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Mon, Dec

Not So Fast! Calif Senator Pushes Back on AQMD Environment Rollbacks

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW-California has long been a trailblazer in environmental policy but lately, times seem to be a-changin’ -- from the ousting of the Coastal Commission’s Charles Lester to efforts by the South Coast Air Quality Management District board to snuggle up to industry with cozier pollution policies.

The South Coast air board’s newly Republican majority just voted to fire longtime executive officer Barry Wallerstein and to reaffirm the recent adoption of emissions rules for refineries and other pollution sources that are backed by the oil industry.

State Senate Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) is pushing back to prevent a rollback on environmental gains with plans to introduce legislation that will add a public health expert and two environmental justice members to the South Coast Air Quality Management District board. The environmental justice appointees would be selected by state legislative leaders, while the public health member would be a governor appointee. All three would represent communities impacted by pollution and the 13-member panel would increase to 16 members.

Ten of the current board members are city council members, mayors, and county supervisors selected by local elected officials in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. Three members are appointees of the state Assembly speaker, Senate leadership, and the governor. De León’s proposal would also shift from the agency members from four-year terms to at-will service at the discretion of the officials who appoint them.

The addition of an environmentally supportive voice would hopefully hand back the reins of the agency to the state legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown, leading to more aggressive policies to curb pollution in the country’s smoggiest region.

De León notes, “This has been a wholesale takeover, to the detriment of children and families who breathe these harmful contaminants into their lungs every single day. We have progressed on our policies; we cannot go backward.” 

The shift in agency policy stems at least in part due to the board’s recent appointees, Highland Mayor Larry McCallon and Lake Forest Council Member Dwight Robinson who have been upfront about placing more emphasis on the economic burden posed by tough emission standards.

Prior to his ousting, Wallerstein and his staff had proposed a reduction in the cap on nitrous oxide pollution by 14 tons per day over the next seven years. The board countered with a proposed 12 tons per day cut with delays for the steepest cuts until the end of the seven-year period. The end result may delay installation of emissions controls at major oil refineries, putting a damper on ozone reduction, a component of smog that is linked to asthma, heart disease, lung damage, and premature deaths. Southern California’s inland valleys and mountains have especially high concentrations of ozone. The air quality panel has taken heat from state regulators and the Democratic legislative leadership for its refusal to adopt more ambitious measures.

How might de León’s proposal impact air quality in Southern California? A shift in the balance on the board is posed to foster debate about a plan due later this year that will determine how to decrease emissions to meet federal health standards for ozone and fine particle pollution.

The tug-of-war is between industry supporters who resist pollution reduction measures and those focused on reducing toxic emissions and cancer risk from refineries, metal factories, and manufacturers continues. Holding the country’s largest port complex accountable for pollution-reduction targets also stands in the balance.

Amplifying the voice of support for environmentally and health-friendly air quality policies is crucial to all who live in the southland, especially to residents of impacted communities. Setting back environmental progress by giving refineries and other industries a pass on emissions restrictions or pollution control standards just isn’t a sound policy for Californians.

(Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles-based writer and writes for CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

 

LA’s Downtown is Flowering … Bikes Make a Difference

BIKE FRIENDLY--I’ve had to spend most of the last week and a half in downtown Los Angeles, hanging around the Central Library. When I was young this would have been a terribly boring location -- not the Library itself, as I’ve always been a bookworm, but the neighborhood. Now, though, I could hardly wait for breaks so I could get outside and explore Flower Street, Seventh Street, the Maguire Gardens at the west end of the library (once a parking lot), the Bunker Hill Steps, and, well, just about everything. 

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LA Development Debate Getting Intense: Opponent Says Neighborhood Integrity Initiative has Fatal Flaw (Video)

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Inspecting Remaining Aliso Canyon Gas Wells a Must

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City Attorney Sipping that Special Kool-Aid: Won’t let Neighborhood Councils Give Grants to Schools

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“If any Board member of a Neighborhood Council has a child in school, the entire Board is not allowed to vote for a grant to any private, non-profit, or LAUSD School!” 

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Charter Schools: New Face of Segregation

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This is borne out in the numbers and confessed every day via parent-to-parent euphemisms: “this school is a better ‘fit',” “‘safety’ is my top priority,” “my child only responds to a ‘nurturing environment',” “smaller class sizes are necessary for my child,” “I want my child immersed in a specialized program.”  

So much sorting and selecting sets up a double whammy for segregation. On one level families self-select according to like-mindedness and socioeconomic comfort level. At the same time the very process of school selection siphons highly involved families away from public district schools. 

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Center Questions Author Goldstein’s Motives in ‘Attack’ on the Wiesenthal Center

TALKBACK—(This is a response to Scott Goldstein’s CityWatch article: ‘Silence in the Face of Evil’.)  Every four years during presidential campaigns, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which never endorses candidates for any political office, receives numerous requests from members of the public to react to statements made by various politicians who they believe have crossed the line. 

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Are LA’s Big Buck Developers REALLY Smarter than We Are?

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A Marriage that Makes Sense: The Feds Say “I Do” to Google Cars, Lyft and the Hyperloop for LA

GUEST WORDS-Recently I spent two hours in my car and on the subway to travel 40 miles from Agoura Hills to Downtown to attend a transportation conference sponsored by the LA Times at the Los Angeles Central Library. My return trip (not at rush hour) took me one and a half hours. The irony that this journey once took 45 minutes each way did not escape me while I sat listening to numerous heavy hitters on transportation policy talk about the challenges our city will face over the next 10 years. 

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Campaign 2016: California Good for Cash, Not Candidates

NEW GEOGRAPHY--California may be the country’s most important and influential state for technology, culture and lifestyle, but has become something of a cipher in terms of providing national political leaders. Not one California politician entered the 2016 presidential race in either party and, looking over the landscape, it’s difficult to see even a potential contender emerging over the coming decade.

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Woof, Woof. All Aboard! Cats and Dogs Get ‘Ticket’ to Ride … Amtrak

ANIMAL WATCH-After a rocky ride through Congress since 2013, Amtrak has finally announced, “Rover, Come On Over. Pets Welcome Aboard Amtrak.” The ‘Pets-on-Trains’ program is now permanent and allows Amtrak riders to travel with their cat or small dog to more than 500 destinations nationwide, including Los Angeles – Union Station, Pomona, Ontario and Palm Springs, CA. 

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Venice Coalition Fed Up … Tells City Hall ‘Enough is Enough!’

SEE YOU IN COURT-Venice Coalition to Preserve Unique Character (VC-PUCC) filed a lawsuit last week against the City of Los Angeles, which the coalition website charges is complicit in development that is “destroying Venice’s quaint, historic neighborhoods and affordable housing at an alarming rate.” The coalition charges that the city’s actions violate the California Constitution, Coastal Act, as well as local land use protections.  

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The Battle of the Ballot Measures Will Change Your Quality of Life

DEEGAN ON LA-Wealth creation for developers is directly related to how land is used. Their road to that wealth can be greatly helped by the independent zoning decisions made by our politicos, the 15 members of the LA City Council through a process called “spot zoning” and/or “variances” – actions that allow developers to skirt zoning regulations.

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