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Governor’s Briefs: Newsom Signs LA Rebuild Order, Announces Key Appointment

Gov. Newsom Signs Executive Order to Accelerate LA Rebuild and Strengthen Wildfire Prevention

LOS ANGELES – Gov. Gavin Newsom March 27 signed an executive order to suspend unnecessary permitting and review requirements to accelerate the rebuild of Altadena, Malibu, and Pacific Palisades following the devastating January fires.

The executive order expedites the process of repairing and replacing electric, gas, water, sewer, and telecommunication infrastructure in communities damaged by the fires. The order also speeds the process of “undergrounding” utility equipment to help communities recover more quickly while building resilience to preventing similar catastrophic fires in the future.

The letters sent to Southern California Edison and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, urged the utilities to rapidly develop rebuilding plans for the communities of Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu, including plans for undergrounding electric distribution infrastructure by the end of March.

Further suspends the Coastal Act

Previously, Gov. Newsom signed an executive order reiterating that permitting requirements under the California Coastal Act are suspended for rebuilding efforts and directing the Coastal Commission not to issue guidance or take any action that interferes or conflicts with the Governor’s executive orders.

This directive expands upon that effort and by removing regulatory hurdles that could otherwise prevent utilities from rebuilding quickly and hardening and upgrading equipment following fires.
Track LA’s recovery, including the latest air quality results, at CA.gov/LAfires.

Details: Read the Executive Order: https://tinyurl.com/Build-LA-prevent-fires

 

Gov. Newsom Announces Appointment

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom March 19 announced the following appointments:

Suzy Shuster, of Beverly Hills, has been appointed to the California Film Commission. Shuster has been co-host and executive producer of Women’s Sports Now on RokuChannel since 2025, co-host of the What the Football Podcast since 2023, and guest host on The Rich Eisen Show since 2014. Shuster was a host/reporter for University of Southern California Trojans Pregame Show on ESPN 710 from 2003 to 2009. Shuster was a reporter for ABC Sports from 2003 to 2006. She was a reporter for the NBA on TNT from 2004 to 2006. Shuster was a reporter/host of Fox Sports Net and Fox Sports West from 2000 to 2002. She was a producer for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel from 1988 to 1999. Shuster was a Producer for ESPN’s SportsCenter from 1997 to 1999. She is a member of the Board of Hillel at Columbia. Shuster earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Art History from Columbia University. This position does not require Senate confirmation, and there is no compensation. Shuster is a Democrat.

 

Port Invests $1.1 Million in Community Sponsorships to Boost Local Initiatives

 

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners March 24 awarded $1,138,300 in sponsorships to 320 local nonprofit organizations through the Port of Long Beach community sponsorship program, marking the largest award and highest number of recipients in a single call to date.

The community sponsorship program supports events and projects centered on the environment, education, social justice, the arts and historic preservation while also informing residents about port operations and initiatives.

A list of the approved sponsorships can be found here.

“The sponsorship program provides us with an opportunity to showcase how the Green Port benefits the community while also serving as a partner to our local nonprofit groups,” said Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero. “It’s an honor to support the diverse programs and events staged by these dedicated organizations.”

The port received a record high of 345 applications in January for this round of sponsorships, 41% of which were first-time requests. The Harbor Commission has approved a $3 million sponsorship budget for fiscal year 2025, with applications accepted in January, May and September.

The next open application period for sponsorships will be May 1-30.

Details: www.polb.com/sponsorships.

Trump-Musk Order Will Cost 21 Million Their Vote

 

No joke. On Tuesday, (March 25) President Donald J. Trump issued an extraordinary Executive Order that would give “the DOGE Administrator,” that is, Elon Musk, access to the voter files of every state for the purpose of purging millions of Americans from voter rolls as suspected “non-citizens.”

The Executive Order, with its Orwellian title, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” will require every American to prove their citizenship when they register or re-register to vote. The justification: Trump claims that the Democratic Party has registered three to five million non-citizen voters. But after four years of intense hunting by his prior Justice Department, Trump’s alien-voter hunters haven’t charged even three.

The Brennan Center reports that 21 million Americans, otherwise legal voters, don’t have access to citizenship ID. All would lose their vote if they attempt to register or RE-register (as 31 million Americans do each year).

Most Americans can only prove citizenship with either a passport or an ORIGINAL birth certificate (no copies).

The real issue is, WHO will be excluded from voting under this new edict?

