Two California Senate Elections Set For Tuesday

Another round of political musical chairs is on tap Tuesday when voters in two Southern California Senate Districts go to the polls to fill vacancies created when Democratic Sens. Gloria Negrete McLeod of Chino and Juan Vargas of San Diego resigned to take seats in Congress.

Negrete McLeod’s heavily Democratic 32nd District has the biggest crowd of candidates. Democrats in the field are Assemblywoman Norma Torres of Pomona, San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller Larry Walker of Chino, Ontario City Councilman Paul Vincent Avila and Joanne T. Gilbert, a retired teacher from Rialto.

Republicans on the ballot are Ontario Mayor Paul S. Leon and Pomona Planning Commissioner Kenny Noble.

Negrete McLeod has endorsed Walker, but Torres has the support of the California Democratic Party and a big lead in fundraising, having brought in $346,600 during the first two months of the year. Leon raised  $163,700 and Walker took in $81,600 during that period.

In Vargas’ former 40thSenate District,  Democratic candidates include Assemblyman Ben Hueso of San Diego and nurse/author Anna Nevenic of Cathedral City. The two Republicans on the ballot are professor/businesswoman Xanthi Gionis of Chula Vista and businessman Hector Raul Gastelum of Chula Vista. Hueso has Vargas' endorsement and has raised, by far, the most money during the first two months of the year-- $259,900.

In both contests, if one candidate does not win a majority of the vote, a runoff will be held May 14 between the top two vote-getters.

via LA Times

Gov. Jerry Brown Works to Spread California's Green Doctrine

 When Gov. Jerry Brown called on his fellow governors at a conference in Washington last week to embrace a California-style pursuit of cleaner air, he was doing more than reinforcing the state's image as an environmental trailblazer. He was trying to protect its economy.

Brown needs other states and the federal government to adopt key elements of California's environmental agenda, such as reaping more energy from renewable sources and capping greenhouse gas emissions, if those programs are to be successful here.

The state's aggressive pursuit of environmental goals has provided a new impetus for green jobs and federal subsidies. But the programs are costly to businesses, raising the price of their energy and forcing them to upgrade to cleaner manufacturing technologies.

If others don't go green, California could become an outlier, saddling businesses with costly new power while neighboring states continue to use traditional, cheaper energy, experts say. If the efforts under way in California spread to become the new normal, however, all will benefit from economies of scale.

If more states order power companies to limit their use of fossil fuels, for example, the incentive will grow nationwide for firms to develop cheaper alternatives, leaving California consumers less exposed to spikes in electricity rates.

Likewise, if greenhouse gas caps are widely implemented, the state's landmark climate change law is more likely to be successful. Cleansing the air is "clearly not something California can do on its own," said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute.

The authors of California's emissions law said as much in its text: The ultimate goal is "encouraging other states, the federal government and other countries to act."

Brown has vowed to keep pushing to "decarbonize the economy." He wants to advance the state's mandate for renewable energy — already the most ambitious in the nation — further so California will receive as much as half its power from renewable sources within 20 years. In the courts, his administration is defending a state law, challenged by some oil and ethanol companies, that requires gasoline to contain 10% less carbon by the end of the decade.

In Washington, Brown pushed for others to join in. "We can't do it alone," he told state leaders gathered for the National Governors Assn. meeting. "We need other states.... We need China. We need India."

Many elements of California's environmental blueprint have already become a national model as other states and the federal government have adopted some version of them over the past several decades.

Using its leverage as the largest automobile market in the nation, California in 1975 required the use of catalytic converters to help reduce pollution from cars. Six years later, the federal government required them in all cars sold in the U.S.

A California law that passed more than 10 years ago limiting tailpipe emissions was the basis for a federal standard imposed by the Obama administration in 2010.

The state's global warming law, called AB 32 and passed in 2006, has been partly imitated elsewhere.

It was a model for federal legislation to curb greenhouse gas limits in 2010. President Obama failed to get the measure through Congress, but the Environmental Protection Agency created new rules to roll back emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The California law was grounded in the creation of a market that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Owners of power plants and factories buy and sell permits to release the gases into the atmosphere.

The system, called "cap and trade," limits the volume of air pollutants that may be released in California each year but permits high polluters to buy the right to emit more.

Many business interests say cap-and-trade is too costly, though they may have fewer objections if that market grows large enough.

"The current system amounts to a tax to continue doing business in the state," said Shelly Sullivan, executive director of the AB 32 Implementation Group, a coalition of California businesses that has opposed many of the state's environmental regulations. "A broader system would create a larger market and, depending on how it's constructed, could address some of our concerns."

A limited number of cap-and-trade markets are in place in other parts of the country, although their scope is more modest than California's. Nine northeastern states, for example, have a carbon market aimed at reducing only power plant emissions.

