[Source: Utility Dive] California’s system operator is moving ahead with its plans to organize 38 independent power providing systems into a western region grid and market. Nobody is more passionate about this history-making plan than California Independent System Operator (CAISO) President and CEO Steve Berberich. Just-released preliminary assessments of the regionalization plan to integrate the separate balancing authority areas (BAAs) Read More…
Newsroom
Federal environmental regulators dispel fracking fears
[Source: Forbes] Last month, the Obama Administration’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) in a ruling found no significant environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing off the California shores. The debate over the safety and implications of fracking has grown over several years to include issues of water Read More…
Major environmental group endorses Clinton
[Source: SFGATE] Hillary Clinton has secured the endorsement of the political arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council — one of the nation’s leading environmental organizations — in her White House bid, marking the first presidential endorsement in the 46-year-old group’s history, The Chronicle has learned. Not only does the organization back Clinton’s Democratic candidacy, Read More…
Global economic crisis tied to thousands of cancer deaths
[Source: CBS News] The global economic downturn of 2008 to 2010 — along with the rise in unemployment that came with it — was associated with more than 260,000 excess cancer-related deaths, many of which were considered treatable, according to new research. The study, published in The Lancet, also found that the effect was lessened Read More…
California’s cap-and-trade carbon emission system may be failing
[Source: Sacramento Bee] California’s much-vaunted cap-and-trade system of reducing greenhouse gas emissions may be collapsing. This month’s quarterly auction of carbon dioxide emission allowances, which was supposed to generate more than a half-billion dollars for politicians to spend, brought in a paltry $10 million as the Air Resources Board sold a tiny fraction of the Read More…
EPA releases final draft of Environmental Justice 2020 strategy
[Source: Bloomberg BNA] The Environmental Protection Agency released today the final draft of its environmental justice strategy that would run through 2020. The final draft of the agency’s EJ 2020 Action Agenda, which builds off the EPA’s previous, Plan EJ 2014 strategy, has three key tenets: further infuse environmental justice into agency processes and decision-making, Read More…
Union members don’t oppose environmental protections
[Source: In These Times] Union workers attacking environmentalists—it has become a trope of our time. But what do union members actually think about the environment? In a study soon to be published in Labor Studies Journal, we report our findings on workers’ attitudes and behaviors regarding a variety of environmental issues. In particular, we examine Read More…
Irvine’s economic success story
[Source: Orange County Register] The OC center of innovation, technology and creativity is an employment powerhouse. By night, 250,000 people call the dynamic and diverse city of Irvine home. By day, that number more than doubles. Irvine is the region’s job engine, and it’s a shiny, high-tech one that attracts a highly educated, highly skilled Read More…
Survey: California still worst state for business
[Source: Orange County Register] In what is sounding like a broken record, California once again ranked dead last in Chief Executive magazine’s annual Best and Worst States for Business survey of CEOs – as it has all 12 years the survey has been conducted. Texas, meanwhile, earned the top spot for the 12th straight year. Read More…