Tonight on State of the Bay, we’ll hear from CLEE’s Louise Bedsworth and Isabel Rewick, both of whom took part in this year’s United Nations climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
AND we interview Assemblymember Damon Connolly, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, and Senator Scott Wiener about how new Trump administration policies might impact life here in the Bay Area.
PLUS, we’ll get advice from Luisa Smith of Book Passage on the perfect gift for the booklover on your holiday list.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Trump is promising to roll back the $7500 tax credit for electric vehicles. CBS News covered the story last night, where I talked about the potential impact:
I appeared on CBS News Bay Area last week talking about what the Trump administration might do to try to gut California’s electric vehicle requirements:
And a similar story on Monday from CBS News Sacramento:
Yesterday I appeared on two radio shows, now available for streaming or podcast download. First, on KQED Forum, I was on a panel discussing what climate efforts may look like during a Trump Administration, and how California will respond. Joining me was:
- Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times
- Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor, engineering, Princeton University
- Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director, Sunrise movement, a grassroots organization of students and young people focused on climate change
You can stream it here.
Then last night I hosted State of the Bay on KALW, where I spoke to UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Omar Yaghi about a newly developed carbon-capturing material that has the potential to transform how we address climate change.
Then, we broke down local election results and discussed what they tell us about the priorities and concerns of Bay Area residents with San Francisco Chronicle opinion columnist and editorial writer, Emily Hoeven.
And finally, we talked with Rae Black of Oakland’s For the Win Boxing, a boxing gym that offers professional coaching for women and non-binary people who want to pursue “the sweet science” of boxing.
You can listen to that show here.
California will need a significant build-out of new high-voltage transmission lines to meet state goals for renewable energy deployment and a decarbonized grid by 2045, which requires quadrupling its current in-state solar and wind capacity. But if this new infrastructure is paid for solely through electricity rates, it could increase them significantly, when they have already increased roughly 50% over the past three years for investor-owned utility customers.
In response, UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) is releasing today the policy report Improving Transmission Financing in California: Alternative Models and Policy Strategies to Increase Affordability. It contains a variety of strategies available to policymakers for financing new high-voltage power transmission in California, with the dual goals of 1) reducing costs to ratepayers and 2) accelerating transmission development. The report was developed with the support of Net-Zero California and Clean Air Task Force.
Among the key findings:
- Some form of public-private partnership (P3) could provide significant benefits to deploying lower-cost transmission, due to cost-savings potential and the ability to leverage existing institutions and structures. A number of possibilities and considerations exist, and the form of P3 may depend on the particular transmission line, developers, and other project-specific circumstances.
- Policymakers could endow an existing entity with transmission financing and related P3 authorities, rather than create a new entity. Currently, California has multiple entities with at least some role in transmission. Creating a wholly new public entity, or endowing an existing agency, in California to finance and oversee transmission would entail administrative and procedural changes, which may be more significant for a new public entity.
- State leaders could focus on demonstrating alternative financing arrangements for four to six key transmission regions and lines in the California Independent System Operator’s 20-year transmission outlook that most stakeholders agree are essential. The Governor’s Office could designate a coordinator for high-priority lines and support a process to speed implementation and financing.
- State leaders could minimize risk for the entity or entities owning new transmission lines, including establishing a liability backstop and developing insurance, contract, indemnity, and first loss protection, and other mechanisms, subject to negotiation and legislation.
These and other findings, as well as more detail on selected financing options and their specific challenges, can be found in the new report.
To learn more, register for the CLEE webinar “Financing California’s Transmission Needs” on Wednesday, November 13, from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Pacific. Keynote remarks will be provided by:
- Le-Quyen Nguyen, Acting Senior Advisor for Energy for Governor Gavin Newsom
- Cliff Rechtschaffen, California Air Resources Board member and former California Public Utilities Commissioner
In addition, CLEE will discuss the report findings, along with representatives from Net Zero California, Clean Air Task Force, and DH Infrastructure.
Tonight on State of the Bay, local sports journalist Steve Berman from The Athletic will update us on the Niners, Warriors and other Bay area sports teams.
Then, we dig into California’s Prop 4, the $10 billion bond to fight climate change with a panel of experts. Is it worth your vote? Tune in and decide for yourself! Guests include:
- Ari Platcha from the Sacramento Bee
- Sarah Atkinson from SPUR
- Allison Chan from Save the Bay.
Finally, we’ll hear from celebrated local dancer and choreographer Micaya about the 26th annual SF International Hip Hop Dance Fest.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Tonight on State of the Bay, we’ll explore Sonoma County’s Measure J with Phil Barber, staff writer with The Press Democrat. Measure J aims to prohibit concentrated animal feeding operations, or large animal farms in Sonoma County. This contentious initiative could reshape the county’s environmental and economic future. What do farmers and residents stand to gain or lose?
We’ll also hear from Stanford climate scientist Rob Jackson about his new book, Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere, and the reasons he remains hopeful despite the climate crisis.
Later, we’ll talk with New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, co-authors of Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. What has Musk’s takeover meant for free speech and the future of social media?
