EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, February 19, 2021 12:30 P.M
EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, February 19, 2021 12:30 p.m.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND STAFF WILL ATTEND VIA TELECONFERENCE
Pursuant to Governor Newsom’s Executive Order No. N-29-20 and the Alameda County Health Officer’s current Shelter in Place Order, effective March 31, 2020, the East Bay Regional Park District (“Park District”) Headquarters will not be open to the public and the Board Legislative Committee and staff will be participating in the meetings via phone/video conferencing.
Members of the public can listen to the meeting via the Park District’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/fDMU6n-pX38
Public comments may be submitted one of three ways: 1. Live via zoom. If you would like to make a live public comment during the meeting this option is available through the virtual meeting platform: https://ebparks.zoom.us/j/93446758940 Note, this virtual meeting platform link will let you into the virtual meeting for the purpose of providing a public comment. If you do not intend to make a public comment, please use the YouTube link at observe the meeting. It is https://youtu.be/fDMU6n-pX38 preferred that those requesting to speak during the meeting contact the Legislative Committee Assistant by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 18, 2021 via email at [email protected] or voicemail (510) 544-2400 to provide name and the subject line public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item #. 2. Via email to recording secretary [email protected] by 4:00 p.m. Thursday, February 18, 2021. Email must contain in the subject line public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item # followed by their name and place of residence, followed by their comments. 3. Via voicemail at 510-544-2002 by 4:00 p.m. Thursday, February 18, 2021. The caller must start the message by stating public comments – not on the agenda or public comments – agenda item# followed by their name and place of residence, followed by their comments.
Comments received during the meeting and up until the public comment period on the relevant agenda item is closed, will be provided in writing to the Board Legislative Committee, included transcribed voicemails. All comments received by the close of the public comment period will be available after the meeting as supplemental materials and will become part of the official meeting record. Please try to limit your written comments to no more than 300 words. The Park District cannot guarantee that its network and/or the site will be uninterrupted. To ensure that the Park District receives your comments, you are strongly encouraged to submit your comments in writing in advance of the meeting.
If you have any questions about utilizing the video stream, please contact the Assistant of the Committee, Yulie Padmore, at [email protected] or at 510-544-2002. To ensure the best opportunity for Park District staff to address your question, please contact the Assistant prior to 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 18, 2020.
The following agenda items are listed for Committee consideration. In accordance with the Board Operating Guidelines, no official action of the Board will be taken at this meeting; rather, the Committee’s purpose shall be to review the listed items and to consider developing recommendations to the Board of Directors.
A copy of the background materials concerning these agenda items, including any material that may have been submitted less than 72 hours before the meeting, is available for inspection on the District’s website (www. ebparks.org), the Headquarters reception desk, and at the meeting.
Accommodations and Access District facilities and meetings comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If special accommodations are needed for you to participate, please contact the Clerk of the Board at 510-544-2020 as soon as possible, but preferably at least three working days prior to the meeting.
AGENDA
TIME ITEM STATUS STAFF
12:30 I. EAST BAY SURVEY RESULTS I Pfuehler/Baldinger
II. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR R Victor/Pfuehler SUPPORT 1. AB 72 (Petrie-Norris D-Laguna Beach) – Coastal Adaptation Permitting Act 2. AB 391 (Villapudua D-Stockton) – Pollinator Habitat Grants 3. ACR 17 (Voepel R- Santee) – Special Districts Week in May 4. SB 347 (Caballero D- Salinas) – Urban Tree Fund
B. OTHER STATE MATTERS I Victor/Pfuehler 1. Sacramento Meetings Recap 2. Compromised Trees Update 3. Nuisance Abatement Legislation Update 4. Wildfire Training Center Update 5. Other Matters
III. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR R Victor/Pfuehler SUPPORT 1. H.R. 610 (Speier D-CA) – San Francisco Bay Restoration Act 2. S. 91 (Sinema D-AZ) and H.R. 535 (Garamendi D-CA) – Special Districts Qualifying for Coronavirus Relief Fund
B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS I Victor/Pfuehler 1. President Biden Covid-19 Relief Funding Package 2. Better Utilizing Investment to Leverage Development (BUILD) Federal Transportation Grant Update
3. Land and Water Conservation Fund / Great American Outdoors Act 4. Outdoor Restoration Force Act, Climate Corps, Civilian Conservation Corps 5. Delegation Committee Assignments 6. Other Matters
IV. STRATEGY FOR INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT I Pfuehler/Baldinger UPDATE
V. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT Individuals wishing to address the Committee on a topic not on the agenda may do so by completing a speaker’s form and submitting it to the recording secretary.
VI. ARTICLES
VII. BOARD COMMENTS
(R) Recommendation for Future Board Consideration (I) Information (D) Discussion Legislative Committee Members Future Meetings: Ayn Wieskamp (Chair); Dee Rosario, Dennis Waespi, January 15 July 16 Elizabeth Echols (Alternate) February 19 August – NO MTG Erich Pfuehler, Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs March – NO MTG September 17 Lisa Baldinger, Legislative and Policy Management Analyst April 13 October 15 May 14 November – NO MTG June 18 *December 10
TO: Board Legislative Committee (Chair Ayn Wieskamp, Dee Rosario, Dennis Waespi, alt. Elizabeth Echols)
FROM: Carol Victor, Interim General Manager Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager
SUBJECT: Board Legislative Committee Meeting WHEN: Friday, February 19, 2021 12:30 PM
WHERE: Members of the public can listen to the meeting in the following way: Via the Park District’s live stream, on the Park District’s YouTube channel, which can be found on the agenda. ______
Items to be discussed:
I. EAST BAY SURVEY RESULTS Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs Erich Pfuehler and Legislative and Policy Management Analyst Lisa Baldinger will be joined by Lake Research Partners to present findings of an N=600 District-wide survey conducted December 9-13, 2020.
II. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. AB 72 (Petrie-Norris D-Laguna Beach) – Coastal Adaptation Permitting Act This bill seeks to establish a more coordinated permitting process for coastal adaptation projects. It would require the Natural Resources Agency to submit a report to the Legislature by July 1, 2023 outlining steps aimed at achieving greater permitting efficiencies. For the purpose of this legislation, a “coastal adaptation project” is an activity intended or designed to address, mitigate or prevent the adverse social and economic effects of sea level rise.
2. AB 391 (Villapudua D-Stockton) – Pollinator Habitat Grants This bill appropriates $5 million from the General Fund to support conservation programs which establish pollinator habitat. The funding would be administered by the Department of Food and Agriculture. It would be used in partnership with the University of California Extension Services, California Resource Conservation Districts and United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. Funding would incentives participation, particularly for those managing working lands, to participate in state and federal conservation programs beneficial to pollinators.
3. ACR 17 (Voepel R-Santee) – Special Districts Week in May The concurrent resolution proclaims the week of May 16 to May 22, 2021 to be Special Districts Week. It further encourages all Californians to be involved in their communities and civically engaged with their local government.
4. SB 347 (Caballero D-Salinas) – Urban Tree Fund
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This bill creates a California Tree Fund. It would enable taxpayers to designate an amount of excess personal income tax liability (for those who have excess) to the Fund. Monies in the Fund would be allocated to CAL FIRE for a grant program supporting urban forest management activities, and to the Strategic Growth Council for urban greening and green infrastructure projects under the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) Program. The District recently received a $1.4 million TCC grant for operation and trail maintenance of the San Leandro Creek Trail from Hegenberger Road to 98th Avenue once the trail is constructed.
B. OTHER STATE MATTERS 1. Virtual Sacramento Meetings Recap Acting Legislative Assistant Yulie Padmore will provide a recap of the Zoom meetings with California State Senators and Assembly Members on January 25 and 27.
2. Compromised Trees Update The Park District is experiencing an unusual amount of sudden vegetation eradication with non-native and native species. The reason for this sudden dry vegetation is not yet scientifically confirmed, but theories include drought impacts due to climate change or a newly introduced pathogen. Identified species being impacted are eucalyptus, acacia, pine and coyote brush. The District has observed significant vegetation die-off in above-ground vegetation across the Park District and on adjacent lands. It is still unclear if the vegetation die-off is impacting the roots underground. Similar vegetation die-off has also been found in the cities of Marin, Oakland and San Diego. This development is still being analyzed and will require a vast amount of time and resources to determine the exact source. Tracking the status of this issue will remain a priority for the District to manage forest health and maintain public safety through wildfire mitigation. District Fire Department personnel estimate removal of dying trees in Anthony Chabot alone would cost $30 to $40 million. Government Affairs staff have been in contact with State legislative offices and CAL FIRE to highlight this costly challenge. It is likely to become a regional and state issue.
3. Nuisance Abatement Legislation Update Assembly Member Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) has agreed to introduce legislation to ensure Public Resources Code (PRC) 5500 Park Districts have adequate legal tools to prevent unauthorized uses of their lands. Currently, PRC 5500 does not spefically authorize the Park District to abate and recover costs when protecting parkland from encroachments and other public nuisances. Currently, the District must work through county District Attorneys to address encroachments. District Attorneys are typically more focused on addressing issues within their urban service areas rather than on Park District lands. Consequently, it can take years for the District to properly address a nuisance.
The proposed legislative fix would be to provide Park Districts public nuisance abatement power within the PRC 5500, similar to a city’s or county’s abilities. The proposed legislation would give a Park District the following powers: 1. The ability to declare by ordinance what constitutes a public nuisance. 2. Explicit authority to abate those public nuisances by either administrative and/or civil actions. 3. Recover its costs incurred abating those public nuisances, including attorneys’ fees.
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Having the full set of options to address illegal encroachments which cities and counties have, in particular the ability to administratively abate and recover costs, would give Park Districts the necessary tools to efficiently protect the parks and open spaces they are responsible for operating and maintaining, without initiating a costly and lengthy civil or criminal action in the courts.
This statewide bill applies only to four independent special districts listed below. Dependent districts enabled under Public Resources Code Section 5500 may already utilize county powers of nuisance abatement. 1. East Bay Regional Park District 2. Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District 3. Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District 4. Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District
4. Wildfire Training Center Update State Senator Steve Glazer is introducing legislation aimed at enabling formerly incarcerated individuals to serve in a forestry corps program in the East Bay. The current bill language creates the opportunity for formerly incarcerated individuals to complete the necessary training to be eligible for an entry-level forestry position within CAL FIRE. In discussion about the bill, Senator Glazer has reached out about the possibility of establishing an East Bay Wildfire Training Center for these individuals on Park District property. There are a number of questions about this concept. Staff and Sacramento Advocate Doug Houston will provide an update.
5. Other Matters
III. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. H.R. 610 (Speier D-CA) – San Francisco Bay Restoration Act This bill is similar to legislation authored by Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Jackie Speier in previous sessions of Congress, which the District supported. The legislation would establish a grant program within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for restoration projects. Special districts have historically been eligible. The District recently submitted a $2 million EPA grant from the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund for public access and restoration at Coyote Hills. H.R. 610 and Senator Feinstein’s companion bill would codify this Fund and allocate additional resources to it.
