EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, December 11, 2020 12:30 p.m.

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 in the following way: Via the Park District’s live audio stream, on the Park District’s YouTube channel, which can be found at:

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://zoom.us/j/95184299803 Note that 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 https://youtu.be/Smf-Hc7TL7w to observe the meeting. It is preferred that those requesting to speak during the meeting contact the Finance Committee Recording Secretary by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 10, 2020 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, December 10, 2020. 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, December 10, 2020. 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 Recording Secretary 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 Recording Secretary prior to 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 10, 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. TOP TEN ACCOMPLISHMENTS BY GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS I Doyle/Pfuehler OVER THE PAST TEN YEARS

II. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS I Doyle/Pfuehler A. NEW LEGISLATION – N/A

B. OTHER STATE MATTERS I Doyle/Pfuehler 1. Preview of Next Session 2. Other Matters

III. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR R Doyle/Pfuehler SUPPORT 1. S. 4643 (Shaheen D-NH) – Forest Incentives Program Act 2. H.R. 8731 (Panetta D-CA) – Save Our Forests Act of 2020 3. H.R. 8746 (Rush D-IL) – RENEW Conservation Corps Act

B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS 1 Doyle/Pfuehler 1. Preview of New Administration 2. Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grant Program Update 3. Other Matters

IV. BEACON ECONOMICS REPORT REVIEW ABOUT THE I Pfuehler/Baldinger DISTRICT’S ENCONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT

V. 2021 GOVERNMENT AND LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS R Doyle/Pfuehler/ PRIORITIES Baldinger

VI. 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW I Pfuehler/Padmore

VII. LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS I Doyle/Pfuehler

VIII. ARTICLES AND OTHER MEDIA

IV. 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.

V. BOARD COMMENTS

(R) Recommendation for Future Board Consideration (I) Information Future Meetings: (D) Discussion January 17 July 17 February – NO MTG August 21 Legislative Committee Members March 27 September – NO MTG Dennis Waespi (Chair); Beverly Lane, Elizabeth Echols April 24 (Rescheduled) October 16 Ellen Corbett, Alternate May 22 (Rescheduled) November – NO MTG Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager June – NO MTG *December 11

TO: Board Legislative Committee (Chair Dennis Waespi, Beverly Lane, Elizabeth Echols, alt. Ellen Corbett)

FROM: Robert E. Doyle, General Manager Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager

SUBJECT: Board Legislative Committee Meeting WHEN: Friday, December 11, 2020 12:30 PM

WHERE: Members of the public can listen to the meeting in the following way: Via the Park District’s live audio stream, on the Park District’s YouTube channel, which can be found at: https://youtu.be/Smf-Hc7TL7w

Items to be discussed:

I. TOP TEN ACCOMPLISHMENTS BY GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS OVER THE PAST TEN YEARS Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs Erich Pfuehler will share a list of ten key accomplishments by the Government Affairs unit over the past ten years.

II. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – N/A

B. OTHER STATE MATTERS 1. Preview of Next Session Sacramento Advocate Doug Houston will provide a preview about the upcoming legislative session and administrative action, including the state budget, as they relate to the District.

2. Other Matters

III. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION - RECOMMENDED BILLS FOR SUPPORT 1. S. 4643 (Shaheen D-NH) – Forest Incentives Program Act Senator Shaheen’s legislation is primarily geared toward private forest owners. It directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish an incentive program encouraging private forest landowners to adopt conservation practices which deliver emissions reductions. The bill also creates financial incentives for commercial building owners to use biological products, such as wood, as structural building materials instead of more energy-intensive materials. These incentives will help private forest owners protect our air, water and wildlife habitat, and capture carbon. While the bill does not directly impact the District, the notion of incentivizing environmentally-conscious forest management techniques is consistent with the District’s Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan.

2. H.R. 8731 (Panetta D-CA) – Save Our Forests Act of 2020 This bill would require the Department of Agriculture to fill vacancies in National Forests for Forest Service recreation management and planning staff, including recreation technicians, recreation officers and natural resource managers. It prioritizes hiring in areas

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at high or very high risk of catastrophic wildfire and/or are located near the wildland urban interface. The findings of the legislation point out some impactful statistics: • Between 2015 and 2019, on average, 88% of wildfires in the United States have been human-caused. • Human-caused fires tend to occur in or near the wildland-urban interface, where there is a greater risk to people and communities and a higher cost to suppress fires. • The wildland-urban interface is the fastest-growing land use type in the United States, posing challenges for fire management and suppression. • Over the last ten years, an average of 64,100 wildfires and an average of 6.8 million acres burned annually. In 2019, 50,477 wildfires and 4,700,000 acres burned nationwide. Approximately 65% of these acres burned on Federal land, of which close to 20% or 600,000 acres were National Forest System lands. • The Forest Service suffers from chronic staffing shortages, with several National Forests struggling to maintain their acreage with insufficient recreation management and planning staff. • The U.S. Forest Service manages 20 million acres of National Forest land in California, 20% of all of California’s 100 million acres. Nearly half of California’s 100 million acres are managed by the federal government. While this legislation does not directly impact the District’s lands, it would provide additional staff throughout the state for wildfire mitigation. More support for the National Forest Service would lessen the need for District fire personnel to respond outside of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Representative Mike Thompson is also an original cosponsor of the legislation.

3. H.R. 8746 (Rush D-IL) – RENEW Conservation Corps Act H.R. 8746 is the House version of Senator Dick Durbin S. 4538 on which the District took a support position. This legislation would create a civilian conservation corps aimed at providing valuable job training and work experience to Americans while also completing needed maintenance and restoration of parks, trails and natural areas. It is a modernized version of the Civilian Conservation Corps from the Depression-era which built a significant amount of infrastructure, including within the District’s original parks.

The bill would create a new conservation corps run though the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture. It authorizes more than $55 billion over a five-year period aimed at putting one million Americans to work to address the backlog of deferred conservation projects.

The bill provides anyone 16 years or older at least two weeks of training for positions lasting a minimum of twelve weeks, but no longer than one year. All participants will receive at least $15 an hour, with some wages determined based on work performed. In addition, those participating in the program who complete a full year of work would be eligible to receive up to $5,500 credit for post-secondary education. To ensure a diverse workforce, the bill requires participants be reflective of the demographics in the area where the project is being completed.

The bill would help fund and complete various projects, including: Tree planting; restoration and management of wildlife habitat; invasive species control; prescribed burns; restoration of streams, wetlands and other aquatic ecosystems; monitoring water quality in

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streams and lakes; conducting fish and wildlife surveys; constructing trails, bridges, campgrounds, picnic shelters or other recreation amenities; maintenance and construction of park playgrounds; restoration of brownfield sites; creating rain gardens; creating pollinator gardens; construct green schoolyards; upkeep/creation of urban gardens and farms; plant native grasslands; and any other projects determined by the Interior and Agriculture Department secretaries.

The District and Civilian Conservation Corps have a shared legacy in the creation of the Park District.

B. OTHER FEDERAL MATTERS 1. Preview of New Administration Washington D.C. Advocate Peter Umhofer will provide a preview of the incoming Administration and appointments, state of play in the House and Senate, as well as the necessary budget action.

2. Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grant Program Update The Federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) transportation discretionary grant program is what was previously known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER). In 2010, the District was awarded $10.2 million from the TIGER program for active transportation paved trail projects. Funds for this program are appropriated annually and administered through a competitive grant program. For 2021, $2 billion has been appropriated which is twice the 2020 level of $1 billion. In 2020, 70 projects were approved including three projects with a trail component – $23 million in Ohio, $28 million in Wyoming and $11million in Montana. The 2020 criteria included safety and traffic congestion relief. District staff prepared a proposed project list for 2020, but recognized safety and traffic congestion data was not readily available for a competitive application. Staff is considering prioritizing an application for 2021. In order to move forward, staff will be in discussion with active transportation consultants to gather the appropriate transit use data. This information would not only benefit a BUILD application, but also future grant applications for state and local funding. In addition, staff will be in discussion with grant writing consultants. An RFP for data collection was issued in November. A contract with Alta Planning + Design, Inc. is in process. Government Affairs staff are also conferring with District Board Members about proposed projects aimed at prioritizing for a possible 2021 application.

3. Other Matters

IV. BEACON ECONOMICS REPORT REVIEW ABOUT THE DISTRICT’S ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT Legislative and Policy Management Analyst Lisa Baldinger will present an overview about Beacon Economics study of the economic and job creation impact of 93 projects currently in the District’s pipeline. The study also reviewed the social impact of District programming and services as they relate to community support and funding for additional large infrastructure projects across the District.

V. 2021 GOVERNMENT AND LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS PRIORITIES

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Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs Erich Pfuehler and Legislative and Policy Management Analyst Lisa Baldinger will provide an overview of the District’s proposed legislative priorities at the federal, state, local and ward levels for 2021.

