It’s Earth Day. Here in California, state regulators are celebrating with their Keep California Beautiful Event that kicks off at the State Capitol followed by cleanup activities, like picking up litter and collecting e-waste, across the State. The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) that protects communities from toxic harm is in on the act with Caltrans, California Highway Patrol, CalRecycle, and several other agencies.

The Director of the DTSC, Debbie Raphael, recently characterized her agency as one that “creates ballfields, parks, schools, and vibrant communities.” She says, “We hold people accountable for polluting the world and California. We protect drinking water…we give people a voice. We are problem solvers. We protect. We heal.”

Really? Tell that to the poisoned community of Wildomar built on toxic soil, or to the community of Los Nietos in the heart of Los Angeles that may be drinking water laced with carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, or to the people of Simi Valley who suffer the runoff of carcinogenic waste from the land Boeing owns at the Santa Susana Field Lab that suffered the worst nuclear meltdown in US history years ago.

All of these are platitudes and make-believe that don’t reflect reality. Government exists to solve collective problems that industry, with its profit motive and cutting corners, just can’t manage. Government has to provide the right incentives and the right regulation.  What the government has to offer individuals on Earth Day-US EPA tips include don’t litter, save water, compost, and ride a bike to work-doesn’t get us all the way there.

Here in California, we got a sobering picture last week. The US EPA said that the state of California has failed to spend $455 million of federal money to improve water structure in the state including on water treatment facilities. Thousands of Californians are exposed to water contaminated with nitrates and other toxins every day. The California Department of Public Health had no good answer for this. And where is the State Water Resources Control Board, that paragon of water quality protection? Apparently AWOL.

And you can trust the DTSC to circle the wagons instead of look soberly at how it falls down in protecting communities and the environment from toxic harm, as outlined in our report Golden Wasteland.

The DTSC routinely lets toxic polluters who manage hazardous waste slide. We have some of the toughest environmental laws in the nation, but some of the weakest enforcement. The DTSC is the poster child for that. The department levies wrist slap fines that are just the cost of doing business, lets companies operate on expired permits for decades at a time, and doesn’t have the moxie to revoke or deny the permits of serial toxic violators as the law intends. The result is communities that report illnesses from cancer to lupus because of toxic soil and groundwater. The devastation in these communities isn’t as visible as the devastation in West, Texas. But the harm is real. It just takes longer for it to manifest.

And don’t think that a West, Texas can’t happen here, either. The Chevron refinery fire in Richmond last summer is a case in point. It could have been far worse than sending 15,000 people to the hospital. People could have been killed as they were in West, where a deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant razed five blocks around the facility. But our system of fragmented regulation and passing off of responsibility from one regulatory agency to the next almost ensures we’ll have more disasters to come.

Here in Richmond, at a public meeting on Friday night that the regional head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board couldn’t attend-because he was investigating the Texas explosion-the chairman of the federal body said that the secretive refinery industry should provide regulators with information on refinery technology and regulators should work together to monitor wear on materials.

Chevron chose not to replace corroded pipes that led to the explosion and toxic cloud over Richmond. The explosion could have been prevented, but the regulatory system is reactive and not capable of foreseeing and forestalling problems, according to the Board. And there aren’t enough skilled refinery inspectors in the state.

The DTSC’s own priorities are so inside out that the department has gutted its refinery inspection capability to two inspectors for the whole state-while two top officials invest in refineries and other companies the department regulates. The California Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) also has too few inspectors for workplace safety. Cal OSHA fined Chevron a pinprick $1 million dollars for the fire, while DTSC refused to sanction the refinery at all even though it has the legal right. And what about the Bay Area Air Quality Management District? AWOL too. Wrist-slap fines are routine for refinery air infractions and air regulators haven’t made a peep about the toxic black cloud over Richmond.

Ironically, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board is “grossly mismanaged” itself, according to one former board member. It’s got a short attention span and hasn’t completed investigations into the Tesoro disaster in Washington State and the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Thirteen board investigations are incomplete, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

We need a new regulatory paradigm. One where we break apart the fractured system of regulation we’ve got now in favor of coordinated inspections of refineries, chemical plants, pharmaceutical plants, hazardous waste processors and other large companies. We need to grow a spine when it comes to serial violators of environmental laws and enforce the laws on the books to break the pattern. We need to focus our efforts on enforcement-DTSC now has only 13 criminal investigators for the whole state and none in Southern California. And we need to let these investigators coordinate efforts across agencies.

