Focus
SAN FRANCISCO BUSINESS TIMES - May 16 The city of Oakland’s ban on coal shipments was struck down on Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria, opening up the potential for the East Bay city to become the site of the largest volume of coal exports on the West Coast. City officials vowed to continue the legal battle against developer Phil Tagami's plan to transport coal by rail from Utah to an Oakland port terminal for shipment to China. Tagami sued in December 2016, claiming the city council’s ban violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution and breached a 2013 development agreement he had reached with the city. Under that agreement, Tagami sought to build a $250 million port terminal on a 130-acre former Army base next to the Port of Oakland. City officials say they learned only after the agreement was signed that coal was among the commodities to be shipped through the new terminal and quickly banned shipments of coal and petroleum coke in 2016, citing significant health and safety concerns.
COURTHOUSE NEWS SERVICE - May 16 After nearly two decades of litigation, lead paint maker NL Industries agreed Wednesday to pay ten California cities and counties $60 million to remove toxic lead paint from homes. The historic settlement agreement arises from a public nuisance lawsuit filed in 2000 by Santa Clara County, and joined in by nine other California cities and counties. The plaintiffs claimed, and the trial court originally ruled in 2013, that former lead paint manufacturers NL Industries, ConAgra Grocery Product, and Sherwin-Williams Company aggressively marketed lead paint with knowledge that it was highly toxic, especially to children, and awarded the plaintiffs $1.15 billion in damages. In 2017, an appellate court upheld that ruling as to the manufacturers’ liability for homes built before 1951, but overturned it as to homes built between 1951 and 1980. The case was remanded back to state court to determine how to disburse the abatement funds. The California Supreme Court denied review of the case earlier this year. As part of the settlement, NL Industries also agreed to withdraw its support for a November ballot measure to invalidate the judgment, an initiative called the Healthy Homes and Schools Act, which would declare that lead paint is no longer a public nuisance, thereby requiring taxpayers, not paint manufacturers, to bear the estimated $3.9 billion cost of clean-up over 35 years.
THE SACRAMENTO BEE - May 15 With the California Delta tunnels proposal facing an uncertain future, one of the state's Republican congressmen has come up with a strategy to move the multibillion water project, known formally as California WaterFix, toward completion: banning environmental lawsuits. On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Ken Calvert of Riverside County released a 142-page draft spending bill for fiscal year 2019 for the Interior Department which includes a provision tucked into the bill, on page 141, that would prohibit state or federal lawsuits against "the Final Environmental Impact Report/Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan/California Water Fix ... and any resulting agency decision, record of decision, or similar determination." At least 58 parties have filed more than a dozen lawsuits challenging various aspects of the project in recent years. If it becomes law, Calvert's provision would be relied on to bar many existing legal challenges to the project, and prevent future lawsuits challenging environmental determinations. But the bigger threat to WaterFix is likely to be political. With Governor Brown retiring at the end of 2018, the project loses its major champion. None of the leading candidates for governor this year support building both tunnels.
THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE - May 15 The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra this Monday filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) for violating the Clean Water Act by failing to address sewage from Tijuana that routinely spills over the border. The Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego County chapter announced Wednesday that it also plans to file a lawsuit against the IBWC alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, and the Port of San Diego filed a joint lawsuit in March of this year against the federal government, contending it was failing to adequately control pollution that flows through the Tijuana River into the Pacific Ocean.
