On Monday, Governor Schwarzenegger and the majority and minority leaders of the Assembly and Senate announced an agreement on the state budget, potentially ending a standoff that has caused California to issue IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression. While the budget was already full of devastating cuts to health, education, and local governments, the Governor and Republicans could not pass up the opportunity to take another swipe at our environment. As part of the budget deal, California will grant its first lease for offshore drilling in nearly 40 years, since the 1969Santa Barbara oil spill that helped to jumpstart the modern environmental movement.

The Governor has been pushing the drilling plan for some time. However, the State Lands Commission (SLC), which is made up of the Director of the Department of Finance, the Lieutenant Governor, and the State Controller, rejected the plan after it was discovered that the environmental benefits of the plan were unenforceable.

The deal allows Plains Exploration and Production (PXP) to drill for oil and pay $100 million in royalties up front to help balance the budget. Though details are still not clear, if the proposal in the budget is similar to the deal rejected by the SLC, the revenue is simply a one time advance on future oil revenues.

While it's important to raise revenues, especially given the severe budget cuts, it's unfortunate that the Governor chose to push new oil drilling instead of pursuing a solution that could have offered an ongoing stream of money and helped our environment at the same time. For example, every other big oil-producing state collects revenue on the volume of oil extracted from their state. Collecting revenue from excised oil would have generated over $800 million every year, eight times what we are expecting this year from the Governor's plan. If an excise charge is good enough for the rest of the country, why not California? Instead, we'll get a sham deal that kicks our fiscal problems down the road and poses a significant risk to our climate and our coast.

METHODS AND MEASURES: ADVISORY COMMITTEE SCOPES OUT OPTIONS FOR SETTING REGIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS TARGETS FOR CALIFORNIA

The Regional Targets Advisory Committee has been meeting for months to generate recommendations on how the California Air Resources (CARB) should set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle travel. Those targets are required by SB 375, California's new law that aims to link land use, transportation, and housing decisions to help fight global warming.

At this week's meeting in Sacramento, the committee's deliberations took an important turn. The group heard presentations on three distinct approaches for how CARB should work with regional and local governments across the state to establish greenhouse gas targets for each region. Committee members will be providing their perspectives on the pros and cons of these proposals at their next meeting in Los Angeles on August 5th and will likely select a consensus position shortly thereafter. The Committee must provide its recommendations in a report to CARB by September 30, 2009.

The committee's recommendations could determine how growth and transportation decisions are made for decades to come. It's critical that the committee select a science-based approach that pushes California out of its business-as-usual decision making. The proposed methodology should also require that state and regional governments identify the amount of co-benefits that would be achieved through different targets, including public health gains, avoided farmland conversion, and cost savings from avoided infrastructure. 

CONSERVED BUT CONSTRAINED: AGENCY WITHDRAWS PLANS TO END POPULAR WATER SAVING PROGRAM, NEW FUNDS WON'T MEET DEMAND

Recently the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), which provides water to nearly 19 million people in Southern California, confirmed a growing demand in urban water conservation when it discovered that its SoCal Water$mart rebate program was so popular that requests for rebates were $14 million more than could be accommodated by the program's first-year budget.

MWD proposed three options: 1) shutter the program, 2) pay the owed $14 million but keep funding levels static for next year, or 3) allocate sufficient funding to meet the high demand. Fortunately Southern California water advocates packed the MWD board hearing to encourage the board to continue the program. Thanks to their efforts, the board voted to honor the unpaid rebates submitted under the first year of the program and allocated similar funding ($19 million) to continue the program for the upcoming year, albeit with new restrictions. While this saves the program, it will likely provide insufficient funds to meet the high demand for conservation incentives, particularly as Southern California continues to experience drought conditions.

The Water$mart program provides incentives for businesses and home-owners to replace inefficient fixtures with new low-flush toilets, water-saving washing machines, artificial turf, and other efficient landscape watering devices. Over the next 20 years, these efficiency upgrades are expected to save the equivalent of the annual water use of 150,000 homes (300,000 acre-feet).

Water conservation is essential to increasing water supply reliability throughout the state - particularly in Southern California and other areas dependent on Colorado River and Delta exports that will only become less reliable under climate change. PCL strongly advocates that regions move away from imported water supplies and toward increased regional self-sufficiency by maximizing water conservation and developing local, drought-resilient supplies such as recycled water. This year, we sponsored AB 1408 (Krekorian), to allow developers to contribute financing to water agency conservation programs. Critics continue to assert that the low hanging fruit on the water conservation vine, like water saving washing machines and toilets, have had their last harvest. Clearly, the demand remains high for these exceptionally low-cost conservation measures.