2. S. 91 (Sinema D-AZ) and H.R. 535 (Garamendi D-CA) – Special Districts Qualifying for Coronavirus Relief Fund This legislation would ensure special districts are eligible for direct Federal local assistance funding from future coronavirus relief funds. This would not apply retroactively to the local assistance funding provided under the CARES Act in March 2020. The CARES Act was silent about Special Districts but did have a 500,000-population minimum. The District serves a population of 2.8 million and asserted it qualified. Senator Sinema and Representative Garamendi’s legislation would ensure that the 2,700 special districts in California and 30,000 special districts nationwide are eligible for any additional Federal
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assistance provided by Congress to state, county and local governments to aid costs incurred due to Covid-19. East Bay Representatives Mark DeSaulnier, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee, Jerry McNerney and Mike Thompson, as well as Senator Dianne Feinstein, are all original cosponsors.
B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS 1. President Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Covid-19 Relief Funding Package President Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” proposes $1.9 trillion in Covid-19 relief. The Administration has proceeded with two parallel tracks. One is a public effort in bipartisanship, including a widely publicized visit by ten Republican Senators to the White House where they presented a relief package which called for spending about one-third of the President’s proposal. The other track is the President has insisted on a sizable package to be passed quickly. The Administration has encouraged Senators to be prepared to go it alone. On February 5, 2021 the Senate narrowly passed a budget resolution enabling the package to move through Congress with a simple majority instead of 60 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting her first tie-breaking vote. The House later approved the budget reconciliation resolution. Negotiations over the bill language are occurring. The House Covid-19 relief bill provides $350 billion for state ($195.3 billion) and local ($130.2 billion) aid. Currently, there is no set aside or funding formula for special districts.
The plan includes a $15 federal minimum wage and an additional $1,400 in direct assistance to individuals among other relief to workers and families; additional funding for Covid-19 vaccination, testing and prevention; additional aid to small businesses and local, state and tribal governments; and measures to address recent cybersecurity attacks against the U.S. government by modernizing and securing Federal information and technology.
2. Better Utilizing Investment to Leverage Development (BUILD) Federal Transportation Grant Update Staff and Advocate Peter Umhofer will provide a verbal update about the ongoing effort to apply for a BUILD grant.
3. Land and Water Conservation Fund / Great American Outdoors Act Advocate Umhofer will provide a verbal update about the implementation of Public Law 116-152 which provided, among other items, full permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Act at $900 million annually.
4. Outdoor Restoration Force Act, Climate Corps, Civilian Conservation Corps Advocate Umhofer and staff will provide a verbal update about three similar, ongoing Federal efforts to provide Corps workforce opportunities during this time of economic uncertainty.
5. Delegation Committee Assignments Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs Erich Pfuehler will provide an overview of Federal East Bay delegation committee assignments for the 117th Congress.
6. Other Matters
IV. STRATEGY FOR INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
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Project Manager Lisa Baldinger will provide an overview of the Strategy for Inclusive Community Engagement, which builds off the 2019 Park and Public Interest Survey and consists of three key components – Listen, Coordinate and Understand. The Strategy is a cross-departmental effort led by Government Affairs in the General Manager’s office.
V. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT
VI. ARTICLES
VII. BOARD COMMENTS
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Board Legislative Committee February 19, 2021 – Articles and Other Media
Governor's budget spends windfall on pandemic aid By Dan Walters While California's overall economy is still being battered by the COVID-19 recession and unemployment remains high, its tax revenues have shown amazing resiliency. The recession's impact has fallen largely on lower-income Californians while those on upper rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, whose taxable incomes are the most important source of state revenues, have continued to prosper. Thus the $54 billion budget deficit that Gov. Gavin Newsom projected last summer as the economy tanked never appeared and suddenly, there's a windfall of unanticipated revenues that Newsom wants to spend on helping the pandemic's economic victims - lowincome families and small businesses, especially - recover. "We are investing, in our energy and our focus, to deal with the disproportionate impacts of this pandemic," Newsom said Friday as he introduced a $227.2 billion budget for the fiscal year that will begin on July 1. Newsom wants the Legislature to jump-start pandemic relief with a $5 billion "immediate action package." It would, for low-income families, double the $600 payments in the most recent federal aid legislation, and provide direct aid to small businesses that Newsom ordered to be closed to battle spread of infec- tion. He also proposes extending a moratorium on evictions of recessionstrapped renters. Newsom clearly wants to shine the media spotlight on his relief proposals, rolling them out prior to Friday's formal presentation, which raises a perhaps cynical question: Does his plea for fast action reflect their importance, or his concerns about a recall movement that seems to be gathering steam? The recession's economic impacts - especially on restaurants, barbershops and other small businesses forced to close their doors - have clearly given impetus to the Republican-sponsored recall movement, which has two months to collect enough signatures to place the issue before voters. Even if one assumes Newsom's proposals are expressions of genuine concern, not motivated by personal politics, his proposed budget is a curious mixture of billions of dollars in additional spending and worries that another budget crisis is looming on the horizon. Newsom boasts of having $34 billion in "budget resiliency," mostly in the form of reserves. His budget also warns, "Budget resiliency will be critical to protect programs in the future, as expenditures are projected to grow faster than revenues, with a structural deficit of $7.6 billion projected for 2022-23 that is forecast to grow to over $11 billion by 2024-25." Much of the budget is on autopilot with built-in increases, particularly the largest single portion, K-12 education, and those increases, coupled with very slow projected revenue growth, create the structural deficit. Revenues from the state's three major tax sources - personal income, sales and corporate income - are projected to grow by an average 1.9% a year through mid-decade while spending increases now in law will far exceed that rate. Newsom cited the long-term income/outgo squeeze when a reporter asked him about his longstanding pledge to bring universal single-payer health care to Californians, which would cost tens of billions of dollars. He said he stands by that goal but in the next breath once again insisted that he won't entertain new taxes on the wealthy being championed by some of his fellow Democrats, implying fear that they would drive away high-income Californians whose taxes are so vital. Recently, Elon Musk was crowned as the world's richest man due to soaring stock values of Tesla, his electric car company. His coronation came just a few weeks after he moved to Texas, which has no income tax, with a farewell blast at California's treatment of entrepreneurs. An utter dependence on the wealthy underscores the yin and yang of budget politics in a very blue state. Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
DeSaulnier: How close we came to losing American democracy Congressman wonders, “Had the mob made it through, would many of us have been seized, injured, killed?”
(Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images) Supporters of President Donald Trump riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. By MARK DESAULNIER | PUBLISHED: January 12, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. | UPDATED: January 12, 2021 at 3:48 p.m. I had a ringside seat for the insurrection last week. To keep me safe during House business because of my recent health battle, I was in a room right across from the House Floor waiting for votes. It had a wonderful view of the National Mall all the way down to the Washington Monument. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord. (Photo courtesy of Mark DeSaulnier)
A little after noon, my staff and I began to see the crowd coming towards us. At first it appeared they were simply staging a protest and marching to the Capitol, but by 1 p.m. it was clear this was no normal protest.
As the massive group came into sharper view, we could see they were angry. It was a violent mob and they were on a mission.
We watched them push through barricades and blow past Capitol Police, who were alarmingly outnumbered. We were told to lock our doors, silence our phones, shut off the lights, and stay away from the door and windows.
Fortunately, the room we were in had a private hallway attached to it that led to a small kitchen area. Once there, we locked all of the doors and sheltered in place. We could hear the protestors breaking into the building. They had gathered in a stairwell on the other side of the wall and we listened as someone tried to open our door.
On the other side of the hallway from us, the terrorists broke into the Speaker’s lobby and a Capitol police officer shot a woman to prevent them from getting to members of Congress. Then Capitol Police officers came to evacuate us to safety.
I wonder, though: Had the mob made it through, would many of us have been seized, injured, killed? It’s scary to think that we were just a few feet away from finding out the answer to that question. I am still processing what happened, dealing with emotions of watching thousands of people break into the Capitol to threaten and desecrate it, and trying to understand how we got here.
Years before the attacks on the Capitol, President Trump struck a powerful chord with millions of people across the country when he entered the political scene. For decades, the gap between the haves and the have-nots had been widening to the point that it’s now worse than it’s been since the Great Depression. America’s top 10% now average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90%. Americans were desperate for a politician who would change that, and then-candidate Trump convinced people he was the right person for that job.
He also came to power in the wake of our nation’s first African American president and as our nation was going through a racial reckoning and a social media revolution. With a sympathizer in the White House, people motivated by racism and white supremacy felt safe and even encouraged. These factors combined to create a cult-like following that believes and spreads the mistruths Trump spews. The lies and deception about the election results tipped the scales and those devout followers were at-the-ready to defend their leader at any cost. If Congress doesn’t address the issues of economic inequality and racism, I fear we may give another opportunity to a would-be populist tyrant. We can’t let that happen.
I am not naïve about the motives of the president or his followers. Donald Trump is guilty of sedition and his mob tried to overthrow the will of the American people. On Jan. 6, we came very close to losing American democracy.
We can’t let this go. If we do, I believe there is a distinct possibility my children and yours will no longer live in the country our Founders envisioned.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, represents most of Contra Costa County
US budget deficit up 60.7% in first 3 months of budget year By MARTIN CRUTSINGERJanuary 13, 2021
FILE - This Aug. 24, 2020 file photo shows Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin at the White House in Washington. The U.S. government’s deficit in the first three months of the budget year was a record-breaking $572.9 billion. The Treasury Department reported Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021 that with three months gone in the budget year, the deficit was $216.3 billion higher than the same October-December period a year ago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s deficit in the first three months of the budget year was a record- breaking $572.9 billion, 60.7% higher than the same period a year ago, as spending to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic surged while revenue declined.
The Treasury Department reported Wednesday that three months into the budget year, the deficit was $216.3 billion higher than the same October-December period a year ago. The deficit reflects an 18.3% jump in outlays to $1.38 trillion, a record for the period, while revenues fell 0.4% to $803.37 billion. The red ink results from the difference between revenue collections and outlays.
For just the month of December, the deficit totaled a record $143.6 billion.
The shortfall for the 2020 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, climbed to an all-time high of $3.1 trillion. Beginning in the spring, Congress passed trillion-dollar-plus spending measures to combat the harm being done to the economy from a pandemic-induced downturn.
The recession, which has seen millions of Americans lose their jobs, has also meant a drop in tax revenues at a time when the demand on government support programs such as unemployment benefits and food stamps has risen.
The report showed that outlays in December were a record $489.7 billion, while receipts were $346.1 billion.
The spending figure did not include the $900 billion relief package Congress finally passed after months of wrangling because it was not signed into law until the end of the month. President Donald Trump delayed signing the bill, which he called a “disgrace,” because it included only $600 in direct payments to individuals.
