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The Intercept
28-04-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
Dems Push for 'Educational Gag Order' Over Palestine Lessons in California
For years, California Democrats have defended their landmark program to put ethnic studies classes in high schools across the state. In the face of national right-wing media attacks and local critics, the state's governing supermajority passed a law in 2021 making ethnic studies a graduation requirement, which supports school boards to develop their own curricula for the courses. But one particular area of study threatens to unravel the Democratic consensus: Palestine. In the past year, state lawmakers have teamed up with community groups and the lobbying coalition Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, or JPAC, in a push to regulate the ethnic studies program. They're aiming to pass a law that curbs local school board control over ethnic studies curricula in response to classwork focusing on the history of Israel and Palestine that they say has promoted unprecedented bigotry against Jewish students. The bill's backers are framing the effort as a way to ensure that ethnic studies 'will combat all forms of hate,' as one of the bill's authors, Assemblymember Dawn Addis, wrote in a March 30 op-ed. 'At a time when the federal government is trying to rewrite American history by banning diversity initiatives, California must persist in elevating the lived experiences of everyone in this country,' wrote Addis, whose office did not respond to inquiries from The Intercept. But as right-wing groups oppose the bill and ethnic studies more broadly, a coalition of critics warn that the new controls could lead to the same type of state censorship in schools that has been put into law in conservative states like Texas and Florida. 'This language goes far beyond supporting culturally-responsive education in a general sense, and echoes educational gag order legislation we've seen in other states nationwide,' said PEN America spokesperson Suzanne Trimel in a statement. 'This could result in state officials forcing a school or educator to pull certain materials they believe aren't 'fair' or don't provide enough variety of perspective, concepts that are difficult to define.' Assembly Bill 1468 introduced in February, would create new state standards for the ethnic studies classes that California schools must offer by the beginning of this coming school year. The discipline has its roots in California's college student strikes of the 1960s and was codified into state education law after years of deliberation in 2021. In that legislative process, teachers and scholars advocating for a more explicitly anti-imperialist approach in line with its radical origins lost out: Lessons on Palestine were excised from the law before it passed, and the left wing of the ethnic studies movement was sidelined from the process. But still, the law required schools to begin offering an ethnic studies course by the fall of 2025, and schools teaching the course had the choice to develop curricula on their own, working with consultants and local communities or drawing upon guidance from the state. Under the new law, standards will be written by a panel of academic experts in a specific subset of disciplines — African American studies, Latinx/Chicanx studies, Asian American/Pacific Islander studies, and Native American studies — with additional input from representatives of communities most frequently impacted by hate crimes according to state law enforcement. The bill's author has also promised more 'traditional' scholars will be chosen by the governor. The state's current model curriculum on human rights and genocide, within the history and social science category, briefly characterizes the Nakba as an event in which 'Palestinians left Palestine.' The California Department of Education would also receive all materials approved by local districts by 2026 and post their curricula online, with an eye for avoiding 'abstract ideological theories' and focusing on the 'domestic experience.' On a call in March, the bill's backers gathered on a webinar to discuss the game plan. State Sen. Josh Becker, a Silicon Valley Democrat co-authoring the bill, said the bill 'doesn't ban anything.' He told the audience that his 12th-grade son received a presentation in an ethnic studies class that had a puppeteer's hand holding strings and said, 'Israel is a country created on Palestinian land. The United Nations says this is illegal.' 'We all knew the U.N. created Israel, and there was no Palestine before that, and Gaza was controlled by Egypt,' Becker said, in remarks that were cut from the final video posted on Youtube. 