Latest news with #OfficeofAdministrativeLaw
Politico
25-02-2025
- Business
- Politico
Sacramento's sausage-making comes for plastics
Presented by With help from Alex Nieves and Blanca Begert IN A PLASTIC WORLD: California is on the cusp of a potentially society-transforming climate policy change — and having some cold feet. We're not talking about electric cars, massive solar farms or corporate emissions reporting: We're talking about making producers recycle their plastic packaging. CalRecycle is facing a March 7 deadline to submit to the Office of Administrative Law its rules implementing Sen. Ben Allen's SB 54, a 2022 law that requires thousands of companies to reduce their single-use plastic packaging by 25 percent and pay to recycle or compost all their products, or else it has to start over. By one environmental group's estimate, the law could save 115 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over a decade, equivalent to shutting down 28 coal-fired power plants. But the companies that will have to carry out the program are pushing back, saying that the rules as written are both too costly and setting them up to fail. 'I feel like we're prioritizing expedience over getting it right,' said Rachel Wagoner, the head of CalRecycle until last March and since December the California executive director for Circular Action Alliance, the organization CalRecycle selected to set up the recycling program on behalf of all producers. (She's said she's following state rules banning her from lobbying her former agency for a year.) A broad coalition of business and farming groups, including Circular Action Alliance, signed on to a Dec. 14 Chamber of Commerce letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom outlining some of the concerns. Among them: The rules as drafted would cost much more than initially estimated (CalRecycle has estimated that as many as 13,615 manufacturers would have to participate and pay a total of $500 million per year beginning in 2027) and don't allow for new technology that could help process tricky materials. On the other side, environmental groups and 14 lawmakers including Allen are pushing CalRecycle and the governor's office to proceed with the current draft rules, even if they acknowledge the rules may not be perfect. They say that negotiations with industry leading up to the law have already settled some of those concerns, including by disallowing controversial chemical recycling. 'We need a strong foundation on which to base future actions,' the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Newsom this month. 'Stay the course.' Both sides argue that California's mantle of environmental leadership is at stake. California wasn't the first state to pass a bill setting up an 'extended producer responsibility' program for plastic packaging (that title went to Maine in 2021) nor will it be the first to formally approve the industry's plan for compliance (Oregon just claimed that title last week by approving a plan by Circular Action Alliance). But California has the largest market and the most detailed rules so far, attracting outsized attention from other states and countries. Just last year, the state of Minnesota and the European Union passed EPR laws that borrowed from California's approach, said Anja Brandon, the director of plastics policy at Ocean Conservancy. 'That adds to the crux of this moment that we are in, where we want to see California stand by this groundbreaking law that it passed,' she said. Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said his office was 'considering all options.' 'California is committed to achieving the goals of SB 54 — to cut down on plastic pollution — and we take stakeholder input very seriously,' he said in an email. 'We are considering all options for how to move forward to successfully implement this ambitious program.' CalRecycle spokesperson Melanie Turner said Monday the agency was still working to finalize the rules by March 7. On Tuesday, Wagoner, Brandon and a bevy of other advocates from either side will testify to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on the concept of extended producer responsibility. Expect SB 54 to come up, as well as philosophical debates about what EPR is at its core: 'Something we hear from industry often is if you get too prescriptive, you shy away from EPR, and that's just not true,' said Brandon. 'EPR is defined by holding producers accountable for the whole life cycle of their product.' — CvK Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! THE BILLS ARE IN: Friday was the deadline to introduce new bills in the Legislature. All told, 2,350 bills have come in, 226 more than by the cutoff deadline last year, according to attorney and lobbyist Chris Micheli. Here are some of the newest ones that caught our attention: CAP-AND-TRADE: We still don't know what the legislature is planning to do on cap-and-trade, where reauthorization past 2030 is a stated priority for the year, but the spot bills are in. Watch these spaces: SB 840 from Sens. Monique Limón and Mike McGuire and AB 1207 from Assembymember Jacqui Irwin. You can also watch the Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change Policies hearing on Wednesday where