The pressure is growing. Eighteen environmental groups, concerned citizens, and victims of toxic harm just petitioned Senator Kevin De Leon to thoroughly investigate the Department of Toxic Substances Control for gross mismanagement, including the drop in the number of cases referred to public prosecutors, and failure to insist on strict cleanup requirements for contamination. The group is also asking for legislators to jam the revolving door of industry influence on government regulators. So, as the Earth spins, don’t let anyone spin you. Instead, keep the pressure on. Set the regulators spinning to work for us, like they are supposed to. It’s in our hands.

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Posted by Liza Tucker, Consumer Advocate and author of Consumer Watchdog’s groundbreaking expose Golden Wasteland. Follow Consumer Watchdog on Facebook and Twitter.

New pact with Quebec means credits can be traded between the two regions.

by Brian Leubitz

California’s cap and trade system is still in its big growth phrase after its relatively recent launch. Now the CA Air Resources Board (CARB) is looking to extend the reach of the market with a new deal with the Canadian province of Quebec.

With California Air Resources Board (CARB) approving linkage between California and Quebec’s cap-and-trade programs today, these two programs will now be able to trade emissions allowances across borders starting in 2014.  CARB’s action comes on the heels of Governor Brown’s recent decision to approve the linkage, which will increase the size of California’s cap-and-trade market by 20 percent. More importantly, linkage will boost California’s clean energy economy by creating a broader market for innovative, low-carbon technologies.  The linkage is also a shot in the arm for global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and it sends a positive signal to other jurisdictions that are working on building their own carbon markets and might ultimately seek to join with California and Quebec. (EDFBlog)

While California’s economy is obviously much larger than Quebec’s this deal could be the start of something much bigger. If successful, the market expansion could continue by adding additional states to the system. Former Gov. Gray Davis and Former Quebec Prime Minister had some thoughts on the linkage deal as well:

The strength of this partnership is not limited to the two jurisdictions alone, however. Its real strength is that the partnership creates a path for future partners to follow. Already, other U.S. states and Canadian provinces are watching carefully and beginning to talk about joining this movement. In addition, there are now discussions with Australia, the cap-and-trade program in the Northeast U.S., and the European Union.(Globe & Mail)

Now, the viability of the carbon market at all is still an unsettled question. A carbon tax would still probably be a more efficient mechanism while reducing speculative profits. However, cap and trade is what we have right now, and further growth and linkage of the markets will undoubtedly make the program more effective.

by Kevin Singer, Communications Coordinator, Californians for Responsible Economic Development

With one week left until the California Modernization and Economic Development Act – a proposed ballot initiative that would enact a tax on oil and gas extracted from California – is granted official summary and title by the Attorney General’s Office, the proponents of the measure are announcing an Earth Day rally and press conference. On Monday, April 22nd at 12PM students and allies will gather on the historic steps of Sproul Plaza in Berkeley to show their support for the bill, which would infuse California’s higher education system with $900 million for the purposes of reducing tuition and hiring more teachers. The rally will be followed by a press conference, during which the lead proponent, Jack Tibbetts, will give a statement and answer questions.

The California Modernization and Economic Development Act (CMED) places a 9.5% tax on the oil and gas that’s extracted from California, and would bring in over $2 billion of new revenue for the state. $1.2 billion would be allocated in four equal parts towards K-12, California Community Colleges, California State University and the University of California. Another $400 million would be used to provide businesses with subsidies for switching to cleaner forms of energy, and $300 million would be allocated for city and park infrastructure. “We want to demonstrate that students are willing to fight and vote for a bill in 2014 that consists of a complete package of investments for their future,” said Sera Tajima, Outreach Director for the campaign. “The fact of the matter is 2014 is an off-year election, and if Democrats are looking for a ballot initiative that will encourage student turn out, CMED is the obvious candidate,” Tajima added.