'And we all know the history, this was not that.' Becker's office did not respond to requests for comment, but he later posted on social media on the comments: 'I don't mean and haven't meant to say or imply anything minimizing the Palestinian connection to the land.' David Bocarsly, executive director of JPAC, explained to hundreds of listeners why he saw a new state law as a necessary step. 'District-by-district outreach became a game of whack-a-mole, and we knew that we needed a statewide solution,' he said. Part of PEN America's criticism is that A.B. 1468's compliance provisions take a 'one-size-fits all approach to education' that 'could amount to educational intimidation.' But a large segment of California's Democratic establishment is lining up behind this bill. Thirty-one state Democrats, including all but one member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, have already signed on as co-authors of the bill. The state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurmond, who plans to run for governor in 2026, has endorsed an earlier version of the bill that was held by the author in an August committee hearing. And his office recently investigated a San Jose ethnic studies teacher, finding that they violated Jewish students' rights by failing to intervene with another perspective during a student project on genocide with a slide titled 'Genocide of Palestinians.' (The investigation notes no students complained, and the district told The Intercept it will be responding to the state's findings.) Two candidates running to replace Thurmond in 2026 have also indicated support for JPAC's efforts on ethnic studies. One of them, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, chairs the committee where the bill will face its first hearing. His office did not respond to questions from The Intercept. The current movement to clamp down on teaching Palestine in ethnic studies curriculum coalesced around a story out of Orange County. The Santa Ana Unified School District, adjacent to one of the nation's largest Arab American communities, approved two world history ethnic studies courses in April 2023 that briefly taught about Israel and Palestine, including content about the Nakba and settlements. After pro-Israel organizations objected, the district's superintendent vowed not to remove any group's narrative in May 2023. But in September of that year, an Anti-Defamation League-backed coalition sued on procedural grounds. During the messy litigation, lawyers pressed district staff and board members for their thoughts on Zionism and Hamas, and in August 2024, they uncovered text messages indicating senior district officials sought to avoid scrutiny by passing courses on a Jewish holiday. Two congressional Republicans subsequently called for the district to undergo a federal investigation. District leaders, meanwhile, responded by shelving the contested courses as part of a February 2025 settlement, inviting the litigants to provide input to the course process while denying claims of discrimination. The agreement also promises not to include several references to the oppression of Palestinians from a book about ethnic cleansing by a British sociologist. A few days after the Santa Ana settlement, A.B. 1468 was introduced in the California legislature, and JPAC published five examples of what it called 'examples of antisemitism and harmful rhetoric' in ethnic studies classrooms. But JPAC didn't provide any sources for their claims, and in some situations it's unclear exactly to which materials they are referring. Bocarsly, the executive director of JPAC, did not respond to requests for comment or more information on the list. JPAC included the Fort Bragg Unified School District on the list for its lesson with a map of Palestinian dispossession and land loss. Superintendent Joseph Aldridge said that he first learned of JPAC's allegation from The Intercept and is now removing the lesson from the unit, which has not yet been taught and also includes a lesson on Middle Eastern Jewish communities. Aldridge said that he wished that JPAC had gotten in touch to discuss the issue before putting the district on the list. 'I was a little disappointed to see our district's name out there without at least some chance to have a conversation about it,' he said. A spokesperson for another district on the JPAC list, San Francisco Unified, responded 'we are looking into this,' when contacted by The Intercept. Following up, its spokesperson later said that the district was in alignment with state law. Maria Su, the district's superintendent, did not respond to inquiries. Janet Schulze, the superintendent of Pittsburg Unified School District, told The Intercept she was 'very surprised and puzzled' to see JPAC's claim that the district used a biased definition of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in its course, and said that they had been working with the curriculum consulting firm Community Responsive Education for years. 