VI. 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW Acting Legislative Assistant Yulie Padmore will highlight some of the accomplishments in 2020, reflecting the dramatic change in work plan on account of the pandemic and severe wildfire season.

VII. LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS Chief of Government and Legislative Affairs Erich Pfuehler will verbally share some of the notable highlights from local elections held November 3rd, 2020.

VIII. ARTICLES AND OTHER MEDIA

IX. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT

X. BOARD COMMENTS

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Board Legislative Committee December 11, 2020 – Articles and Other Media

Proposition 15: COVID-19 heightens debate over business property tax measure

Thomas Rodrian

Intel headquarters in Santa Clara. Because it has owned much of its local property for years, the longtime Valley company faces a huge property tax increase if Proposition 15 passes.

By LEONARDO CASTAÑEDA | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: October 9, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. | UPDATED: October 9, 2020 at 4:11 p.m. Intel has long been a bellwether, founded more than 50 years ago to produce the very product that gave Silicon Valley its name. Now, the chipmaker and dozens of the region’s other old-guard companies are among the California businesses that could become a huge source of additional tax money for local government, schools and community colleges.

Proposition 15 would change the way commercial property is taxed. Instead of paying property taxes based on the value when their land was purchased, many businesses would pay rates based on a parcel’s current value if voters approve the measure in November. Older landowners such as Intel, which bought much of its property back when it was a bargain, would face bigger hikes. Relative newcomers such as Apple would see smaller increases.

It’s a return to the way commercial property used to be taxed, before 1978’s Proposition 13 transformed the landscape and crystallized a nationwide taxpayers’ revolt. With the pandemic and growing inequality as a backdrop, arguments on both sides are fierce, and the campaign is expected to be one of this election’s most expensive.

Supporters argue the new measure will help close corporate loopholes that have made California a real estate tax haven while depriving residents of more funding for essential government services. By targeting properties worth at least $3 million, they say, it will protect smaller owners of commercial property at a critical time.

“We’re becoming kind of like a place where outside folks, where billionaires from all over, park their money and pay no taxes on it, or very little taxes,” said David Goldberg, a vice-president at the California Teachers Association, which is backing the measure. “It’s devastating us.”

But opponents, which include the state’s chamber of commerce, the California Retailers Association and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, counter that Prop. 15 is a potentially devastating new tax in a state that’s already expensive for businesses. Plus, they worry that bigger commercial landlords could pass increased costs on to struggling small businesses through higher fees at a time when many are barely hanging on or have shut down during COVID-19. “The impact from Prop 15 is going to be felt throughout the economy, especially by small businesses and ultimately by the consumers because these increased costs are going to land on the pocketbook of the consumer,” said Matthew Mahood, CEO of the Silicon Valley Organization, the region’s chamber of commerce.

Currently, commercial and industrial property owners benefit from the same Proposition 13-era rules homeowners do: Their property taxes are based on what the value was when they bought the property, not what it’s worth today. Increases are limited to 2 percent a year, protecting long-term owners in particular from a meteoric real estate market. If Prop. 15 is passed, its impact will be felt more heavily by companies such as Intel, which bought much of its property between 1980 and 1994 at prices far lower than today’s market rates. The company paid $12.1 million in Santa Clara County property taxes in 2020.

Apple, meanwhile, paid $66 million in property taxes this year. That’s partly due to its most valuable holding, its new Spaceship headquarters, which was assessed at almost $4.2 billion after it opened in 2017. Most of the company’s other 31 parcels in Santa Clara County were purchased after 2001, a real estate lifetime after Intel bought its land. Proponents say reassessing commercial and industrial property in California could bring in as much as $11.5 billion in taxes to be split 60-40 between local governments and K-12 schools and community colleges. Prop. 15 would do that by creating a split roll, leaving intact homeowner’s Proposition 13 protections while changing the rules for commercial owners. Supporters point to a report from Blue Sky Consulting that found 92 percent of the new tax would be paid by just 10 percent of commercial property owners, thanks to several provisions they say shield small-business owners from a sudden tax increase and even offer some tax breaks on commercial equipment. “This is really going after a targeted group of folks,” Goldberg said.

Prop. 15 has the support of the California Democratic Party, Gov. Gavin Newsom and vice- presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, various school districts and multiple labor unions representing teachers and other municipal workers. The Yes on 15 committee has raised more than $40 million since 2018, including nearly $6.4 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, about $11.8 million from the California Teachers Association and more than $12.3 million from local and statewide chapters of the Service Employees International Union. The No on Prop. 15 campaign has raised $25 million, more than $13 million of that from the California Business Roundtable. Opponents say many small businesses lease but don’t own property, and some have lease agreements in which tenants pay for any increases in property taxes. Supporters counter that protections in the measure could delay any increases for some small-business tenants by several years, giving them time to renegotiate payments.

It’s possible the ongoing recession could bolster the proposition’s chances as voters consider the impact of a slowing economy on strained state and local budgets. If so, it would be the culmination of decades of work from activists hoping to roll back some of Prop. 13’s restrictions.

“It’s been a long time in the making and I think it’s here and given the state of finances in California and the need for new revenues by the schools … it’s probably coming at a good time,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, which in September found 49 percent of likely voters support the proposition, 34 percent oppose it and 17 percent are undecided. “It’s not a direct tax for most people,” he said. “When it comes to taxes, voters have a mindset of, ‘Don’t tax me, tax that guy behind that tree, tax somebody else.’ “

Coronavirus economy: Bay Area recovery is one of nation’s most feeble United States rebounds from prior job losses much faster than Bay Area, California

Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group

Traffic on Interstate 880 in Oakland, September 2020. Once a leading economic powerhouse, the Bay Area now is one of the nation’s weakest regions in recovering the jobs lost as coronavirus-linked business shutdowns began, an analysis shows.

By GEORGE AVALOS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 9, 2020 at 5:45 a.m. | UPDATED: October 9, 2020 at 4:09 p.m.

Once a leading economic powerhouse, the Bay Area now is one of the nation’s weakest regions in recovering the jobs lost when coronavirus-linked business shutdowns began.

The East Bay, the San Francisco-San Mateo region and Santa Clara County are performing so poorly in recovering from the epic employment losses of March and April that each of these local regions, along with the overall Bay Area, is in the bottom 10 of a ranking of 30 large metro areas in the United States, this news organization’s analysis of U.S. Labor Department data shows.

Experts say the lag is not the fault of any underlying economic weakness but rather the impact of the Bay Area’s stringent COVID-19 shutdown. Restrictions on business activity have helped control the coronavirus in an area that saw one of the nation’s first outbreaks, leading to comparatively low rates of infections and deaths. But they have also constrained a normally vigorous economy.

“The Bay Area has been the nation’s most rigorous in implementing the distancing and sheltering guidelines,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a San Jose-based think tank that tracks local economic trends. “This is one of the main reasons why we lost so many non-tech jobs and why they are slow to recover.”

Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, agreed: “The Bay Area has recovered a smaller share of lost jobs than most metro areas in the nation as a result of the stricter rules on reopening,”

It could take two years for the Bay Area to recover its lost jobs and return to the record heights for its job market that the region enjoyed only last February, judging from projections based on its current pace.

The state is struggling to recover as well.

California, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Riverside-San Bernardino, Orange County and Sacramento-Roseville all badly lag the recovery in the United States overall.

The United States has recovered nearly half of the 22.16 million jobs it lost during March and April, when coronavirus-induced business closures erased employment nationwide at historic numbers.

In contrast, the Bay Area has regained less than one-third of the 619,700 jobs it lost during those brutal months. The Bay Area isn’t even doing as well as California, which has recaptured just over one-third of the 2.63 million jobs it lost in March and April.

In some ways, the Bay Area is a victim of its own success. The area is home to high-performing, progressive technology companies that instituted work-from-home policies even before government orders came down.

“The areas that are recovering the slowest are very high-income areas with high concentrations of employment where people can work remotely,” said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Stockton-based Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific. “These areas have households that have cut back sharply on their consumption of dining out and personal services.”

Of the Bay Area’s metro centers, Santa Clara County fares the best, recovering one-third of its 150,700 lost jobs. The San Francisco-San Mateo region has regained 30.3 percent of its 194,500 lost jobs.

The worst metro area among the 30 largest in the nation? The East Bay, which has regained less than one-quarter of the 183,700 payroll positions it lost.

Adding to the angst for the Bay Area: High-profile economic and employment rivals Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston in Texas, along with Seattle, Phoenix, Denver and Charlotte, as well as Rust Belt stalwarts Detroit and Pittsburgh, are all recovering their lost jobs far better than the Bay Area.

Just about the only consolation prize for the Bay Area’s performance so far: The nine-county region is faring better than high profile areas such as New York City and tourist-dependent Orlando, Florida, and Southern California’s Orange County, where theme parks have been hobbled by the virus.