The announcement comes on the heels of the California Democratic Convention, where environmental activist and philanthropist Thomas Steyer spent a great deal of time talking about the need for an extraction tax. Though he did not specify a proposal he planned on backing, he did not rule out a ballot initiative if the California Senate and Assembly do not act. The bill has already attracted the attention and support from a wide variety of interest groups and individuals, and touts a growing list of endorsements on their website (www.cmedact.org/endorsements). In February, former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich endorsed CMED, calling the ballot initiative a “no-brainer.” Since then, the group has received enthusiastic support from several environmental advocacy groups, including the Community Food and Justice Coalition, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Sustainable Marin and San Rafael, and Mark Reynolds of Citizen’s Climate Lobby.

In a recent turn of events, Dr. Daniel Kammen, Nobel Prize recipient and co-author of Prop 87 (a similar measure on the 2006 ballot), wholeheartedly endorsed the proposal. “Placing a small surcharge on in-state production benefits the state dramatically, spurring innovation on the producer side to reduce costs, and bringing in funds that are critically needed to green the economy, re-invest in education, and meet basic needs.  California is at the forefront of the clean energy revolution, and has profited from this process.  The California Modernization and Economic Development Act is absolutely needed.”

Edits:

changed the word fee to the word tax, for article explaining difference, see here: http://www.clearthebenchcolora…

fixed a quote by Dan Kammen for accuracy

Brown questions support in the Legislature

by Brian Leubitz

Speaking to reporters in China, Gov. Brown made it clear that he didn’t think CEQA reform was going to happen this year:

The California Environmental Quality Act, Brown told reporters here, “is supported by some key groups within the Democratic Party, and I think it would be difficult for the Legislature to move that process forward.”

Brown said he remains committed relaxing provisions of the law but that he has a large agenda, including the state budget, water infrastructure and high-speed rail. He said “the appetite for CEQA reform is much stronger outside the state Capitol than it is inside.”

Brown said, “This is not something you get done in a year, but I believe before I depart this stage we will see reform in CEQA.”(SacBee)

Supporting his initial statement that Democrats support CEQA is the fact that the CDP passed a resolution supporting CEQA reform only so far as it maintains the basic environmental protections that are at its heart. Here is the relevant clause:

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the California Democratic Party stands with the labor and environmental community in affirming its support and commitment to CEQA’s original intent to ensure public participation and transparency in the planning process in order to protect California’s environment and calls on the state legislature and governor to oppose any efforts to weaken this law or reduce public participation (CDP PDF)

Look, while Dan Walters thinks that it is just the liberals trying to stop Jerry’s vision of CEQA, there is a lot more to it. The resolution clearly does not say that CEQA shouldn’t be reformed. Even many environmentalists agree with the statement that some reform could make the law better. But the reforms need to be extremely careful to not toss out the very valuable protections that CEQA offers while dumping some of the excess red tape.

Perhaps CEQA reform doesn’t get done this year, but with legislation that is as critical as CEQA, maybe we shouldn’t be rushing it. Let’s make sure we don’t look back at these changes with regret for our environment. We already have enough environmental challenges without creating more for ourselves.

On Friday, federal accident investigators told California legislators that the state’s patchwork of oil industry regulations needs a serious overhaul. The Chevron fire that produced a toxic cloud and sent 15,000 people to the hospital could have been prevented, but the system was reactive and not designed to foresee and forestall problems, said the U.S. Chemical Safety Board. Duh. The board didn’t need 18 months to come to that conclusion. But Don Holstrom, lead investigator for the board, did put his finger on one problem: the need to bump up the number, skills, and authority of refinery inspectors.

Something smells when an agency purposefully cripples its own enforcement abilities. One good example is the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). The DTSC exists to protect communities like Richmond from toxic harm.  And for years, it’s done a very poor job of it.

The DTSC has broad statutory authority to sanction these giant chemical plants for toxic releases like the one that Chevron caused in its fire, but it consistently refuses. Better yet, the DTSC should play a pro-active role in preventing harm as the department is supposed to do. So, you’d think the DTSC would view having refinery inspectors on staff as a high priority-inspectors that could be given broad latitude to inspect the guts of a refinery where hazardous substances slosh around and not just its excrement. Evidently, the DTSC thinks the fewer refinery inspectors the better.

The DTSC has only two refinery inspectors for the entire state and one of them is green and in training. The DTSC used to have more. But when other inspectors from its refinery unit retired or left, the DTSC didn’t bother to replace them. Nine vacancies in the unit handing refinery inspections were the result. Two scientist positions were approved for the refinery inspection unit and then inexplicably redirected to other positions and regions.

