Environmental and Policy Focus
Los Angeles Times
- Nov 10
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) board voted on Tuesday to pursue the purchase of four farm islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the ecologically troubled center of California's sprawling water system. The islands would put MWD in control of about 20,000 acres of land in the Delta, a source of water for a majority of Californians and a bottleneck in shipments of Northern California supplies to San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California cities. The acreage is owned by a private company that has long sought to develop a water storage project on the islands. But MWD officials say storage is only one of the ways the property could be managed to provide water supply and environmental benefits. Crucially for the agency, two of the islands are in the path of a proposed water tunnel system that MWD and other water districts are backing. MWD ownership would eliminate the need for lengthy eminent domain proceedings and ease access for construction crews.
New York Times
- Nov 6 President Obama announced last Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over the administration's climate policies. President Obama’s rejection of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change to be held in Paris in December, when President Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming.
OC Register
- Nov 12 Two lawmakers, both Republicans, submitted language Thursday for a ballot initiative that would ask California voters to redirect about $8 billion in bond money from the state’s high-speed rail project to build water storage. Board of Equalization member George Runner and Sen. Bob Huff of San Dimas, the former Senate minority leader, said they filed language for the initiative with the attorney general’s office. The ballot proposal would also authorize shifting $2.7 billion in unspent water bond money to water storage construction and amend the state constitution to give drinking water and irrigation priority from California’s limited water supply.
Los Angeles Times
- Nov 6 Environmental groups that have accused Los Angeles of “rubber stamping” plans involving oil drilling near homes and schools are taking their fight to court. Their lawsuit, filed Friday, accuses the city of systematically violating the California Environmental Quality Act by exempting new wells and other proposed changes at oil extraction sites from required environmental reviews. The plaintiffs, who include children and teens living near drilling sites in South Los Angeles and Wilmington, also assert that the city has left predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods more vulnerable to health and safety risks tied to oil drilling than mostly white areas. Much more stringent conditions, including taller walls, better sound protection, and less-polluting equipment, were imposed on drilling sites in West Los Angeles and the Wilshire area, they argue. The California Independent Petroleum Association did not comment on the lawsuit, but spokeswoman Sabrina Lockhart said oil production statewide had “the toughest protections in the nation.”
Contra Costa Times
- Nov 10 The city of Oakland, on Tuesday, filed a lawsuit against the chemical company Monsanto for allegedly polluting San Francisco Bay. The city accuses Monsanto of polluting Oakland's stormwater with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which were banned by the federal government in 1979. California's Water Resources Control Board determined that PCBs in Oakland's stormwater could threaten fish and wildlife in the Bay, the city said. According to Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, the county could spend $1 billion to remove PCBs. Oakland joins San Jose, Seattle, and San Diego as cities that have filed similar suits against Monsanto.
Washington Post
- Nov 9 Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest publicly traded coal company, agreed Sunday to disclose more fully potential risks to its business from climate change regulations and resulting impacts on coal demand as part of a settlement with New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman. According to Schneiderman, Peabody had stated in regulatory filings that it could not predict the risks to its business from future greenhouse gas regulations, and emphasized a limited and relatively optimistic scenario for the global coal future in required 10-K filings for investors. The attorney general charged that these statements were “incomplete and omitted less favorable IEA projections for future coal demand.”