Another landmark California environmental law requires power companies to generate more electricity from wind, solar and other "renewable" sources. Under a bill signed by Brown in 2011, California utilities must generate one-third of their power that way by 2020 — the most ambitious such standard in the nation.

The California Public Utilities Commission estimates that reaching that goal could propel energy costs to nearly 11% above what they would be from gas-fired energy plants.

While 30 other states have also set requirements for power companies to utilize more renewable energy, their mandates are far more modest. Obama has been unsuccessful in his efforts to persuade Congress to pass a national mandate, and the prospects for Washington embracing more California-style energy policies is unclear.

via LA Times

Sahara Desert Dust Affects California Water Supply, Study Finds

High-altitude dust blown thousands of miles across the Pacific from Asian and African deserts can make it rain and snow in the Sierra Nevada, according to new research that suggests tiny particles from afar play a role in California's water supply.

The study, published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science, grew out of researchers' questions about two similar Sierra storms in winter 2009. Even though the storm systems carried the same amount of water vapor, one produced 40% more precipitation than the other. When scientists analyzed ground samples of the rain and snow dropped by the wetter storm, they found an abundance of Asian dust.

Two years later, a science team spent days flying through Sierra storm clouds on a government research plane, collecting an array of atmospheric samples at the same time that instruments below in the Tahoe National Forest took ground measurements. The results: When dust and tiny biological particles from halfway around the globe were detected in the clouds swirling above the Sierra peaks, there was more rain and snow.

"There was this sort of magical switch," said Kim Prather, a UC San Diego atmospheric chemist and coauthor of the paper. "The days with dust you see one thing, and the days without dust you see a different thing."

Previous research by one of the paper's 12 authors had shown that windblown mineral dust transported long distances acts as a seed for atmospheric ice that is key to forming a significant amount of precipitation.

But the scientists said the Sierra study is the first direct documentation that dust and biological particles from as far away as the Sahara Desert and the deserts of China and Mongolia can help wring water out of the sky in the Western United States.

"The fact that something happening on another continent in terms of dust generation could influence precipitation patterns in the U.S — that's a challenging problem," said Marty Ralph, a coauthor and research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Researchers identified the source of the airborne dust by its chemical fingerprint and by looking at satellite data and numerical weather models that track the global trajectory of air masses. The Sierra range is the first thing the particles hit in California. Whether they have the same effect on precipitation in other West Coast mountains, such as the Cascades, or more interior ranges, such as the Rockies, is unknown.

Ralph was initially dubious that aerosols — as dust and other atmospheric particles are known — have much of an impact on whether a cloud gives up water or holds on to it.

But the difference in the output of the 2009 storms "was a bit of a scientific epiphany," he said. "I came into this very skeptical and have come to where I am now, coauthoring a paper that's saying aerosols can have a significant impact."

The next step, he added, is to quantify that precipitation effect.

The Sierra research was part of a three-year field study, called CalWater, that investigated influences on California rain and snow. "I think it has huge implications," said Guido Franco of the California Energy Commission, which funded the program. "It may counteract some of the effects of a warming climate."global 

Scientists predict that, in general, Earth's wet regions will become wetter with warming and dry regions will become drier. That could mean more windblown desert dust in the atmosphere and, if the Sierra results bear out, more precipitation in the Northern California mountains that provide the state with roughly a third of its water supply.

via LA Times

Congress passes bill renewing Violence Against Women Act

The House on Thursday passed and sent to President Obama a far-reaching extension of the Violence Against Women Act. The vote came after House Republican leaders, cognizant of divisions in their own ranks and the need to improve their faltering image among women voters, accepted a bill that cleared the Senate two weeks ago on a strong bipartisan vote.

The bill renews a 1994 law that has set the standard for how to protect women, and some men, from domestic abuse and prosecute abusers. Thursday's 286-138 vote came after House lawmakers rejected a more limited approach offered by Republicans.

It was the third time this year that House Speaker John Boehner has allowed Democrats and moderates in his own party prevail over the GOP's much larger conservative wing. As with a Jan. 1 vote to avoid the fiscal cliff and legislation to extend Superstorm Sandy aid, a majority of House Republicans voted against the final anti-violence bill.

The law has been renewed twice before without controversy, but it lapsed in 2011 as it was caught up in the partisan battles that now divide Congress. Last year, the House refused to go along with a Senate-passed bill that would have made clear that lesbians, gays, immigrants and Native American women should have equal access to Violence Against Women Act programs.