President-elect Joe Biden has endorsed boosting the direct payments by another $1,400. He has said that higher amount will be included in another round of relief payments he will ask Congress to approve once he takes office on Jan. 20.
In addition to direct payments, the December relief bill extended two special unemployment benefit programs aimed at cushioning the pandemic’s blow. The unemployment benefits have totaled $80 billion from October through December, up from $5 billion during the same period in the last budget year.
The Congressional Budget Office has forecast that this year’s deficit will total $1.8 trillion and the deficit will remain above $1 trillion each year though 2030. The CBO forecast for this year was made before the December relief package was passed and also does not take into account any extra spending that Congress may pass after Biden takes office.
Nancy Vanden Houten, senior economist at Oxford Economics, forecast that this year’s deficit will hit at least $2.6 trillion, an estimate that assumes the stimulus checks will be boosted to a total of $2,000.
Climate change causing one-third of flood damage in United States, Stanford study finds
Kurtis Alexander Jan. 12, 2021 Updated: Jan. 12, 2021 5:35 p.m.2
Erin Cardiff (left) talks to her neighbors, Josh Hogg (center) and Teake Bartling (right) near River Road in Forestville in February 2019. The area along the Russian River sustained heavy flooding after an atmospheric river dumped almost 20 inches of rain in two days.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle
Increasingly strong storms are responsible for more than a third of the nation’s flood costs, swelling the tab by billions of dollars a year as climate change continues to fuel more extreme weather, according to new research at Stanford University. The research, which is among the first to put a price tag on heavier rainfall, found that the changing weather is responsible for $75 billion of the cumulative $199 billion of U.S. flood damage from 1998 to 2017. Many of the losses over that period were in California.
The worsening storms are leaving more homes and communities underwater and exacerbating what’s already the costliest natural disaster in the United States. Scientists and flood experts have long known that heavier rain is increasing flood damage. But parsing out how much has been difficult given the range of factors at play, which include population growth, new housing and rising property values.
“Our study is an important step in untangling this,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, senior author of the study and a climate scientist at Stanford. “Over the last three decades, we’ve taken on tens of billions of dollars in additional costs as a result of changing precipitation. This helps us quantify those costs and what it will cost to adapt to future climate change.”
The problem, according to the research, is not necessarily more rain, but more intense bouts of rain. Some parts of the country, including California, have seen little if any variation in total precipitation in recent decades, though when storms come, they’re bigger.
“The wettest events have increased pretty uniformly across the U.S., whether the mean precipitation has changed,” Diffenbaugh said.
This trend has long been expected. As the climate warms because of more industrial and vehicle emissions, evaporation of the oceans increases and so does the amount of moisture packed into the atmosphere, which wrings out when storms blow through.
The Stanford researchers were able to estimate the cost of the additional rain by analyzing historical state-level flood damage and teasing out what models suggest would be the climate impact. The methodology accounts for regional variation, which differs from prior studies that either focused too broadly on the United States or homed in on a single place.
How much flood damage will increase going forward hinges on future greenhouse gas emissions as well as future development in the nation’s floodplains.
Planning and environmental groups have long pushed for stricter rules on where and how new construction can take place. This month, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Association of State Floodplain Managers petitioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency to update its flood maps to better address climate risk and limit the potential for damage.
The high toll of flooding was underscored last week when Munich Re, an insurance giant that underwrites other insurance companies, released a report on worldwide 2020 damage. According to the report, the Atlantic hurricane season caused $43 billion in losses last year while thunderstorms in the U.S. caused $40 billion of damage.
Isolating the role of human-caused global warming in such disasters is a relatively new and improving science.
“Accurately and comprehensively tallying the past and future costs of climate change is key to making good policy decisions,” said Marshall Burke, a co-author of the Stanford study and an economist and professor of Earth system science. “This work shows that past climate change has already cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars, just due to flood damages alone.”
The Stanford research was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
California wildfires could upend years of progress fighting air pollution
J.D. Morris Jan. 14, 2021 Updated: Jan. 15, 2021 5:07 p.m.
Hanno Botha looks out at the Presidio shrouded in dark orange smoke in San Francisco in September.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2020
Wildfires in the western United States have exacerbated pollution enough to threaten decades of progress toward sustaining cleaner skies, according to new research underscoring one of the alarming ways that climate change can harm public health.
The findings from researchers at Stanford University and UC San Diego show that wildfire smoke is now responsible for as much as half of the fine-particulate air pollution in western states. That’s about double the level that smoke accounted for in the mid-2000s, according to the paper published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While the country took large strides to improve air quality after passage of the federal Clean Air Act decades ago, the latest research suggests that smoky skies are frustrating the trend, particularly in western states such as California.
Researchers developed a statistical model to examine how much wildfires contributed to PM 2.5, the name for inhalable particles 2.5 micrometers or smaller. Those particles can cause a range of serious health issues, including decreased lung function and heart attacks.
“The gains in reduced illness and death that were created by the Clean Air Act are being undermined by wildfire,” said Michael Wara, director of Stanford’s climate and energy policy program and one of the paper’s authors.
The authors examined data from 2006 through 2018, so the impacts of California’s 2020 wildfire season, when more land burned than any other year on record, were not included. But the paper still captured years of increasingly extreme fires.
For example, 2018 was the state’s second-most severe fire season as measured by acres burned. That year, the air basins also recorded their largest total number of days since 2002 when PM 2.5 levels exceeded the national 24-hour standard, according to the California Air Resources Board. The air board data did not separate sources of PM 2.5, which includes sources such as fossil-fuel-powered cars and power plants in addition to smoke from fires.
“It should be a concern for everyone in the western U.S.,” Wara said of pollution caused by fires. “People living in downtown Oakland or in the heart of San Francisco, where there’s never going to be a wildfire, should be concerned about what happens in Lake County, because the smoke from Lake County is going to drift over their homes and cause sickness and death.”
In the paper, Wara and his colleagues noted that the country’s annual burned area has about quadrupled over the past 40 years. Climate change accounts for about half of the increase, and another doubling could occur as temperatures continue rising, the authors explained.
Accordingly, wildfire smoke “is going to be a lot of people’s first real personal experience with climate change,” said Marshall Burke, a Stanford associate professor of earth system science and another author of the paper.
“It’s super widespread and it’s really hard to avoid,” Burke said. “So most in the U.S. are going to experience this much more readily than they are going to experience something like sea level rise or increasing hurricane intensity and that kind of stuff.”
City dwellers’ primary experience of climate change may come from wildfire smoke, researchers wrote.
Photo: Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle 2020
As the threats from fires have soared, so has the number of people living in harm’s way: The number of homes on the edge of the fire danger zone has grown by about 350,000 annually over the past 20 years, the paper said.
And the researchers found that counties with whiter and wealthier populations tended to be more directly exposed to fine-particulate pollution from wildfire smoke, even though lower-income communities of color are more exposed to PM 2.5 overall. But the paper also stresses that “infiltration of outdoor pollutants into homes is known to be higher on average for older, smaller homes and for lower-income households.”
“What we measure in this paper is outdoor spread, but people spend most of their time indoors,” Burke said. “Poor communities could still be more exposed once you account for this indoor infiltration.”
While fires are an obvious air quality problem, more research is needed to determine whether fine particles in wildfire smoke are more or less harmful to human health than the fine particles found in other sources of air pollution, said Tony Wexler, a UC Davis professor who was not involved in the study.
“My hunch is it’s less damaging,” said Wexler, director of the university’s Air Quality Research Center. “We as humans have evolved over millions of years with wildfire smoke and we have always had campfires and we always have cooked over stoves with wood. My guess is that our body is better adapted to that stuff than it is to diesel exhaust.”
But not all wildfire smoke is the same. Catastrophes such as the 2018 Camp Fire that raze whole neighborhoods are likely much worse than fires that burn mostly through forests, Wexler said.
A Stanford research team that included Burke estimated in 2020 that the excess particulate matter from wildfires that year may have indirectly contributed to thousands of deaths.
Dr. Stephanie Christenson, a UCSF pulmonologist and assistant professor of medicine, has seen the health consequences of wildfire smoke firsthand. When air quality deteriorates as the state burns, she said her patients with chronic lung problems report having a harder time breathing.
And the effects aren’t limited to the days when fires are actively burning.
“I’ll hear about even months out where people will say, ‘This all started with the fires. My breathing hasn’t been as good,’” Christenson said. “Anecdotally, just when I talk to my patients, they’re all feeling it. Many Californians are feeling it in general on many days of the year — and even people without lung problems.”
Fury, gloom and determination: Bay Area lawmakers process trauma as they press impeachment
Tal Kopan Jan. 12, 2021 Updated: Jan. 12, 2021 7:55 p.m.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives on April 23, 2020.Photo: House Television via AP
WASHINGTON — One Bay Area lawmaker tested hundreds of pens to see if they had ink. Another Californian made sure his life insurance policy was up to date. Some congressional staffers have trouble sleeping. Most describe feelings of anger, sadness and fear. As lawmakers move rapidly toward impeaching President Trump for his role in last week’s deadly Capitol riot by his supporters, they are dealing with not only the political fallout, but the human one.
The Jan. 6 attack was timed to interrupt the certification of electoral votes cementing the president’s loss in November’s election, which meant that virtually all members of Congress were in the Capitol complex when the pro-Trump insurrectionists breached it.
Some were on the House floor, including Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee of Oakland, Zoe Lofgren of San Jose and Eric Swalwell of Dublin. Concord Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who is at high risk for complications from the coronavirus because of chronic leukemia and a recent near-death illness, was with a few staff members in a room across from the House chamber. Others, like St. Helena Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson, were in their offices and had to flee to other buildings as rioters moved in.
As more information comes out about the riots, including how many white supremacist connections there were among people in the crowd, the emotional toll is setting in.
“After a day or so, I know a lot of members went through a lot of anxiety — still going through anxiety attacks and crying spells,” Lee said in an interview. “I have to steady myself and stop watching television. ... Yeah, we’re leaders, we’re tough, we’re doing our job, but we’re still human beings, and we can’t forget that.”
Lee is a trained social worker and has experience with trauma, both on the receiving end and in helping others. She was in the Middle East as a congressional staffer in the 1970s and was pulled back from a cluster bomb moments before it exploded, and she fled the Capitol during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“This was probably the closest call and the most frightening in terms of imminent danger,” she said.
Lee said she was on the House floor when the chamber was put on lockdown, when members were told to get out gas masks, a woman trying to break in was shot by police, and then lawmakers were evacuated. She said she stayed calm, but that afterward as she felt the anxiety growing, she needed to focus on something else.
“I collect writing pens, and I have probably 300 or 400 of them, and a lot of them I know don’t write. I took every one of them and I just started writing names to see if the ink was out or not. So I wrote 400 names,” Lee said. “It helped steady me.”
Lee and her colleagues say they’ve been checking in on each other and staffers to make sure everyone is getting support they need. The Office of Attending Physician has scheduled trauma resilience webinars for all staffers, and the Office of Employee Assistance is offering counseling and other support.
