB 50 was signed into law in October of 2017 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The governor’s press office referred calls to the Lands Commission, which said it is analyzing the ruling but had no further comment.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article221054635.html#storylink=cpy

 

Feds OK Large Solar Farm Near Joshua Tree

The federal government has approved a sprawling solar farm on public lands just outside Joshua Tree National Park, over the objections of environmental groups who say the industrial energy facility will harm wildlife and fragile ecosystems.

The Palen solar project would span about five square miles of open desert east of the Coachella Valley, just north of Interstate 10 and eight miles south of Joshua Tree National Park’s nearest boundary. The Bureau of Land Management said the project will cost $1 billion to build and employ more than 550 people per day during construction, on average. The 550-megawatt solar farm would generate enough carbon-free electricity to balance out the planet-warming emissions of 17,000 average Palm Springs homes.

President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have focused on increasing production of coal, oil and natural gas, the fossil fuels mainly responsible for climate change. But they’ve also taken steps that could boost solar and wind on public lands. Earlier this year, the Interior Department announced it would consider changes to a land-use plan that protects millions of acres of public lands in the California desert, saying the plan makes it too difficult to build renewable energy projects in California.

The land where Palen would be built is a poor spot for a solar farm, conservationists have argued. Groups including the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the National Parks Conservation Association have said the power plant would destroy desert tortoise habitat, interrupt a sand transport corridor that feeds the sand-dune habitat of Mojave fringe-toed lizard and desert kit foxes and diminish views from the national park.

“This is a very remote area,” said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It has really important ecosystem values, which include this sand river that basically flows from Joshua Tree National Park to the Colorado River and provides habitat for a lot of very unique plants and animals.”

Native American tribes have also spoken out against the Palen project. They’ve pointed to the cumulative environmental impacts of four large solar farms that have already been built in eastern Riverside County, and several more that have been proposed.

“The desert is now plowed up, and the habitats have been destroyed, the ecosystems have been destroyed,” Patricia Robles, chair of the Lacuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle, a Native American group, said at a public meeting on the Palen project in 2016. “The desert bioregion is a very important region to the world and it is very hard to restore. You will never see the desert the way it was prior to the destruction.”

Palen’s developer is San Diego-based EDF Renewables, a subsidiary of the state-owned French electric utility EDF. The company has signed contracts to sell energy from Palen and another nearby solar farm, Desert Harvest, to Southern California Edison, Marin Clean Energy in the Bay Area and the cities of Anaheim, Burbank and Vernon. It’s not yet clear when EDF Renewables will begin construction of the two solar projects.

It’s been a long road to approval for Palen. The solar farm was first proposed in 2008 by a German firm. That company went bankrupt and the project was ultimately acquired by a Spanish firm that hoped to build 750-foot “power towers” rather than regular solar panels. That company filed for bankruptcy, too. EDF bought Palen and went back to the drawing board, asking the federal government to approve a traditional solar farm.

EDF executive Ian Black said in an email that the company is “grateful to the (Bureau of Land Management) for completing its environmental review of Palen, converting the site from a solar-thermal experiment to an environmentally-preferable, economically-viable” 500-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant. He said Palen will help utilities meet California’s renewable energy mandate “from one of the best solar resource areas on the planet.”

During the decade of tumult for Palen, environmental groups increasingly fought with energy developers over proposed solar and wind farms in the California desert. In an effort to resolve those fights, state and federal officials spent years crafting the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which protects millions of acres while setting aside smaller areas for renewable energy.  The Obama administration finalized the plan in 2016. The final product wasn’t popular among developers, who said the restrictions would make it too difficult to build solar and wind farms. But there were no lawsuits.

In early 2018, the Trump administration upset the status quo, announcing it would consider changes to the desert plan, known as the DRECP. Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-scale Solar Association, a Sacramento-based trade group, told The Desert Sun earlier this year she’s “cautiously optimistic” about changes to the DRECP. She said she asked the Trump administration to make targeted changes to the plan through an administrative process, rather than throwing it out and starting from scratch.

“We think upending the plan would result in years of litigation, which doesn’t serve anyone’s interests,” Eddy said.

The Interior Department didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday about the status of its DRECP review. The Palen solar project would be built on lands identified for renewable energy development in the desert plan.

