PG&E electricity rates could double after more wildfires, report says [San Francisco Chronicle]
If California wildfires continue to be as devastating as they have been the past two years, millions of customers’ electric rates could skyrocket 50% and threaten the state’s ability to execute some of its top clean energy initiatives, according to a new analysis prepared for Gov. Gavin Newsom. The sharp rate rise would be worse for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers, whose bills could double in just one year, said Steven Weissman, an emeritus lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, in a Wednesday memo to a Newsom administration official. Weissman, who previously worked for decades at the California Public Utilities Commission, said the massive rate increases would inhibit the state’s ability to get more electric cars on the road and phase out natural gas use in buildings. Both efforts are central to California’s broader ambitions to fight climate change. “I’m not saying that anything is impossible,” Weissman told The Chronicle. “What I’m saying is that, if the expectation is that, on an ongoing basis, ratepayers are going to be covering the costs of these wildfires if they’re triggered by utilities, that is going to make it far more challenging to try to accomplish a significant conversion from using fossil fuels to using electricity.”
Santa Barbara County’s hoop house ordinance OK’d [Santa Maria Times]
Ordinance amendments to regulate agricultural hoop structures were approved Tuesday by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors after splitting the difference on a change for one requirement and deleting some text from another. The result is hoop houses will be exempt from permit requirements provided they are 20 feet or less in height, have no lighting, plumbing or other permanent elements, are located on land cultivated in one of the last three years and are on slopes averaging 25% or less. If they’re located in the Santa Ynez Valley Design Control Overlay or the Gaviota Coast Critical Viewshed Corridor Overlay, they also must have an area of 4,000 square feet or less. If they don’t meet those exemption criteria, structures less than 20,000 square feet will require a zoning clearance, and those of 20,000 or more square feet will require a land use permit. Getting to the 4-1 vote to approve the ordinance was a struggle, with two conceptual motions failing because supervisors couldn’t muster a majority to change the slope requirement or the required creek setback. Both the board and staff were concerned that making too many major changes could require recirculating the environmental impact report.
Interior secretary nominee David Bernhardt’s ethics problems aren’t going away [Los Angeles Times]
President Trump’s pick to the lead the Interior Department heads for a confirmation vote as early as Thursday, with his career as a lobbyist raising ethical and legal concerns and doubts about his independence from the energy and water industry groups he long represented. Acting Secretary David Bernhardt spent about eight years as a partner in Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, one of the nation’s top-grossing law and lobbying firms, according to public rankings. There he represented energy, mining and Western water interests that deal with the Interior Department, including two California entities, Westlands Water District — the nation’s largest irrigation district — and Cadiz Inc. Bernhardt’s firm sued the department four times on Westlands’ behalf. He personally argued one appeals case challenging federal endangered species protections for imperiled salmon. He did legal work for Cadiz, which wants to build a water pipeline on a railroad right of way that crosses federal land in the California desert.
Raising minimum wage would cost jobs, say economists in WSJ survey [Wall Street Journal]
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect that raising the federal minimum wage, even by a relatively small amount, would lead to job losses. About a third of business and financial economists surveyed in the past week as part of The Wall Street Journal’s monthly poll said an hourly minimum wage above the current level of $7.25 an hour but below $10 would cause job losses. Some 26% said employers would start to cut payrolls in the $10.01 to $13.00 range. Still, the average appropriate level of the minimum wage among the economists who favor one was $10.83 an hour, significantly higher than the level today. Just under a third of survey respondents said there shouldn’t be a minimum wage at all.
The federal minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, hasn’t increased since 2009. Earlier this year, Democrats in Congress introduced bills in the House and Senate that would gradually raise the federal minimum wage until it reaches $15 an hour in 2024, and then adjust the level based on wage growth nationally.
New plan for farmworker housing [Gilroy Dispatch]
Growing up in farmworker housing in Paicines, California informed how newly elected state Assemblymember Robert Rivas ran his campaign for his District 30 seat, and now it’s informing one of his first proposed pieces of legislation. The Farmworker Housing Act of 2019 has made its way out of the Assembly housing committee and has now moved on to the committee on local government. The bill creates a streamlined process for farmworker housing to be built on agricultural land. Currently, if a farm owner wants to build worker housing on farm property, it is a long process of zoning changes, with smaller farm owners unable to provide the kind of housing their workers need. Rivas’ bill would provide exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for farmworker housing, and does not require property owners to apply for a zoning change….The federal government currently provides a program known as H-2A that allows farm owners to sponsor temporary workers from foreign countries. Rivas said the Farmworker Housing Act would provide an option for the 75 percent of farmworkers who are U.S. residents and for the small farm owners who cannot afford to participate in H-2A.
https://gilroydispatch.com/2019/04/10/new-plan-for-farmworker-housing/
How California’s forest management may help reduce the risk of wildfires [Associated Press]
With nearly 40 million people living in California and development spreading into once-wild regions, there is growing agreement that the state must step up its use of forest management through prescribed burns and vegetation removal in an attempt to lessen the impact of wildfires. In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on wildfires, designed to expedite forest-thinning projects and other programs. In May 2018, former Gov. Jerry Brown called for doubling the amount of forest land treated each year in California by 2023. The state significantly increased the money it was spending on those efforts, with the Legislature earmarking $1 billion over five years in funds generated by the state’s carbon trading program. The Trump administration has also vowed to manage forests more aggressively. Cal Fire and the state Board of Forestry estimate 23 million acres in the state’s responsibility area could benefit from fuel reduction. And those treatments aren’t one-time efforts: they must be repeated every few years to be effective.
