I grew up in the L.A. area and am a die-hard Dodgers and UCLA Bruins fan. My wife, Lynn, is a sculptor and painter. We have two grown daughters who we’d like to call us more often. I also play guitar and bass in a klezmer band.
Posted January 19, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, U.S. Law and Policy
The process to implement California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard has had an interesting month. In mid-December we achieved a great victory when California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously agreed to move forward with implementation of the low emission fuel standard...continued→
Posted December 5, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Greening China
Last week, I was in Beijing and Hefei, China, giving talks on the assessment and cleanup of marine oil spills and other insults to the natural environment. In some ways, the developing areas of China may seem a paradise for...continued→
Posted October 5, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Green Enterprise, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably
For years, NRDC, working with allies in labor, have disproved the myth that environmental protection and good jobs can't co-exist. We are not alone in this: NRDC, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and Union of Concerned Scientists are members of...continued→
Posted September 29, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil, U.S. Law and Policy
The air in Los Angeles got some good news this week. The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the American Transportation Associations vs. Port of Los Angeles case in favor of the Port’s Clean Trucks Plan. I’ve blogged about...continued→
Posted September 8, 2011 by David Pettit in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
Over two hot Sacramento days, something unusual happened in the California State Capitol building. Assembly Speaker John Perez and his staff brought together the California building trades unions and two major environmental groups, the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV)...continued→
Posted July 29, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
Entertainment giant AEG wants to build a new football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. My colleague Damon Nagami blogged about the AEG project here, and the Los Angeles Times had a long editorial about the project here. This week, the...continued→
Posted June 21, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
Today, NRDC and two of our community partners, East Yards Communities For Environmental Justice and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice sent letters to California’s two major rail yard operators regarding illegally disposing hazardous waste thereby increasing the...continued→
Posted June 6, 2011 by David Pettit
Masquerading as regulatory reform, a new proposal now circulating in Sacramento would create an unelected administrative dictatorship with unchecked powers over every California regulatory agency. Here is some context for this proposal. There is a little-known administrative agency in California...continued→
Posted June 6, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Living Sustainably
A couple hundred people spend their Saturday morning last week at a meeting, organized and chaired by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, with Commissioners and staff of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The meeting was...continued→
Posted May 5, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Living Sustainably
This week, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry took me on a tour of two urban wetland sites in South Los Angeles, one under construction and one fully built out. The 9-acre site under construction at 54th and Avalon is...continued→
Posted April 28, 2011 by David Pettit in Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil
This week, I spoke at a conference sponsored by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) on the topic of the future of oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The speaker before me, representing the oil industry, closed his presentation...continued→
Posted April 27, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably
Last week, I had a chance to show NRDC’s support for electric vehicles, which are beginning to gain in popularity in California as a cost-effective alternative to paying more than $4.50 to fill up your car. I should know, I...continued→
Posted April 12, 2011 by David Pettit in Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil
There are a few conceptually simple steps that the federal government could take to improve rig safety and oil spill prevention, response and containment. Whether those steps are politically feasible in today’s Congressional environment is another question. At the Congressional...continued→
Posted March 28, 2011 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Moving Beyond Oil, Reviving the World's Oceans
How will BP be forced to clean up the mess it caused in the Gulf of Mexico? There is a process created for oil spills by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 called a natural resource damages assessment, or “NRDA,”...continued→
Posted March 25, 2011 by David Pettit in Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil
On March 23, 2001, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management and Regulation (BOEMRE) released the results of a technical study of the blowout preventer that failed to stop the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout nearly a year ago. I was...continued→
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