DeSaulnier, who has been open about the importance of behavioral health since his father’s suicide in 1989, said that professional support is key. He said he is still processing the fact that rioters were Americans egged on by Trump.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, on Sept. 7, 2020.
Photo: Marissa Leshnov / Special to The Chronicle
“For Americans to do what they did and for the president to do what he did, I’m incredulous,” DeSaulnier said. “And that has been troubling for me. ... I have just been in a really dark, gloomy mood ever since. But it also pisses me off, and I’m more determined to do whatever I can to help the country to get through this.”
DeSaulnier was waiting in a room across the hallway from the House chamber for his turn to vote when the Capitol was overrun. The Concord Democrat has a suppressed immune system and came close to death after a brush with pneumonia last year, and Pelosi gave him the side room to minimize his exposure. With two staff members, DeSaulnier watched through the windows as rioters approached the Capitol, stormed the barricades and waged a “very violent attack” below them.
“I could hear everything going on outside and I could hear them trying the door,” he said. Eventually, police came to evacuate them to where they had already taken other lawmakers from the House.
But that didn’t mean DeSaulnier was safe — he remains highly susceptible to the coronavirus and said that when he arrived at the large room where dozens of lawmakers and staffers were sheltering from the mob, including some Republicans who refused to wear masks, he “turned right around.”
DeSaulnier went to an adjoining room where Thompson was also waiting, and some of the mask-less Republicans tried to enter as well. Thompson told them to put on masks or leave, both men said, and the Republicans left.
“One of the things I think we’re all recovering from is first and foremost, the attack, but also the response by all of our colleagues to our health,” DeSaulnier said. “You know, in both instances, your life and your health was at risk, and yeah, it’s just hard to deal with. ... To risk other people’s lives is just I think so incredibly selfish.”
Thompson is one of a group of military veterans in Congress and is helping colleagues process the traumatic events. He said the coverage of last week’s events is making it difficult to do so.
“I’m sad and I’m angry, and I only get sad and angry when I think about it talk about it, read about or see it on TV,” Thompson said. “I fought for our country, and this is what I fought against. This is not what I fought for.”
One California lawmaker, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for his family and security, said he has made sure his life insurance is paid. Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Whittier (Los Angeles County), told MSNBC that while hiding from rioters, she told her husband where to find her will.
Staffers have also been feeling anxious. Lee said that she has heard from U.S. Capitol Police officers, especially African Americans, who are traumatized and “felt like they were in a war for hours.” All the lawmakers who spoke with The Chronicle questioned the security lapses, including how law enforcement failed to recognize what was being plotted openly on social media.
“I knew something was going to go down that day,” Lee said. “Not necessarily this, but that’s why I wore my tennis shoes. ... Because I remember on 9/11, I wore heels, and I had to run down Pennsylvania Avenue in heels.”
Lawmakers say all these feelings inform their decision to seek to remove Trump from office via impeachment, a vote that is likely to come Wednesday.
While the first impeachment of Trump in 2019 took months of hearings and investigation, they say this time, all the evidence necessary is in plain sight.
“You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think that’s the case here,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont. “In a way, though, the clumsiness of it, the ineptness of it, the failure of it, shows that they’re a very marginalized force.”
He added, “This is a rag-tag group of nutcases that don’t represent America, don’t represent American values. And that’s why I think it’s so appalling to have the president of the United States cheering them on.”
Amid Fears of Inauguration Violence, Man With Gun Is Arrested in Washington, but Calls It ‘Honest Mistake’ Last Updated
Feb. 9, 2021, 6:40 p.m. ET
The man told a reporter he had been working a security job in the capital. Joe Biden introduced members of his White House science team. Sonia Sotomayor will swear in Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
A police barricade blocking a street near the White House on Friday.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
The U.S. Capitol Police arrested a man at a security checkpoint in Washington on Friday after he flashed what an officer described as an “unauthorized” inauguration credential and a search of his truck found an unregistered handgun and ammunition, the authorities said.
A federal law enforcement official said that the man, Wesley A. Beeler, 31, worked as a contractor, and that his credential was issued by the Park Police, but was not recognized by the police officer. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the arrest. Mr. Beeler had no known extremist ties, the official said.
“It was an honest mistake,” Mr. Beeler told The Washington Post after being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and released on Saturday afternoon. He said he had been working a security job in Washington, was running late to work, and had forgotten that his firearm was in his truck.
“I pulled up to a checkpoint after getting lost in D.C. because I’m a country boy,” he told The Post. “I showed them the inauguration badge that was given to me.”
The arrest comes as law enforcement officials have tried to fortify Washington ahead of Inauguration Day on Wednesday, when they fear that extremists emboldened by the attack on the Capitol by President Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6 could seek to cause violence. A militarized “green zone” is being established downtown, National Guard members are flooding the city, and a metal fence has gone up around the Capitol grounds in advance of the swearing-in of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Beeler, of Front Royal, Va., had driven up to a security checkpoint less than half a mile from the Capitol grounds on Friday evening and presented “an unauthorized inauguration credential,” according to a statement from a Capitol Police officer filed in a District of Columbia court on Saturday. The officer, Roger Dupont, said that he had checked the credential against a list and found that it did not give Mr. Beeler authority to enter the restricted area.
Officers searched his truck, which had several gun-related bumper stickers, and found a loaded Glock pistol, 509 rounds for the pistol and 21 shotgun shells, the police said. Mr. Beeler had admitted having the Glock in the truck’s center console when he was asked if there were weapons in the car, they said.
Mr. Beeler was charged with five crimes, including possession of a weapon and ammunition in Washington without proper registration. He and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday, but in his interview with The Post, Mr. Beeler denied having 500 rounds of ammunition.
In an interview, Mr. Beeler’s father, Paul Beeler said his son, a father of four, was working security near the Capitol grounds in recent days and had held other security jobs in Washington over the years. Mr. Beeler has an active private security license in Virginia and is approved to carry firearms while on assignments there, according to a state website.
“He was proud of the work he was doing with the police and the National Guard,” his father said. Asked if he thought his son supported a peaceful transition of power, he said, “That’s the reason he’s there.”
The elder Beeler said he had grown worried when his son did not return text messages on Friday night, and that he had called him on Saturday morning, when he thought his son would be returning to Virginia after his shift. He and his wife discovered that Mr. Beeler had been arrested when she received a call from a reporter, he said.
Law enforcement officials have said they are alarmed by chatter among far-right groups and other racist extremists who are threatening to target the nation’s capital to protest Mr. Biden’s electoral victory. Federal agencies have tried to keep some people who breached the Capitol with weapons earlier this month from returning to the city, including by restricting their ability to board commercial planes, according to an administration official. Mr. Biden has resisted calls to move the inauguration ceremony indoors for the sake of safety. His inauguration committee had already been planning a scaled-back celebration with virtual components because of the coronavirus.
— Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Katie Benner Trump will leave office with his lowest approval rating ever.
The riot the president incited in Washington helped push his approval rating to a new low.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Throughout four years of scandals and investigations, President Trump has maintained an approval rating that rarely budged from a 10- point band between 35 and 45 percent. Nothing he could say, do or tweet appeared to dramatically change public opinion of him.
But the events of Jan. 6 — when a violent mob of Trump supporters incited by the president stormed the Capitol — appear to have damaged him in his final days in office in a way that finally moved the needle.
Mr. Trump is set to depart office on Wednesday with an approval rating of 29 percent, the lowest of his presidency, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.
About 75 percent of the public said Mr. Trump bore some responsibility for the violence and destruction of Jan. 6, which put the lives of the vice president and members of Congress at risk and resulted in five deaths, according to the survey.
And his behavior since the election — a period during which he has repeatedly tried to contest his loss, relied on conspiracy theorists for advice, encouraged supporters who do not view President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as legitimate, and refused to concede — has cost Mr. Trump support even with those individuals who have loyally supported him up until now.
According to Pew, the share of his supporters who described his conduct as “poor” has doubled, to 20 percent from 10 percent, over the past two months.
Mr. Biden, in contrast, has benefited from how he has handled the transition period. About 64 percent of voters said they had a positive opinion of his conduct since the November election. A majority of voters said they also approved of his cabinet selections.
Mr. Trump’s polling while in office has been surprisingly stagnant, despite regular eruptions from the president. He was the only president in the history of Gallup’s polling who never earned the support of a majority of Americans for even one day of his term. But he also held onto his durable base, who appeared willing to overlook any behavior they did not approve of, or any promises that Mr. Trump never followed through on. That group now appears to have shrunk, although Mr. Trump still has some stalwart supporters who believe the conspiracy theories he has encouraged about election fraud. About 34 percent of respondents said they believed Mr. Trump was “definitely” or “probably” the rightful election winner.
Mr. Trump’s advisers have tried to play up that base of loyal support to him, noting that there are “welcome home” events planned for his arrival in Florida on Wednesday. They have also planned an upbeat send-off on the morning of Jan. 20 to commemorate his final departure from Washington as president, aboard Air Force One.
But whatever show of support he sees on his way out will belie the reality of his situation.
Not only has he made history as the first president to be impeached twice. But he appears to be on track to leave office with the lowest approval rating of any modern-day president.
— Annie Karni
Five ways Trump changed California - including one that helped Democrats Joe Garofoli
Jan. 18, 2021Updated: Jan. 18, 2021 8:11 p.m.3
President Trump tours wildfire damage in Butte County in 2018 with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (left), Gov. Jerry Brown, Paradise Mayor Jody Jones, and FEMA Administrator Brock Long.
Donald Trump leaves office having changed a state that may have fought him harder than any other over the past four years, California.
His immigration policies sharply restricted migration to the state and made it harder for Silicon Valley to bring in foreign talent. His rollback of environmental safeguards stalled efforts to fight climate change that threatens coastal cities. His presence rearranged the political scene, leading to California supplying the first woman elected on a presidential ticket and the first Latino to represent the state in the U.S. Senate being named to replace her.
And there’s one way Trump outright helped California, albeit unintentionally.
“It’s a dark time to talk about anything positive that came out of the Trump administration,” said Steve Pierson, an organizer with Swing Left, one of the grassroots groups that sprang up to oppose Trump. “But (his election) really woke a lot of people up to do the work of being a citizen.”
Trump’s 2016 victory inspired Californians to get involved in politics, from street demonstrations to writing letters to voters in battleground states to casting ballots themselves. Nearly 17.8 million Californians voted in the November election — that’s 70% of everyone who was eligible, the highest percentage since 1952.
Most became involved to roust Trump from office — nearly 2 out of 3 voters rejected him in favor of Democrat Joe Biden. But he got Republicans engaged as well. His 2020 total of 6 million votes was the most ever for a Republican presidential candidate in California, more than even GOP icon Ronald Reagan, who served two terms as governor before winning the White House.
“He’s been the biggest recruiter for ordinary citizens who have never stepped up to get involved in politics,” said Pierson, a Studio City (Los Angeles County) resident who trained thousands of people to work phone banks for Swing Left. Most, he said, had never volunteered for a campaign before.