The forbidding economic landscape in the Bay Area leads to a question: How long might it take for this region to recover the jobs it shed during March and April?

During May, June, July, and August, the Bay Area added 186,400 jobs — an average of 46,600 a month. If the Bay Area generates jobs at that pace, it would take another nine months to regain the remaining 433,000 lost when the virus hit.

The problem is that the Bay Area recovery is showing clear signs of losing steam.

In July and August, when surging infections led to tightened restrictions after the region had begun to reopen, the Bay Area averaged job gains of 17,000 a month. That was far below the pace for May and June with an average gain of 76,000 a month.

If the recovery pace is more like July and August, it will take the Bay Area two years — or late 2022 — to climb back to its record-high pinnacle of February of 2020.

Still, the Bay Area’s long-term prospects aren’t hopeless, and it should eventually keep pace with the United States.

“I expect the Bay Area and California to catch up in terms of job growth as we reopen safely in accord with health principles,” Levy said.

And the region’s economic engine of recent decades — Santa Clara County and its Silicon Valley tech hubs — will fuel a rebound locally and statewide, Hancock said.

“Silicon Valley’s economy is still ticking,” Hancock said. “It’s because of the very tools we need in quarantine are being provided by Silicon Valley companies.”

Opinion: Vote no on Prop. 15, the misleading property tax initiative Ballot measure will disproportionately hurt minority-owned businesses and speed up Bay Area gentrification

Pastor Amos Brown, shown above addressing the Dixie School District board of trustees, believes that Prop. 15 is bad for the Bay Area and all Californians. (Bay Area News Group File Photo)

By AMOS BROWN |

PUBLISHED: October 9, 2020 at 6:10 a.m. | UPDATED: October 9, 2020 at 6:15 a.m.

Proposition 15, one of 12 statewide measures on the November 3 ballot, deserves your attention. Its objective is simple — it’s the most serious attempt to do away with Proposition 13, the landmark property tax protection measure overwhelmingly passed by California voters in 1978.

Voters will see Prop. 15 on their ballots, the largest property tax increase in California history, although it’s being positioned as something much different by its proponents. As pastor of Third Baptist Church of San Francisco and president of the San Francisco NAACP Branch, I can tell you Prop. 15 is bad for the Bay Area and for all Californians. Proponents misleadingly call this tax measure the “Schools and Communities First” initiative, but if you read the measure, you’ll quickly notice that schools are funded last — after reimbursing a new bureaucracy to the tune of $1.3 billion, then local governments and then schools. Worse still, there’s no guarantee these tax dollars will find their way into the classroom.

Californians are suffering. Businesses remain closed, workers aren’t working, and Black- and Latino-owned businesses have been impacted especially hard. A new California Budget & Policy Center study revealed overall unemployment reached 20% this summer. For the leisure and hospitality industry alone, nearly a million jobs were lost between February and April, and 657,000 jobs have not returned.

Yet, Prop. 15 supporters charge ahead, fictitiously trying to position this measure as a tax decrease and that only the wealthiest of the wealthy will pay the $11.5 billion tax.

They either fail to understand or choose to ignore that the overwhelming majority of small-business owners rent the property where they conduct business. These businesses have triple net leases, which makes them responsible for property taxes, maintenance and insurance costs.

Look at the facts: According to the most recent Survey of Business Owners by the Census Bureau, 5% of all businesses in the state are owned by African Americans. The vast majority of these businesses start small and stay small. Even before Prop 15, Black-owned small businesses were twice as likely to fail because they had insufficient cash flow or sales to cover their costs than U.S. businesses as a whole.

According to a recent study by the California State Conference of the NAACP, increasing taxes for business properties, as Proposition 15 proposes, will disproportionately hurt minority-owned businesses and speed up the gentrification in the Bay Area and Southern California communities. Simply put, Prop. 15 will hurt minority-owned businesses and communities the most, making systemic racism and inequality even worse.

As long-time Black-owned businesses struggle with dramatically higher taxes and rent, many that are barely eking out a profit will be forced to close their doors — to be replaced by new businesses able to afford higher rents and charge correspondingly higher prices. I am concerned that many of our well-established communities will see an exodus of long-time residents because Prop 15’s higher taxes will force stores to increase prices, exacerbating the struggles that hard-working families with stretched budgets already face.

I hear concerns about the future from my parishioners every day. I know their struggles and I pray with them to hopefully provide comfort and perspective. It is tempting to believe that an $11.5 billion tax hike will somehow help stimulate local economies and provide much-needed funds to local governments and schools. But that’s wishful thinking.

Prop. 15 will increase the cost of living, accelerate gentrification and hit California’s most vulnerable the hardest.

I urge you to vote no on Prop. 15 this November.

Amos C. Brown has been pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church since 1976. He is president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP.

Stimulus: Trump ups offer to $1.8T Days after halting negotiations, president nearly doubles his initial proposal from late summer

The Mercury News 10 Oct 2020 By Emily Cochrane and Alan Rappeport

WASHINGTON >> The White House moved aggressively Friday to revive stimulus talks that President Donald Trump had called off just days earlier, putting forward its largest offer for economic relief yet as administration officials and embattled Republican lawmakers scrambled to avoid being blamed by voters for failing to deliver needed aid before the election. The new proposal’s price tag of $1.8 trillion, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin presented to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a roughly 30-minute phone call, was nearly double the original offer the administration put forward when talks began in late summer. It was the latest indication that the White House was eager to backtrack from Trump’s decision Tuesday to abruptly halt negotiations, and it reflected a growing sense of dread both at the White House and among vulnerable Senate Republicans facing reelection about the political consequences of his actions. The offer also highlighted the deep and persistent divisions among Republicans — most of whom have balked at a large new federal infusion of pandemic aid — that have complicated the negotiations for months. Now, with Trump pressing to “Go Big,” as he put it in a tweet Friday, he has raised the prospect of pushing through a plan that his own party refuses to accept, giving Pelosi and Democrats fresh leverage to dictate the terms of any deal. On Friday, she was continuing to hold out for more concessions. While Mnuchin’s latest offer “attempted to address some of the concerns Democrats have,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said it did not include an agreement on a national strategy for testing, tracing and other efforts to contain the spread of the virus, which the speaker has pushed for in recent weeks. “For this and other provisions, we are still awaiting language from the administration as negotiations on the overall funding amount continue.” “I do hope we will have an agreement soon but, as you say, they keep changing,” Pelosi said on MSNBC. Referring to Trump’s tweets that temporarily ended the negotiations, she added that the president “got a terrible backlash from it, including in the stock market, which is what he cares about. And so then he started to come back little by little, and now a bigger package.” Speaking on right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh’s show, Trump conceded that he had changed his position on approving additional coronavirus aid before Election Day, declaring, “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or Republicans are offering.” (Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director, later contradicted Trump’s assertion, telling reporters at the White House that the administration wanted a final package to remain below $2 trillion, which is less than the $2.2 trillion measure Pelosi pushed through the House this month.) Such sums are deeply alarming to most Republicans, who are increasingly contemplating their party’s future after Trump departs the political scene and are determined to reclaim the mantle of the party of fiscal restraint. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, warned Trump in a phone call this week that most Republican senators would not embrace a stimulus measure as large as Pelosi wanted, an assessment that appeared to play a role in the president’s decision to tweet an end to the talks. Speaking to reporters in Kentucky on Friday, McConnell continued to cast doubt on the chances of a deal in the coming weeks, saying political divisions remained too deep. “The situation is kind of murky and I think the murkiness is a result of the proximity to the election and everybody kind of trying to elbow for political advantage,” McConnell said. “I’d like to see us rise above that like we did back in March and April, but I think that’s unlikely in the next three weeks.” Privately though, McConnell has come under renewed pressure to allow a deal to go forward. Multiple rank-andfile Republicans, including some in tough reelection contests, like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado and David Perdue of Georgia, pressed McConnell during a phone call Thursday for him to act on a stimulus measure, according to two people familiar with the discussion who asked for anonymity to disclose details of a private conversation. But other Republicans are wary of the liberal provisions that Mnuchin may agree to in order to win Pelosi’s support. Many of them opposed the original $1 trillion offer McConnell presented in July, after days of haggling with the White House, in part because they were concerned about adding to the national debt. Top Republicans scaled back the offer considerably, proposing a $350 billion plan that drew objections from Democrats, who called it inadequate. Pelosi’s $2.2 trillion plan is “not going to fly very far over here, at least on the Republican side, so we’ll see,” Sen. Pat Roberts, RKan., told reporters Friday on Capitol Hill. “Maybe it’ll have to be after the election — if anybody can calm down after that.”

4 Sales tax hikes among Contra Costa County ballot measures Voters also to decide on growth boundary, business tax By PETER HEGARTY | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 8, 2020 at 1:27 p.m. | UPDATED: October 11, 2020 at 2:22 p.m.

