LEGISLATIVE LEADERS STRIKE BUDGET DEAL THAT PAPERS OVER PROBLEMS; GOVERNOR VOWS TO VETO
During the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the Legislature approved a state budget so irresponsible that it would have made Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers blush. The plan avoids the severe cuts to education, social services, and transportation funding that legislative Republicans had proposed. However, it is nonetheless a cut and run budget that relies on borrowing from future tax revenue and the lottery and contains corporate tax giveaways which ensure that our budget problems will continue to grow in the year's ahead.
Governor Schwarzenegger has announced his plans to veto this budget, but since the budget was adopted by a 2/3 vote, and it only takes a 2/3 vote to override a veto, the veto could be overridden. However, the Governor has threatened to veto legislation currently on his desk, if his veto of the budget is overridden. This could, obviously, have a major impact not only on the budget struggle, but also on some of the major bills that PCL worked so hard, and successfully, to get passed in this session.
Along with the financial shenanigans that have attended the budget deliberations this year, the budget debate also contained another unsuccessful attempt to roll back environmental protections under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This year's controversy focused on the South Coast Air Quality Management District's efforts to avoid environmental review under CEQA as they trumped up pollution credits to allow construction of new power plants. In late July, the Los Angeles Superior Court decided that the District's rulemaking process that allowed the pollution credits was, in fact, subject to CEQA. In response, the proponents of the power plant in question teamed up with Senator Jim Battin to try to force through SB 1083, giving the District's Executive Officer the ability to bypass the law and dish out bogus pollution credits without reviewing the potential environmental impacts. Fortunately, Assembly Democrats held fast against this attempt to use the budget process to undo California's landmark environmental safeguards.
We hope the Governor's commitment to veto the budget that was sent to him leads legislators to develop a sound budget that increases revenues to fund California's critical programs. At the same time, we'll be watching carefully to ensure there is not another run at California's environmental laws.
CHILL, BABY, CHILL - A CALIFORNIA PERSPECTIVE ON THE OIL EXTRACTION DEBATE
Drilling for oil has become something of an overnight pop sensation. "Drill, Baby, Drill" was the most visible and clearly-articulated public policy priority on display at the Republican Party Convention held in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Presidential candidate John McCain and his Vice‑Presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, have endorsed this "drill now and drill everywhere" approach. Serious attempts are afoot in Congress to end the current offshore oil moratorium and increase oil production along the nation's shorelines and in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. Even Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has indicated some willingness to support a limited amount of new offshore oil production, though with the explicit warning that this is "not the solution" to our energy crisis.
However, this latest hubbub is not really all that new. For the last eight years, the oil companies have dominated our national politics, helped convince many that global warming isn't real, and have turned United States foreign policy into a single minded willingness to engage in military intervention, in Iraq and elsewhere, to secure future oil supplies. Our politics, in other words, has been dedicated to the proposition that we must, at any cost in blood and treasure, maintain the old, oil-based economy that is literally putting the planet in peril.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues quite convincingly in his newest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded that producing more oil domestically (even if that could be done promptly and without unacceptable impacts on our natural environment) will actually send this nation down the wrong road towards the sustainable energy future we need to create.
He's not alone. In California, both Governor Schwarzenegger and the State Legislature have been willing to swim against the stream and have made strong statements against this sudden urge to "drill, baby, drill." Assembly Joint Resolution 51, authored by Assembly Member Pedro Nava, makes the case for continued protection of our coastal areas, and urges Congress to maintain the current offshore oil moratorium that protects the California coast and other coastal areas around the nation.
The House of Representatives has just taken action on proposals to expand offshore and domestic oil production and to abandon the current legislative moratorium on offshore oil production - though it's true that the House version of the bill will maintain the current oil-drilling moratorium in many of the most sensitive parts of the nation's coast. What the Senate will do is not at all clear.
This month, however, the water district is singing a different tune. According to the water storage announcement, the district is seeking to store "supplies that are excess to its immediate demand."
Hopefully, this new found excess also signals the end of farmworker layoffs and restoration of water quality standards for the Bay Delta Estuary and the California Aqueduct.
ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES: STATE GATHERS FEEDBACK ON PROPOSED GLOBAL WARMING ADAPTATION STRATEGY
The predominant response to the draft, slated for completion in January 2009, was that the state has a long way to go. Some of the critical items, like requiring polluters to help fund adaptation activities and a commitment to stem the loss of natural areas, were notably missing. The state also hasn't yet conceived of an overarching vision and priorities for the plan, resulting in an odd wish list of activities.
Do you have ideas about what the overarching priorities for their plan should be? If so, contact PCL's global warming program manger, Matt Vander Sluis.
1107 9th Street, Suite 360, Sacramento, CA 95814 • Phone (916) 444-8726 • Fax (916) 448-1789 •
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