Trump and California have spent the past four years locked in political combat. They were perfect foils for each other. Trump railed against California’s liberal immigration policies, mocked state officials for not “raking the leaves” to prevent wildfires, and complained that Big Tech muzzled his social media voice. He called Gavin Newsom “a clown” who wanted open borders when Newsom was running for governor in 2018, and he regularly invoked California as a liberal laugh line on the campaign trail.
Newsom countered by positioning himself as the leader of the Trump resistance, saying California was “proudly the most un-Trump state in America.” But he also made a kind of peace with Trump, praising him at times during the coronavirus pandemic for providing federal help to the state.
Mary Creasman understands why Trump picked on California in public.
“His goal was to position California for his base as the bad guy. It was a messaging narrative strategy,” said Creasman, CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters.
Trump, she said, wanted to “create a narrative around California that buys into all the tropes that the right wing uses against progressives.”
But Trump’s impact on California went beyond inspiring more people to become politically active. Here are four other ways Trump affected California over the past four years:
Rearranged state politics: If Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, Sen. Kamala Harris wouldn’t have run for president in this past election cycle — nor would she have wound up as Biden’s vice president- elect.
That led to Newsom appointing Secretary of State Alex Padilla to replace Harris. When he takes office this week, Padilla will be the first Latino to represent a state that is now 40% Latino.
Suing the Trump administration more than 100 times increased Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s national profile, which helped him land a nomination as Biden’s health and human services secretary. Trump frittering away Republicans’ two Senate seats in the recent Georgia election gave Democrats control of the chamber, clearing what had looked like a tough confirmation path for Becerra.
Trump’s election also inspired a record number of women to run for office in the 2018 midterm elections, including first-time candidates such as Katie Porter, who flipped a GOP- held House seat in Orange County and is now a rising Democratic star. Powering her victory and other Democratic gains were grassroots anti-Trump groups including Indivisible and Swing Left, which has 25,000 volunteers in Northern California, one of its largest outposts.
After Trump was elected, “a lot of people needed something to do to stop him,” Pierson said. “I would send out 100 email invites, and 120 people would show up.”
Rolled back environmental rules: Creasman estimated that roughly 70 of the lawsuits Becerra filed against the administration challenged rollbacks of federal environmental regulations. Instead of “continuing to make progress fighting climate change, we’ve spend a lot of our resources on fighting to protect clean water and air standards,” she said.
Over the coming decades, the state stands to lose portions of waterfront land to rising sea levels caused by climate change. Multibillion-dollar projects such as the rebuilding of San Francisco’s Embarcadero seawall will be needed to protect cities. Much of that would have been required anyway, but federal inaction has done nothing to help.
“We’ve lost a chunk of years on climate action,” Creasman said. “We can’t get that back.”
Trump enraged many Californians by blaming the state’s catastrophic wildfires on “many years of leaves and broken trees.” In August, he said Finland has been able to largely avoid forest fires because Finns “spend a lot of time raking.”
“Trump’s biggest impact was to confuse raking sand traps on golf courses — something he knows about — with raking the forest floor, something he doesn’t know about, since forestry in California is 95% done with machines rather than hand rake,” said Bill Stewart, a forestry specialist at UC Berkeley.
But while Trump’s analysis was simple-minded, it wasn’t completely wrong. And last year, his Forest Service reached an agreement with California to spend as much as $1 billion on fire preparedness by scaling up vegetation treatment to 1 million acres annually by 2025. Part of the plan: increase the removal of forest debris.
Restricted immigration: Days after taking office in 2017, Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries. That was one of several immigration crackdowns, from separating families at the border to limiting those accepted for asylum, that caused impacts in California and other diverse states.
“Because it’s California, just about anything he did about immigration affected Californians,” said Bill Hing, a professor of law and migration studies at the University of San Francisco, where he directs the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic. “Things are going to get better (under Biden), but it’s not going to change overnight. Too much needs to be undone.”
Trump ended protections for 300,000 people who have temporary protected status, a program that provides relief to undocumented immigrants if their home countries suffered life-threatening disasters and war. The change affected the large Central American population in California in particular, Hing said.
Trump also limited the number of immigrant work visas, including H-1Bs, which Silicon Valley companies used to bring in large numbers of skilled tech workers from overseas.
Bay Area firms have sharply decreased their foreign workforce in the past year, said Jennifer Stojkovic, executive director of sf.citi, an advocacy group for San Francisco tech companies.
“If we continue this drain on foreign talent, that’s a huge problem for us if we want to continue to be the capital of innovation,” Stojkovic said. “That could mean that the venture capital could start to go elsewhere.”
Waged war on Silicon Valley: Trump’s battles with Silicon Valley peaked this month when Twitter and Facebook led social media firms that kicked him off their services.
“In some ways a Rubicon has been crossed,” said Catherine Bracy, CEO of the TechEquity Collaborative in San Francisco. “It sets a precedent that the tech companies didn’t want to set.”
She added, “These companies were saying that they were not monopolies. Ironically, they demonstrated just how much power they have: They can really silence the most powerful person in the world.”
Trump may have his revenge after he leaves office. He introduced many non-tech nerds to Section 230, the part of the federal Communications Decency Act that shields tech companies from liability for what their users post.
Biden: Five ways he will reverse Trump on the environment From the Paris Climate Agreement to offshore oil drilling, big changes are coming
Under the Biden administration, more renewable energy is expected to be developed, like the Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm in the Tehachapi Mountains southeast of Bakersfield, California, shown here in 2018. (Photo by Dennis Schroeder / NREL)
By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: January 18, 2021 at 3:04 p.m. | UPDATED: January 19, 2021 at 6:07 a.m.
The nation’s attention is focused on COVID and security at the U.S. Capitol. But when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office Wednesday, one of their other top priorities will be to immediately start dismantling Donald Trump’s legacy on the environment.
From the first few hours of their new administration, America is expected to see a major shift from the last four years, including on key issues affecting offshore oil drilling, wildlife, the type of vehicles people drive and how electricity is generated. “It’s going to be like night and day,” said law professor Dan Farber, director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, and Environment. “They could not be more different. Trump has almost exclusively dedicated himself to eliminating or weakening past environmental protections. Biden is going to want to go in the opposite direction — restoring existing protections and then going beyond them.”
But the new president will have limits. Democrats control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in 10 years. Yet their majorities are slim. And Trump put in place hundreds of new federal judges.
“There’s going to be an immense difference in personality and personnel, and in the image they project,” said Frank Maisano, a principal at the Washington D.C. law firm Bracewell LLC, which lobbies for oil, utility, chemical and renewable energy companies. “The Biden administration is going to propose a lot of stuff, but I don’t think they will be able to do as much as progressives want. This is a pretty close Senate and a pretty close House.”
Here are five big changes on the way:
1) Paris Climate Agreement – It’s back. On Day One. In 2015, the Obama administration helped negotiate the Paris Climate Agreement with 197 countries. The voluntary agreement, in which countries set their own targets to reduce pollution, is aimed at keeping the global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius — or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — from pre-industrial levels, a margin scientists say is critical to curbing its worst impacts, from wildfires to megadroughts. Earth already has warmed 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. Trump called climate change “a hoax,” and withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017. This past weekend, Ron Klain, Biden’s incoming chief of staff, announced Biden will re-enter it Wednesday. There are reports Biden also will kill the Keystone XL pipeline that day, a project to pipe Canadian oil to Nebraska. Meanwhile, Biden has appointed former Secretary of State John Kerry to negotiate future international agreements, including at a new United Nations climate summit in November in Glasgow, Scotland. Bottom line: Re-joining Paris will be largely symbolic at first, but signals to other countries the U.S. is ready to lead again internationally. And to meet emissions targets, Biden will pursue everything from new tax credits for electric cars to tougher pollution rules on coal-fired power plants.
2) Offshore oil drilling – In 2018, Trump proposed the largest expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. history, releasing a five-year plan to allow new drilling off the coasts of Northern, Central and Southern California, along with most of the East Coast. The plan stalled due to court challenges. “Now Biden can just drop it into the shredder and start anew,” said Richard Charter, a senior fellow with the Ocean Foundation, in Sonoma County. Environmentalists and some political leaders are likely to push Biden to establish a new national marine sanctuary off the San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara coasts. But Biden also is expected to push for offshore wind energy, and that will split environmentalists in some areas.
3) New cabinet – Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is a former coal industry lobbyist. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is a former lobbyist for the oil and mining industry and Westlands Water District in Fresno. Biden’s cabinet will be much different. His climate czar, Gina McCarthy, was Obama’s EPA chief and president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. His new EPA chief, Michael Regan, and interior secretary nominee, Deb Haaland, have similar green backgrounds.
4) Money for renewable energy – In July, Biden announced a plan to generate 100% of U.S. electricity from carbon-free sources like solar, wind, nuclear and hydropower by 2035 and invest $2 trillion over four years toward that end. He may not have the votes for a carbon tax, particularly with Democrats like Joe Manchin from coal-rich West Virginia in the 50-50 Senate. But he should have some success with a bi-partisan infrastructure bill for roads, bridges and water projects that includes money for more renewable energy, experts say. “Renewable energy is pretty popular, even with people who are not left of center,” Farber said. “There could be a lot in there for solar, wind, new transmission lines, battery storage. But it can’t be the only thing in the bill.”
5) Rewriting regulations – Trump’s administration rewrote roughly 100 major environmental regulations, relaxing rules on everything from mercury pollution to appliance efficiency standards to removing gray wolves from the Endangered Species list. He also blocked California from setting its own pollution standards for vehicles, as it has done under the Clean Air Act for 50 years. Lawsuits blocked some Trump rollbacks. The Biden administration will rewrite other rules, Maisano said. But it can take two years for studies, public hearings and other steps. In the end, California is likely to be setting standards for vehicles again soon, which will mean more electric cars, delivery vans and trucks nationwide. “Parts of Trump’s rollbacks may survive,” Farber said, “given the more conservative courts. But I would say that four years from now, we will mostly be looking back on the Trump era as an interlude that didn’t have a lot of long-term effect.”
Tesla cars are loaded onto carriers at the Tesla electric car plant Wednesday, May 13, 2020, in Fremont, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Yellen pushes GOP senators on $1.9 trillion relief package By MARTIN CRUTSINGERJanuary 18, 2021
FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2019, file photo former Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks with FOX Business Network guest anchor Jon Hilsenrath in the Fox Washington bureau in Washington. President-elect Joe Biden announced Yellen as his nominee for Treasury Secretary. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Janet Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice as Treasury secretary, said Tuesday that the incoming administration would focus on winning quick passage of its $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan, rejecting Republican arguments that the measure is too big given the size of U.S. budget deficits. “More must be done,” Yellen told the Senate Finance Committee during her confirmation hearing. “Without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession now — and long- term scarring of the economy later.”