A correction to an earlier version of this article has been appended to the end of the article. Voters in Contra Costa County are being asked whether they want to support a half-cent sales tax increase, money that the measure’s backers say could go toward public safety, early childhood education and other services.

Measure X is projected to generate $81 million annually if it receives a simple majority of yes votes.

Voter approval of the measure would increase the sales tax rate to at least 9.75% and up to 10.25%, depending on the city, for 20 years.

Opponents say rather than the money going to public safety and early childhood education, county officials could spend the 20-year tax on salaries and benefits because the tax is not designated for a specific purpose.

Voters in San Pablo, Concord and Orinda also will consider extending and increasing current sales taxes in those cities. Those measures also just need a simple majority for approval.

And if they do pass, and the countywide Measure X passes, all would take effect — they do not cancel out each other, Orinda City Clerk Sheri Smith said. Shoppers in those cities would see two sales tax increases if the measure passes.

County supervisors moved to put Measure X, which would exempt food sales from the tax, on the ballot during a special meeting Aug. 21.

Supervisor Candace Andersen cast the lone no vote among the five-member board.

It was unfair to ask for money while many people are financially struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, Andersen said.

“I would prefer that people keep that money in their pocketbooks, so to speak,” she said during the virtual meeting, adding: “I have some serious concerns right now about imposing a sales tax.”

Supervisor John Gioia pointed to the funds that the sales tax increase will generate for vital services. Voters also will make the ultimate decision on whether the tax should be imposed, he noted.

Voters in San Pablo will decide on Measure S, which would continue a half-cent sales tax for five years and generate approximately $1.45 million annually, according to city officials. The tax would then drop to one-quarter cent for five years, when it would generate about $725,000 annually, before ending. The measure is a continuation of an existing sales tax that San Pablo voters approved in 2012. The current sales tax in San Pablo is 8.75%.

Concord voters will consider Measure V, which also would continue and increase an existing sales tax from 0.5% to 1%. It’s projected to raise $27 million annually. It doesn’t have a sunset clause.

Orinda voters will decide Measure R. It would raise an existing one-half cent sales tax to one cent for 20 years. City officials say it would generate approximately $2.4 million annually.

In Richmond, voters will consider Measure U, which would raise the city’s business tax from 0.06% to 5%, using a formula based on gross receipts instead of the number of employees. The change would provide Richmond approximately $9.5 million annually, according to the city.

Pittsburg voters will decide whether the city clerk’s office should change from an elected to an appointed position under Measure Q.

In Antioch, Measure T would lock in the city’s growth boundary, and demand any adjustments be approved by voters. It also would reduce the total number of homes permitted in an approximately four-square-mile area in the southeast corner of Antioch, known as the Sand Creek Focus Area, from 4,000 to 2,100.

Correction: October 10, 2020 An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that Concord's Measure V sunsets in 2025. The measure has no

Property tax breaks to shift if voters OK Prop. 19

San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday) 11 Oct 2020 KATHLEEN PENDER

Proposition 19 would expand one property tax break and rein in another, with the net result being an increase in taxes that would go to public schools, state and local governments and firefighting agencies in California. How much additional revenue the Nov. 3 ballot measure would generate, and how it would be split, is highly uncertain. The answer depends on how homeowners respond to the new tax regime, and a mindboggling formula for divvying up the spoils. If passed, the changes would increase home sales, which is why the California and national Realtors associations have spent $36 million to promote it. The only spending against it has been $40,050 from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Do not confuse Proposition 19 with Proposition 15, which is also on the Nov. 3 ballot and would raise property taxes on most commercial and industrial (but not residential) properties by reassessing them at least every three years. Under Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978, all real property in California is assessed at market value when it changes hands. In between sales or transfers, this assessed value can only go up by an inflation rate, capped at 2% a year, plus the value of any new construction or major improvements. Your property tax is the assessed value times your tax rate, which averages around 1.1%. When homes are reassessed after a sale or transfer, the tax bill almost always goes up because market values in California usually rise more than 2% a year. After Prop. 13 passed, voters approved five propositions that exempted some properties from reassessment when they change hands. Prop. 19 would supplant them, with new (but no less complicated) rules. Under current law, people who are at least 55 or severely disabled can sell their primary residence and transfer its assessed value to a new primary residence if they meet three requirements: The home they buy can’t be worth more than the home they sold; the new home must be in the same county as the old one, or in one of 10 counties that accept incoming transfers of assessed value; and they can only do this once in a lifetime. These are called Prop. 60, 90 and 110 transfers, after the old ballot measures that allowed them. The idea was to let seniors and disabled people sell a longheld home that had a very low assessed value, and buy a smaller or more suitable one, without facing a big tax increase. Prop. 19 would let these same older and disabled homeowners transfer their old assessment to a replacement home of any value, in any California county, up to three times. It also would let people who lose their homes in a natural disaster transfer the assessed value from their destroyed home to another home anywhere in the state. But there’s a catch: If they buy a more expensive home, the difference in market value between the old and new homes would be added to the old home’s assessed value. Suppose a senior couple sells their primary residence, currently assessed at $300,000. They sell it for $1 million and buy a replacement home for $1.5 million. The new home would be assessed at $800,000, which is $300,000 from the old home plus $500,000 (the difference between $1 million and $1.5 million). This “portability” provision would apply to sales starting April 1. Eligible homeowners would have up to two years after selling their home to replace it and would have to apply for the transfer with the county they’re moving to. The California Realtors Association placed a similar portability proposal on the ballot in 2018, but the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated it would cost public schools and local governments hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes a year. That proposition failed, getting only 40% of the vote. That’s why Prop. 19, placed on the ballot by the Legislature, added a provision that would raise revenues by curtailing a tax break on parentchild transfers. Under current law, a parent and child can transfer (by sale, gift or inheritance) eligible properties between each other and they won’t be reassessed. Eligible properties include a principal residence of any value, plus additional properties — such as a vacation, rental or commercial property — with a combined assessed value up to $1 million. Properties getting this tax break can have a market value far exceeding $1 million. A child who gets an eligible property from a parent, or vice versa, can keep the property’s low tax base whether they live in it, rent it out or leave it vacant. These rules also apply to transfers between grandchildren and grandparents if the grandchildren’s parents are not alive. These are called Prop. 58 and 193 transfers. Critics say they discourage heirs from selling homes and let wealthy families pass on valuable properties without a tax “In the first few years, local governments could gain tens of millions of dollars per year.” Report on Prop 19 by Legislative Analyst’s Office increase. The Los Angeles Times reported that actors Jeff and Beau Bridges and their sister inherited a fourbedroom oceanview home in Malibu from their mother, who owned it with her late husband, the actor Lloyd Bridges, since the late 1950s. In 2018, they advertised the home for rent at $15,995 a month, which was more than twice the annual property tax bill. Prop. 19 would abolish this tax break on parentchild transfers of any property that was not used as a principal residence or farm. Any such properties transferred on or after Feb. 16 would be reassessed at market value. (Prop. 19 would not trigger reassessment of such properties transferred before that date.) On transfers of a primary residence or farm, the property would not be reassessed if the new owner also uses it as his or her primary residence or farm and the difference between the assessed value and market value does not exceed $1 million. If the difference does exceed $1 million, the primary residence or farm will be reassessed according to a convoluted formula, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. It’s the assessed value just before the transfer, plus the market value at the time transfer, minus the sum of the assessed value plus $1 million. For example, if a son inherits his father’s primary home that was assessed at $500,000 but is now worth $4 million, and the son moves into it within a year, the new assessed value would be $3 million, which is $500,000 plus $4 million minus the sum of $500,000 plus $1 million, the LAO says. David Wolfe, a consultant for the Yes on 19 campaign, said he believes the new assessed value would be $2.5 million ($4 million in market value minus the sum of $1 million plus the dad’s assessed value of $500,000). The $1 million amounts would be indexed for inflation. If a parent left the home to more than one child, only one would have to move in to claim the tax break, Wolfe said. The proposition doesn’t say what would happen to the assessed value if one sibling bought out the others, he said. Prop. 19 would have no impact on homes transferred between spouses; they are always exempt from reassessment. The first part of Prop. 19 — expanding tax portability — would likely lead to more home sales, but reduce property taxes for local governments and schools, especially in counties that attract a lot of seniors, according to the LAO. The second part — reining in parentchild exemptions — would likely increase home sales by encouraging children to sell inherited homes. It also would increase property taxes to schools and local governments as more homes are reassessed at market value, the LAO report said. The net effect would probably be a tax increase. “In the first few years, local governments could gain tens of millions of dollars per year. Over time, these revenue gains could grow to a few hundred million dollars per year. Schools could receive similar property tax gains,” the report said. In some years, the extra revenue going to schools would reduce what the state has to pay schools from the general fund. In those years, any money the state saves on school funding as a result of Prop. 19 would be allocated as follows: 75% would go into a new fire response fund, 15% would go into a fund to reimburse counties that lose money as result of Prop. 19, and the rest would go to the state general fund. Also, if Prop. 19 encourages more seniors to sell their homes, and the sale of those homes result in more capital gains taxes being paid to the state, those new capital gains taxes would be allocated according to the same formula. Cal Fire would get 20% of the fire fund and the rest would be divided among 500 historically underfunded county and rural fire departments. More home sales would also increase real estate transfer taxes, which cities and counties would keep. The Howard Jarvis group supported the Realtors’ 2018 ballot measure, but opposes Prop. 19 because “it’s just a very large, significant property tax increase which really disrupts the financial planning of a lot of California families,” Jon Coupal, its president, said. Also, “it’s very unclear who gets what.” A report prepared by Capitol Matrix Consulting for the Yes on 19 campaign said it would generate significantly more tax revenue than what the LAO report predicted. The Capitol Matrix report assumes the portability provision would increase, not decrease, property tax revenue, because many homes that seniors sell will be reassessed at much higher market values. More importantly, the LAO underestimates the number of children who will be inheriting valuable properties they choose not to live in, said Brad Williams, one of the Capitol Matrix report authors.