'We have not received any negative feedback or reports of anti-semitism from our community regarding this course or any of the other courses we have that meet the Ethnic Studies requirement,' she said in a statement. A representative from the national pro-Israel group StandWithUS, a member of JPAC's coalition, did however criticize the contract with Community Responsive Education in a 2024 school board meeting. The push to clamp down on ethnic studies curricula picked up political momentum in the wake of the October 7 attacks in Israel and the subsequent anti-war movement in the U.S., but one of the bill's authors has made it clear that the fight stretches back to the late 2010s. Los Angeles Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur has called opponents to A.B. 1468 advocates who have been 'peddling' radical curricula to school districts. 'They have a big presence in the Cal State system, they're organized, there are liberated ethnic studies adherents within the teachers unions,' he warned listeners on the JPAC webinar in March. His office declined an interview request and did not respond to questions from The Intercept. After losing out in the legislative wrangling over the original ethnic studies bill, the spurned left wing of the expert body convened by the state Department of Education created a consulting firm in 2020 called the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, with the goal of helping school districts interested in the more radical vision of the discipline construct their courses. The group has been in the crosshairs since, while similar firms and coalitions have popped up nationwide. A federal judge in November threw out a lawsuit alleging that LESMCC covertly spreads antisemitism and bias throughout Los Angeles and California schools, writing in his decision, 'It would be of great concern for the educational project and for academic freedom if every offended party could sue every time they did not like a curriculum or the way it was taught.' The case is being appealed. None of the districts cited by JPAC have contracts with the group, though CRE, which works with the Pittsburg district, was co-founded by Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, an Asian American studies professor at San Francisco State University who is on the LESMCC leadership team. Theresa Montaño, an LESMCC founder and California State University, Northridge professor of Chicano/a studies, said that lawmakers 'seem to want to label' all the material they dislike as 'liberated ethnic studies.' She said that school districts and teachers choose to work with her group's teacher training or classroom materials of their own volition. What they choose to teach 'is their sentiment, and it's the sentiment of a lot of their students,' Montaño said. But she noted that her group is just a small part of a larger movement in education, and many districts arrive at curricula that some consider controversial on their own. 'When you're engaged in a movement, it's organic, it's dynamic, it's ever changing, it's created from the grassroots up,' she said. 'Nobody controls that movement, not liberated ethnic studies, not community responsive education, not any consulting group around ethnic studies.' Opposition to CRE's work in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, which covers a majority Latino farm area south of Santa Cruz, sparked a year-and-a-half long fight over whether to renew the group's contract. That came to a close just last week, when the board voted to renew the CRE contract on the grounds that they found no antisemitism in the actual curriculum. But the ADL California and StandWithUs have continued to push back, demanding school board members apologize for statements that they say drew on antisemitic tropes, which drew an official warning from the superintendent of Santa Cruz County Schools. Other small, diverse California communities are speaking out against the new bill. Cudahy, a 96 percent Hispanic city of just 21,000 in Los Angeles County, unanimously passed an April 15 resolution saying the bill 'undermines local control.' 'This is clearly a way to manipulate the narrative of the genocide in Palestine. If we read the language of the text of the bill, it's pretty evident,' said Councilmember Daisy Lomeli at the meeting. Though some are reevaluating their courses, hundreds of California districts are moving forward with the ethnic studies program in the face of significant political pressure, and without the over $200 million in funding the state estimated was necessary for developing their classes. The bill is set to be heard on April 30 in the Assembly Education Committee in what is expected to be a lively hearing, unless lawmakers vote to extend the deadline in advance. 'Those pushing to inject harmful content into our classrooms are loud,' reads one message from JPAC to supporters. 'We need to be louder.'