Refinery inspections are the most complex kind and the scientists that do them sometimes take a week to complete them. These scientists know the ins and outs of dealing with refineries. The DTSC maintains that any scientist can conduct a refinery inspection, but that just isn’t true. “Anyone who says that all DTSC scientists can conduct them and are trained to do them is either lying or out of their mind,” says one DTSC career investigator.

Under the direction of Chief Deputy Director Odette Madriago positions can be cut or simply re-directed, the investigator said. On top of that, “Odette has put in place the strictest travel requirements of all CAL EPA.”  The inspectors and investigators that have to travel have to fill out a lengthy document and have to get approval from their supervisor before they can go do an inspection or investigation. “These travel restrictions have allowed polluters to go unchecked and unregulated,” the investigator said.

One explanation is budgets are tight. Another is that it isn’t in the interest of someone like Ms. Madriago to regulate an industry in which she invests. She’s invested up to $100,000 in Chevron and in BP Amoco. Why regulate these refineries and sanction them millions of dollars that could affect their stock price?

Both Ms. Madriago and DTSC Director Debbie Raphael have taken to meeting behind closed doors with refinery executives, say DTSC sources. Normally, when an issue is discussed the DTSC official most involved is invited in to participate. Not anymore. “Ever since Debbie’s been here, Odette goes with Debbie everywhere to take these tours on oil refineries,” said the investigator. “They are inseparable. Odette is always there. They meet with refinery officials without the knowledge of the regulators behind closed doors.” A visit by Ms. Raphael and Ms. Madriago to a Chevron refinery last fall irked inspectors who were never told. “We show up at a refinery and we have to hear it from the city manager or CEO that Debbie and Odette were there,” said one inspector. “We find out when we go.”

Now that manpower is tight, inspections are cursory because they are rushed-and that endangers health and safety, he said. The inspector proposed a program of cross-training between regions so scientists could perform inspections in their own regions. The proposal didn’t even get a cursory response from DTSC’s director. “You just have to put this into perspective, we aren’t robots, we’re human beings,” said the inspector. “You put a lot of stress on inspectors and things get missed. There wasn’t any thorough inspecting going on, how can there be?”

Is it any wonder that California’s refineries experienced 41 new accidents, leaks, chemical releases, fires, break-downs and other failures since the Richmond fire last August? That’s about two a week, according to a new coalition spearheaded by UC Berkeley’s Labor Occupational Health Program that did the research and is calling for a new system of regulation.

With the right resources, DTSC sources say inspectors could help make sure a refinery’s operations were safe. “In some cases, the facility might have some device that is not properly working and hazardous waste might be escaping,” said the investigator. “Corroded pipes are in that ballpark.” Inspectors need to examine an entire facility to make sure what the facility claims about the content of the hazardous waste it generates at the other end is true, he said.

But instead of emphasizing this, Ms. Raphael is dismantling a pollution source reduction program that encouraged businesses to switch out harmful chemicals and use safer technology in favor of reassigning personnel without the appropriate skills to develop rules for manufacturing greener products. “Perhaps Odette is so hell-bent on eliminating the source reduction program because the program has history targeted refineries,” said one DTSC scientist. “Refineries have not appreciated the attention and have complained that we unfairly target them.”



The last thing that is needed is another blue-ribbon commission the DTSC can hide behind like the one Governor Brown formed to study the issue of refinery regulation. The DTSC began gathering refinery profiles more than a decade ago in an initial step to regulating the industry, a tacit admission that the agency could already be doing far more than it is. Then the industry’s lobbying killed it on the grounds of national security.

No, we need a system where regulators enforce existing laws, prioritize their core responsibilities, and publicly provide information in real time on company audits, fines, and regulatory actions taken by all involved agencies in one central, easily accessed database.

And we need their managers to get out of the way. The day the Chevron fire happened, one inspector was scheduled to take vacation. “I remember saying I can cancel my vacation and my supervisor said I might as well take my vacation. It was business as usual. I didn’t think it was right.” Instead, he said the department has blinders on, slapping down inspectors who want to take a more holistic approach. “Don’t worry about the fuel system or this production unit over here,” he said. “That is what we are told.”