  • Only 34% of Black Americans have passports to prove citizenship. Indeed, only 42% of whites have a passport.
  • 69 million women who took their husband’s last name cannot use their birth certificate as proof of citizenship.
  • Military ID is NOT proof of citizenship. But thank you for your service.
  • A driver’s license is NOT proof of citizenship (except in five states that permit you to add citizenship to the “Real” ID).

These facts suggest that 21 million may be the low end of the estimate of voters at risk.

Crosscheck Climbs out of its Crypt

According to Barbara Arnwine, who taught voting rights law at Columbia University, Trump and Musk are trying to get around the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. Arnwine, founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, notes that the Tenth Amendment requires an act of Congress to change federal election law. The Trump-Musk Order tries to end-run the Constitution by pretending this is only a change in a federal form, the national mail-in registration form that almost all Americans use.

We’ve been there before: In the 2016 election, Kansas launched a registration form that required proof of citizenship. Kris Kobach, Trump’s “Voter Fraud Tsar” and then Secretary of State of Kansas, admitted in court that there was not one non-citizen among the 36,000 Kansans who lost their vote because of this prove-you’re-a-citizen registration form.

Not coincidentally, most of the voters blocked by Kansas were students, i.e. Democrats.

The Trump-Musk Order also threatens the return of the infamous Interstate Crosscheck purge program. Courts had already struck down Crosscheck because it wildly tagged over three million Americans as potential “multiple” voters.

In imitation of the Crosscheck program, Trump’s order authorizes Musk’s DOGE-hounds to go into voter files and cross-check names between the states to tag potential double voters. They won’t find any, because, according to Professor Lorraine Minnite, author of “The Myth of Voter Fraud,” the chance of someone voting twice is far less than the chance of being killed by lightning. Despite the facts, Interstate Crosscheck cost several hundred thousand voters their rights in 2016. (Now you know how Trump won that one.) Trump-Musk wants to do it again.

Not incidentally, the three million voters targeted by Interstate Crosscheck (and now, the new Executive Order) were overwhelmingly Americans of color. (Fun fact: 90 of the 100 most common surnames in the US, according to the Census, are “minority” names – Garcia, Jackson, Ho, etc.—so any name-matching purge algorithm will wrongly capture non-white voters by a factor of several hundred percent.)

And who came up with the Interstate Crosscheck program, clearly the model for the new Order? Once again, Kris Kobach, now Kansas Attorney General, who was the vote-fraud “expert” at the Heritage Foundation, the chaps who gave us Project 2025.

Trump Goes Postal

And there’s more tucked into this omnibus of Jim Crow tactics. The Order would also block the counting of mailed-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, no matter when they are mailed or postmarked. The GOP is more than aware that Democrats are 51% more likely than Republicans to vote by mail. Whether your vote will count will now be up to the Postal Service… which Trump intends to privatize.

While the President may be trouncing the 10th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, don’t count on the courts, newly Trump’d, to defend your right to vote.

For now, the Palast Investigations Team will be on the case, providing expert vote suppression data to our partners at the RainbowPUSH Coalition, NAACP of Georgia, Black Voters Matter Fund, and the Transformative Justice Coalition.

Dear GOP: You’ll Never Wash the Stench of Trump Off You or Your Party. Never

No matter how hard you try, the world won’t forget. The lies, the corruption, and the betrayal are etched into history, a stain that will follow your party for generations…

Dear Republicans,

Here we go again. A large chunk of Trump‘s cabinet and our national security leaders just endangered our country and our pilots who were flying over Yemen with their arrogance and frank stupidity.

Their lies about it were so egregious that Jeffrey Goldberg published the actual transcript in The Atlantic this morning.

Only the best people, right?

After the corruption of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations crashed the world economy, kicking off the Republican Great Depression in 1929, it took your party decades to rid itself of the stink.

After Nixon committed treason to extend the Vietnam War to get himself re-elected, unnecessarily killing over 20,000 American soldiers and a million Vietnamese civilians, and then got busted for Watergate and the bribes he solicited in the White House, it took you almost a generation to rid yourselves of the stink.

But you’ll never rid yourself of the stink of Donald Trump, America’s first convicted felon and accused rapist president. At least never in the lifetime of anybody around today. Trump’s stench is a tragic part of American history that will last generations.

The entire world knows the fetor of his whipping up a crowd of thousands to try to assassinate the Vice President of the United States and the Speaker of the House because he lost an election.

Trump’s minions pissed on the carpets in the hallowed halls of Congress, smeared feces on the walls, damaged priceless paintings from the founding era of our country, and murdered three police officers protecting our nation’s Capitol. That stink will never fade, no matter how aggressively his allies try to rewrite history, blur faces, or tell their phony stories about bizarre “deep state” conspiracies.