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New Jersey among states that want to make oil companies pay for climate disasters
The aftermath of a tornado from Hurricane Ida in Mullica Hill on September 2, 2021. New Jersey is among the states considering bills that would force fossil fuel companies to pay recovery costs for climate disasters. (Photo by Daniella Heminghaus for New Jersey Monitor) For many California residents, the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year were the latest and most searing example of the devastating effects of climate change. Some estimates have pegged the damages and economic losses from the fires at more than $250 billion. 'We've had disaster after disaster after disaster,' said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, a Democrat. 'It's the taxpayers and the insurance ratepayers that are bearing the cost. It's not sustainable, it's not right and it's not ethical.' Addis and Democratic lawmakers in nearly a dozen other states want to force the world's largest fossil fuel companies to help pay for the recovery costs of climate-related disasters. Last year, Vermont became the first state to pass a 'climate Superfund' law, followed soon after by New York. This session, 10 states have seen similar proposals, several of which have advanced in key committees. Advocates point to legislation in Maryland that has drawn support in both chambers, as well as to strong grassroots support in California after the Los Angeles wildfires. Lawmakers say the rapidly increasing cost of climate disasters — from wildfires to floods to sea level rise — is more than state budgets can bear. 'Climate Superfund is the 'it girl' policy of the [2025] session,' said Ava Gallo, climate and energy program manager with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a forum for state lawmakers. 'There's a lot of popularity in the idea of holding polluters responsible.' The momentum for these 'polluter pays' bills is tied to the maturation of attribution science. That new field of research can help calculate fossil fuel companies' contributions to historic emissions totals, as well as the role climate change played in causing or worsening natural disasters. Vermont's law was the first attempt to use that science to charge emitters for their role in causing devastating floods and other catastrophes. We've had disaster after disaster after disaster. It's the taxpayers and the insurance ratepayers that are bearing the cost. It's not sustainable, it's not right and it's not ethical. – California Democratic Assemblymember Dawn Addis Fossil fuel companies and their allies have fought back hard. Late last year, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit challenging Vermont's measure. The groups argue that emissions are governed by the federal Clean Air Act, precluding states from charging companies over global pollution. Neither group responded to a Stateline interview request. The Independent Petroleum Association of America also declined an interview request. A separate lawsuit, led by 22 Republican attorneys general, is challenging the New York law. And a conservative group has targeted Rachel Rothschild, an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, who helped draft the legal justification for climate Superfund policy. The group, Government Accountability and Oversight, has sought to subject Rothschild to a deposition, The New York Times reported, a move that some experts view as an intimidation tactic. Meanwhile, oil and gas executives asked President Donald Trump during a White House meeting this month to direct the Justice Department to join the legal fight against climate Superfund laws, The Wall Street Journal reported. Industry leaders are also pushing Congress to shield them from more than 30 lawsuits brought by state and local governments that aim to make them pay for some of the results of climate change. While experts expect a bruising legal battle over climate Superfund policies, the threat of lawsuits hasn't deterred more lawmakers from backing the concept. 'States were a little bit wary; they wondered, 'Is this some new radical plan?'' said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director with the Make Polluters Pay campaign, a coalition of groups backing such bills. 'Then one of the littlest states passed it and this powerhouse, New York, passed it. That really set the ball rolling.' Fossil fuel companies have cast doubt on attribution science. They also note that their production of oil and other products was done legally under U.S. and international regulations. 'Manufacturers will see this as a shakedown of any industry you don't like at some point in the future, even though in the past they were licensed and operated under government regulation,' Brett Vassey, president and CEO of the Virginia Manufacturers Association, said during legislative testimony about a climate Superfund proposal in that state. 'It will have a chilling effect on Virginia being able to grow its economy.' Proponents of Superfund legislation point to legal settlements with large tobacco companies in the 1990s. Although those companies also sold their products legally, they were held responsible because they knew about the harmful effects of those products and deceived the public. Most climate Superfund proposals target companies for their emissions over the past 30 or so years, after leading experts had documented the dangers of greenhouse gases. 'There's good documentation of how well the fossil fuel industry knew the probable long-term impacts of their product,' said Oregon state Sen. Jeff Golden, a Democrat. 