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Thursday, February 23, 2017 - 16:00

Salmon fishermen joined environmentalists and other public trust advocates in praising the introduction of  SB 49, the California Environmental Defense Act, in the California State Senate on February 23.

The Senate leadership unveiled SB 49 as part of the Preserve California legislative package “to insulate the state from dangerous rollbacks in federal environmental regulations and public health protections” proposed by the Donald Trump administration and Congress.

SB 49, authored by Senate Pro Tempore Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) and Senator Henry Stern (D-Agoura Hills, does the following:

  • Makes current federal clean air, climate, clean water, worker safety, and endangered species standards enforceable under state law, even if the federal government rolls back and weakens those standards.
  • Directs state environmental, public health, and worker safety agencies to take all actions within their authorities to ensure standards in effect and being enforced today continue to remain in effect.
  • Federal laws in these areas set “baselines,” but allow states to adopt more stringent standards. This bill simply ensures CA does not backslide as a result of rollbacks and damage done by the new regime in Washington DC.
  • In 2003, when the Bush Administration attempted to enact similar rollbacks of federal clean air standards, the Legislature passed SB 288 (Chapter 476 statutes of 2003), the Protect CA Air Act.  This measure builds on that platform.

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Thursday, February 23, 2017 - 15:45

California lawmakers want to build a regulatory wall around the state, opening a new front in their brewing war with President Trump as they try to prevent any rollbacks in federal rules from weakening environmental protections here.

The new legislation, announced Thursday by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) and his colleagues, is an attempt to ensure federal rules on air quality, water protection, endangered species and worker safety would stay on the books in California even if they’re loosened in Washington. Federal standards in place before Trump took office would become enforceable by state officials in California. 

“California can't afford to go back to the days of unregulated pollution," De León said at a news conference outside the Capitol. "We're not going to let this administration or any other undermine our progress.”

Another measure would try to prevent Washington from selling federal land in California to private developers without first offering it to state officials. A third proposal would protect federal workers, such as engineers and lawyers, from losing state certifications and licenses if they blow the whistle on problems at their agencies.

The sweeping package of legislation could be a prelude to drawn-out legal battles between California and Washington, and they arrive as Trump prepares to loosen federal environmental regulations.

“California will undoubtedly test the limits of what it’s possible for a state to do,” said Cara Horowitz, co-director of UCLA's Environmental Law Clinic. The state, she said, “has made very clear that it sees itself as the environmental resistance in the United States.”

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Thursday, February 23, 2017 - 15:45

Needling President Donald Trump and bracing for a rollback of Obama-era environmental protections, Democrats in the nation’s most populous state are launching a preemptive strike.

California lawmakers are expected Thursday to propose legislation to fold existing federal air, water and endangered species standards into state law, sources said, enshrining pre-Trump levels of protection in California regardless of any reversal at the federal level.

The legislation, to be introduced by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León and other Democratic senators, would require state air and water pollution regulators to maintain environmental standards at least as stringent as federal law required before Trump took office. And it would add state-level protections for species currently listed as endangered or threatened on the federal Endangered Species Act.

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Thursday, February 23, 2017 - 09:45

Fearing a federal rollback of longstanding protections for air quality, clean water, endangered species and workers’ rights, California Democrats are pursuing legislation that would cement those environmental and labor regulations in state law.

The trio of bills announced Thursday also seek to use state authority to block private development of federal lands in California and extend some safeguards to federal whistleblowers.

“Californians can’t afford to go back to the days of unregulated pollution,” Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León said at a press conference. “So we’re not going to let this administration or any other undermine our progress.”

Efforts by former President Barack Obama to address climate change and other environmental problems are expected to be largely reversed under President Donald Trump, who is already targeting regulations, such as an Obama rule to keep coal mining waste out of waterways, that he says hurt industry and kill jobs.

De León and other state senators who joined him Thursday pointed to a litany of developments over recent months that compelled them to act: Trump calling climate change a hoax; proposals to eliminate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the confirmation of Scott Pruitt, who as attorney general of Oklahoma repeatedly sued the EPA, to lead the agency.

“We’re locking in at least some baseline so that people in the state of California can trust that we’re going to have their back to preserve the quality of California that they’ve all come to expect and know that progress can still be made,” said Sen. Henry Stern, D-Los Angeles.

De León and Stern are joint authors of the main legislation, Senate Bill 49, which would prohibit state and local agencies from adopting rules that are less stringent than those currently in place under the federal Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Water Drinking Drinking Act, Endangered Species Act and worker safety standards.

Senate Bill 50, by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, aims to discourage new resource extraction by private companies on public lands. It would void transfers in ownership of federal land in California unless the State Lands Commission is given the right of first refusal.