The Trump administration approved a 3,100-acre version of Palen, rather than the 4,200-acre version proposed by the developer. The reduced-footprint alternative avoids a large dry wash that runs through the project site, which conservationists say could limit the project’s damage to microphyll woodlands, where occasional bursts of water nourish vegetation that provides habitat for birds, mammals and reptiles. But the 3,100-acre configuration also extends further into the sand transport corridor, conservationists say.

Anderson said the Center for Biological Diversity hasn’t yet decided whether to sue the federal government to try to block the project.

https://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2018/11/01/trump-administration-approves-new-solar-farm-california-desert/1846126002/

 

Tariffs “Significantly” Slow California Exports

California’s merchandise export trade slowed significantly in September, according to a Beacon Economics analysis of U.S. trade statistics released this morning by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Foreign shipments by California businesses totaled $14.46 billion for the month, a nominal 1.2% gain over the $14.19 billion recorded in the same month one year earlier.

“Although this year has been filled with trade frictions with our major trading partners, the worst case scenarios that were envisioned have not materialized,” said Robert Kleinhenz, Economist and Executive Director of Research at Beacon Economics. “However, segments of the California economy, among them agriculture, have been hit hard this year and it behooves the Administration to resolve trade issues expediently so California’s companies and workers can get back to work and sustain continued economic growth.”

While exports of manufactured goods were up 1.7% to $8.94 billion from $8.79 billion in September 2017, exports of non-manufactured goods (chiefly agricultural products and raw materials) dropped by 1.7% to $1.79 billion from $1.82 billion. The value of re-exported goods meanwhile rose by 4.2% to $3.73 billion from $3.58 billion.

“What we are seeing here is more evidence that California’s exporters are being hindered not only by an overall slowdown in global trade but also by retaliatory tariffs that have singled out some of the state’s iconic products,” said Jock O’Connell, Beacon Economics’ International Trade Advisor. September shipments to China of California wines and almonds, for example, were down by 71.0% and 45.2%, respectively, from the same month last year, before the tariff wars began.

California accounted for 10.4% of the nation’s overall merchandise export trade in September, down from 10.9% last year. The state’s exports in the first nine months of 2018 amounted to $133.47 billion, 5.5% higher than the $126.46 billion during the same period last year.

The Census Bureau reports that California was the state-of-destination for 18% of all U.S. merchandise imports in September, with a value of $38.19 billion, an increase of 2.1% from the $37.39 billion in imported goods in September 2017. Manufactured imports totaled $34.10 billion, up 0.5% from the $33.92 billion recorded one year earlier. Non-manufactured imports in September were valued at $4.10 billion, 18.2% higher than the $3.47 billion reported in September 2017.

For the first nine months of the year, California imports totaled $325.27 billion, a 1.5% gain over the $320.53 billion during the same period last year.

As always, Beacon Economics cautions against reading too much into month-to-month fluctuations in state export statistics, especially when focusing on specific commodities or destinations. Significant variations can occur as the result of unusual developments or exceptional one-off trades and may not be indicative of underlying trends. For that reason, Beacon

Economics compares the latest three months for which data are available (i.e., July-September) with the corresponding period in the preceding year.

California’s merchandise exports during the July-September period totaled $43.65 billion, a nominal gain of 3.0% from the $42.40 billion in the third quarter of last year.

On the plus side, shipments of Computer & Electronic Products (computers and peripherals; communication, audio, and video equipment; navigational controls; and electro-medical instruments) rose by 2.7% to $11.57 billion from $11.27 billion.

Exports of Non-Electrical Machinery (machinery for industrial, agricultural and construction uses as well as ventilation, heating, and air conditioning equipment) increased by 4.0% to $4.24 billion from $4.08 billion.

Shipments of Miscellaneous Manufactured Commodities (a catchall category of merchandise ranging from medical equipment to sporting goods) were up by 11.4% to $3.91 billion from $3.51 billion. Chemical exports (including pesticides and fertilizers; pharmaceutical products; paints and adhesives; soap and cleaning products; and raw plastics, resins, and rubber) gained 5.4% to $3.55 billion from $3.37 billion.