Shame on California-allegedly the most progressive state in the nation-for not already having a refinery strike force of inspectors across agencies working together on assessments of a refinery’s structural integrity, from corroded pipes to fugitive emissions. And shame on California for not taking some players off the existing team-players with financial conflicts of interest like Odette Madriago that may have broken the law.

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Posted by Liza Tucker, Consumer Advocate and author of Consumer Watchdog’s Golden Wasteland report on the toxic environment at DTSC. Follow Consumer Watchdog on Facebook or on Twitter.

Sen. Fran Pavley’s fracking bill to be considered today

by Brian Leubitz

Senator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) has been an environmental leader in the Legislature since the day she stepped into the Assembly in 2000, including work on the landmark climate change bill, AB 32. Her current environmental focus is the question of hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting liquids into soft rock to release trapped hydrocarbons. Today her bill, SB 4, heads to the Natural Resources Committee. (Click here for more bill info)

The bill is  far from perfect, and isn’t the complete moratorium that some would like to see. But, it is an attempt to establish wide-ranging protections for the public when it comes to the rapidly-growing practice of hydraulic fracturing of underground rocks to get the oil and gas inside.

“The public is concerned,” Senator Pavley said. “They have become aware of both the huge amount of fracking we could see in California, and of how little we know about the operations already taking place in our state.”

The bill would put many new protections on what is now a largely unregulated industrial practice. For the first time, frackers would need to obtain a permit, give 30-day’s notice of operations to nearby property owners, and provide regulators with a list of chemicals they plan to use. The bill provides for trade secret protections the industry wants, but also requires them to fund air and water quality monitoring. Many of these regulations are similar to ones either proposed or already in place in numerous other states. And, unfortunately, Pavley’s SB 1054 to require notice of fracking to neighbors and regulators last year was killed by industry lobbying.

“These are the kinds of basic protections needed to protect public safety,” Senator Pavley said. “We have already seen contaminated water from other industrial sources sicken people and destroy entire towns in California. We must not repeat this pattern.”  

On a related note, fracking could be a hot topic at the California Democratic Party convention, as environmental leaders are attempting to get a resolution supporting a moratorium.

San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener looks to tweak local CEQA regulations

by Brian Leubitz

You may have noticed a thing or two about the question of “reforming” the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA has been used to hold up projects both good and bad for the environment and the community. Some tweaks would help expedite good projects, but the heart and soul of the legislation is important for the long term environmental future of the state. But one of the issues that is less clear is the role of local regulations on CEQA appeals.

It won’t surprise you to learn that San Francisco has some of the most confounding permit regulations. I learned just how confounding when a neighbor, who had already received a permit had to change a small aspect of some renovations. The process is something of a mess, to say the least, and can end up with some very high costs to get a simple project completed. However, Supervisor Scott Wiener, is looking to maintain the important role of environmental review, while trying to make repairs and renovations easier on homeowners in SF.

Under his proposal, which goes to the board’s Land Use Committee on Monday, appeals would need to be made within 30 days of a project’s initial approval. His measure also would enhance the system for notifying neighbors and other affected parties.

In doing so, the measure would end the ambiguity that allows environmental appeals of previously approved projects whenever any subsequent permit is pulled – even if the work is minor and does not affect the scope, look or nature of a project.(SF Chronicle)

Now, I’m sure the law proposed will go through some modifications before it becomes law, but this kind of expediting local environmental review while preserving the core goals is just as important, if not more important, for your average homeowner. It will likely directly impact more Californians than some of the proposals bandied about in the legislature these days. We need to keep a close eye on these type of changes, but if done right, they can be positive for the community as some of these small project holdups are what give CEQA a bad name. We need CEQA as a tool to fight bad and environmentally reckless development, and maybe some of these small tweaks can stabilize CEQA’s role for the long-term.

Photo credit: SF Supervisor Scott Wiener at 17th Street Plaza opening by Jamison Wieser, on Flickr

Recycling law leads to theft, but what can be done about it?

by Brian Leubitz

If you read the San Francisco Chronicle often enough, you get the general vibe of where CW Nevius is headed. He’s all about quality of life and would generally prefer a modern suburbanization. Lovely for the suburbs, but it doesn’t always go well in the City of San Francisco. And he’s living in San Francisco now, and noticing the little things.  