Seriously, Republicans, did you think Americans would forget the stink of the 30,000+ documented lies he told America and the world while he was first president, and that he’s started up with again? Or the lies he routinely spouts every time he speaks in public, so frequent now that even Fox “News” has to correct the facts when covering him?

Or his stealing classified documents and then leaving them in public places with an industrial-sized copy machine as he invited known spies into Mar-a-Lardo? Or his fake electors’ scheme to overturn a fair election?

How about the reek of his dictator-like destruction of the American Civil Service, filling our government with corrupt toadies, and proclaiming his intention to imprison his political enemies and send the US military into the streets like Lukashenko has done in Belarus and tinpot dictators do all across the world?

Speaking of the behavior of tinpot dictators, Trump has now arrested a bunch of Hispanic-looking men and claims that they are Venezuelan gang members, sending them off to one of the world’s most brutal prisons for indefinite years of torture. He never bothered, however, with any sort of legal process to actually prove they’re not just people who came here looking for a better life for themselves and their children.

He’s signed over 100 laws, rules, and EOs gutting our environmental regulations and is actively promoting the fossil fuel industry, which funds the GOP with billions while it’s destroying the lives of our children and grandchildren. He pulled us out of the Paris Agreement, has packed the EPA and Department of the Interior with fossil fuel lobbyists and toadies, and killed off a government program to build EV charging stations.

Do you really believe that we would forget the stink of his sucking up to murderous dictators like Putin, MBS, and Kim? Now that effluvium is being smeared all over Republican politicians, one after another, as they follow Trump’s orders — which he no doubt received from Putin — to abandon Ukraine, shut down the Voice of America and Radio Liberty, and to sabotage NATO.

You are cowards, all. Covered in your wretched, cowardly, unpatriotic stink.

This is the man who tried to blackmail a democratic ally into manufacturing dirt on his political opponent, withholding aid to Ukraine in the face of Russian attacks. The stink of that crime was so heinous he was impeached for it.

His Muslim ban wasn’t just racist; it destroyed lives, separated families, and alienated allies. His refusal to condemn neo-Nazis in Charlottesville (“very fine people on both sides”) marked the first time in modern history a U.S. president openly pandered to white supremacists.

What about the stink Trump created when he referred to mostly-Black nations as “shithole countries” and our veterans who’d died in war as “suckers” and “losers”? When he told General Mark Milley he didn’t want to again share the stage with an injured veteran because such heroes “don’t look good”?

Or when, at the height of the pandemic in April 2020, Trump ordered people back to work and began to ridicule wearing masks, leading to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths (according to his own science advisors: the British journal Lancet put the number at around a half-million)?

At that time, most Covid deaths were in Blue states (CT, NY, WA, NJ) and Trump agreed with Jared that they could politically benefit by blaming the deaths on Democratic governors. An “effective political strategy” they called this decision redolent with the stink of mass death.

That same son-in-law, by the way, who Trump helped hustle $2 billion from the Saudis in exchange, apparently, for downplaying the murder of a Washington Post journalist and looking the other way at how they oppress women. Do you think we failed to notice the reek of nepotism and corruption?

Speaking of women, do you really believe that the stink of your support for a man credibly accused of rape and sexual assault by over 20 women, including one as young as 13, would just go away? Particularly after he was found by a court of law to have raped “as the term is commonly understood” the first woman whose case finally made it through the courts?

As average working Americans struggle to pay their taxes, Trump pushed through an odious $4 trillion tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies, creating the largest budget deficit by any president in the history of the nation. And now he’s planning to repeat that debacle, adding another $4.5 trillion to our nation’s debt while massively enriching himself and his fellow billionaires.

Do you think Americans — who, unlike Trump and his billionaire buddies actually pay their damn taxes — will forget?

Or the stink of his multiple business frauds? He was convicted and forced to pay millions in restitution to victims of his Trump University fraud; they shut down his phony New York charity; he was found by a New York court to have committed bank, tax, and insurance fraud.

How about the overwhelming stench of tearing babies from their mothers’ arms at the border and then trafficking them into phony “Christian adoption” services that then vanished, leaving over 1000 grieving families still not knowing the whereabouts of their little girls and boys to this day?

Or supporting Putin’s kidnapping over 100,000 Ukrainian children to sell into the thriving Russian child sex industry (the only large country where possession of child porn is legal) by shutting down the group documenting Putin’s child crimes?