Coronavirus economy: California is years away from jobs recovery, report says UCLA Anderson Forecast: Double-digit jobless rate through end of 2020

Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group

A BART train rolls past traffic on State Route 24 in the East Bay, April 2020. The California job market, which was at an all-time best level only last February, appears to be years away from a return to the lofty heights it enjoyed before the coronavirus unleashed wide-ranging economic woes.

By GEORGE AVALOS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: September 30, 2020 at 10:13 a.m. | UPDATED: September 30, 2020 at 3:54 p.m.

The California job market appears to be years away from a return to the lofty heights it enjoyed before the coronavirus unleashed wide-ranging economic woes, an unsettling forecast released Wednesday shows.

A grim new outlook from the closely watched UCLA Anderson Forecast suggests California’s pre- coronavirus economic boom won’t reappear for at least two years.

It was just a few months ago, from August 2019 through February of this year, that the jobless rate in California was at a record low 3.9 percent. Those heady days are long gone. “A full recovery to pre-recession levels of economic activity is not expected until after 2022 in the state,” Leila Bengali, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast, wrote in the report.

Although a noticeable improvement might emerge by the end of 2020 for California’s brutalized economy, the Anderson Forecasters made it clear that the return to the pre-coronavirus economy statewide is further away.

Jeffrey Michael, director of the Stockton-based Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific, says he and other economists also believe a protracted rebound looms for California.

“Most forecasts are shifting to a longer recovery path for California,” Michael said.

Some signs have emerged to suggest that a springtime boom in job gains in California has faltered.

“We see the recovery slowing down in real-time in California,” Michael said.

Case in point: In June, California added a mammoth 551,400 jobs, which was well above the 148,900 jobs added in the Golden State in May. But those two months of robust gains were followed up by noticeably modest increases of 83,500 in July and 101,900 in August.

In February 2020, California reached a record high of 17.6 million non-farm payroll jobs, the state Employment Development Department reported, but the current employment levels in California are far from that pinnacle.

At present — despite gains of 885,700 payroll jobs in May, June, July, and August, California had 1.73 million fewer jobs in August than it did in February, which was just before state and local government agencies imposed wide-ranging business shutdowns to battle the coronavirus.

Payroll employment in California is projected to reach 16.18 million by the end of 2020 and 16.97 million by the end of 2022, the Anderson Forecast predicted.

Put another way, by the end of 2022 — more than two years from now — job totals in California will still be 630,000 jobs below the record high of 17.6 million.

Similarly, the unemployment rate will chart a painfully sluggish path to full recovery, the Anderson economists predicted.

California’s jobless rate is projected to be 10.8% at the end of 2020, 8.6% at the end of 2021, and 6.6% at the end of 2022, according to the Anderson Forecast expectations. The forecast didn’t even say when — or if — California would return to a 3.9% jobless rate.

California’s nagging problem in its job market is that the state’s pace of reopening from the coronavirus-linked business shutdowns appears to be too leisurely to allow some companies to survive long enough to resume business at anything approaching pre-pandemic levels.

A growing number of employers in the Bay Area and California have converted previous temporary furloughs to permanent layoffs.

“The prospects are growing for more permanent damage to small businesses,” Michael said. “That means it will take longer for California to recover and come back.”

Newsom announces plan to conserve 30% of California’s land and coastal waters Executive order is designed to increase protection of nature to offset climate change

Bridalveil Fall flows into Yosemite Valley at near peak levels on Tuesday, April 30, 2019. (Craig Kohlruss/Fresno Bee)

By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 7, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. | UPDATED: October 7, 2020 at 4:10 p.m.

Saying more needs to be done to preserve nature as a way to help address climate change, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday committed the state to a goal of protecting 30% of California’s land and coastal waters by 2030.

Newsom signed an executive order directing the state’s Natural Resources Agency to draw up a plan by Feb. 1, 2022, to achieve the goal in a way that also protects the state’s economy and agriculture industry, while expanding and restoring biodiversity — the vast variety of animals and plants — that live in areas as varied as the Bay Area’s tidepools to arid deserts in Southern California to mountain forests across the Sierra Nevada. “In our existential fight against climate change, we must build on our historic efforts in energy and emissions and focus on our lands as well,” Newsom said. “California’s beautiful natural and working lands are an important tool to help slow and avert catastrophic climate change.”

California becomes the first state to commit to the “30 x 30” goal — a growing effort by dozens of environmental groups, scientific organizations and the National Geographic Society to preserve at least 30% of the world’s land and oceans in their natural state by 2030.

The issue is expected to play a key role at a major United Nations conference in China next May. Right now, about 15% of the Earth’s land and 7% of its oceans are protected in parks, preserves and other areas.

How much of Newsom’s announcement was symbolism was not entirely clear Wednesday. In California, 47% of the state is already owned by the federal government, mostly in national forests, national parks and desert lands owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The vast majority of that land is undeveloped. So in some ways the goal of 30% protection is already achieved.

However, if state agencies eventually define “protected” as not allowing commercial uses, like mining, or logging or cattle grazing on public lands, the percentage is lower — 22% of the land area and 16% of the state’s territorial waters out to three miles offshore, according to a detailed mapping study by Defenders of Wildlife that was published in May. But the state has no control over federal lands. Newsom said he hopes to work with private landowners and interest groups, not just on public land.

“It’s about conservation. It’s not about a scarcity mindset,” he said. “It’s not about taking something away. It’s about an inclusive, abundant mindset. It’s about incorporating our hunters, and our fishermen and women. It’s about incorporating those that want to recreate and those that want to do the good work that we need to do in terms of actively managing our forests, and biomass and all the other working and natural lands.”

The announcement Wednesday followed Newsom’s executive order last month to direct the California Air Resources Board to draft rules that will phase out the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035, and it comes amid a record year for wildfires, with this August as the hottest August in California’s recorded history.

Republicans criticized Newsom’s latest plan.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom goes around the state legislature again,” the California Republican State Senate Caucus said in a tweet. “Governor’s message: We Don’t Need A Legislature Anymore. This is an overreach. Newsom isn’t even hiding behind COVID-19 emergency powers any more.”

The executive order also includes goals to promote healthy soils, restore declining populations of bees and other pollinating insects, and expand natural storage of carbon. Those projects would likely include thinning overgrown forests to preserve large trees that store the most carbon, to protect them from wildfires, along with restoring wetlands and other habitats.

Environmentalists cheered Newsom’s announcement. “People and wildlife in California are already suffering from wildfire, drought, and disease because we have not done enough to protect nature, address climate change, and build healthy and resilient communities” said Mike Lynes, director of public policy for Audubon California.

The governor said a key part of the effort will be helping California’s 70,000 farmers and ranchers adapt to the warming climate and also to work with them on projects that store carbon, such as certain types of composting, tilling and other soil and vegetation management.

“We’re not pitting one group against the other,” he said. “We are bringing people to the table.”

The president of the California Farm Bureau Federation said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the executive order.

“We must remember the need to produce affordable food for people and maintain a regulatory environment that allows new businesses to start and existing businesses to grow,” said Jamie Johansson, an olive and citrus farmer in Oroville.

“Even though we are a bit skeptical about the increased use of the executive order as a lawmaking tool,” he added, “we look forward to early and robust discussions about the real work needed to protect California’s working lands.”

Newsom’s new tack on climate change

San Francisco Chronicle 8 Oct 2020 By Alexei Koseff

Gov. Gavin Newsom set a target of preserving 30% of California’s coastal waters by 2030 to preserve biodiversity and prevent species loss.

