Annie Notthoff's Blog: Living Sustainably

Today Earth Day is Family Day for Me

2010-04-23T01:51:52Z

This morning on my way to work in San Francisco, I joined 50 other people on a street corner in Oakland, just around the corner from where both my mother and father grew up and down the street from where both my children were born. So it was a bit of old home week for me. As a fifth generation Californian I’ve always been proud of the way our state has been on the cutting edge of pragmatic and effective environmental policy, but its citizens are facing a dire threat on Earth Day, 2010: an assault by Texas oil refiners on AB 32, the state’s clean energy law.

Valero Energy Corp. and a consortium of Texas-based refiners have pumped more than $2 million into a signature-gathering campaign to place an initiative on the November ballot that would delay or prevent full implementation of AB 32. This landmark legislation is creating thousands of new jobs and stimulating new technologies in the emerging clean energy sector while simultaneously cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.

Valero’s campaign – cynically and inaccurately tagged the California Jobs Initiative -- is a bald-faced ploy to maximize petroleum industry profits by scotching the drive toward cleaner, greener fuels. But Californians are not fooled: they have responded to this stealth campaign by Oil Patch bigwigs with outrage. Earth Day protests were held at Valero gas stations in Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. And this is just the beginning. Clean energy advocates will continue this fight to Election Day.

Make no mistake-- there is no bigger threat to economic growth, job creation and clean air than this effort by Texas oil companies to kill AB 32, our roadmap to a clean energy future. Californians know they can have both a thriving economy and a healthy environment. The protests we saw on Earth Day are telling the company they can’t sneak this ‘Dirty Energy Initiative’ through. We’re ready and eager for battle – and when we get through with these carpet baggers, they’re going to wish they’d stayed in Texas and concentrated on their barbecue recipes.

According to a recent Field Poll, support for AB 32 remains strong, with 58 percent of residents backing the legislation. Many of the state’s major newspapers – including the San Jose Mercury News, the Sacramento Bee and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat – already have run editorials blasting the Valero initiative. There’s a very good reason for this: Valero has a long and lamentable record of pursuing short-term profits over the public good. The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts deemed the firm one of the worst polluters in the United States, and in 2005 the company was hit with $711 million in fines by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Contrary to Valero’s invidious claims, AB 32 is a boon to California. According to a recent University of California analysis, the legislation will create about 112,000 new jobs and generate $20 billion for the state’s economy. Additionally, the bill sets the standard for the nation in reducing harmful carbon emissions and puts California at the vanguard of energy research and development. AB 32 points the way to the technology we’ll need to meet 21st Century economic and environmental challenges. Valero’s initiative does just the opposite, harkening to bankrupt technologies, shrinking job and energy sectors and a polluted planet. We’re getting the word out—don’t sign this initiative. It’s a stalking horse for Big Oil and expensive, dirty energy. If it does get on the ballot, don’t vote for it.

*Photo credit: Natural Resources Defense Council

Got Water?

2009-10-23T00:15:02Z

Governor Schwarzenegger has called a special session for the State Legislature to find a solution to California's water woes. We must get a water bill package passed -- The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is on the verge of collapse, California is in drought and our people, farms and natural systems desperately need a sustainable source of water ensured for the future.

NRDC has been working with a range of interests to develop a comprehensive policy package. We and our environmental partners recently sent a letter to state legislators urging them to act now to protect our water resources for generations to come.

Click here to read the letter we sent to the State Legislature.

California’s 2009 Legislative Session Ends with a Whimper

2009-10-13T23:47:38Z

Ending one of the most contentious legislative sessions in California's history, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed dozens of environmental bills and signed several others over the weekend that will add tons of air pollution to our environment, delay our freedom from fossil fuel dependency and put people at risk to preventable toxics exposure. The legislative session was mired in stalemates over the state budget, economic downturn, water woes and industry-led midnight deals.

Polluters used economy scare tactics to attack public health protections, environmental progress and existing laws this legislative session. For the first time in years bills that hurt the environment managed to pass the legislature and were signed by the Governor and too many of the bills that would have provided true environmental and public health protections for Californians were held over until next year.

Good news was hard to come by this session, as the Governor's veto pen fell hard on environmental bills this year - a notable departure from his previous record.

A package of bills (SB 14 and AB 64) that would set the most aggressive renewable energy targets in the country were vetoed by the Governor, as was a bill that would have ensured that the state's green building standard is rigorous and leads to buildings of superior environmental performance.

