Environment

Backlash Against Fossil Fuel Electricity Turning Into Movement

The exposure of massive overcapacity built into California’s electric plants, approved by a corrupt Public Utilities Commission (PUC) at ratepayers’ expense, is driving a new backlash against natural gas powered electricity plants in Oxnard, as well as possibly Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, and LA Department of Water and Power plants too.
 

Reopening Aliso Canyon Gas Reserve Is Litmus Test For CA Senate Democrats

Four Democrats currently have the power to determine who really runs the state of California’s fossil fuel policies—policymakers or a major energy company named Sempra.

The litmus test: Whether these Democrats vote for SB 57, a bill authored by Henry Stern that requires the state and Sempra’s subsidiary Southern California Gas to reveal what caused the biggest methane well blowout in US history before the Aliso Canyon gas reserve is allowed to reopen.

Let State Gasoline Refiners Pay A Gouge Gap Tax To Fix California’s Roads

California oil companies churning out gasoline have gouged Californians for billions of dollars at the pump for years. That’s why Californians that already pay among the highest prices for gas in the nation should not be stuck with a $52 billion tab for fixing the state’s roads.

Instead, lawmakers should vote no on Governor Jerry Brown’s SB 1 legislation until it puts a Gouge Gap Tax on oil refiners instead of taxing consumers at the pump.

Tax Oil Refiners’ Windfall Profits, Not Consumers, To Fix California’s Roads

This morning, Governor Jerry Brown penned another agreement with yet another country—Scotland—on combating climate change. Then he testified before legislative committees on behalf of SB1, his bill to raise gas taxes at the pump to pay for needed road repairs by $52 billion over ten years, and a Senate panel passed it

Let’s Be Honest About Industry Incentives To Slash Greenhouse Gases

It's time for California to debate the pros and cons of cap-and-trade, the program that caps carbon emissions and lets companies trade any extra pollution allowances to cut them. Jerry Brown wants to extend the program so badly beyond 2020 that he has slipped it into a budget trailer bill. More than 20 advocacy groups, including Food & Water Watch and Consumer Watchdog, are saying not so fast in a letter to an Assembly budget subcomittee.

CA Attorney General Should Not Depend On PUC To Watchdog Utilities

We're sure that California's new Attorney General Xavier Becerra wouldn't want to endanger California's coastline or its residents. The Google Earth photo on the right shows the resting place for millions of tons of nuclear waste from the flawed and shuttered San Onofre nuclear power station. The honeycombs are ready for waste casks not meant to last more than a few decades.

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