SACRAMENTO — California will enlist its natural resources in the state’s fight against climate change by establishing new land conservation and carbon sequestration goals over the next decade. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday setting a target to conserve 30% of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030 — joining dozens of nations in a global pact to preserve biodiversity and prevent species loss. Visiting a walnut orchard in the Yolo County town of Winters, Newsom said the order would serve “our collective goal of futureproofing the state of California, of making the state more resistant and resilient to the realities of climate change.” World leaders have been committing to protect 30% of their land and seas ahead of a United Nations summit on biodiversity in China next spring. The United Kingdom and Canada signed onto the pledge last week, following the European Union. California officials estimate that about 22% of the state — 23.1 million acres — is already protected, either to prevent wild ecosystems from disappearing or to ensure sustainable use of natural resources. The vast majority of that land is managed by the federal government, while the rest is under state, local or private control. California would need to conserve another 8.4 million acres over the next decade to meet the goal Newsom set. About 16% of state waters are in marine protected areas, according to the California Ocean Protection Council. Newsom’s order also directs his administration to take steps to streamline approval of land restoration projects, protect native plants and animals from invasive species and reinvigorate the population of pollinating insects in California. Most significantly, several agencies will develop policies to capture more carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the state’s natural and working lands such as forests, rangeland, farms, wetlands and coasts. These strategies, intended to help California reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, could include planting cover crops, restoring wetlands, managing forests more actively to reduce wildfire risk, and planting trees and creating parks in urban areas. Newsom said his desire to conserve more of the state’s ecosystems was influenced by his grandfather’s work protecting mountain lions and by his childhood pet, a river otter named Potter. He said he would consult with farmers, ranchers, hunters and fishers to ensure the order does not interfere with agriculture and recreation. “It’s not about a scarcity mindset. It’s not about taking something away,” he said. “It’s about an inclusive, abundant mindset.” A bill to set a goal of protecting at least 30% of California’s land and waters by 2030 passed the state Assembly this summer but was held in the Senate amid opposition from the building industry, commercial fishing groups and outdoor recreation advocates. The Senate Republican Caucus called Newsom’s order Wednesday an “overreach” and tweeted, “We remember a time when Democrats were worried about (President) Trump being an authoritarian.” This is the second climaterelated executive order that the governor has issued in recent weeks. Last month, Newsom signed an order to ban the sale of new gasolinepowered vehicles in California by 2035, an effort to tackle the transportationrelated emissions that now account for the largest portion of planetwarming greenhouse gases in the state. That earned Newsom a rebuke from Andrew Wheeler, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, who sent a letter to the governor questioning the legality and feasibility of California limiting new car sales to only zeroemission vehicles. Newsom also recently called for the Legislature to pass a ban on the oil and gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting fluid at high pressure into the ground to loosen natural gas or oil deposits. Environmentalists have long criticized the practice for polluting local water sources and emitting greenhouse gases such as methane, and several lawmakers said they plan to introduce a bill this fall to ban it. Several environmental groups criticized Newsom again Wednesday for not using his executive authority to limit oil and gas production. “In California we risk losing the iconic Joshua tree of the Mojave Desert, coastal shorebirds like the snowy plover that get crowded out by rising seas, and alpine species like pikas that can’t survive on warming mountaintops,” Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Protecting our beautiful range of lifeforms on land, in the air and at sea requires also keeping fossil fuels in the ground.”

In about-face, Trump seeks to salvage parts of virus aid By ANDREW TAYLOR and AAMER MADHANI October 7, 2020

President Donald Trump waves from the Blue Room Balcony upon returning to the White House Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, in Washington, after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md. Trump announced he tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to salvage a few priority items lost in the rubble of COVID-19 relief talks that he blew up, pressing for $1,200 stimulus checks and new aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic.

In a series of tweets, Trump pressed for passage of these chunks of assistance, an about- face from his abrupt and puzzling move Tuesday afternoon to abandon talks with a longtime rival, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat has rejected such piecemeal entreaties all along. But Pelosi did talk with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Wednesday evening, her spokesman said, about stand-alone airline rescue legislation as the industry is shedding tens of thousands of jobs. Trump’s tweets amounted to him demanding his way in negotiations that he himself had ended. Trump, who absorbed much political heat for abandoning the talks, is the steward of an economy whose continued recovery may hinge on significant new steps such as pandemic unemployment benefits. His tweets seemed to move the financial markets into positive territory, though it was far from certain whether they would impress voters demanding more relief.

He called on Congress to send him a “Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200)” — a reference to a preelection batch of direct payments to most Americans that had been a central piece of negotiations between Pelosi and the White House.

“I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?” Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday evening. He also urged Congress to immediately approve $25 billion for airlines and $135 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses.

The stock market fell precipitously after Trump pulled the plug on the talks but was recovering Wednesday after he floated the idea of piecemeal aid.

Trump’s decision to scuttle talks between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Pelosi came after the president was briefed on the landscape for the negotiations — and on the blowback that any Pelosi-Mnuchin deal probably would have received from his GOP allies in Congress.

“It became very obvious over the last couple of days that a comprehensive bill was just going to get to a point where it didn’t have really much Republican support at all,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Wednesday on Fox News. “It was more of a Democrat-led bill, which would have been problematic, more so in the Senate than in the House.”

Pelosi told reporters that “all the president wants is his name on a check” for direct aid payments.

The unexpected turn could be a blow to Trump’s reelection prospects and comes as his administration and campaign are in turmoil. Trump is quarantining in the White House with a case of the coronavirus, and the latest batch of polls shows him significantly behind Democrat Joe Biden with the election four weeks away.

Trump’s withdrawal from the talks came immediately after he spoke with GOP leaders in Congress. Many Republican senators had signaled they would not be willing to go along with any measure that topped $1 trillion, and GOP aides had been privately dismissive of the prospects for a deal. Any Pelosi-sponsored agreement of close to $2 trillion raised the potential of a GOP revolt if such a plan came to a vote.

Pelosi and Mnuchin talked briefly on Wednesday morning about the chances for a stand- alone airline rescue, Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill tweeted. Pelosi directed Mnuchin to a measure she had attempted to pass on Friday on short notice under fast-track procedures, but only after Democrats made a number of changes Republicans did not like.

The talks have been troubled from their start in July and never appeared to close in on an agreement both sides could embrace.

Pelosi had been demanding a host of Democratic priorities on food aid, unemployment benefits, help for renters and homeowners, and aid to state and local governments. Republicans charged that she was dragging out the talks to deny Trump a political victory before the Nov. 3 election.

Early rounds of virus aid passed by overwhelming margins as the economy went into lockdown in March. After that, Trump and many of his GOP allies focused on loosening social and economic restrictions as the key to recovery instead of more taxpayer-funded help.

Still, the decision to halt negotiations now could be politically perilous. While the stock market has clawed much of its way back after cratering in the early weeks of the crisis, unemployment stands at 7.9%, and the nearly 11 million jobs that remain lost since the start of the pandemic exceed the number that the nation shed during the entire 2008-09 Great Recession.

The economy has recovered more quickly than most economists had expected, largely because of the aid Congress approved in a $2 trillion package in March. The $1,200 stimulus checks, supplemental $600 unemployment benefits each week and aid to small businesses boosted household incomes and enabled many low-income Americans to pay bills and rent and maintain their overall spending, according to data from Opportunity Insights.

But the recovery has slowed, and certain sectors such as restaurants, hotels, theaters and airlines remain in bad shape, shedding jobs and risking permanent realignment. Without more stimulus, economists expect growth will slow significantly in the final three months of the year.

“You’re going to see quite a significant drag on growth,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. It “would really risk a double-dip recession.”

___

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

Trump’s economic malpractice

San Francisco Chronicle Late Edition 8 Oct 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill last week.

President Trump’s unilateral cancellation of bipartisan economic stimulus talks was such a bad idea that even he tried to disown it. Hours after he ordered his subordinates via Twitter to “stop negotiating until after the election,” prompting a stock market selloff, the president awkwardly demanded an immediate resumption of federal aid to businesses and individuals — two chief goals of the negotiation he had just ended. Being after 10 p. m. with less than a month left until the election, it wasn’t just too late for the president to be making or unmaking major economic policy on the internet. It was too late to erase the impression that his answer to Americans facing unemployment and bankruptcy is the same as his prescription for the coronavirus: Tough it out. Trump’s inscrutable stimulus strategy also parallels his mishandling of the pandemic in doubling as a gross disservice to the country and a grievous selfinflicted political wound. The president’s Democratic nemesis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has endlessly offered him a means of providing desperately needed assistance to the country’s people and businesses. Yet Trump, on the brink of a troubled reelection attempt, lacks the sense to say yes. Despite record spending in the early days of the pandemic, Congress hasn’t passed federal stimulus legislation since April. An expansive bill approved by House Democrats in May, which would have more than doubled the $ 3 trillion of stimulus to date, has received only halting and intermittent responses from the Senate and the administration. In the meantime, supplemental unemployment payments and emergency business assistance have run out. California and other states received about as much aid from this stimulus as they did from the far smaller 2009 stimulus, and they have struggled to restart economies without touching off new waves of infection. A failure to provide more federal aid would blow an $ 11 billion hole in California’s current budget, forcing cuts to schools, universities and courts. In cutting off talks, Trump reiterated his disdain for coming to the assistance of “Democrat States,” but the publicsector layoffs already under way will not hew to the partisan divide. Neither does support for further aid. Among those who have called for another round of stimulus in short order is Trump’s own Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who was in negotiations with Pelosi when the president cut them off. The Trumpappointed Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, said Tuesday that insufficient stimulus threatens to further slow an unfinished recovery and cause “unnecessary hardship for households and businesses.” And a poll released last week showed that 80% of Americans, including 75% of Republicans, support more relief. Such figures cast a dim light on Trump’s promise, in the course of ruling out preelection aid, to bring forth “major” stimulus legislation “immediately after I win.” At this rate, he will get no such opportunity.

