Next in line for California’s COVID-19 vaccine? Teachers and first responders, panel says [Los Angeles Times]
California’s first responders, farmworkers and educators would be among those next in line to be vaccinated against COVID-19 under recommendations a state advisory committee discussed this week. Should that guidance eventually be put into effect, those workers — as well as others in the broadly defined fields of education and childcare, emergency services, and food and agriculture — would be prioritized within the second major stage of the state’s wider vaccination push.
Basin Tribes react to Haaland’s Interior Secretary nomination [Klamath Falls Herald and News]
President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Representative Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) to lead the Department of Interior, making her the first Native American to hold the position. … In addition to the country’s nearly 600 federally recognized tribes, Haaland would manage more than 100 million acres of wilderness, more than 400 National Park sites and nearly 600 wildlife refuges. She’d also oversee the Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the protection of endangered species, and the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates federal irrigation projects like the Klamath Project. … It’s unclear exactly how Haaland will approach issues in the Klamath Basin.
Biden picks top North Carolina environmental official to run EPA [Washington Post]
President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Michael S. Regan, who heads the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, as the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not yet been formally announced. Regan, 44, would be the first Black man to run the EPA. … In the past four years, the Trump administration has reversed or weakened more than 130 environmental protections and regulations, according to a Washington Post analysis, with plans to target nearly a dozen more by mid-January.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/12/17/biden-epa-regan/
Claims against PG&E for California wildfires are piling up again. Here’s the latest tally [Sacramento Bee]
Six months after successfully emerging from bankruptcy — a case driven by massive wildfire damages — PG&E Corp. is wrestling with fire-related claims approaching $1 billion. California’s largest utility has told investors that claims from September’s Zogg Fire could reach $275 million, a figure that doesn’t include any fines or other penalties levied by government agencies. … Coupled with previously disclosed potential losses of $625 million from the October 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, and the utility is facing $900 million in post-bankruptcy wildfire damages.
https://www.sacbee.com/article247919345.html
Napa supervisors won’t consider major winery rule changes [Napa Valley Register]
Napa County is willing to explore providing additional flexibility to wineries amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but not as much as a group of nine vintners had requested. The county Board of Supervisors will discuss at future meetings temporarily letting wineries use more space to entertain visitors to help meet social distancing requirements. It also might allow wineries to exceed daily visitation caps while remaining within weekly caps. But major principles of Napa County’s wine world will remain, such as having visitation caps and requiring appointments for tasting room visits at many wineries.
Opinion: California is having an ‘insect apocalypse.’ The state should take it seriously [San Diego
… Unfortunately, while insects face a potentially unprecedented collapse, a California Superior Court ruled recently that insects are not covered by the state’s Endangered Species Act. That disturbing decision should promote state and federal action. … A group of large-scale agricultural organizations, including the Almond Alliance of California, sued to block the listings. Exploiting purported ambiguity in the law’s language, the group successfully argued that because CESA does not specifically list insects as animals that may be protected, the state lacks the authority to treat them as mammals, birds or fish.
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