Shipments abroad of Food & Kindred goods edged higher by 1.1% to $2.17 billion from $2.14 billion. Exports of Electrical Equipment and Appliances improved by 6.5% to $1.92 billion from $1.80 billion. Exports of Petroleum and Coal Products surged by 41.8% to $1.33 billion from $938 million. Exports of Fabricated Metal Products grew by 6.2% to $1.16 billion from $1.09 billion. Waste & Scrap exports jumped 16.4% to $1.16 billion from $999 million.

On the minus side, the state’s exports of Transportation Equipment (automobiles, trucks, trains, boats, airplanes, and their parts) fell by 7.2% to $4.55 billion from $4.90 billion. The chief culprit here was a very precipitous drop in exports of motor vehicles to China. Exports of agricultural commodities fell by 7.7% to $2.70 billion from $2.93 billion, as shipments of fruits, nuts, wines, and dairy products all faced higher tariffs abroad.

https://beaconecon.com/products/trade_report

 

2 Fans, 5 Major Games, 1 Day – Super Sports Equinox in LA

Just three innings into Game 5 of the World Series, two fans did something that made their stomachs churn: They walked out of Dodger Stadium.

They had their own game to win.

With all five major U.S. professional sports leagues hosting home games in Los Angeles on the same day — a phenomenon dubbed by some the “Super Sports Equinox” — Branimir Kvartuc and Doane Liu made it their mission to attend them all.

“I do feel a little sick to my stomach that I’m in an Uber right now,” Kvartuc said at about 6:40 p.m. from a car departing Chavez Ravine and heading to the early-season Clippers game at the Staples Center. “All those little kids that would die to be at the World Series, please forgive me.”

Their endeavor started well before noon Sunday, when Liu, executive director of L.A.’s Department of Convention and Tourism Development, picked up Kvartuc, the communications director for City Councilman Joe Buscaino, from his home in downtown L.A.

Their strategy was simple: Stay hydrated, stick to the transportation plan, don’t misplace the $700 in tickets they each had purchased, and be ready for the wardrobe changes. Liu, 56, had a visor on rotation for each team, while Kvartuc, 46, paired his Galaxy jersey with a Dodgers jacket for the whole day.

First stop, the Kings game at the Staples Center. After a full period and an invitation to the ice, they hopped in an Uber to watch the Galaxy square off with the Houston Dynamo at the StubHub Center in Carson, where Kvartuc said the fans were the loudest and most intense.

That game was the most special to Liu, who is a season ticket holder. They scored passes to the lounge, where they got to mingle among players.

“Oh my god! Yeah! We just scored, one-nothing!” Liu screamed while talking to a Times reporter on his cellphone at the Galaxy game.

Moments later: “Another goal! You’re good luck! Let’s keep talking!”

At halftime, with the Galaxy ahead, it was up to Exposition Park for a quick pit stop at the Coliseum for the Rams game. By the time the pair arrived, though, the Galaxy had fallen behind, setting the club up for a crushing loss that disqualified them from the playoffs.

Next up, Dodger Stadium.

Kvartuc and Liu rode Bird scooters from the Coliseum to the Metro rail and took a train to Union Station, where they hopped on the bus to Chavez Ravine.

“The stress hit a little bit right now,” Kvartuc said from the bus at 4:42 p.m. With about a half an hour until the first pitch, they were 12 minutes behind schedule. “It’s been a nice day, but at the same time, you’re constantly clock-watching … I wish we would’ve had another 15 minutes at the Rams game.”

When it was time to leave Dodger Stadium, exhaustion started to set in.

“This is a hard task. We went into this with full enthusiasm — and enthusiasm got us through all of it,” Kvartuc said. “But now, at the end of the day, man, it’s a labor of love. I just can’t wait to walk into Staples right now and claim victory.”

Kvartuc said he was inspired to take on Sunday’s challenge by something he did when he was 16 years old. In 1988, he and Buscaino went to the World Series without a ticket.

They showed up to the Dodger Stadium parking lot with a black-and-white T.V., intending to watch the game from outside the gates, just to feel close to the action.

There, Buscaino ran into a man who urgently had to leave the game because his wife was about to give birth. The man gave Buscaino his ticket stubs, allowing the young fans to enter the stadium and witness Kirk Gibson’s historic game-winning home run.

“We learned that if you just show up, things happen,” Kvartuc said. “That’s why we’re doing this, creating memories. It’s for civic pride, and just having a story for the rest of our lives.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sports-bonanza-20181028-story.html