It appeared the scenario would be repeated this year when the House introduced a bill that didn't mention the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and watered down a Senate provision allowing tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians who attack their Indian partners on tribal lands.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who has spent months working on the issue, defended the Republican plan: "Our goal in strengthening the Violence Against Women Act is simple. We want to help all women who are faced with violent, abusive and dangerous situations. ... We want them to know that those who commit these horrendous crimes will be punished."

But the House proposal encountered quick and strong opposition from women's groups, the White House, Democrats and some Republicans, and on Tuesday, the GOP leadership agreed to give the House a vote on the Senate bill. It passed immediately after the House rejected Cantor's bill, 257-166, with 60 Republicans voting against it.

The GOP decision to show the white flag came after the party's poor showing among women in last fall's election and Democratic success in framing the debate over the Violence Against Women Act as Republican policy hostile to women. President Barack Obama won 55 percent of the women's vote last November. Republican presidential candidates haven't won the women's vote since 1984, when Ronald Reagan held a 12-point lead over Walter Mondale among women.

The anti-violence bill should never have become partisan, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a sponsor of the Senate bill. "That is why I applaud moderate Republican voices in the House who stood up to their leadership to demand a vote on the Senate bill."

The Senate passed its bill on a 78-22 vote with every Democrat, every woman senator and 23 of 45 Republicans supporting it.

A turning point in the debate came earlier this month, when 19 Republicans, led by Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J., wrote a letter to their leadership urging them to accept a bipartisan plan that would reach all victims of domestic violence. The letter, Runyan said, was a catalyst in showing the leadership "a willingness of people in the House to really compromise" and see that the Senate "has a pretty good bill."

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., a Native American, also wrote his Republican colleagues saying he was voting against the House alternative because "it falls short of giving tribes what they need to keep their women safe."

American Indian women suffer incidents of domestic violence at rates more than double national averages, but American Indian courts don't have jurisdiction over non-American Indians, and federal prosecutors don't take up about half the violence cases on reservations because of lack of resources to pursue crimes on isolated American Indian lands. The Senate bill would give American Indian courts the ability to prosecute non-American Indians for a limited set of crimes limited to domestic violence and violations of protecting orders. Opponents have said that raises constitutional issues.

The Violence Against Women Act is credited with helping reduce domestic violence incidents by two-thirds over the past two decades. The Senate bill would authorize some $659 million a year over five years to fund current programs that provide grants for transitional housing, legal assistance, law enforcement training and hotlines.

The Senate bill adds stalking to the list of crimes that make immigrants eligible for protection and authorizes programs dealing with sexual assault on college campuses and with efforts to reduce the backlog in rape kit analyses. It reauthorizes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

via Fox News

New California bill would require adult care homes to notify families, police when residents go missing

A Contra Costa state assemblywoman has introduced a bill that would subject adult care facilities to strict notification requirements when a patient goes missing.

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan's bill, AB 620, would require adult care facilities to create safety plans and contact police and family members of residents who vanish. Currently, the facilities are required only to notify the state.

"It's common sense for you and me," said Gayle Larson, a field representative for Buchanan, a San Ramon Democrat. "But it's not required. If it's not required, things can slip through the cracks. And people have slipped through the cracks with pretty significant consequences."

Two such cases in Concord -- one with fatal results -- were detailed in this newspaper in November.

The fatal case was the story of 86-year-old Yolanda Membreno, who walked away from Julia's Home in Concord on Sept. 30. Employees did not contact police until more than an hour after noticing her missing. A few hours later, she was found dead on a playground about 100 yards away. An autopsy determined she died of heat stroke.

In the second, Caitlin Lester, a 24-year-old developmentally disabled woman, left a Concord facility last year and wandered the streets for several hours until police were contacted.

Buchanan's bill came at the urging of Caitlin's mother, Denise Lester.

"I am just beside myself with joy," Lester said Wednesday. "It's encouraging -- there's strength in numbers."

Caitlin Lester expressed her happiness non-verbally during a conversation with her mother.

"I explained to her how a bill works, how it ends up at the governor's desk," Denise Lester said. "I told her, 'We're going to make it so that this isn't going to happen anymore, what happened to you.' And she gets it."

In its current form, Buchanan's bill does not spell out the maximum length of time a patient is missing before facility workers must contact police and family. Larson said that will be negotiated later.

The bill will first be assigned to a policy committee before it winds its way through the legislative process. If approved, a person who violates the provisions of the bill could be found guilty of a misdemeanor.

"Everyone's reaction is 'Of course you'd call police immediately,' " Lester said. "When you tell them 'No,' that's when people's jaws drop. Basic human dignity is missing in this equation."

via Mercury News

New Collaborative Parter: 4e

Dear friends, 

We are excited to announce that Take Action California has a new collaborative partner joining forces in our shared agenda for social change. We'd like to introduce: 4e. The mission of 4e is to create opportunities for families, individuals, or groups to grow in liberty, justice, peace, and harmony for the common good through the promotion of a culture of education, empowerment, equity and excellence. For more information about 4e and their work, please contact Alex Avila at 909-713-3145. You may also reach them at their mailing address, P.O. Box 2051, San Bernardino, CA 92406. 