lawmakers will be discussing changes to the state's carbon market. LITHIUM BATTERY FIRES: Fires at battery plants are hot — literally, and in the Capitol. The Assembly Committee on Emergency Management introduced AB 1285, which would require the State Fire Marshal to develop fire prevention, response and recovery plans for utility-grade lithium storage facilities. That measure comes after fires at Moss Landing Power Plant, the world's largest battery storage facility. It joins Assemblymember Dawn Addis' AB 303, which would ban energy storage facilities from environmentally sensitive areas or within 3,200 feet of schools and homes and reverse a 2022 measure that accelerated the permitting process for them. GAS STOVES: Freshman Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is taking Republicans' latest swing at efforts to ban gas appliances, a climate policy that's sparked a national culture war in recent years. His bill, AB 1238, would block state agencies and local governments from adopting or enforcing any rule or ordinance that prohibits the use of gas stoves in residential or commercial buildings. CPUC HEARINGS: Assemblymember Joe Patterson's AB 1273 would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission from placing utilities' rate-increase applications on its consent calendar, which means they get voted on without discussion. If you haven't tracked the CPUC lately, the public comment period is typically filled with fiery speeches opposing rate increases, and you may be surprised how much ends up on the consent calendar. COMMUNITY SOLAR: Assemblymember Chris Ward is back with a bill to force the California Public Utilities Commission to do what he always wanted on community solar — make it more accessible by reimbursing it in a way that accounts for its full cost savings to the grid. Last year the CPUC, tasked with implementing Ward's 2022 law AB 2315 to boost community solar, rejected a proposal from the solar industry, environmentalists and a ratepayer advocate group to let renters buy credits in small solar projects and access savings like the ones people get from installing rooftop solar. The commission instead voted through a proposal closely aligned with one introduced by utility Southern California Edison that expanded existing subscription programs from the state and utilities and created a new program using federal funds that are now in question. At the time, they argued their proposal was more cost effective. Ward told the CPUC that its plan was 'outdated,' 'commercially unworkable' and 'wholly inconsistent' with his 2022 law. The new bill, AB 1260, would amend the program to be more in line with his intentions and use a pricing formula to account for more of the cost savings of community solar, like reducing the need for electrical wires to travel long distances. WHAT MORE: What other bills do you think will be big this year? As always, please let us know. BRB, MOVING TO OAKLAND: The cities of San Jose, Palo Alto, Orinda and Half Moon Bay and the unincorporated parts of Mendocino, Sonoma and Napa counties got some bad news from California's rollout of its new local fire hazard zone maps today. In those places, the number of acres categorized at very high fire hazard and therefore subject to fire-resistant building codes and risk disclosure requirements for home sales jumped significantly from the last update in 2011. The reason is Cal Fire's more sophisticated modeling that accounts for factors like the winds that blew embers across LA neighborhoods last month and that will move 1.4 million acres statewide into the two highest fire risk severity areas. Take San Jose for example: In 2011, it had 3,310 acres classified at very high risk. The new data suggests 7,142 acres are at very high fire risk. The data released today covers the Bay Area and the North Coast and represents part two of Cal Fire's four-part rollout after inland Northern California. The Central Valley and Central Coast are scheduled for March 10, and Southern and Eastern California for March 24. The local jurisdictions must still formally adopt the maps, though they can make changes as they see fit. One city got some good news: Oakland, the site of a deadly firestorm in 1991 that kicked off many modern urban fire preparedness efforts. In 2011, it had 10,838 acres categorized as at very high fire risk. Today's data showed only 1,945 acres in that category, with another 5,151 at high or moderate fire risk. — CvK TURNING TO THE AIRWAVES: The auto industry is taking to the court of public opinion with an opening shot at California's electric vehicle mandate. The California New Car Dealers Association announced today that it's funding a digital and television ad buy, kicking off the lobbying effort with a three-minute spot on a newly launched website. The campaign calls on the California Air Resources Board to pause enforcement of the Advanced Clean Cars II rule to give 'infrastructure, consumer demand, and market readiness' time to develop. It also asks state officials to adopt a 'balanced, phased approach' to the EV transition, though it stops short of detailing a specific policy plan. Spokespeople for Newsom and CARB didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Most