Environmental and Policy Focus
New York Times - Dec 7 President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, to run the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Pruitt has been a key architect of the legal battle against President Obama’s climate change policies, actions that fit with the president-elect’s comments during the campaign. Mr. Trump has criticized the established science of human-caused global warming as a hoax, vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord committing nearly every nation to taking action to fight climate change, and attacked President Obama’s signature global warming policy, the Clean Power Plan, as a “war on coal.” Mr. Pruitt has been in lock step with those views.
San Diego Union-Tribune - Dec 1 The First District Court of Appeals in San Francisco last Thursday cleared the path for a new power plant in Carlsbad by deciding to defer to the May 2015 decision of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), whose members voted 4-1 to approve a contract for the proposed $2.2 billion, 558-megawatt natural gas-fired Carlsbad Energy Center. A number of environmental groups filed suit to try to stop the construction of the plant, which is slated to be built by NRG Energy and will replace the aging Encina Power Station. Supporters of the plant say it will help California meet its target of 33 percent renewable energy generation by 2020 and 50 percent by 2030. Critics say the plant will harm the environment along the coastline and question whether the power plant is needed at all.
Long Beach Press-Telegram - Dec 6 Air regulators are widening their investigation from two to dozens of metal processing facilities in Paramount, a city in southeast Los Angeles, after the discovery of high levels of a carcinogen raised concerns that many of the facilities could be operating without permits. City officials estimate more than 80 different metal processing businesses operate in the 4.8-square-mile community, yet officials counted only 11 companies with permits on record. The investigation comes after the South Coast Air Quality Management District and county health officials found levels of hexavalent chromium near two metal manufacturing businesses to be as high as 350 times the level considered safe.
The Hill - Dec 7 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulators on Wednesday said they are proposing a ban on trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial chlorinated solvent, under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a law Congress greatly expanded this year. The EPA is seeking a ban on the manufacturing, importation, processing, and distribution of TCE, which is used in aerosol degreasing and spot cleaning in dry cleaning facilities. The agency said it identified health risks to workers and consumers during a 2014 assessment of the chemical. The expanded TSCA requirements call on EPA to conduct studies to determine whether certain chemicals present risks to human health and the environment, and then consider whether or not to ban them.
San Jose Mercury News - Dec 6 State officials on Tuesday ordered a formal analysis of using eminent domain to restore public access to Martins Beach, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla’s 89-acre property near Half Moon Bay. In its 78-year history, the State Lands Commission has never tapped its power of eminent domain, and it still might not. But the Commission, which oversees tidelands and coastal boundaries in California, is moving “aggressively” in that direction, warned Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the Commission’s three voting members. Khosla bought the cove eight years ago. In 2010, he ended a decades-long tradition under the previous owners of allowing the public to drive to the shore and use the beach, which is private except for the tidal zone, in exchange for a parking fee.
Los Angeles Times - Dec 6 A judge has struck down a Kern County voter initiative passed in 2006 that banned dumping of about 450,000 tons per year of treated human waste on Kern County farmland. In a 48-page opinion issued Monday, Tulare County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Hicks ruled that the initiative, known as Measure E, “is invalid and void for all purposes, for the dual reasons that it exceeds Kern’s police power and is preempted by state law.” He also ruled that “there is no evidence of risk to human health” posed by the shipments of treated waste used as fertilizer and soil amendment on Green Acres, a 4,700-acre farm owned by the City of Los Angeles since 1999. The sludge is tilled into the farm’s soil to fertilize crops, including corn and wheat. Kern County has battled in court for a decade to uphold the ban, which it said was intended to protect groundwater and the local environment from possible contamination and emissions from diesel trucks.