In signing AB 1318 (Perez) and SB 827 (Wright), the Governor allows the South Coast Air Quality Management District to dismantle landmark environmental court victories blocking the sale and distribution of unsubstantiated air emission credits to power plant developers in Southern California. These bills have nothing to do with job creation and everything to do with AQMD trying to make an end run around landmark environmental laws and the federal Clean Air Act.

More progress was made in implementing California's existing landmark environmental laws. California's Global Warming Solutions Act's (AB 32) scoping plan was adopted early in 2009 by the California Air Resources Board, California's climate and land use planning law's (SB 375) regional target reductions plan was developed and CARB is set to vote on the plan this month. The California Fish and Game Commission also adopted measures within the Marine Life Protection Act to create 24 marine protected areas and ban or restrict fishing in nearly 20 percent of coastal waters between the North and Central California Coast, a similar effort is underway in Southern California.

The package of water bills currently under consideration in a special session called by the Governor this week is still in flux, but initially represents a real breakthrough among environmental groups, major utilities, business and agricultural interests. The package consists of policies to require the State Water Board to develop public trust flow determinations to restore and sustain the Delta estuary and our salmon fisheries, a comprehensive and enforceable water conservation program that addresses industrial, agricultural and urban water use, and a Delta Stewardship Council, a groundwater monitoring program and enhanced enforcement capacity at the State Board to address the problem of illegal diversions and permit violations.

New Hope for California's Water Woes

2009-09-24T19:30:07Z

Before California's legislature adjourned its regular session earlier this month, it had once again attracted national attention for high profile efforts on water and renewable energy as well as a sex scandal that forced Orange County Assemblyman Mike Duvall to resign from office.

Bills that would set the most aggressive renewable energy targets in the country made it to Governor Schwarzenegger's desk for his signature. He has until October 11 to sign or veto bills into law. Yet the 2009 legislative year in Sacramento was characterized by a shift that saw industry lobbyists using the economy as an excuse to attack environmental progress and existing laws as they perpetuated the myth of economy v. environment. We fought back most of the attacks on California's Environmental Quality Act and the state's pioneering global warming legislation, but some troubling end runs made it through in the last frantic hours of the session. NRDC also worked around the clock to forge agreement on an aggressive package of water bills that unfortunately didn't make it to the Governor's desk, but is expected to form the basis for continued action soon.

As my colleague Barry Nelson outlines in his blog, the final water policy bill that came together on the last day of the session consolidated five separate pieces of legislation, including a water efficiency bill that NRDC has been working on all year. The package represents progress in addressing measures crucial to using California's water resources more efficiently and fairly, restoring our ecosystems and providing a more reliable water supply for farmers, cities, and wildlife.

We need improved water management here in California - the most populous state in the country with 37 million residents, 25 million of whom depend in part on water from the depleted Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But, as the U.S. Department of Interior stresses in a release issued last week, the Delta is in "a state of full environmental collapse." On top of all this, California is in its third year of drought, significantly reducing the water supplies available from the Delta. This state of drought may be a taste of the "new normal" in California in a climate-changed future. As the Obama administration says, it's incumbent on all of us to find "practical solutions that will help California weather the drought and build a sustainable water future."

That's why we think this package of policy bills reflects a real breakthrough among environmental groups, major utilities, business and agricultural interests. The package is a big step toward carrying out the recommendations of the Delta Vision Task Force established by the Legislature and the Governor.

In the waning hours the legislature ran out of time and these water bills did not make it to the governor. But I have hope that the work the past few weeks marks a big turn in California water policy. It sets the stage for what we hope can be a breakthrough next year, if not sooner. We don't want to face another dry year without effective water conservation and retention solutions like my colleague David Beckman recommends for California, and the Delta needs to be managed better if we expect that water source to endure. It's time to face our water challenge in California.

California Keeps Moving Towards Solving Global Warming

2008-06-18T23:51:29Z

As a continuation of my first video blog, here I talk about two pieces of solutions-based legislation in California aimed at combatting global warming.

The first is AB 32, The Global Warming Solutions Act, a landmark law that NRDC helped pass in 2006 and now we're working hard to make sure it makes a difference as it is implemented.

The second, SB 375 - by Senator Darrell Steinberg, the incoming Pro Tem of the California State Senate - is another vehicle (pun intended) to reduce emissions of heat-trapping pollution by getting people out of their cars through better planning.

Check out this editorial in the Sacramento Bee for more background.