Or the stink from the naked campaign lies he blithely told to get votes, promising a new national healthcare system, a revitalization of America’s infrastructure, or his claims that he supported organized labor at the same time his appointees to the Department of Labor are now working to block unionization efforts across the nation?

Even worse, this adulterer — who had affairs outside his marriage with every one of his three wives and never goes to church but still claims to be a Christian — told sincerely religious people he was their champion. Not noticing the sulfurous smell that surrounds Trump, many believed him and still do. In actual fact, he was only championing the hypocritical multimillionaire TV preachers who shared their hustle with him: he supported their violations of tax law in exchange for their endorsement from the pulpit.

Then he tried to overthrow an election he knew he lost by 7 million votes, and has now pardoned the violent criminals who helped him out. The whole world is aghast at the stink of that tinpot dictator effort, and terrified that he may succeed the next time he decides to get his goons and militia buddies to attack America.

How about his destruction of American soft power around the world by dismantling USAID? Or his ongoing destruction of the Social Security administration and the US Postal Service? His attacks on judges and law firms that are essential to a functioning democracy?

Germans still struggle with the stink of a leader who referred to his political opponents as “vermin” and promised he was going to “root them out.” Who attacked the press because they told the truth about him. Who played on and amplified people’s fear of “the other.” You will, too, for generations after Trump himself has shuffled off this mortal coil.

Pathetically, you Republican members of Congress have now smeared yourselves with the slime that has surrounded Donald Trump his entire criminal life. Have you noticed how many of your colleagues are avoiding town halls or trying to sit this presidency out in silence? Do you really think you can ever wash off yourself the reek of your association with treason, an attempt to betray and overthrow America, even worse than what Benedict Arnold tried?

Seriously, Republicans, do you think America can’t smell what’s going on? Trump bragging that he ended women’s rights to bodily autonomy with his Supreme Court picks? His promotion of guns and assault weapons because the racist nutcases who follow him think they’re going to be soldiers in a upcoming civil war? His refusal to do anything about the climate change that is now killing Americans every day?

And now he’s empowered a fanatic South African nepo-baby to take a chainsaw to our government, delighting Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, firing veterans left-and-right while gutting the Veterans Administration, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid.

Do you really think Americans — particularly women and minorities — will forget how he’s stripping memorials and histories of pioneering Black and female heroes from government sites and history books? How he reversed LBJ’s 1965 Executive Order, making it again legal for defense contractors to engage in racial and gender discrimination in hiring? Or how he and his Republicans in Congress are right now trying to make it hard for married women to vote in the next two elections?

America has had a few truly awful presidents. Andrew Jackson “The Indian Killer.” Andrew Johnson who tried to undo Lincoln’s legacy. Warren Harding and Teapot Dome. Richard Nixon’s criminality, Ronald Reagan’s commitment to destroy America’s middle class, George W. Bush lying us into two wars as part of his 2004 re-election strategy.

But none stink as bad as this miserable caricature of a man, with his bizarre orange spray-tan, absurd comb-over, and compensatory phallic-length red ties. Or the retinue of sycophants and billionaires who pathetically suck up to him.

America is not going to forget, and many Americans will never forgive.

You will never wash the stink of Donald Trump off yourselves or your party. Never.

Policy Update: McOsker Calls for Annual Reports on Port Electrification Challenges

 

LOS ANGELES — In 2024, the Port of Los Angeles experienced 19 power surges or outages caused by a number of factors, including LADWP main circuit failures, environmental factors, and customer equipment issues. While LADWP has allocated resources for infrastructure upgrades, full improvements, including underground power lines, will not be completed until 2029.

Last year, councilman Tim McOsker requested a report on the frequency and impact of these outages. Last week, the city council approved the report from the port and LADWP, which outlined short-term measures like increased inspections, power quality workshops, and circuit monitoring, along with a long-term strategy to expand capacity, enhance reliability and support electrification at the port. McOsker’s office has convened meetings with LADWP, the port, and all terminal operators to address solutions for these outages.

Additionally, on March 19 McOsker troduced a subsequent motion directing the port and LADWP to provide annual reports on the number, frequency, and effects of power surges and outages at the port. These reports must also track progress on long-term solutions aimed at eliminating disruptions and improving power reliability for terminal operations.

 

LASD is Asking for the Public’s Help Locating At-Risk Missing Person, Emmanuel Boamah Carson

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department missing persons unit is asking for the public’s help locating at-risk missing person, Emmanuel Boamah, who is a resident of the city of Carson. He is a 21-years-old Black male who was last seen on the 24000 block of Carmel Drive in the city of Carson at 5 p.m., March 23.

