I’ll be double-hosting on KALW today. First, on Your Call’s One Planet Series at 10am PT, we discuss the Trump administration’s attack on environmental protections.
Donald Trump’s EPA chief, Lee Zeldin, plans to roll back more than two dozen regulations that protect our health, air, water, and climate, eliminate the Office of Research and Development, and fire hundreds of scientists. Joining us to discuss will be:
- Ken Alex, director of Project Climate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & Environment
- Marianne Lavelle, award-winning reporter for Inside Climate News
Later in the program, we’ll examine the Trump administration’s decision to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s cancer alley, with Robert Taylor, executive director of Concerned Citizens for St. John.
Then at 6pm PT, I’ll be hosting State of the Bay. First, we’ll talk to San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie about his new plan on homelessness.
Then we’ll talk about the suffering endured by millions of people due to Long Covid, with Dr. Linda Geng, co-director of the Stanford Long Covid Collaborative, and Philip Hoover, a screenwriter and North Bay resident who has firsthand experience navigating life with Long COVID.
Finally, we’ll talk to Ramon Ramos Alayo of the dance festival CubaCaribe.
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!
Aviation is a significant and growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. But the federal government in the United States has failed to address it so far. In response, some state policy makers and advocates are now considering legal avenues to effectively require the use of sustainable aviation fuels, which emit less carbon than traditional jet fuel when burned — and in some cases can eliminate these emissions altogether.
Opponents will undoubtedly argue that such state-based initiatives conflict with federal law. A new report from UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE), State of Aviation Decarbonization: State Policy Options to Regulate Carbon Emissions from Aviation and Federal Preemption Risk, provides an in-depth analysis of these legal issues with respect to three potential state policy approaches:
- regulation via a low carbon or clean fuel standard, which creates a carbon intensity target for all fuels – including aviation – with low-carbon fuels that fall below the threshold generating credits that can be sold, while those above the benchmark create deficits;
- state and local plans that implement the federal Clean Air Act; specifically, indirect source rules on airports that would require reduction of co-pollutants from airport mobile sources, including aircraft emissions due to burning high-carbon fuels; and
- state authority to tax and impose fees on high-carbon aviation fuel, in order to discourage their consumption and instead provide revenue that can fund use and deployment of lower-carbon alternatives.
The report ultimately concludes that a low carbon fuel standard regulation would provide the greatest potential impact on sustainable aviation but entails the most legal risk among the three approaches, while increased taxation or fees on high-carbon jet fuel could have a potentially significant impact on sustainable aviation fuel if revenues support deployment of low-carbon alternatives, with a moderate risk of federal preemption.
Overall, State of Aviation Decarbonization finds that well-designed state initiatives have a good chance of surviving legal challenges, and it offers strategies to reduce the likelihood of successful challenges.
Download the report here.
On today’s Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll discuss the importance of environmental journalism with:
- Mark Hertsgaard, executive director of Covering Climate Now, environment correspondent for The Nation, and author of Big Red’s Mercy: The Shooting of Deborah Cotton and A Story of Race in America.
- Sammy Roth, climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times and author of the paper’s Boiling Point newsletter
How should journalists cover the Trump administration’s moves to stop climate action?
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Double shot of KALW for me today! First, on Your Call’s One Planet Series at 10am: how will the rising cost of home insurance, driven by worsening climate disasters, push up the costs of owning a home? In some cases, insurance companies are pulling out of towns altogether. And in others, people are beginning to move away. Abrahm Lustgarten, an investigative reporter at ProPublica and The New York Times, will discuss these trends.
Later in the show, we’ll examine the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency with Marianne Lavelle, an award winning reporter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning, non-profit, news organization Inside Climate News. According to Inside Climate News, employees tasked with overseeing environmental justice initiatives at the Environmental Protection Agency could be placed on immediate administrative leave, leaving them in limbo.
Then at 6pm PT, I’m hosting State of the Bay, where we’ll talk to UCSF doctors and scientists about the impact of uncertain federal funding on our public health and on the cutting edge research happening here in the Bay. Guests include Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease doctor at UCSF, and Pamela Munster, Professor in the Department of Medicine in Hematology/Oncology at UCSF.
We’ll also discuss how the Rose Pak Democratic Club recently ended its affiliation with the Democratic Party. Joining us will be Jeremy Lee, President of the Rose Pak Democratic Club, and Ko Lyn Cheang, Asian American and Pacific Islander reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.
And finally, we’ll hear from the director of the new film Underdogs, about how the human-dog bond transforms incarcerated people.
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!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, we’ll discuss a recent investigation about how a deceptive PR strategy pioneered in 1950s California first exposed the risk of climate change and then helped the industry deny it. Joining us will be Rebecca John, investigative climate journalist and research Fellow at the Climate Investigations Center.
We also talk about the news media coverage of the devastating LA fires, and the fossil fuel industry’s efforts in California to kill a bill that would have forced major fossil fuel companies to contribute to a fund, which would pay for climate disasters. Aaron Cantu, award-winning investigative journalist covering gas and oil in California for the Capital & Main, will describe the details.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am 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 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.
