Downtown Los Angeles seen through the smog. (Photo: Justin Dennis, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Millions of Californians suffered from smog and smoke this summer, but help is on the way. Defying the expectations of many observers and the fierce opposition of the oil industry, the Legislature passed a historic climate protection package in August.
GOP Assembly members, from left, James Gallagher, Shannon Grove, Ling Ling Chang and Marie Waldron confer prior to a recent budget vote. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)The California Legislature faces a lengthy to-do list for the final days of this year’s session and little time to get it done. In what promises to be one the busiest sessions in recent memory, the lawmakers convene Monday and finish by midnight on Sept 11. In addition, Gov. Jerry Brown has called two special sessions to deal with transportation and health care costs.
Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, addresses colleagues on the Senate floor.(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)To environmentalists in California, across the nation and around the world, she is a trailblazing leader. To the California Chamber of Commerce and many Republicans, she is the unrealistic author of job-killing, la-de-da legislation. To some, she is a futurist who predicts gas stations will disappear in 10 years. She is Fran Pavley, a pleasant, gray-haired Democratic state senator from Southern California who does not come across as a firebrand but can grow passionate about protecting the environment.
An oil derrick at work in Kern County, 2013. (Photo: Christopher Halloran)OPINION: Faced with the decision of whether or not hydraulic fracturing (fracking) should be approved in New York, the state’s Commissioner of Health Dr. Howard Zucker publicly asked, “Would I let my family live in a community with fracking? The answer is no. I therefore cannot recommend anyone else’s family to live in such a community either.” In California, some 5.4 million people (14 percent of the state’s population) live within a mile of at least one of the state’s total of 84,000 oil and gas wells, according to the NRDC.
The power plant in El Segundo, Calif. (Photo: Don Solomon, via Shutterstock)Nearly a decade after California’s landmark law curbing greenhouse gases was signed, a key author of AB 32 wants to dramatically boost the crackdown on climate-changing carbon emissions over the next 35 years.