Emmanuel is 5’10”, 150lbs with black hair, brown eyes, beard with a scar on his left wrist. Emmanuel was last seen wearing a light-colored sweater, pants and backpack.

Mr. Boamah suffers from a mental health disorder and his family is concerned for his well-being.

Anyone with information about this incident is encouraged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Missing Persons Unit at 323-890-5500 or anonymously at 800-222-8477, http://lacrimestoppers.org

Cities in Hahn’s District to get $12.2 Million for Homeless Solutions

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the spending plan for voter-approved Measure A tax dollars which, for the first time, includes substantial funding going directly to local cities to address homelessness. The board approved an amendment by Supervisor Janice Hahn which changed the formula for how funding will be divided between cities and ensured the most cities will receive the most amount of funding possible.

“Thanks to voters, our county’s 88 cities will finally have direct, reliable funding to address the unique homeless crises facing their communities with the solutions that work best for their residents,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn. “But just because this is new, doesn’t mean we should start small. I want to get our cities the most amount of funding possible so they can start strong, make a difference in unsheltered homelessness, and be real partners in this work with us.”

Measure A, the half-cent sales tax approved in November 2024 to fund homelessness services and housing, requires at least 15% of the county’s funding allocation to go to local cities as part of a local solutions fund. The Board was originally presented with six possible formulas for how the local solutions fund would be divided between cities with a recommendation to choose Formula 6. However, after hearing concerns from cities, Hahn put forward an amendment (co-authored by Supervisor Hilda Solis) which was adopted to use Formula 4, and increases the amount of funding going to 67 of the county’s 88 cities and the unincorporated areas. Formula 4 allocates 10% of funding using the number of households in the city living in poverty and the remaining 90% based on the two most recent homeless count results.

In total, the cities in Supervisor Hahn’s Fourth District will receive over $12.2 million this year from the local solutions fund. The funds can be spent on work such as prevention, mental healthcare, outreach, and housing. Cities will also receive substantially more funding for housing preservation and development in a separate Measure A allocation later this year. Below is a breakdown of the local solutions fund going to each city in the Fourth District:

Artesia$69,090
Avalon$49,698
Bell$570,464
Bell Gardens$276,804
Bellflower$401,093
Cerritos$223,898
Commerce$359,438
Cudahy$191,496
Downey$502,195
Hawaiian Gardens$122,179
Huntington Park$446,825
La Habra Heights$34,161
La Mirada$73,966
Lakewood$169,782
Lomita$63,234
Long Beach$4,865,697
Lynwood$366,029
Maywood$186,114
Norwalk$380,303
Palos Verdes Estates$43,819
Paramount$178,209
Pico Rivera$390,465
Rancho Palos Verdes$37,695
Rolling Hills$38,530
Rolling Hills Estates$24,572
Santa Fe Springs$554,420
Signal Hill$152,454
South Gate$495,741
Torrance$558,570
Vernon$47,508
Whittier$344,865

In addition, the City of Los Angeles will receive $54.9 million and $10.7 million will be allocated to the unincorporated areas.

Los Angeles Public Defender Condemns DA’s Move to Reinstate Death Penalty

The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office strongly denounces the District Attorney’s decision to reintroduce the death penalty in Los Angeles County, emphasizing that it reinforces an inhumane, racially biased, and fallible system that contradicts the principles of fairness and justice.

“This decision is a step backward for LA County. The death penalty is a cruel and irreversible punishment that is racially biased, and ineffective as a deterrent,” said Ricardo Garcia, the Los Angeles County Public Defender. “The death penalty doubles down on a system that has disproportionately harmed the poor and communities of color.”

Under this policy, the death penalty remains susceptible to historic systemic failures. Seeking capital punishment in even the ‘rarest’ of cases does nothing to erase the undeniable fact that the system is deeply flawed. The reality is that innocent people have been sentenced to die, and this decision risks adding more names to that tragic list. Even one time is too many to justify state-sanctioned, intentional killing. There is no preventative measure nor policy which can ever make the decision to seek death an acceptable one for a civilized society.

“Returning to the death penalty further exacerbates state and county economic challenges,” Garcia said. “The death penalty comes at a great cost to taxpayers with no impact to public safety. I urge DA Hochman to reconsider this decision and instead commit resources to programs proven to promote justice and reduce recidivism.”