Democrats voiced support for the Biden proposal while Republicans questioned spending nearly $2 trillion more on top of nearly $3 trillion that Congress passed in various packages last year.
Republicans questioned elements of the Biden proposal such as providing an additional $1,400 stimulus check to individuals earning less than $75,000. They also objected to the inclusion of such long-term Democratic goals as boosting the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said that the push for a higher minimum wage comes at a time when thousands of small businesses like restaurants have gone out of business, and that it would lead to more job losses.
Yellen said, however, that the increase in the minimum wage would help millions of frontline American workers who are risking their lives to keep their communities functioning and often working two jobs to put food on the table. “They are struggling to get by and raising the minimum wage would help these workers,” she said.
Despite policy differences, Yellen, who would be the first woman to be Treasury secretary after being the first woman to be chair of the Federal Reserve, is expected to win quick Senate confirmation.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, who will become chairman when Democrats take over the Senate, said it was his hope that Yellen could be confirmed by the full Senate as soon as Thursday.
Biden last week unveiled a $1.9 trillion relief plan that would provide more aid to American families and businesses and more support for vaccine production and distribution as well as providing support for states and localities to avoid layoffs of teachers and first responders.
Many Republicans raised the soaring budget deficits as a reason to be cautious in passing further relief. Last year, the budget deficit climbed to a record $3.1 trillion.
Yellen said that she and Biden were aware of the country’s rising debt burden but felt fighting the pandemic-recession was more important currently.
“Right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big,” she said. “In the long run, I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs, especially if we care about helping people who have been struggling for a very long time.”
Yellen was nominated to be chair of the Fed by Barack Obama and she stepped down in February 2018 after President Donald Trump decided not to nominate her for a second four-year term. Since leaving the Fed, Yellen has been a distinguished researcher at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
In the financial disclosure forms filed with the committee, Yellen listed more than $7 million in speaking fees she has received from a number of top Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup since leaving the Fed. Yellen has agreed to recuse herself from Treasury matters involving certain firms that have compensated her for her talks.
Yellen’s Treasury nomination was supported in a letter from eight previous Treasury secretaries serving both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Environmental turnaround - 8 issues that will pivot in California's favor under Biden Kurtis Alexander
Jan. 24, 2021Updated: Jan. 24, 2021 7:26 p.m.
2Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle
As wildfires, heat waves, water scarcity and threats to wildlife intensify in the West, California’s effort to confront these environmental crises now has support in Washington, a stark change from the past four years. Even as former President Donald Trump spent his final days in office on the sidelines, lamenting his election loss, his administration continued to roll back environmental conservation and gut climate regulations.
In recent weeks, Trump officials fast-tracked new drilling leases, clawed back protected habitat for the spotted owl, relaxed efficiency standards for showerheads, dropped penalties for accidentally killing birds and more. The moves cement a legacy of deference to industry, cheap energy and commerce.
Now, President Biden is working just as aggressively to reverse course. The president signed several executive orders last week, including a directive to rejoin the Paris climate accord, which begin to unwind his predecessor’s actions and realign the nation with California’s ambitious environmental and climate agenda.
“There’s a lot to celebrate,” said Jared Blumenfeld, California’s secretary for environmental protection, who helped lead the state’s fight against Trump’s policies and looks forward to a cooperative relationship with the federal government. “This is a great thing for California and the country and the planet.”
While change is undoubtedly coming, Biden’s early directives only go so far. Some of his demands can be enacted with his signature, like rejoining the nonbinding Paris deal to address global warming.
But overturning Trump on other issues will require months of administrative review or Congressional approval. Even in a Democratic-controlled Congress, big moves could founder because of the Republican votes needed to avoid a filibuster in the Senate.
In California, state-level regulations blunted many of Trump’s environmental rollbacks. When state laws didn’t provide protection, California often created new rules, including bans on pesticides and expanded wetland protections. Still, plenty of Trump’s policies had a direct impact on the state.
The following are eight changes the new president has begun to initiate — or is expected to soon — that are likely to strengthen California’s environmental protections and climate programs.
Boost vehicle efficiency standards: One of Biden’s first executive orders, on public health and the environment, calls for stricter fuel-economy standards for cars and pickup trucks, a move designed to reduce heat-trapping pollution. The Trump administration had not only blocked an Obama-era plan to tighten the standards, but revoked California’s waiver under the Clean Air Act to set its own vehicle emission rules. California is asking for that authority back, a request that likely will be granted. The big question is whether California can get other states to embrace its aggressive emissions policy going forward, as it has in the past.
For the federal government to establish California-level emissions standards for the country, it has to go through a lengthy rulemaking process. However, several auto companies have already committed to making cleaner cars — with or without new regulation.
“We need to make sure California has a waiver,” said Blumenfeld, who intends to work with the federal government, first to restore the state’s regulatory authority and then to secure strict vehicle standards nationwide. “It’s in everybody’s interest to have rules in harmony.”
Reinstate science in decision-making: Biden’s order on health and the environment includes reviewing a transparency rule that prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency from using scientific studies with data sources that aren’t public.
The Trump administration implemented the measure to prevent “secret science” from being used to inform decision-making. Opponents, though, argued that the rule would keep policymakers from evaluating information in important medical research, which often grants participants anonymity.
“If you can’t use science to make public health decisions, you’re tying both hands behind your back and blindfolding yourself,” said Blumenfeld, who ran the federal EPA’s Pacific Southwest Office under President Obama before going to work for the state.
Getting rid of the transparency measure may be as easy as employing the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to rescind recent rules with a simple majority vote. However, some scholars say the rule isn’t eligible and can only be eliminated once another rule is established.
Reduce pumping in the delta: Last week Biden directed federal agencies to review a list of policies that includes pumping operations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the hub of California’s water supply and an estuary that’s struggling with too little water.
The Trump administration changed the terms for pumping last year, allowing more delta water to flow to cities and farms. Environmentalists and fishermen criticized the move because water exports invariably mean lower flows in the estuary, leaving rivers dried up and wildlife in harm’s way, including endangered salmon and smelt. “The scientific analysis was universally thought to be deeply flawed,” said Chris Shutes, a director at the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “The science that was deployed was deployed to get the outcome that was desired. Getting away from that is going to be helpful.”
The Biden administration’s forthcoming review of the pumping terms, called biological opinions, is likely to result in more restrictions on pumping. However, the process of changing the biological opinions could take years. In the meantime, water managers may simply choose to use their discretion to send less water out of the delta.
Halt new oil drilling: The Biden administration ordered a 60-day suspension of new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters last week, what many see as a first step to curtailing long-term fossil fuel development and reducing the industry’s planet-warming pollution.
The Trump administration, to the contrary, had sought an unparalleled expansion of oil and gas projects, including allowing new drill rigs off the California coast. An offshore drilling plan rolled out by Trump officials three years ago, however, was held up in court, and none of the California ocean operations commenced. Biden is likely to scrap that plan.
Onshore, California saw nearly 2 million new acres of federal lands opened up to potential drilling under Trump, mostly in Kern and Monterey counties. The first lease sales took place last month.
“At a minimum, the new administration can pause the process of issuing new leases,” said Ted Lamm, senior research fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, who monitors federal environmental actions. Ultimately, though, Lamm said the administration could go much further in limiting fossil fuel development.
Restore protections in the California desert: The Trump administration announced plans earlier this month to open up millions of acres of the Mojave Desert to new energy projects, an unexpected move that many conservationists hope Biden will undo.
The action upends a hard-fought agreement that sought to balance habitat for tortoises, Joshua trees and other iconic desert flora and fauna with renewable energy projects on federal land. Opponents of the Trump proposal say the changes not only mean more alternative power but mining and other destructive activities.
“Obviously we need lots of land available for solar and wind resources, but a lot of people who watched this thought it was done hastily,” Lamm said. “It threatens lots of desert habitat and threatened species that could be now at risk.”
Biden has the option of simply withdrawing the proposal. Bump up endangered species protections: Biden’s instructions to federal agencies include a reexamination of the Endangered Species Act, on which Trump had put significant checks. The conditions under which a plant or animal now qualifies for protection and what protections it gets are narrower.
While California has its own endangered species rules, some animals, like the gray wolf, move between states, limiting California’s ability to provide safeguards. In October, the Trump administration delisted the gray wolf.
“The federal policy is what makes regulation consistent and allows species to (safely) cross boundaries,” said Christina Hazard, associate director of wildlife and natural resources for the National Parks Conservation Association.
The Biden administration could choose to amend specific parts of the Endangered Species Act or do a more thorough rewrite of the law, which conservation groups are urging. Many want to see new protections added to help plants and animals weather the changing climate. Either route would require lengthy study and public review.
Tighten logging restrictions in burned forests: Biden’s directive to federal agencies calls for reassessing rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock law that protects natural landscapes from development and other projects.
Some environmentalists want the administration to remove a rule added to NEPA last year that excludes small logging proposals in burned forests from environmental review.
The rule, which applies to plots up to 5,000 acres on Bureau of Land Management property, is meant to clear dead trees swiftly off charred hillsides while the trees still have commercial value. But many scientists have cited the importance of fallen trees to a forest’s recovery, particularly for returning birds and wildlife. They see Trump’s change as a giveaway to the timber industry.
“To say that a clear-cut five times as large as Golden Gate Park has no environmental impact is ludicrous,” said Chad Hanson, an ecologist and co-founder of the environmental group John Muir Project.
Changing the rule would require completing a new rulemaking process.
Hire a more environmentally minded staff: Biden has named several environmental advocates and climate experts to key posts in Washington, marking a change from his predecessor, who often filled jobs with industry leaders. Veteran regulator Michael Regan, secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality, was nominated to head the EPA, replacing Andrew Wheeler, who worked as a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry. Congresswoman Deb Haaland, D-N.M., a member of the Native American group Pueblo of Laguna, was picked to lead the Interior Department, replacing David Bernhardt, an agriculture lobbyist.
Meanwhile, Biden has put Gina McCarthy, administrator of the EPA under President Obama, in charge of a new White House office on climate policy. Former Secretary of State John Kerry was named to the new post of climate envoy.
Blumenfeld, California’s top environmental regulator, said having qualified and experienced staffers in Washington will help leadership move quickly to carry out Biden’s agenda and signals to government employees working in these offices that the environment and climate are high priorities.
“Just imagine living through the past four years. Really hardworking civil servants have been held hostage to a captor that really didn’t care what they do,” Blumenfeld said. “I don’t think we can underestimate the damage that was done. It’s going to take years of undoing.”
Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @kurtisalexander
Fed Leaves Interest Rates Near Zero as Economic Recovery Slows
The chair, Jerome H. Powell, said the economic outlook remained “highly uncertain” and would depend on the path of the virus.
Video TRANSCRIPT ‘The Path Ahead Remains Highly Uncertain,’ Powell Says
With economic recovery slowed by a resurgence of the coronavirus, Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said the Fed would leave interest rates at near-zero and continue making large bond purchases.