Like recycling theft. First, let me say as somebody who worked on a campaign about San Francisco’s waste system, it is a very common concern, in pretty much every part of the City. I don’t know if it as big of a problem in LA or other urban parts of the state, but it raises many issues (and many questions) here in SF.  I’ll take the quote from Recology’s Adam Alberti

“It hurts everybody,” says Adam Alberti, a spokesman for Recology, the city’s garbage collection firm. “We have heard reports of (scavengers) being paid in drugs instead of cash. And there is an impact on ratepayers when recycling theft is happening.” (CW Nevius/SF Chronicle)

Now, first, let me say that the California Redemption Value system works very well for its intended goals: increasing recycling. In the latest report, aluminum recycling is at 99%, and glass at 91%. These are good figures, and mean that we are leaving less junk for future generations to deal with. But, like most public policy interventions, there are side effects. I know for a fact that recycling theft is real, as I see it every Thursday night when I put out my garbage. But the other ills, such as the ills Mr. Alberti mentioned, are very real. To a surprising degree, recycling theft is an organized crime. Groups pay a small pittance to the people that actually gather the materials, and then they go around and flip the materials for a tidy profit.

But these side effects cannot deter us from our greater environmental goals. We can’t go backward on recycling, not in an era of increasing scarcity of resources. Therefore we simply cannot toss out the baby with the bathwater on our CRV program. We are the leader on this program, so in some ways that leaves us to come up with our own solutions. Some of the proposals bandied about in the past have included limits on how much you could redeem, and requiring some form of ID or otherwise providing personal information upon redeeming a large quantity of recyclables. But we shouldn’t limit ourselves to these ideas, we need to work on ways to address the issue while still achieving our original goals.

Last night, I attended a meeting of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party’s Resolutions Committee to speak on behalf of a resolution I wrote. The resolution calls for the University of California and California State University endowments, and institutional investors California Public Employees Retirement Systems and California State Teachers’ Retirement System to divest from fossil fuels within five years.

And I wore clean underwear to the meeting. Just to spite Fox News.

The reasons behind the resolution are simple. Climate change caused by burning of fossil fuels is the greatest challenge facing the next few generations of humanity. Efforts to legislate solutions have often been stalled by fossil-fueled politicians; hence, a movement has sprung up to divest institutional funds from fossil fuel companies, popularized by Bill McKibben in his Rolling Stone piece on global warming’s terrifying new math.

The “warm” argument for divestment points out the morality. It’s not primarily an economic strategy, but a moral and political one. Just like in the struggle for civil rights or the fight to end Apartheid in South Africa, the more we can make climate change a deeply moral issue, the more we will push society towards action. Fossil fuel divestment, explicitly modeled on the successful anti-apartheid movement, has been endorsed by Nelson Mandela. If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, than it’s also wrong to profit from that wreckage. At the same time, divestment builds political power by forcing our nation’s most prominent institutions and individuals (many of whom sit on college boards) to choose a side. Divestment sparks a big discussion and gets prominent media attention, moving the case for action forward.

The “cold” argument for supporting divestment recognizes that smart institutions will get out of the carbon bubble before it bursts. Investors are now beginning the long ugly process of grappling with the fact that the unburnable carbon in fossil fuels will create stranded assets, i.e., assets worth less on the market than on a balance sheet. One estimate has 55% of investors’ portfolios exposed to risk. Standard & Poors warns of oil firms’ credit downgrades. The Motley Fool sees fossil fuels as modern asbestos stocks.

And getting on the fossil fuel divestment bandwagon is smart politics. The Fossil Free website shows over 250 colleges and universities have movements calling for their endowments to divest from fossil fuels. Give them a reason to enthuse about Democratic Party action.

Of course, Fox News doesn’t like the fossil free movement. A Fox News host claimed that those of us who want to divest from fossil fuels don’t want clean underwear. My retort, via Twitter: “hey @FoxNews – I wear clean silk lingerie and I support #fossilfree divestment. But no one who believes the BS you spew will ever see it.”