'Should an industry that made such historic profits over a period of time and made so many representations that we had no problem not bear any of the costs?' Golden and other lawmakers say it's becoming impossible for taxpayers to cover the costs of recovery from wildfires and other catastrophes. In Rhode Island, sea level rise is causing massive damage for coastal communities, said Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Boylan, who has sponsored a climate Superfund bill to help the state adapt. Some advocates also note that Trump's return to the White House has cut off the possibility of federal climate relief. 'All the states are affected by the disappearance of this federal funding,' said Gallo, of the state lawmakers group. 'States everywhere are going to be looking at some way to fill the gap.' This session, climate Superfund bills have been introduced in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia. While the bills are structured differently, they all seek to target the largest polluters — often covering companies that produced 1 billion metric tons of emissions over the last 30 or so years. Lawmakers say that applies to roughly 100 companies. The measures also take different approaches to assigning damages. Some direct state agencies to conduct complex studies to determine the costs of climate-caused disasters over a certain period, the approach pioneered by Vermont. Others set a fixed number that represents a conservative baseline for those damages. New York's law set that figure at $75 billion over a 25-year period. Many of the bills also require that significant amounts of the funding be directed to the communities hit hardest by pollution. Advocates are particularly optimistic about the measures in California and Maryland. Lawmakers in Maryland modified their bills to commission a study about the financial impacts of climate change. Those measures passed both the House and Senate, and legislators are working to reconcile the versions from each chamber. Figures produced by the study would be the backbone of a climate Superfund policy in a future session. 'From a legislative perspective, it's a shot in the dark as to what the costs are,' said Democratic Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, who sponsored one of the bills. 'This will give us the factual data needed to make a more well-educated decision on policy.' In New Jersey, an Assembly committee advanced a climate Superfund bill this month. State Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat who chairs the Environment and Energy Committee and who sponsored the bill, said it will help to rebuild and fortify water treatment plants, schools and firehouses. He noted that Trump has called for the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'The end of the world is coming; it's kind of hard to ignore,' Smith said. 'FEMA has been the backstop to help communities recover from disasters. If the handwriting isn't on the wall to all the states that they've got to deal with this, shame on them.' Lawmakers in many states have heard from mayors and other local government leaders that more climate recovery funding is essential. 'Municipal officials are getting behind [climate Superfund policies],' said Massachusetts state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat who has sponsored similar legislation. 'They're facing the costs of flooding, of droughts, of heat waves, and really asking for relief.' Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@ Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Climate disasters are on the rise. These states want to make oil companies pay.
Anna Schlobohm de Cruder stands for a portrait in March amid the remains of her Altadena, Calif., home, which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire early this year. California is among the states considering bills that would force fossil fuel companies to pay recovery costs for climate disasters. () For many California residents, the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year were the latest and most searing example of the devastating effects of climate change. Some estimates have pegged the damages and economic losses from the fires at more than $250 billion. 'We've had disaster after disaster after disaster,' said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, a Democrat. 'It's the taxpayers and the insurance ratepayers that are bearing the cost. It's not sustainable, it's not right and it's not ethical.' Addis and Democratic lawmakers in nearly a dozen other states want to force the world's largest fossil fuel companies to help pay for the recovery costs of climate-related disasters. Last year, Vermont became the first state to pass a 'climate Superfund' law, followed soon after by New York. This session, 10 states have seen similar proposals, several of which have advanced in key committees. Advocates point to legislation in Maryland that has drawn support in both chambers, as well as to strong grassroots support in California after the Los Angeles wildfires. Lawmakers say the rapidly increasing cost of climate disasters — from wildfires to floods to sea level rise — is more than state budgets can bear. 'Climate Superfund is the 'it girl' policy of the [2025] session,' said Ava Gallo, climate and energy program manager with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a forum for state lawmakers. 