automakers — with Stellantis as the notable exception — have been opposed to ACCII, which requires them to sell increasing percentages of electric vehicles annually, before effectively banning the sale of new gas cars by 2035. But the ad buy is the industry's first major attempt at spreading that message to California residents. (The dealers' association said it will reveal the other 'businesses, trade groups, and consumer advocates' that are part of its coalition later.) The ad buy also comes as the Trump administration is attempting to overturn ACCII through the congressional review process. — AN BACK TO ACCI: The Supreme Court has set an April 23 hearing date for a long-simmering case around a previous iteration of California's clean vehicle rules. The court will hear Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, an oil industry lawsuit filed in 2022 shortly after the Biden administration reinstated Advanced Clean Cars I — the emissions waiver Trump's EPA revoked in 2019, Lesley Clark reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Lawyers for the industry argue California should not have unique privileges to set stronger-than-federal emissions standards, a carve out under the Clean Air Act the state has held for more than 50 years. The D.C. Circuit issued a unanimous decision last April that industry groups and Republican-led states lacked standing to bring their claim because they failed to show that tossing out the waiver would fix the injuries they say occurred. The Supreme Court hearing comes after it rejected a Trump administration request to delay the hearing to give EPA time to reassess the 'soundness of the 2022 reinstatement decision.' — AN SHOPPING FOR WIND: California is moving ahead on offshore wind despite Trump's plans to kill the industry. The CPUC today directed the Department of Water Resources to initiate centralized state procurement for various types of clean energy under a deal negotiated and signed into place in 2023. It's still a long way away. Solicitations for geothermal and the 7.6 gigawatts of offshore wind the state will be trying to buy won't open until 2027. — BB — The firefighter union's backlash to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' decision to sack the city's fire chief is adding to her political headaches, writes our Melanie Mason. — Some Yosemite National Park staffers hung an upside-down American flag off El Capitan this weekend to protest the Trump administration's job cuts. — Vistra began a two-week process to disconnect batteries at its Moss Landing plant after they burned in a fire last month.
Associated Press
21-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
California's controversial new fuel rules rejected by state legal office
In a surprising twist, California's controversial new fuel standard — a key part of its effort to replace fossil fuels — has been rejected by the state agency that reviews the legality of state regulations. The fuel standard enacted by the Air Resources Board last year was the subject of a rancorous debate, largely because it will potentially increase the price of gasoline and diesel fuels by an unknown amount. The rules were rejected by the state Office of Administrative Law, a state agency whose mandate is to ensure 'regulations are clear, necessary, legally valid, and available to the public.' The law office informed the air board that the rule does not conform with a provision in state code that requires 'clarity' in rulemaking 'so that the meaning of regulations will be easily understood by those persons directly affected by them.' The air board said it would review the order and then resubmit the rules, which would be required within 120 days. Any substantial changes, however, would require a delay, including a public comment period. The low carbon fuels program, which offers financial incentives to companies to produce cleaner transportation fuels, aims to help transition the state away from fossil fuels that contribute to smog and other air pollution and greenhouse gases that warm the planet. The program, which has existed since 2011, is a $2-billion credit trading system that requires fuels sold in California to become progressively cleaner, while giving companies financial incentives to produce less-polluting fuels, such as biofuels made from soybeans or cow manure. In an initial assessment released in 2023, the air board projected that the new rules could potentially raise the price of diesel by 59 cents per gallon and gasoline by 47 cents. But air board officials later disavowed that estimate, saying that the analysis 'should not be misconstrued as a prediction of the future credit price nor as a direct impact on prices at the pump. ' A report by the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy predicted that the fuel standard changes could increase the cost of gas by 85 cents a gallon through 2030. Republican legislators, who protested the rule and introduced a bill to repeal it, applauded the law office's decision to reject them. 'Families in this state are already grappling with soaring living costs, and a gas price hike of 65 cents or more will only deepen their financial strain,' Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, a Republican from Redlands, said in a statement. 'It's deeply frustrating that the governor's administration ignored calls for reconsideration from the start.' Supporters say the new rules are necessary to keep California on track for its ambitious climate goals, including net-zero emissions by 2045. But critics have warned that the new standards could push gas prices even higher in a state where drivers already pay some of the highest fuel costs in the nation. ___