My colleagues on the FOMC and I kept interest rates near zero and maintained our sizable asset purchases. These measures, along with our strong guidance on interest rates and our balance sheet, will ensure that monetary policy will continue to deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete. The path of the economy continues to depend significantly on the course of the virus. A resurgence in recent months in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths is causing great hardship for millions of Americans, and is weighing on economic activity and job creation. Following a sharp rebound in economic activity last summer, the pace of the recovery has moderated in recent months, with the weakness concentrated in the sectors of the economy most adversely affected by the resurgence of the virus and by greater social distancing. The overall recovery and economic activity since last spring is due in part to federal stimulus payments and expanded unemployment benefits, which have provided essential support to many families and individuals. The recently enacted Coronavirus Response and Relief Act will provide additional support. Overall, economic activity remains below its level before the pandemic, and the path ahead remains highly uncertain. While we should not underestimate the challenges we currently face, several developments point to an improved outlook for later this year. Sufficiently widespread vaccinations would enable us to put the pandemic behind us, and return to more normal economic activities. In the meantime, continued observance of social distancing measures and wearing masks will help us reach that goal as soon as possible. The economy is a long way from our employment and inflation goals, and it is likely to take some time for substantial further progress to be achieved.
With economic recovery slowed by a resurgence of the coronavirus, Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said the Fed would leave interest rates at near-zero and continue making large bond purchases.CreditCredit...Al Drago for The New York Times
By Jeanna Smialek Jan. 27, 2021
Federal Reserve officials left interest rates near zero on Wednesday and pledged to continue making huge bond purchases as the central bank tries to help the economy weather the continuing pandemic, warning that a surge in the coronavirus has slowed progress toward a full rebound.
“The pace of the recovery in economic activity and employment has moderated in recent months, with weakness concentrated in the sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic,” the central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee said in its January policy statement.
The Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the virus resurgence was “weighing on economic activity and job creation,” and that the economic outlook hinged on the pandemic and “remains highly uncertain.”
Given that glum near-term assessment, Mr. Powell suggested that the bigger risk to the economy in coming months rested in doing too little rather than too much. He played down concerns that either an aggressive spending response from Congress or very low rates would cause runaway price inflation, and warned that allowing displaced workers to remain stuck on the job market’s sidelines could inflict lasting damage.
“I’m much more worried about falling short of a complete recovery and losing people’s careers, and the lives that they built, because they don’t get back to work on time,” Mr. Powell said. Such damage would be “not just to their lives but to the United States economy — the productive capacity of the economy.”
“I’m more concerned about that than the possibility, which exists, of higher inflation,” he continued. “Frankly, we’d welcome slightly higher inflation.” Mr. Powell’s comments reinforced the Fed’s message that it will try to keep credit cheap for months or even years as long as it falls short of its two major goals, which are to foster maximum employment and price stability. Officials are hoping that by keeping interest rates low, they can boost demand in the economy and help set the stage for a job market recovery while also shoring up chronically weak inflation.
Besides leaving interest rates at rock bottom, where they have been since March, the Fed is buying about $120 billion in government-backed bonds each month to soothe markets and bolster the economy. Most investors expect the purchases to slow eventually, but Mr. Powell has been clear that officials are not yet anywhere near ready to set a date when they will taper off.
“It’s just too early to be talking about dates,” he said Wednesday. “When we see ourselves getting to that point, we’ll communicate clearly about it.”
Fed officials have repeatedly stressed that they are just one part of the economic response to this crisis, and that Congress — which has the power to spend and provide targeted relief — plays a central role.
As the recovery began to slow last year and lawmakers struggled to agree on another aid package, Mr. Powell and other Fed officials said publicly that additional stimulus was needed to help families and workers stay afloat and to prevent longer-term economic scarring.
In the postmeeting news conference, his first since lawmakers passed a $900 billion stimulus package in December, Mr. Powell demurred when asked whether the economy needed another round of fiscal support, saying the decision was up to Congress and the Biden administration. But he said a “key reason” for the strength of the economic recovery so far was a “strong and sustained” fiscal response from lawmakers.
“The path ahead is pretty uncertain,” he said, noting that small businesses are under pressure, among other needs.
“He didn’t say in any way, ‘Oh, they’ve done enough,’” said Julia Coronado, president and founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives, an economic consultancy. “I think there’s a whole mantra of the lesson learned is that you err on the side of doing too much.”
President Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, but his administration must prepare the fine details and steer the legislation through Congress. That could be a challenge, as some Republican lawmakers revive concerns over the nation’s fast-growing debt and even some Democrats express concerns about another large package.
Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration signaled this week that they were preparing to move in the coming weeks to pass that fresh round of economic assistance, but probably not before former President Donald J. Trump’s Senate impeachment trial begins early next month.
Mr. Biden’s aides have been conducting meetings and listening sessions about his proposals with interest groups, governors, mayors, and Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday.
Mr. Biden will hold a briefing on relief efforts with the new Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, and other members of his economic team on Friday, Ms. Psaki said. Mr. Powell said he expected to have a good working relationship with Ms. Yellen, who preceded him as Fed chair and will now become his most important partner in fighting the economic fallout from the virus. He has not met with her since her confirmation, he said, nor has he met with Mr. Biden.
While they have not talked, Mr. Powell echoed Mr. Biden’s view that mass vaccination was the key to getting the virus — and the economy — under control. Mr. Powell himself has had his first vaccination shot, he said, and expects his second soon.
Any change to the Fed’s policies may be on hold, but its efforts have played a continuing role in the economic rebound. Low rates have helped the economy avoid an even deeper slump, including by fueling a robust housing market. The Fed also rolled out a sweeping series of financial market rescue programs last year, several of which remain in place. Those helped keep credit flowing during the worst of the pandemic-related market turmoil.
Yet some analysts have warned that the Fed’s policies endanger financial stability as they push stock prices higher and cause investors to seek out ever-sketchier assets for better payouts.
“While there is for now no alternative to continued monetary policy support, there are legitimate concerns around excessive risk-taking and market exuberance,” International Monetary Fund officials warned in a blog post on Wednesday. “With investors betting on persistent policy backstop, a sense of complacency appears to be permeating markets.”
Mr. Powell, asked whether the Fed’s easy-money policies might fuel asset bubbles, said its actions had been necessary to get the economy out of an “unprecedented” shock. He argued that Fed interest rate policies were not a good first line of defense against frothy markets.
And he suggested that he did not see a huge bubble right now.
“Financial stability vulnerabilities over all are moderate,” Mr. Powell said — putting a yellow-light label on the concerns, one more concerned than “modest” but still not especially intense.
“The connection between low interest rates and asset values is probably something that’s not as tight as people think,” he added. “A lot of different factors are driving asset prices at any given time.”
US House Data Not Ready Until April, States' Data After July
The U.S. Census Bureau is aiming to deliver the long-delayed numbers used for divvying up congressional seats by the end of April.
By Associated Press, Wire Service Content Jan. 27, 2021, at 5:35 p.m.
FILE - This April 5, 2020, file photo shows an envelope containing a 2020 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident in Detroit. The Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Trump administration to end the 2020 census was another case of whiplash for the census, which has faced stops from the pandemic, natural disasters and court rulings. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press
The U.S. Census Bureau is aiming to deliver the long-delayed numbers used for divvying up congressional seats by the end of April, but a holdup on redistricting data could disrupt several states’ abilities to redraw their own legislative maps ahead of upcoming elections, an agency official said Wednesday.
The new goal for finishing data processing for the apportionment numbers used for congressional seats is now April 30. But a separate set of data used for redrawing districts for states and local governments won't be ready until after July in the most likely scenario, Kathleen Styles, a top bureau official, said during a presentation for the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The delay in the release of redistricting data could be problematic for states that have deadlines this year for redrawing their districts. New Jersey and Virginia also have elections this year.
“This is a subject of vigorous internal debate right now," said Styles, who added the statistical agency isn't saying for now when the redistricting data will be ready. “The worst thing we could do is deliver data that has question marks."
New Jersey was prepared for such a scenario, with voters last fall approving a constitutional amendment that would address late-arriving redistricting data. The constitutional amendment keeps the current legislative districts for this year's gubernatorial and legislative elections, provided a redistricting commission eventually redraws the districts by March 2022. New Jersey's primary elections are in June.
Virginia, which also has primary elections in June, is using a bipartisan commission for the first time this year to draw state districts. After a recent meeting, some commission members acknowledged the state would be unlikely to complete the process in time this year. What most likely will happen is candidates for the House of Delegates will run in the old districts this year, while state elections under the redrawn lines will be delayed until 2022 or 2023, said redistricting expert Brian Cannon.
Other states have already started working on backup plans, said Ben Williams, a redistricting expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Their options include asking courts to provide relief, passing new laws or constitutional amendments changing the map-making deadlines and changing elections dates. One other option includes using other data sets for redistricting and then reconciling those data sets with the redistricting data the Census Bureau releases after July, Williams said.
The once-a-decade census is used to determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets. It also is used for redrawing state and local political districts and determining the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year.
The deadline for turning in the apportionment numbers used for congressional seats has been a moving, and litigated, target since the coronavirus pandemic upended the Census Bureau’s once-a- decade head count of every U.S. resident. The numbers were supposed to be turned in at the end of last year, but the Census Bureau requested until the end of April after the virus outbreak caused the bureau to suspend operations.
The deadline switched back to Dec. 31 after President Donald Trump issued a directive seeking to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the numbers used for divvying up congressional seats.
President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's order on his first day taking office last week. Government attorneys most recently said in a court case over census schedule and data quality that the numbers wouldn’t be ready until early March because the Census Bureau needed to fix data irregularities. “This April 30 schedule reflects the Census Bureau going back in and producing a realistic schedule,” Styles said Wednesday.
Irregularities in the census data are nothing new, and other censuses from decades past have had them too, Styles said.
“We have found anomalies. We will likely find more anomalies, and we will fix them as we find them," Styles said.
The return to the original April 30 extension requested by the Census Bureau comes as the statistical agency has new leadership with the change of administrations last week.
Former Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham resigned last week after being criticized that he was acceding to Trump’s demand to produce citizenship information at the expense of data quality, and the agency’s deputy director was named interim chief.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has been picked by Biden to be Secretary of the Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau. During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Raimondo promised to give the bureau more time for crunching the data, and she pledged to take politics out of the census.
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Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, and Matthew Barakat in Falls Church, Virginia, contributed to this report.
California's Alex Padilla brings rare Senate perspective - an immigrant family's struggle for dignity Joe Garofoli
Jan. 25, 2021Updated: Jan. 25, 2021 6:20 a.m.
New Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. (left), who took the seat vacated by Vice President Kamala Harris, John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press Sen. Alex Padilla began to choke up. He was talking about his father, Santos Padilla, an immigrant from Mexico.
The California Democrat was recalling the time he brought his father with him when he was seeking the endorsement of a labor organization during his first run for office. The elder Padilla wasn’t there to provide moral support — he was living evidence that the young politician came from a place where the fight for dignity wasn’t an abstract concept.