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
It’s double duty for me today on KALW, where I’m hosting two leading climate scholars for Your Call at 10am and then hosting State of the Bay at 6pm PT on the chaos at San Francisco Unified and the state of housing in California.
The action kicks off at 10am PT with:
- Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, and author of nine books including her best-selling Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming; and
- Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication, and author of several important books including The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
I’ll ask them about Hurricane Helene and what it says about climate change, plus the just-concluded Climate Week in New York City that coincided with the UN general assembly.
Then at 6pm PT, join us on State of the Bay for the latest on the San Francisco Unified School District, with an ongoing fiscal crisis, just-announced delay of potential school closures, and emergency scrutiny of the superintendent. Jill Tucker, education reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, will unpack it all.
Then we’ll hear about new efforts to address California’s housing shortage with experts Chris Elmendorf, professor of law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, and Ben Metcalf, managing director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley.
Finally, we’ll sit down with Obi Kaufmann, the artist, author and naturalist who has published a series of beloved books about his home state of California.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT for Your Call and then again at 6pm PT for State of the Bay. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Tonight on State of the Bay we’ll talk with pollster Mark Baldassare, Statewide Survey Director of the California Public Policy Institute, to find out who the likely voters are in this November’s election and how they feel about the statewide ballot measures.
Then we’ll talk to Tom Steyer, climate investor and 2020 presidential candidate, about his new book Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War.
Then we’ll hear from Rahsaan Thomas, executive director of Empowerment Ave, a Bay Area organization that helps incarcerated people put their art out in the world.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
California regulators had an opportunity this year to be a global leader on requiring airplanes to use low-carbon jet fuel. But the Air Resources Board announced earlier this month that it will back off from its earlier proposal to require jet fuel providers to decarbonize, through the agency’s landmark low carbon fuel standard program.
Why the change? The agency’s official explanation was a head scratcher, noting that jet fuel suppliers could avoid having to actually provide low-carbon fuel to airplanes by buying credits from an entity with surplus credits to sell. But that is the whole point of this market-based program: regulated entities can either reduce the carbon in their products or pay someone else to do it. Either way, the mandate is in effect and the higher cost of carbon becomes a disincentive to pay to burn it.
So what’s really going on? The potential subtext of the agency’s decision (besides the political pressure from the aviation industry against any such mandate) is fear over lawsuits. Specifically, the airline industry has asserted that California is wholly preempted by various federal laws from mandating any sort of decarbonization of jet fuel.
But the industry overstates the risk of preemption, as a forthcoming CLEE legal analysis will document. There are three federal statutes at issue when it comes to aviation and federal preemption, which our report will detail. Despite their existence, California still has runway (ahem) to regulate jet fuel.
First, the Clean Air Act governs regulation of airplane engines and associated emissions. But in this case, California would not require airlines to change their engines or meet specific emissions standards. Instead, the low carbon fuel standard solely regulates the fuels as inputs. And when low-carbon biofuels blend with fossil jet fuel (the most common type of sustainable aviation fuel), no engine modifications are necessarily required.
Second, the Airline Deregulation Act prevents states and local governments from interfering with the national aviation market, if they take action “related to” prices, routes and services. A mandate for blending lower-carbon fuels into fossil jet is on its face not “related” to these specific economic features of a national aviation market. But if the fuels requirement became stringent enough to significantly affect the prices consumers pay or where airlines schedule refueling or routes, there is likely an outer limit to what California can require on fuels without risking preemption. As a result, the board would need to craft the regulation carefully to avoid these significant impacts.
Finally, the Federal Aviation Act could preempt state laws on jet fuel if the agency set forth national requirements for low-carbon jet fuel, but to date it has not yet finalized any such rule. And in that absence, California has leeway to regulate.
(And if you’re wondering about a separate potential challenge based on the “dormant” commerce clause of the U.S. constitution, where state action creates an unjustified and significant barrier to free trade among states, such a challenge to the low carbon fuel standard program was already rejected by the Ninth Circuit in 2019, with the US Supreme Court declining to review.)
Why does the Air Resources Board’s recent change in policy matter? Aviation is arguably the hardest-to-decarbonize sector in our economy, and policy could help jumpstart solutions. No single technology otherwise currently exists to cover all of our aviation needs in the long term, despite progress on batteries, hydrogen, and potentially “e-fuels,” which combine captured carbon with zero-emission hydrogen to create a synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel that can combust in current engines just like fossil fuel.
So in the short run, the Air Resources Board had an opportunity to require airlines to blend in more low-carbon biofuels with fossil jet fuel, lowering the carbon content while sending a clear policy signal to the industry that research and investment must begin now on these longer-term solutions. This is what Governor Newsom required when he directed the Board in 2022 to “adopt an aggressive 20% clean fuels target for the aviation sector.”
With its low carbon fuel standard, California is well positioned not just to offer more carrots to the airline industry to achieve these targets, but an actual stick to ensure compliance. At the same time, a legal pathway to achieve this goal and avoid preemption remains open, as our forthcoming report will discuss in more detail. Instead, by reversing course with this decision, the state now risks a delayed departure when it comes to more sustainable air travel.