Since Ventura County became the first Democratic party in the nation to call for fossil fuel divestment last week, we’ve been joined by other Democratic clubs in California. If you’re interested in doing the same, here’s a template resolution:

WHEREAS, almost every government in the world has agreed that any warming above a 2°C (3.6°F) rise would be unsafe. We have already raised the temperature 0.8°C (1.4°F), which has caused far more damage than most scientists expected – a third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, consequences of inaction will result in devastating floods and drought;

WHEREAS, scientists estimate that humans can release roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees, while proven coal, oil, and gas reserves equal about 2,795 gigatons of CO2, or five times the amount we can release to maintain 2 degrees of warming;

and WHEREAS, California’s institutions of higher education and pension funds should encourage only those investments that allow students and retirees to live healthy lives without the impact of a warming planet, and thus campaigns to divest from fossil fuels have begun at campuses within both the University of California and California State University systems;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the (your county) Democratic Party calls upon the University of California and California State University endowments, and CALPERS and CALSTRS institutional funds to immediately stop new investments in fossil fuel companies, to take steps to divest all holdings from the top 200 fossil fuel companies as determined by the Carbon Tracker list within five years, and to release updates available to the public, detailing progress made toward full divestment;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Democratic Party send a copy of this resolution to the Governor of the State of California, Board of Regents of the University of California, Chancellor of the California State University system, and officials at CalPERS and CalSTRS, asking support for divestment from fossil fuels.

I’m very pleased to report that the Los Angeles County resolutions committee passed my fossil fuel divestment resolution unanimously – one committee member stated “You had me at the first ‘whereas’ clause.” It’ll go on to the full party meeting next week, where I’m told that it’ll probably be approved on a routine basis. And I’ll wear clean underwear in support…but won’t post pix to prove it.

The power of the petroleum industry in California may be unparalleled in the states. Its lobbying machine is stupendously successful.  For instance, California remains the only significant oil producer that does not tax oil extracted in the state. It has very weak–perhaps the weakest–regulation of oil and gas extraction, particularly hydraulic fracturing of deep deposits, known as “fracking.” State environmental laws are under constant attack.

State Sen. Michael Rubio, a Central Valley Democrat elected to his seat in 2010, was in an ideal spot to show whose side he was on in these fights.

Rubio, who resigned from the Senate Feb. 22 to work for Chevron as its chief California lobbyist, was chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, which oversees oil industry environmental issues. In 2011-12, he was a key Democrat on the Senate’s energy committee.

His most recent official action was an inaction: He was scheduled to co-chair his committee’s hearing on fracking with Sen. Fran Pavley. The hearing took place, airing widespread frustration with the weakness and loopholes of current and proposed state regulation of fracking. Rubio, however, was a no-show.

It’s obvious now that on Feb. 12 he was getting ready to jump ship to Chevron, and likely in no mood to hear citizen fears about water pollution, spoiled land and even fracking-induced earthquakes. But Rubio did, in his short tenure, leave a record that Chevron was surely tracking with admiration.

In hindisght, his biggest moment in the spotlight would have been his months-long campaigning on behalf of a corporate effort to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act. The changes would have particularly benefited the oil, energy and property development industries. The proposals didn’t become law, but they’re not dead yet. Rubio will just be working them from the other side of the fence.

In May 2012, Rubio also cast the deciding “no” vote against a bill (SB 1054) by Sen. Pavley that would have merely required oil companies to notify residents and businesses nearby in advance of fracking activities. The bill, vociferously opposed by the Western States Petroleum Assn. and other oil lobbyists, failed. Industry opponents of the bill recognized Rubio for his role in leading the opposition that killed a bill with wide public support.

Rubio also supported, and may have encouraged, the governor’s firing of two state energy regulators in 2011 after oil lobby complaints about their tightening of oversight.

(Oil and energy weren’t the only supporters he was courting. Rubio also championed the profits of Blue Cross over the pocketbooks of customers. He withheld his vote in 2011 from a measure that would have allowed the state insurance commissioner to reject health insurance rate increases that could not be justified. In the state Legislature, an abstention from voting is effectively a “no” vote, but with no accountability. It’s the coward’s way out. )

Chevron certainly knows what it’s getting with this new top lobbyist.

Rubio stated that he was leaving his elected post two years early to spend more time with his family, including a disabled child. No matter how much that weighed in his decision, the fact remains that his status as a state senator (however briefly) greatly inreased his value to Chevron. His pay will grow by multples. Because there is no law against such a quick trip through the revolving door–from overseeing an industry to lobbying for it–Rubio could be schmoozing his fellow legislators right now, and spreading money to their campaigns. His constituents, meanwhile, are stuck with no representation until a special election that’s perhaps months away.

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Posted by Judy Dugan, former research director for Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.