California braces for impending cuts from federal sequestration

California's defense industry is bracing for a $3.2-billion hit with the federal budget cuts that are expected to take effect Friday.

But myriad other federally funded programs also are threatened, and the combined effect is expected to slow the momentum that California's economy has been building over the last year.

As the state braces for pain from so-called sequestration, there are warnings of long delays at airport security checkpoints, potential slowdowns in cargo movement at harbors and cutbacks to programs, including meals for seniors and projects to combat neighborhood blight.

Despite the grim scenarios from local and state officials, economists say the cuts' overall blow to the economy would be modest, felt more acutely in regions such as defense-heavy San Diego and by Californians dependent on federal programs, such as college students who rely on work-study jobs to pay for school.

Critics say the cuts come at an inopportune time because the economic recovery in the U.S. and California is still weak.

"We need stimulus, not premature austerity," Gov. Jerry Brown said during a break at the National Governors Assn. meeting in Washington.

Rep. John Campbell (R-Irvine) contends that critics of the cuts are exaggerating the effects.

"If we can't do this, what can we do" to reduce Washington's red ink, he asked. "We ought to be panicked about the day when people won't buy our debt anymore because we borrowed too much."

If automatic spending cuts occur as planned, the growth in the country's gross domestic product is likely to slow by 0.4 percentage points this year, from about 2% to 1.6%, economists said.

California's GDP would see a similar slowdown. The state stands to lose as much as $10 billion in federal funding this year, according to Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.

Levy said the more than $1 trillion in cuts planned over the next decade include "items in the federal budget that invest for the future," such as support for research and clean energy, that particularly affect California because of its "innovation economy."

The ripple effects the cuts might have on business and consumer confidence — which would further dampen economic activity — remain to be seen, said Jason Sisney, a deputy at the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

"We're at a point where gains in housing and construction markets have begun to take hold," Sisney said. "A slowdown from sequestration would come at just the moment that the economy was beginning to right itself."

Jerry Nickelsburg, a UCLA economist who writes a quarterly economic forecast on the Golden State, said the state's recent economic gains would provide a buffer against sequestration.

"California can absorb it," Nickelsburg said. "Will it slow economic growth? The answer is yes. Will it result in negative economic growth? I think the answer is no."

Los Angeles officials project that the city would lose more than $100 million at a time when they're struggling to close a hole in the city's budget.

Douglas Guthrie, chief executive of the Los Angeles city housing authority, said Monday that rent subsidies to as many as 15,000 low-income families would be cut an average $200 a month, forcing many families to search for less expensive housing. His agency also might face as many as 80 layoffs in an already reduced workforce.

But Guthrie said in a letter to the Los Angeles City Council that the housing authority must plan for the "painful consequences" of the federal budget cuts and is preparing to send warning notices to participants in the housing assistance program "as soon as we see that the cuts are made and there are no immediate prospects to resolve the budget crisis."

At Yosemite National Park, snow plowing of a key route over the Sierra would be delayed, ranger-led programs are likely to be reduced and the park would face "less frequent trash pickup, loss of campground staff, and reduced focus on food storage violations, all of which contribute to visitor safety concerns and increased bear mortality rates," according to the National Park Service.

Some programs, such as Social Security, would be spared from the $85 billion in cuts nationwide due to kick in Friday. But defense programs are expected to be cut by about 13% for the remainder of the fiscal year and domestic spending by about 9%, according to the White House budget office.

The Obama administration sought Monday to highlight the effects close to home in an effort to step up the pressure on Congress to replace across-the-board cuts with more targeted reductions and new tax revenue collected from taxpayers earning more than $1 million a year.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is bracing for a loss of $37 million a year in federal funding. Supt. John Deasy said Monday that he is sending a letter to the California congressional delegation warning about the "potential very grave impact" of the cuts on Los Angeles schools.

Rachelle Pastor Arizmendi, director of early childhood education at the Pacific Asian Consortium for Employment in Los Angeles, said she anticipated that the cuts would cost her agency $980,000 in federal Head Start funding. That would force PACE to eliminate preschool for about 120 children ages 3 to 5.

"It's not just a number," she said. "This is closing down classrooms. This is putting our children behind when they're going to kindergarten."

The nonprofit serves about 2,000 children, providing most of them two meals a day in addition to preschool education. The cuts would mean PACE would have to lay off four of its 20 teachers, forcing the closure of eight Head Start classrooms, Arizmendi said.

via LA Times