Details: Read about DA Hochman’s decision here: https://tinyurl.com/DA-hochman-death-penalty

DA Hochman Announces Policy Changes in Prosecutions of “Murders with Special Circumstances”

 

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman has implemented changes to the current and historic policies of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office regarding its prosecution of special circumstance murder cases.

Effective immediately, the prior administration’s policy forbidding prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in any case is rescinded. In its place, the new murder with special circumstances policy will consider pursuing the death penalty only after an extensive and comprehensive review and only in exceedingly rare cases. The DA’s press release stated this new policy recognizes an evolving determination that the death penalty should be restricted to the most egregious sets of circumstances.

In the state of California, capital punishment is not allowed to be carried out due to a standing 2006 federal court order against the practice and a 2019 moratorium on executions ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the declaration of the moratorium.

Death Penalty Focus reports as of January 2025 there are 601 death-sentenced individuals in California, of those, 582 are men, 19 are women. In May 2024, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation completed its condemned inmate transfer program and transferred all 582 men out of San Quentin’s death row to 20 prisons throughout the state, shutting down death row. The 19 death-sentenced women who were formerly on the Central California Women’s Facility’s death row have been transferred to the general population. (CDCR)

Los Angeles was one of the top five sentencing counties in 2024, among Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Kern. Approximately 68% of the men on death row are people of color and about 66% of the women on death row are people of color.

Under the new policy, defense counsel will be offered “enhanced” opportunities to share information about the defendant with the special circumstances committee and the district attorney when the death penalty is under consideration. Murder victims’ survivors’ views will be sought and considered prior to any final determinations being made.

The infrequency with which the death penalty will be sought in special circumstance murder cases will, in most cases, allow the district attorney’s office to inform the court at an early stage that the office is pursuing the only other sentence available under such prosecutions, a sentence of life without the possibility of parole rather than death. In addition, the standard to charge such death penalty cases at all stages of review will be beyond a reasonable doubt, not the prior standard of probable cause.

In its press release, the district attorneys office did not explain what circumstances constitute its murder with special circumstances policy.

 

With EPA Pulling Back, California Takes the Lead in Fighting Methane Leaks

 

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom March 21 announced a state effort to cut methane pollution with the help of satellite technology.

The new initiative comes as the Trump Administration’s EPA works to dismantle decades of clean air and clean water protections. Specifically, the U.S. EPA is reconsidering the “endangerment finding,” which is the basis for federal actions to curb planet-warming emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane.

The technology involves satellite-mounted methane sensors which send data to enable the state to locate and monitor large emissions of methane that could otherwise go undetected. This new data will allow state and local agencies to work together with industry to stop the leaks and protect public health.

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Methane is a clear, odorless gas released from landfills, oil and gas operations, livestock facilities, as well as natural sources such as wetlands. It is a major pollutant that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide for near-term warming of the planet. Methane emissions are responsible for about a quarter of global carbon pollution. Controlling methane leaks helps speed up the state’s efforts to protect the environment.

The Governor’s announcement comes on his first day as Co-Chair of America Is All In, an expansive coalition in support of subnational climate action. As co-chair, he will work with other state and local leaders to advance solutions like methane-detecting technology.

The satellite project and the data acquired by it is made possible by a $100 million investment from the state’s controversial Cap-and-Trade program, which charges oil refineries, power plants and manufacturers for the excess carbon emissions they create in the state. One satellite has been launched with up to seven more to be deployed.

Revenue Collection:

The state holds quarterly auctions where it sells carbon emission allowance credits to excessive polluters, who are required to hold allowances for every ton of carbon they emit. CalMatters reported in January that the last quarter’s auction brought in $1.4 billion.

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund:
Revenues from these auctions are deposited into the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fun

The state will maintain a database and web portal to coordinate and document mitigation actions. While California does not own these satellites, state agencies will be able to select specific regions for observation. This data will also be available to communities to view methane mitigation efforts, education, and for outreach.

Tackling methane emissions

Last year, California followed through on a promise by former Governor Jerry Brown when a philanthropically-backed coalition, including the state, launched its ‘own damn satellite’ to help track dangerous pollutants like methane. Carbon Mapper uses an array of Tanager satellites, owned and operated by Planet Labs PBC, to deliver methane data to the California Air Resources Board or CARB. Tanager-1 is the first in a series of four planned satellites.

In 2023, California launched a new pledge for governments around the world to commit to cutting global methane emissions, one of the worst pollutants. The pledge is aimed at subnational governments – like California – and builds on the Global Methane Hub’s Global Methane Pledge that focuses on countries.