Category: Government & Politics
Posted inClimate Change, Environment, Government & Politics, Utilities

California’s Hunger for Low-Carbon Power Could Hurt Other States

by Lisa Weinzimer and Ambika Kandasamy

California’s effort to ensure that the state receives low carbon electricity could end up increasing greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere in the country, thanks to a practice known as contract reshuffling.Importing low-carbon electricity from out-of-state suppliers of renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower is one way California’s electric utilities can decrease their carbon emissions.

This story is part of a special report on climate change in the Summer print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.

Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Government & Politics, Homelessness, News

State Homeless ‘Bill of Rights’ Put on Hold Until Next Year

by T.J. Johnston

A “homeless bill of rights” in California must wait until next year for a vote in the full Assembly after clearing its first hurdle.  Advocates say the legislation would protect homeless people from local enforcement of so-called “quality of life” laws, and specify homeless people as deserving of protection in the state’s antidiscrimination statutes.

Posted inClimate Change, Environment, Government & Politics, Social Justice

California Environmentalists Decry Governor’s Raid on Cap-and-Trade Dollars

by Chantal Jolagh

 

Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to divert $500 million earmarked for environmental initiatives into the general fund would hurt California communities with high pollution levels and slow down efforts to spur efficiency, mass transit and alternative energy, critics told legislators this week.

The state’s environmental officials have been developing programs to fund a range of programs in communities disadvantaged by environmental burdens. The money comes from auctions of greenhouse gas permits from the state’s new cap-and-trade pollution control marketplace.

Posted inEarthquakes, Government & Politics, Public Safety

Up-to-Date Earthquake Kit Will Increase Your Survival Chances (Infographic)

Avatar photo by Jason Winshell and Anna Vignet

It’s never too late to prepare for the next big earthquake. The California Emergency Management Agency advises that the first 72 hours after a disaster are critical. Electricity, gas and water may be unavailable and first responders will be busy focusing emergency services on the most serious crises. Having an earthquake kit is key to toughing it out on your own. Here’s what it should have, at a minimum.

Posted inEnvironment, Government & Politics, Utilities

Dirtytech: They Obsessively Sort and Recycle What You Dump

by Hannah Miller

If you think of Recology as a set of blue, green and black bins that hang out in the alley of your house that you roll out to the curb weekly — you have no idea. Over the last 10 years, what San Franciscans have been thinking of “garbage collection” has been transformed into something vastly different and much more industrial. Last month the 91-year-old worker-owned company announced that 80 percent of what San Franciscans put in the bins is going somewhere other than the landfill, a vast improvement on the 34 percent national average. The 650 tons a day of recyclables hauled by Recology is divided up almost entirely by hand, by a vast army of sorters.

Posted inArts & Culture, City Hall, Government & Politics, Homelessness, News

‘Homeless Bill of Rights’ Seeks Legal Protections for Those on the Streets

by T.J. Johnston

A new push for a statewide “Homeless Bill of Rights” could lead to free legal representation for anyone citied under laws such as San Francisco’s sit-lie law or anti-panhandling ordinance. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, introduced Assembly Bill 5, as a response to what he said was a national trend of enforcing laws on public […]

Posted inClimate Change, Environment, Government & Politics

With California Carbon Cap-and-Trade Program Launch, Experts Debate Economic Side Effects

by Barbara Grady

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, California’s potentially revolutionary carbon cap-and-trade program launched in a humdrum fashion. Numbers began appearing on a secure Web site accessible to the biggest oil exploration companies, manufacturers, utilities, state regulators and independent monitors. No one outside of this select group got to see its inner workings. But the event marked a new phase in the state’s pioneering effort to halt climate change: actual dollars traded for permits to emit carbon dioxide.

Posted inCommunity, Elections, Government & Politics, Media, News, Politics

Ethnic Voters Bolster Democratic Edge in State, Poll Finds

by Lissette Alvarez

California is reliably “blue” — Barack Obama carried the state by 23 points in the last election — largely because of the rise of ethnic voters, a new survey by the Field Poll found. “This hasn’t always been the case,” said the poll’s director, Mark DiCamillo. Republicans won seven of the nine elections between World War II and 1982, when the state became solidly Democratic in federal elections. “The main reason for it is because of the growth of ethnic population.”

Gift this article