It was a moment of insight into how Padilla, the first Latino to represent California in the Senate, will bring a different life experience to Washington than most politicians — one that represents the many immigrants whose stories aren’t told enough in the nation’s capital.
“So many of these issues,” Padilla said, “are personal to me.”
Santos Padilla worked as a line cook for years in a unionized restaurant. But when his son was in high school, the restaurant shifted to using nonunion labor and the elder Padilla lost his health benefits. When Alex Padilla was in college, his father had his pay reduced. Soon, after 35 years on the job, he was laid off.
“And I remember the look in his eye, coming home, knowing that he couldn’t provide for his family the way he wanted. That dignity was taken from him,” said Padilla, 47, his voice catching during an interview on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast. “I took him to that interview so that the labor leaders in that room knew that I knew what that dignity meant, of a good union job and a good union contract.”
Not only did Padilla win the endorsement, he won that 1999 race for a Los Angeles City Council seat. Two years later, at age 28, he became the youngest person and the first Latino to be chosen by his peers to be council president.
Election to the state Senate and then as secretary of state followed. Last month, midway through Padilla’s second term, Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him to fill the remaining two years of Vice President Kamala Harris’ Senate term.
Video caught tears welling in Padilla’s eyes on a Zoom call when Newsom mentioned his parents while asking him to take Harris’ place. Just like tears welled when Padilla was first sworn into office on the L.A. City Council. By his side were his father and mother, Lupe Padilla, who also immigrated from Mexico and cleaned people’s houses for a living. She died two years ago; his father lived to see his son become a U.S. senator.
Those public displays of emotion are rare for Padilla. Many describe him as stoic, someone whose voice rarely wavers and whose oratory won’t long be remembered. Those who know him say his methodical delivery is the product of his training in engineering, a field that prizes verifiable fact and precision and where flamboyance is of little value. He earned his degree from MIT and worked briefly writing software for an aerospace company after graduating.
Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez has known Padilla for 30 years — well enough to say, “If you want someone to give a moving speech, it’s not Alex.”
But, Nuñez adds, Padilla becomes emotional “every time he talks about his family, his mom and dad in particular. When you’re second generation and you’re really close to your parents, you watch their suffering and you see how much they’re sacrificing for you.
“That’s why Alex gets emotional,” Nuñez said. “He understands the struggle of immigrants.”
Like many California Latinos of his generation, Padilla’s political consciousness was forged by Proposition 187, the 1994 measure that would have cut off undocumented immigrants from public education and non-emergency health care. State voters approved it, but the courts threw it out.
But Padilla’s social awareness began before that, when he was a teenager in a working-class immigrant neighborhood of Pacoima in the San Fernando Valley. Padilla played baseball in high school and began to travel to games in wealthier parts of L.A.
“It was while I was taking those weekly bus trips to other schools throughout Los Angeles that I began to see the inequities,” Padilla said. “Why are all these other schools a lot bigger, newer and in better shape than mine? Why do the communities that we were driving through seem to be in much better shape than where I grew up?”
He noticed those inequities more at MIT. Many of the students were wealthy and didn’t have to work to put themselves through school, as he did.
Padilla will be a senator who understands firsthand what student loan debt looks like. When he was applying for financial aid, his father’s income “was about $19,000 a year. Tuition alone at MIT was $19,500,” Padilla said. That didn’t include room and board or books “or travel home for Christmas.”
“We know what it’s like to scrape for it and scrape for it and work for it,” Padilla said. He returned to California after graduation to find the state embroiled in the Prop. 187 campaign. The message Padilla heard was, “‘California is going downhill. And it is the fault of families like yours and people like your parents.’
“I was offended. I was insulted. I was enraged,” Padilla said. “And I knew right then and there that while my engineering degree was well-earned, I had to do my part in electoral politics. I was cynical up until that point. But I knew that I had no choice if I wanted to help change the trajectory of California.”
Democratic Rep. Tony Cárdenas, who grew up a few blocks from Padilla in Pacoima and represents the San Fernando Valley in Congress, said that “Prop. 187 really shocked a lot of households where we grew up.”
Until then, he said, people thought, “Everybody is fine. We’ve got green cards. We stay out of trouble. But no. Prop. 187 was attacking green card holders like my dad.
“The message was that, even though you’ve been here legally, we’re going to strip you of your rights.”
Padilla said that “my parents had been here for nearly 30 years, with no urgency of becoming citizens. But 187 changed that overnight.”
Both his parents soon became citizens. And this month, almost exactly 30 years after Pete Wilson, the godfather of Prop. 187, left the Senate to become governor, their son — the son of immigrants — took the oath of office in Washington.
“Dr. Martin Luther King once said the arc of history bends towards justice,” Padilla said. “What sweet justice.”
Now that he’s in the Senate, Padilla may surprise those who believe he will be “a business- friendly moderate,” as the Wall Street Journal described him last month. While his priorities are addressing the coronavirus pandemic and hastening an economic recovery, last week he tweeted that it was time “to get to work” on “Medicare for All, Green New Deal and immigration reform.”
Padilla briefly worked for Sen. Dianne Feinstein when he first started in politics, and he surprised many Latino Democrats by endorsing her in 2018 over Kevin de León. But he will be far different from the state’s moderate senior senator.
“For people who say he’s not progressive enough, I say, wait and see,” said Nathalie Rayes, president and CEO of the progressive Latino Victory Project. Padilla said he “definitely will be more progressive than Sen. Feinstein,” while quickly adding that he respects her and has learned much from watching her.
“The perspective and the life experience that I bring to the Senate is my own,” Padilla said. “And I’m going to be unabashed about it because of what I’ve been through.”
That’s because, Cárdenas said, “he will always be Alex from Pacoima.”
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @joegarofoli
Here's what home prices look like right now for each Bay Area county Susie Neilson
Jan. 29, 2021Updated: Jan. 29, 2021 3:27 p.m.
A sign is posted in front of new homes for sale in September in South San Francisco. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images The coronavirus pandemic and struggling economy couldn’t keep a lid on Bay Area home prices, which hit new records in 2020, according to a new report.
The median price for a single-family home in the Bay Area was $1.06 million in December, a slight decrease from November but a 16.4% increase from December 2019, according to a report from the California Association of Realtors released this month. Sales were up 40.2% in the region from 2019, according to the report.
San Mateo County’s median home price rose from $1.65 million in November to $1.7 million in December, making it the most expensive Bay Area county in which to purchase a home. Previously San Francisco, with a median home price of $1.697 million in November, had been the most expensive. But the city’s median home price had decreased slightly to $1.58 million by December.
San Mateo County had knocked San Francisco out of the top spot in December 2019 as well, the report showed. The median price that month was $1.475 million in San Mateo County and $1.45 million in San Francisco.
The median refers to the middle price for all homes in a set, where half sold for less and half for more.
California’s median home price in December reached a record $717,930, a 16.8% increase from December 2019. Active listings fell 47.1% from 2019, a figure the report attributed to homeowners’ wariness to sell during the pandemic. Coupled with low interest rates on mortgages, the decrease in supply helped drive prices up, according to Realtors association Chief Economist Jordan Levine.
“Home prices, which usually peak during the summer, were unseasonably strong in December,” he said in a news release accompanying the report. “The imbalance between supply and demand continues to fuel home price gains as would-be home sellers remain reluctant to list their homes during the pandemic.”
The 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate dipped to 2.68% in December, down from 3.72% last year, according to the report.
Association President Dave Walsh added that mortgage interest rates should remain low well into this year, keeping the housing market strong.
“Home sales should remain elevated into the first half of 2021, as motivated buyers take advantage of the increased purchasing power,” he said.
Pandemic pushes union share of California jobs to 6- year high California had 2.44 million union members, most in the nation By JONATHAN LANSNER | [email protected] | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: January 31, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. | UPDATED: February 1, 2021 at 11:33 a.m.
645 Nyes Place, Laguna Beach In a pandemic year that clobbered the state job market, California unions grew their share of the workforce to the highest level in six years.
But in the curious world of coronavirus economics, this gain didn’t occur as one normally expects. In a historically bad job market, unions lost far fewer workers than non-union employers cut.
The annual accounting of organized labor’s clout by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows California unions in 2020 had 2.44 million working members. That’s the nation’s largest membership even as statewide union rolls fell to a seven-year low. You see, the statewide tally of membership declined 63,000 last year, a 2.5% drop and the third loss in four years. So how did unions’ slice of the statewide job market grow?
Well, pandemic-limiting business restrictions cut statewide employment of all workers by more than triple the union loss rate — a stunning 8.6% decline last year. That gap in job losses translated to California unions with 16.2% of statewide employment last year — up from 15.2% in 2019 and the union’s highest share of workers since 2014.
Or look at the trend this way: Unions that have 1-in-6 California jobs but organized labor accounted for only 1-in- 25 of 2020’s statewide job losses.
Collective bargaining power likely had little to do with the outperformance of union jobs. Rather, it was more about the job mix and coronavirus fallout.
Consider the California industries hardest hit by the pandemic — hospitality jobs that are often non-union workplaces. Then ponder various “essential” work such as first responders, supermarket staff, nursing and logistics workers. All are heavily unionized.
This trend isn’t just California. The rest of the U.S. had 11.81 million union members last year, down 258,000 or 2.1%. Compare that with the nationwide job market which lost 6.5% of its workers, and union share jumped to 10.1% from 9.6%.
Yet like many business twists in the pandemic era, union employment trends were far different during the Great Recession.
In 2009-10, California unions lost 309,000 jobs or 11% of membership. Overall, the state lost jobs at a 7% rate. Union share of the workforce fell from its most recent peak of 18.4% in 2008 to 17.5% in two years.
In that broader economic meltdown of the late 2000s, job cuts were plentiful in union-heavy industries from construction to transportation to factory work to government employees.
Again, poor union performance was a national pattern in that recession. U.S. unions lost 1.07 million members in 2009-10. That 8% drop was twice the total job losses of only 4%. As a result, union’s share in other states fell to 11.1% from 11.7%.
I know the union movement is a divisive issue in business-related political debate, locally and nationally. But politics and economics can dance to different beats as 2020 membership patterns show us.
California had the seventh-highest share of unionized workers among the states at 16.2% behind No. 1 Hawaii at 23.7% Both are considered “liberal” politically.
And, not surprisingly, labor’s lowest share was found in “conservative” South Carolina at 2.6%.
Now, look where unions did best: “Red” Texas had 66,000 new members last year. However, labor’s biggest cuts were in “blue” Washington, a loss of 81,000 jobs.
Or look at last year’s changes on a percentage basis. The biggest union gain was found in “red” North Carolina, up 27%. The largest loss for unions was in “blue” Colorado, down 23%.
The pandemic’s odd gyrations in the job market may help explain labor’s ups and downs in 2020. Or perhaps the union movement’s evolution isn’t as politically entwined as we may think.
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