REINS or SPURS?
When it's not busy passing yet another bill to repeal healthcare reform, the House of Representatives likes to pass an even more sweeping attack on effective government called REINS. REINS is one of those bills that seems suspect from reading the title alone -- it's one of those gimmicky titles ("Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act") that usually signals a lack of serious thought by legislators. REINS basically requires congressional approval for a...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: State of the State
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Thanks to Legal Planet, the UCLA Law Emmett Center and Environmental Law Center, and Berkeley Law Center on Law, Energy, and the Environment for letting me do the series of blogs. Hopefully, I touched on some of the important issues and trends. I want to note that there is a lot more to tal...
CONTINUE READINGThe House Takes Aim at EPA Regulation of Power Plant Pollution
Last week, the House passed HR 1582 on a 232-181 vote. The law is designed to restrict EPA regulation of power plants, but the House also adopted an amendment that takes a swipe at environmental economists. HR 1582 is mercifully brief and to the point. When EPA proposes a rule that would impose over $1 billion in economic costs, the Secretary of Energy has to assess the impacts of the rule on the energy system and decide whether EPA can actually issue the rule. ...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: 2030 is Calling
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. California’s AB 32 is the most important climate change law in the country. We are in full implementation mode to meet the requirement that California’s greenhouse gas emissions fall to 1990 levels by 2020. Renewables will provide at least 33 percent of power to the grid by 2020, and emiss...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: Big Data and the Renewable Revolution
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Earlier this year, UCLA’s Center for Sustainable Communities launched an interactive energy map for energy use in most of Los Angeles. It was a long time in coming. The LA Department of Water and Power provided UCLA with substantial amounts of data about energy use, which UCLA then combined ...
CONTINUE READINGProtecting the Safety of Food Imports
Food safety, particularly for imported foods, is a serious problems. Help is on the way -- but slowly, very slowly. According to the NY Times: About 15 percent of food that Americans eat comes from abroad, more than double what it was just 10 years ago, including nearly two-thirds of fresh fruits and vegetables. And the safety of the food supply — foreign and domestic — is a critical public health issue. One in every six Americans becomes ill from eating contamina...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: Saving Electricity for a Rainy Day
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. We are making progress in two more key areas, although California, for now, is not in the lead. Thanks to new developments and a key PUC proceeding, California will once again push the country forward on electrical storage. We are also moving forward on the broader category of demand response,...
CONTINUE READINGAdapting to Increased Hurricane Risk
The WSJ reports that people in the Northeast are waking up and taking the same preparation steps that people in the Southeast have taken for decades to prepare for hurricanes. Such defensive expenditures help to stimulate our sluggish economy (I've read my Keynes) and shield the populace from the next disaster shock. "Zevan Cohen, a 40-year-old in Millburn, N.J., had an electrician install a $1,200 generator in his home last week. He lived through Irene in August 2011...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: An EV in Every Garage
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Four years ago, the number of electric vehicles on California roads was pretty close to zero. At the end of this year, it will be about 50,000. OK, compared to the totals, that’s not much. There are about 32 million vehicles in California (and 230 million in the U.S. and over 1 billion in ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Congressional Back Door Attack on California’s Environmental Programs
California's Environmental Programs
Today's Los Angeles Times reports on disturbing, broad-based efforts in Congress that threaten to eviscerate a host of California's cutting-edge environmental initiatives, most prominently its "Green Chemistry" program. The saga begins with the California Legislature's enactment of the state's "Green Chemistry Initiative" (GCI) in 2008. The overarching principle behind GCI is to mandate the design of chemical products and processes in a way that reduces or eliminat...
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