Senate Bill 51, by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, forbids state licensing agencies from taking disciplinary action against government-employed scientists and researchers who reveal wrongdoing. It also directs California environmental and public health agencies to preserve any scientific information or data that federal authorities order destroyed.

The Legislature has tried a similar tactic before. In 2003, as then-President George W. Bush moved to weaken a similar rule at the federal level, California passed a law requiring the state’s older factories, refineries and power plants to update their pollution-control equipment when they upgrade their facilities.

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Monday, January 23, 2017 - 15:30

President Donald Trump began his inaugural address with words that might have heartened nervous California Democrats. But then he warmed up and reverted to the familiar campaigner-in-chief.

Like many Republican leaders, Trump preached states’ rights — or seemed to.

“Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another,” he said. “But we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”

Did that mean the federal government under Trump would butt out of California’s affairs and let its citizens determine, for example, the state’s own environmental policies? As it has pretty much for nearly half a century, back to the Nixon presidency, when the state began aggressively fighting deadly smog?

No, apparently not. Frankly, it wasn’t real clear what he was talking about — except the old “people rule,” throw-away stuff every politician spouts.

“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” he said, using fighting words while lamenting inner-city poverty, rusted factories, incompetent schools, gangs and drugs.

“We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action, constantly complaining, but never doing anything about it.”

No argument there. This certainly is not a time for timid politicians.

And that’s what California Democrats are saying as they prepare — as best they can — to resist the conservative policies of the Trump administration and Republican Congress. But they’re being urged by many, including some in their own party, to relax, be nice and see what happens.

Gov. Jerry Brown, for one, has told Democratic legislative leaders he won’t be joining their outspoken resistance movement. Telling a new president to pound sand is not smart when you’re hoping to negotiate with him over such issues as healthcare and environmental protection, the governor has said privately.

That isn’t calming down Democratic legislators, however — especially the two Latinos who head both houses: Senate leader Kevin de León of Los Angeles and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon of Paramount.

“I’ve lost a lot of sleep wondering what will happen to the people of California,” De León said last week, speaking to Times reporters in the Sacramento bureau.

 

De León repeatedly held up the front page of last Thursday’s Times, like a street corner newspaper hawker from yesteryear. The top story reported that Trump planned to immediately crack down on illegal immigration, including ordering workplace raids.

“You have children in elementary school who are crying,” De León said. “That’s not healthy.”

An adjacent Times front-page story reported that Trump’s oil-friendly nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency had cast doubts on whether California should be allowed to keep imposing its own emission rules for cars and trucks. If not, it would hamper California’s nation-leading efforts to fight climate change.

“It had a real physical impact on me reading this,” De León said, again holding up the newspaper.

Normally soft-spoken Rendon has called Trump a “very dangerous person with totalitarian fascist tendencies.”

That’s pretty much the tone among Sacramento Democrats.

Updates from Sacramento »

Trump and Congress have the power to mess with a lot of California policy. But the three issues that most concern state Democrats are illegal immigration, environmental protection and Obamacare.

They can fight back like guerrillas on immigration and the environment. But on costly Obamacare, they’re essentially helpless because without federal funding, the state can’t afford the former president’s signature program.

It’s estimated that one-tenth of California workers — including professionals — are here illegally. Up to 85% of farmworkers are.

San Joaquin Valley farmers may have supported Trump for president, but they’re afraid of his immigration policies.

Democrats hope to rush some bills through the Legislature to thwart Trump on aggressive deportations.

One bill would require the federal government to use its own officers and facilities to round up immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally — no more using local cops or stashing the suspects in county jails.

And no barging into courtrooms, hospitals or schools searching for immigration lawbreakers. Obama’s policy forbade that, but there’s no telling what Trump might try.

Another bill would provide state money for lawyers who represent immigrants in deportation cases.

On the environment, if the Trump administration and Congress weaken protections for endangered species — long a GOP and agriculture dream — the Democratic Legislature would attempt to replace those federal safeguards with California’s own.

“We’re in a dramatically new environment with a hostile administration that does not believe in science,” De León said.

Most vulnerable is California’s version of Obamacare. About 5 million Californians benefit from the Affordable Care Act, including 4 million who are on Medi-Cal, the state’s healthcare program for the poor.

California receives roughly $22 billion in federal money for Obamacare, and there’s no politically feasible way the state could replace it.

“A repeal without replacement would lead to a level of chaos that would be hard to recover from,” says Anthony Wright, who heads Health Access California, an activist group. “We’ll fight to preserve key elements of the act.”

Ironically, the San Joaquin Valley benefits hugely from Obamacare, despite being largely represented in Congress by Republicans vowing to scuttle it. Half of Fresno County’s residents are on Medi-Cal, 45% of Kern County’s are and 55% of Tulare’s.

California Democrats are right to fight any Trump assaults on state policy. His notion of states’ rights clearly is limited.