Politico
20-02-2025
- Business
- Politico
Carbon markets gone wild
With help from Alex Nieves and Camille von Kaenel CARBON JITTERS: Pour one out for California's carbon traders, who are really going through it right now. What appears to be an administrative hiccup in California's emissions market for transportation fuels is jolting markets and reinflaming a bitter debate over a climate program with a potentially high price tag. The California Air Resources Board said late Thursday that the state's Office of Administrative Law rejected amendments to its low-carbon fuel standard, which the board approved in November. By all appearances, it's a technicality. The office, which serves as the final seal of approval for agency regulations, said the rules didn't meet the state's 'clarity standard,' according to CARB. CARB tried to tamp down worries last night. 'The Office of Administrative Law issued a routine disapproval of the LCFS amendments on technical grounds, not on the merits of the regulation,' spokesperson Dave Clegern said. 'CARB will refine the language per OAL's guidance and resubmit for approval. The LCFS remains in effect in its current form.' But that didn't calm the secondary market, which dropped from $75 per ton to $57 on the news before rebounding to $66, according to one trader. It also hasn't stopped Republican lawmakers and other longtime LCFS critics from making hay. 'The Newsom Administration's 65-cent gas price hike has been PAUSED by CA's Office of Administrative Law because it didn't meet legal requirements,' Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said in a statement. 'We've been fighting this since Day 1 and we won't stop now.' Groups who receive credits under the program, like biofuel and hydrogen producers, are also spiraling. 'Too much is at stake for our state's clean energy future — we cannot afford additional delays,' said Teresa Cooke, executive director of the California Hydrogen Coalition. A bit of background to explain why people are so triggered: CARB amended the program last year to increase its stringency and drive up credit prices for lower-carbon fuels that had fallen to record lows since a glut of renewable diesel started flooding the market in 2021. It became the center of a fierce cost-of-living debate when CARB put out — and walked back — an estimate that the program could increase gas prices by 47 cents per gallon as a result of fuel suppliers passing on the cost to customers. 'With affordability top of mind, this is a good opportunity for CARB to be transparent and revisit cost impacts of the LCFS amendments on consumers,' said Western States Petroleum Association CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd. Administrative hiccups are somewhat routine for agencies seeking OAL's stamp. The office has rejected seven other CARB rules, most recently 2022's commercial harbor craft rule over similar 'clarity' reasons. It approved all of them once CARB resubmitted, although it took an average of 130 more days, according to consulting firm Capstone. Industry players are already counting down the days. The reaction says a lot about the skittishness around California's carbon markets — and shows things haven't settled down since last year's fight. 'This is really just an administrative review and there isn't some big-wig in OAL rejecting this policy,' said a carbon trader granted anonymity to discuss trading activity. 'People seem to think it's a rejection of policy, but it isn't.' Before LCFS took over the news cycle, we were actually planning to write today about the state's other carbon market: the marquee cap-and-trade system for all big emitters that's getting ripe for amendments of its own. CARB will publish the results of today's quarterly auction next week. That may trigger another round of hand-wringing, if prices keep hovering a few dollars above the state-set floor as they have for the last two quarters. 'I'm expecting them to be lower,' said Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, chair of his chamber's Natural Resources Committee and one of the lawmakers working to bring forward a bill to reauthorize the program before it sunsets in 2030. 'That is why we've got to do this work with some urgency. We want to bring stability to the market.' — BB Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! HIGH-SPEED BICKERING: Gov. Gavin Newsom's January budget proposal didn't call for any changes to state funding for high-speed rail, but that didn't stop the controversial project from being a point of heated discussion during the Assembly's first transportation budget hearing today. Republicans on the committee questioned why California continues to spend on the proposed rail line from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, which President Donald Trump has threatened to investigate over cost overruns. Most of the state's Republican caucus signed a letter to Trump last week supporting an investigation. The project is estimated to cost between $88 billion and $128 billion to complete — up from an original price tag of $33 billion — and an inspector general report released earlier this month found that construction on an initial Central Valley line is unlikely to be completed by the High-Speed Rail Authority's 2033 timeline. 