'There's a lot of popularity in the idea of holding polluters responsible.' The momentum for these 'polluter pays' bills is tied to the maturation of attribution science. That new field of research can help calculate fossil fuel companies' contributions to historic emissions totals, as well as the role climate change played in causing or worsening natural disasters. Vermont's law was the first attempt to use that science to charge emitters for their role in causing devastating floods and other catastrophes. We've had disaster after disaster after disaster. It's the taxpayers and the insurance ratepayers that are bearing the cost. It's not sustainable, it's not right and it's not ethical. – California Democratic Assemblymember Dawn Addis Fossil fuel companies and their allies have fought back hard. Late last year, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit challenging Vermont's measure. The groups argue that emissions are governed by the federal Clean Air Act, precluding states from charging companies over global pollution. Neither group responded to a Stateline interview request. The Independent Petroleum Association of America also declined an interview request. A separate lawsuit, led by 22 Republican attorneys general, is challenging the New York law. And a conservative group has targeted Rachel Rothschild, an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, who helped draft the legal justification for climate Superfund policy. The group, Government Accountability and Oversight, has sought to subject Rothschild to a deposition, The New York Times reported, a move that some experts view as an intimidation tactic. Meanwhile, oil and gas executives asked President Donald Trump during a White House meeting this month to direct the Justice Department to join the legal fight against climate Superfund laws, The Wall Street Journal reported. Industry leaders are also pushing Congress to shield them from more than 30 lawsuits brought by state and local governments that aim to make them pay for some of the results of climate change. While experts expect a bruising legal battle over climate Superfund policies, the threat of lawsuits hasn't deterred more lawmakers from backing the concept. 'States were a little bit wary; they wondered, 'Is this some new radical plan?'' said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director with the Make Polluters Pay campaign, a coalition of groups backing such bills. 'Then one of the littlest states passed it and this powerhouse, New York, passed it. That really set the ball rolling.' Lawmakers hope to use this emerging climate science to charge oil companies for disasters Fossil fuel companies have cast doubt on attribution science. They also note that their production of oil and other products was done legally under U.S. and international regulations. 'Manufacturers will see this as a shakedown of any industry you don't like at some point in the future, even though in the past they were licensed and operated under government regulation,' Brett Vassey, president and CEO of the Virginia Manufacturers Association, said during legislative testimony about a climate Superfund proposal in that state. 'It will have a chilling effect on Virginia being able to grow its economy.' Proponents of Superfund legislation point to legal settlements with large tobacco companies in the 1990s. Although those companies also sold their products legally, they were held responsible because they knew about the harmful effects of those products and deceived the public. Most climate Superfund proposals target companies for their emissions over the past 30 or so years, after leading experts had documented the dangers of greenhouse gases. 'There's good documentation of how well the fossil fuel industry knew the probable long-term impacts of their product,' said Oregon state Sen. Jeff Golden, a Democrat. 'Should an industry that made such historic profits over a period of time and made so many representations that we had no problem not bear any of the costs?' Golden and other lawmakers say it's becoming impossible for taxpayers to cover the costs of recovery from wildfires and other catastrophes. In Rhode Island, sea level rise is causing massive damage for coastal communities, said Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Boylan, who has sponsored a climate Superfund bill to help the state adapt. Some advocates also note that Trump's return to the White House has cut off the possibility of federal climate relief. 'All the states are affected by the disappearance of this federal funding,' said Gallo, of the state lawmakers group. 'States everywhere are going to be looking at some way to fill the gap.' This session, climate Superfund bills have been introduced in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia. After a long slog, climate change lawsuits will finally put Big Oil on trial While the bills are structured differently, they all seek to target the largest polluters — often covering companies that produced 1 billion metric tons of emissions over the last 30 or so years. Lawmakers say that applies to roughly 100 companies. The measures also take different approaches to assigning damages. Some direct state agencies to conduct complex studies to determine the costs of climate-caused disasters over a certain period, the approach pioneered by Vermont. Others set a fixed number that represents a conservative baseline for those damages. New York's law set that figure at $75 billion over a 25-year period. Many of the bills also require that significant amounts of the funding be directed to the communities hit hardest by pollution. Advocates are particularly optimistic about the measures in California and Maryland. Lawmakers in Maryland modified their bills to commission a study about the financial impacts of climate change. Those measures passed both the House and Senate, and legislators are working to reconcile the versions from each chamber. Figures produced by the study would be the backbone of a climate Superfund policy in a future session. 