Trump calls off stimulus talks until after election; markets drop The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung instantly from a gain of about 200 points to a loss of about 300 points

Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images

File photo: President Donald Trump has ordered his negotiators to halt talks over a new stimulus package, after the two sides have struggled for months to reach a deal.

By CNN.COM WIRE SERVICE

PUBLISHED: October 6, 2020 at 12:21 p.m. | UPDATED: October 6, 2020 at 2:35 p.m.

By Phil Mattingly, Manu Raju, Clare Forlan and Lauren Fox | CNN President Donald Trump has ordered his negotiators to halt talks over a new stimulus package, after the two sides have struggled for months to reach a deal, a stunning move that puts an end to last-ditch efforts for a major economic relief package as millions are reeling from the coronavirus crisis. “I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,” Trump wrote in a series of tweets Tuesday afternoon.

Trump’s message stunned lawmakers — especially since Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been trading proposals and negotiating for days in the hopes of narrowing their differences, though they were still far apart in their talks.

The decision to pull the plug on the talks is a major blow to Americans still struggling with the fallout from the once-in-a century pandemic and endangers an economic recovery that for months was driven by the initial $2.2 trillion stimulus passed by Congress in the spring. With that money largely spent and gone, economists have warned more support is imperative in the months ahead.

Trump weighed in shortly after a private conference call with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and Mnuchin, who was scheduled to speak later Tuesday afternoon with Pelosi.

Stocks dropped suddenly on Wall Street after Trump ordered a stop to negotiations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average swung instantly from a gain of about 200 points to a loss of about 300 points.

The President’s tweet may have come as a surprise to some top Republicans as well as Democrats.

On Trump call with GOP leaders, the President signaled he wanted a deal and didn’t say he was going to pull the plug on the talks, according to a source familiar with the call.

Republicans were critical of Pelosi, arguing she was moving the goalposts and noted there were plenty of obstacles to get a deal. But the expectation after that call was that talks would continue.

McConnell indicated Tuesday afternoon, however, that he backs Trump’s move to end stimulus talks.

“I do,” McConnell told CNN when asked if he supports the President’s decision.

“I think his view was that they were not going to produce a result and we need to concentrate on what’s achievable,” McConnell said of Trump’s move.

But in the wake of the announcement, the President’s call to end the talks generated some bipartisan pushback.

Republican Rep. John Katko, a New York lawmaker who represents a swing district, responded to the news in a tweet saying, “I disagree with the President. With lives at stake, we cannot afford to stop negotiations on a relief package,” and adding, “I strongly urge the President to rethink this move.”

Pelosi slammed the announcement from the President in a statement, saying, “Clearly, the White House is in complete disarray.”

“Today, once again, President Trump showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress,” Pelosi said, adding, “Walking away from coronavirus talks demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus.”

Pelosi and Mnuchin spoke over the phone at 3:30 p.m. ET, according to Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, who tweeted that Mnuchin “confirmed that the President has walked away from COVID talks.”

“The Speaker expressed her disappointment in the President’s decision to abandon the economic & health needs of the American people,” Hammill said.

Pelosi unloaded on the President over the decision during a private conference call with House Democrats on Tuesday, telling her caucus that Trump isn’t telling the truth about the negotiations, arguing that Democrats have a scientific plan to crush the virus and that Republicans have a real contempt for science, a person on the call told CNN.

Pelosi warned that health care workers will lose their jobs and people will get hurt by Trump’s decision, calling it a sad moment for the country, the person said.

The speaker addressed the news on the call by saying of Republicans, “This is who they are,” a source told CNN.

Pelosi also questioned whether Trump taking a steroid was impacting his thinking, according to two people on the call. Trump was given the corticosteroid drug dexamethasone on Saturday after his oxygen level transiently dipped, White House physician Sean Conley said during a briefing on Sunday.

“Believe me, there are people who think that steroids have an impact on thinking,” Pelosi told Democrats as she tried to explain her view of what the President was trying to do, a person on the call said. “So I just don’t know.”

After her statement, a “dear colleague” letter to Democrats, and her comments to the full caucus, Pelosi continued hammering Trump on a Democratic leadership call, according to a source with knowledge of the call.

Pelosi said that Trump is “desperate” and so is trying this “stunt.” She called his abrupt decision to end the talks a “Hail Mary.”

She also said his tweet was incorrect. Trump said he came up to $1.6 trillion, but she said that Mnuchin was at $1.3 trillion. Either way, she said, it was too little.

She criticized Mnuchin’s final offer as meager on unemployment insurance, money for schools, child care, and for state and local governments.

In one sign of how the announcement from the President took lawmakers by surprise, one member texted CNN that Trump’s tweet was “incredible,” while another reacted by saying only, “wow.”

Democrats and Republicans have been at odds over proposals for a new stimulus measure for months, despite efforts to reach a deal through bipartisan negotiation.

One of the key issues has been disputes over a price tag for any new stimulus. Last week, the House of Representatives approved a $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus measure put forward by House Democrats with no bipartisan deal in sight as Pelosi and Mnuchin continued talks.

The legislation gives Democrats something to point to as lawmakers face pressure from constituents to deliver more aid as the pandemic continues to take a devastating toll across America.

But the Democratic plan was widely rejected by Republicans as too costly and is not expected to be taken up by the GOP-led Senate.

That vote came after House Democrats moved in May to pass a sweeping bill to spend roughly $3 trillion on relief measures, a proposal that similarly generated opposition from Republicans, who dismissed the aid package as a liberal wish list.

Bay Area home prices soar with suburban boom Coronavirus drives demand for space, single-family homes

Bay Area home prices continued to climb in August, 2020, driven by demad for high-end homes. (Courtesy of Pacific Union Real Estate)

By LOUIS HANSEN | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 7, 2020 at 10:05 a.m. | UPDATED: October 7, 2020 at 2:57 p.m.

With millions out of work, and restaurants, shops and retailers closing, one spot in the economy shines for thriving and affluent professionals — Bay Area real estate.

As if the devastating pandemic had passed over the tech campuses, Spanish-tiled roofs and Tesla- filled garages of Silicon Valley, luxury home sales exploded in August and drove median prices up 16 percent from the previous year to levels approaching the market peak in 2018.

The median sale price for an existing single family home in August in the Bay Area was $975,000, according to DQNews data. The gains were driven by a limited supply of properties for sale and a greater portion of high-end homes selling, agents and economists said. “We’ve never seen such high price appreciation in a recession,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist with real estate data firm CoreLogic. “The recession hasn’t hit everyone the same way.”

Year-over-year prices soared throughout most of the nine Bay Area counties: increasing 19 percent to $1.73 million in San Mateo; 18.6 percent to $1.34 million in Santa Clara; 18.6 percent to $770,00 in Contra Costa; and 13.4 percent to $975,000 in Alameda. The pandemic has continued to cool demand in San Francisco, where prices gained 3 percent to $1.55 million, according to DQNews.

The number of Bay Area homes sold grew by about 9 percent from last August, as traditional spring buyers waited until summer to tour and close deals.

Nationally, home prices climbed 14 percent, year-over-year, in late August and September, according to Redfin. The company’s chief economist Daryl Fairweather noted warning signs on the horizon — waning mortgage applications and more home listings boosting supply.

“Although the housing market is still red-hot, there are some early signs we may be nearing peak price growth,” Fairweather said. “This is likely to be as good as it gets for home sellers, who definitely have had it very good for a very long time.”

But the Bay Area is expected to counter that national trend. Professionals in tech and other fields have been able to work remotely, sustaining a stronger economy than regions dependent on service workers like Las Vegas, Hepp said. In recent years, home prices in both regions have climbed. But CoreLogic now projects Bay Area home prices will rise 7.8 percent, while Las Vegas prices will fall 6.5 percent by August 2021.

Bay Area agents say demand is driven by techies and professionals looking for more space for family and home office Zoom-rooms.