'If this was a project to renovate our home and the estimate more than tripled, and the contractor couldn't provide a completion date, would you complete that renovation with your own money?' asked Assemblymember Tom Lackey, who represents a portion of northern Los Angeles County that's eventually supposed to have a stop on the line. 'I think it's highly unlikely, highly unlikely, and this project appears to be a betrayal of trust.' Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin acknowledged the project's rocky history, but argued the project has employed more than 14,000 workers in the Central Valley and completed environmental reviews that were its biggest impediment. He said the project is on track to start operations in five to seven years. 'This is one of those projects that undoubtedly has a lot of controversy around it, there's no doubt about that,' Omishakin said. 'But I believe this is probably one of the most important transportation projects or infrastructure projects in the entire country.' — AN CURRENTS OF DEBATE: Two California water gurus on opposite sides of Newsom's proposed tunnel to reroute water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta south to farms and cities went at it on a panel today. Jennifer Pierre, the general manager of the State Water Contractors, which get state water deliveries, and Max Gomberg, a former top State Water Resources Control Board official who resigned over the administration's approach to the Delta and now consults for environmental and tribal groups, squared off in a virtual event hosted by the Southern California Water Dialogue. For context: The water board just kicked off its process to determine how much water to give the state the right to use as part of the tunnel project, which has been around in one controversial form or another for decades. Pierre brought up the current limits on pumping despite rivers gushing from recent storms: 'I think it's reasonable to think about how we take advantage of these high flow conditions, and that will require both climate responsive operations as well as new infrastructure,' she said. Retorted Gomberg: 'No one trusts that operations will be as promised. In fact, one of the ongoing disputes has always been because Delta conveyance has been proposed for decades now that if it ever gets built, the pressure to utilize it at full capacity will be overwhelming because of the amount of money that was sunk into building it.' — CvK TRUMP TAXONOMY: Observers of California's already-choppy lithium sector downplayed the Trump effect today at a panel in Sacramento. Besides the moderating (?) influence of Elon Musk, who is still an EV manufacturer despite everything, the authors of a recent book on California's lithium-rich Salton Sea region pointed to market maturity, manufacturing facilities in red-leaning states and competition from China as reasons development will continue. 'That pressure is going to lead auto manufacturers to want to continue to move forward,' Manuel Pastor, co-author of 'Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles and a Just Energy Future,' told Blanca today at a UC Student and Policy Center event. The question remains as to whether local communities will reap the benefits. But Pastor did have one concrete prediction: 'I think one thing that Imperial Valley is probably going to do is start to call this 'mining,' because that will lead Donald Trump to think that it's actual mining,' he said. — DK WATER ALLIANCE: The Central Valley's most powerful and thirstiest farm water agency, Westlands Water District, is considering bringing former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on board as an advisor, a district spokesperson said. Officials at Westlands have praised Trump's promises to divert more water from Northern California rivers to irrigate parched farms in the Central Valley. McCarthy and Trump clashed at times during the first administration, but seem to have patched things up: the Bakersfield Republican endorsed the President and attended the inauguration last month. — CvK IN MEMORIAM: Frederic Dross, an executive at solar technology company Solar Swift, died in an avalanche while backcountry skiing in South Lake Tahoe on Monday. A GoFundMe organized for his family describes him as a father and a 'tireless solar warrior.' — A small fire flared back up Tuesday night at the lithium-ion battery plant in Moss Landing that burned last month. — Fresnoland dives deep into the Williamson Act, the political third rail that provides tax breaks to farmland owners. — The Trump administration's job cuts (including Yosemite National Park's sole locksmith) are already causing chaos, delays and cancellations at the country's national parks.