'From a legislative perspective, it's a shot in the dark as to what the costs are,' said Democratic Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, who sponsored one of the bills. 'This will give us the factual data needed to make a more well-educated decision on policy.' In New Jersey, an Assembly committee advanced a climate Superfund bill this month. State Sen. Bob Smith, a Democrat who chairs the Environment and Energy Committee and who sponsored the bill, said it will help to rebuild and fortify water treatment plants, schools and firehouses. He noted that Trump has called for the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'The end of the world is coming; it's kind of hard to ignore,' Smith said. 'FEMA has been the backstop to help communities recover from disasters. If the handwriting isn't on the wall to all the states that they've got to deal with this, shame on them.' Lawmakers in many states have heard from mayors and other local government leaders that more climate recovery funding is essential. 'Municipal officials are getting behind [climate Superfund policies],' said Massachusetts state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat who has sponsored similar legislation. 'They're facing the costs of flooding, of droughts, of heat waves, and really asking for relief.' Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmakers push for unprecedented move to hold major industry accountable: 'It's past time'
Big Oil has been allowed to freely pollute the world with heat-trapping gases that lead to higher global temperatures and climate-driven disasters — but soon those companies may have to pay for the damage they've done because of a law on the table in California. The Center for Biological Diversity reported on the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act, a bill recently introduced in the state legislature by Sen. Caroline Menjivar and Assemblymember Dawn Addis. If passed into law, it would create a program under the California Environmental Protection Agency that would require major oil companies operating in the state to pay into a fund that accounts for the more than 1 billion tons of heat-trapping air pollution they produced between 1990 and 2024. The money would be used to address the effects of that pollution. Those effects are extensive and critical. Higher global temperatures have contributed to wildfires, drought and flood cycles, more intense storms, heat waves, and rising sea levels — all of which come with human deaths and property damage. The superfund would help address those issues. It would fund disaster response and support the construction of infrastructure that would make communities more resilient against climate disasters. "The L.A. fires show with heartbreaking clarity how much we need this bill to make the biggest climate polluters pay for the astronomical damage they've caused," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "The public shouldn't be shelling out billions of dollars every year to recover from severe and deadly climate disasters. By passing this commonsense bill, state lawmakers can put the financial burden of climate damage on giant polluting companies, where it belongs." California has already attempted to pass similar legislation, but this law could put the state in the driver's seat. It won't be the first to adopt such an approach; New York and Vermont have passed legislation to hold polluters accountable for their far-reaching effects. "Profiting off destruction has been the Big Oil playbook for far too long," Siegel said. "It's past time we took on these corporate behemoths who've sold off our future and our fragile planet to line their own pockets." Could America stop using oil and gas by 2050? For sure No way Only certain states could I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
New fire sparks in ‘previously burned section' of Moss Landing battery plant
A second, smaller fire ignited in the ashes of the Moss Landing battery plant on Tuesday. Smoke billowed out of a 'previously burned section of the building' on Tuesday evening, a Wednesday statement from Vistra Corp said. The Texas-based energy company owns the battery energy storage facility at Moss Landing in Monterey County and previously proposed building a 600 megawatt battery plant in Morro Bay. The North County Fire Protection District investigated the fire on Tuesday evening and continued to monitor it on Wednesday. 'Continuous air quality monitoring is ongoing and no hazardous air conditions have been detected,' Vistra's statement said. Further details on the status of the fire were not immediately available Wednesday evening. The original Moss Landing fire on Jan. 16 prompted a temporary closure of Highway 1 and the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents. No one was injured in the blaze. The first fire revived fears in Morro Bay about the dangers of battery energy storage facilities, and the Morro Bay City Council temporarily blocked the approval of new permits for any such project. Meanwhile, California State Assembly Member Dawn Addis proposed a bill that would set new safety standards for battery energy storage facilities and require local governments to award permits for such development in their communities instead of the California Energy Commission.