Will Doerlich, an agent with Realty One Group in San Ramon, said single family homes in the suburbs of Contra Costa and Alameda counties have been atop many wish lists. Fewer homes for sale has meant fierce bidding wars in the East Bay. “It’s not slowing down,” he said.

One listing in San Leandro for a small, two-bedroom house on a big lot drew 500 views online within the first 24 hours, Doerlich said. The home received 11 offers and sold for $40,000 more than the list price. That type of interest has been consistent during the summer, despite covid safety restriction limiting access for home tours, he said.

Agent Jeff LaMont of San Mateo said low interest rates and strong employment in software and biotech industries have driven millennial couples into the market. His advice to buyers: “Don’t overthink it. Grab the cheap money while you can.”

The typical interest rate for a standard, 30-year fixed mortgage is 2.9 percent, according to a Freddie Mac October survey.

The growing popularity of the suburbs has been fueled by major tech firms allowing many employees to work from home well into next year, minimizing commutes as a factor for homebuyers. Google, Facebook and Salesforce announced workers could stay home through next summer, and Twitter left the decision open-ended.

Zoheb Allam and his wife, Nishaath Khan, decided to move to San Francisco shortly after they were married. The couple, both tech workers, planned to spend two years living the city life — restaurants, bars, theaters and shops within walking distance of their SoMa apartment. “We always dreamed what it would be like in the big city,” said Allam, 31. “When covid hit, our story changed.”

Their $3,700-a-month one-bedroom in SoMa was a small redoubt in a neighborhood of closed bars and limited office and restaurant traffic. The large homeless population and some residents with aggressive behavior made them weary of routine trips.

“We felt very boxed in,” Allam said. “What is really the point of sitting in San Francisco, paying the kind of rent we’re paying?”

They started looking for homes in Alameda County and opted out of their lease after one year. They settled in a two-bedroom apartment in Livermore, and continue to search for their first home. They’d like to stay in Livermore. “It’s the right move,” Allam said, “at the right time.”

Budget deficit hits record $3 trillion amid virus relief

San Francisco Chronicle 9 Oct 2020

By Andrew Taylor and Lisa Mascaro Andrew Taylor and Lisa Mascaro are Associated Press writers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’s “at the table” and ready to negotiate a coronavirus aid package even after President Trump halted talks abruptly earlier in the week. WASHINGTON — New, eyepopping federal budget figures released Thursday show an enormous $3.1 trillion deficit in the justcompleted fiscal year, a record swelled by coronavirus relief spending that pushed the tally of red ink to three times that of last year. The Congressional Budget Office released the unofficial 2020 figures Thursday, saying the deficit equaled 15% of the U.S. economy, a huge gap that was the largest since the government undertook massive borrowing to finance the final year of World War II. The government spent $6.6 trillion last year and borrowed 48 cents of every dollar it spent, CBO said. The numbers amount to a 47% increase in spending, led by $578 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program for smaller businesses, and a $443 billion increase in unemployment benefits over the past six months alone. The massive figures were expected but still stunning, more than double the previous deficit record of $1.4 trillion that was registered during former President Barack Obama’s first year in office during the Great Recession in 2009. Revenues also contributed to the bleak fiscal picture, falling $44 billion to $3.4 trillion, as income tax receipts dropped almost 16% as the jobless rate spiked. Corporate income taxes dropped by 21%, even as Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes climbed 5%. Economists say the most significant measure of government deficits is to compare them to the gross domestic product. By that score, the flood of red ink in 2020 still blew past Obama’s 2009 record, in which the deficit almost hit 10% of GDP. The CBO estimate is preliminary, based on daily Treasury reports, but is likely to match the official numbers due from Treasury and the White House budget office later this month. The figures come as Washington has been debating another round of COVID19 relief, spending that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jay Powell says is needed to ease the chances of a doubledip recession and a higher jobless rate. But talks have broken down and fears are rising that more fiscal stimulus will have to wait until next year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she’s “at the table” and ready to negotiate a coronavirus aid package even after President Trump halted talks abruptly. His decision earlier this week sent the jittery economy reeling and left his GOP allies scrambling as millions of Americans go without jobless assistance, hopedfor business support or expanded testing protocols weeks before Election Day. Pelosi said she told Trump’s chief negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, she is willing to consider a measure to prop up the airline industry, which is facing widespread layoffs. But that aid, she said, must go alongside broader legislation that includes the kind of COVID testing, tracing and health practices that Democrats say are needed as part of a national strategy to “crush the virus.” Democrats have made it clear they will not do a piecemeal approach until the Trump administration signs off on a broader, comprehensive plan they are proposing for virus testing, tracing and other actions to stop its spread. They have scaled back a $3 trillion measure to a $2.2 trillion proposal. The White House presented a $1.6 trillion counter offer. Talks were ongoing when Trump shut them down. The Covidrelated spike in the deficit obscures a smaller, steady rise in the deficit under Trump’s watch. Trump in 2017 engineered a large tax cut whose 10year cost has been matched by pandemic relief efforts over the past six months alone. In August, CBO issued a 10year estimate predicting the deficit would decline to $1.8 trillion in the 2021 budget year that began Oct. 1 and would register $13 trillion over the coming decade. It would average 5% of GDP over that time, a level that many economists fear could lead to higher interest rates and a stagnating economy.

Impact of October Surprise, jobs report

The Mercury News 12 Oct 2020 JILL SCHLESINGER

As the shocking news emerged that the president and first lady tested positive for the coronavirus, some investors may have wondered if this was the “October Surprise” they feared. Presuming that the President recovers, investors are also absorbing the last employment report before the election. The September jobs report showed that the pace of economic progress is slowing down. The economy added a lower than expected 661,000 new positions, the smallest rise since the job recovery began and a significant deceleration from the spring bounce back. ( Note: recent announcements of layoffs from large airlines, Disney, publisher Houghton Mifflin, insurer Allstate, and designer Ralph Lauren, were not included in the September report.) The U.S. now has 10.7 million fewer workers employed than it did in February. To put that into perspective, for the five years starting in 2015 through 2019, the economy added a total of just over 11.6 million jobs, so the pandemic has wiped out almost five years of job gains. At the current pace, it would take another 16 months for the U.S. to regain the pandemic jobs lost.

The unemployment rate fell from 8.4% to 7.9%, but partially for the wrong reason—the number of people who are in the work force (the “participation rate”) dropped to 61.4%, two percent lower than it was before the pandemic. Front and center of those opting out, are women, especially those with school-age children. The September jobs report syncs up with findings from “Women in the Workplace 2020”, an annual analysis conducted by McKinsey & Company and Lean In, which surveyed more than 40,000 people across 317 companies from June to August of 2020. McKinsey found that “more than one in four women are contemplating what many would have considered unthinkable just six months ago: downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce completely.” This was the first time in the six years of the survey that women appear to be leaving the workforce at higher rates than men, with as many as two million women considering leaving the labor market. If the trend were to hold, this would be bad news for the closing of the gender wage and promotion gap.

The September jobs report also highlighted the racial employment gap. Diane Swonk, Chief Economist at Grant Thornton wrote, “The unemployment rate for Black workers held at 12.1% in September, nearly double the unemployment rate for white workers. White workers are being hired back much more rapidly than Black workers, which is exacerbating inequality.” The unemployment remains stubbornly high for Hispanic Americans too — 10.3%. Like the gender gap, the pandemic is exacerbating the racial gap. According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance for 2019, inflation-adjusted net worth (the difference between families’ gross assets and their liabilities) rose 18% between 2016 and 2019 to $121,700. Over the time period, Black non-Hispanic and Hispanic families saw big gains, but even with the progress, “the typical White non-Hispanic family still had more than double the amount of wealth than the typical family in any other racial or ethnic group in 2019.” Under the hood of the Fed’s report, the details are sobering:

• White non-Hispanic family wealth: $188,200 • Hispanic or Latino family wealth: $36,200 • Black non-Hispanic family wealth: $24,100 Where does this leave us? The economy is recovering, but the pace is slowing. The pandemic continues to wreak havoc on household finances, especially for low-wage workers, people of color and women. The September jobs report shows that economists and Fed officials are rightly concerned that there needs to be additional stimulus to protect at-risk Americans and to propel the seemingly stalling recovery.

Skelton: How an otter is protecting California land and coast Newsom’s childhood pet inspires effort to protect the environment

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference at Sierra Orchards walnut farm in Winters, in Solano County on Oct. 7. Newsom signed an executive order to protect nearly a third of California’s land and coastal waters in his latest effort to fight climate change that he has blamed for recent record-breaking wildfires. (Ren C. Byer/The Sacramento Bee via AP, Pool)

By GEORGE SKELTON | Los Angeles Times

October 13, 2020 at 12:40 p.m.

Now we get it: California Gov. Gavin Newsom was first inspired to fight climate change and protect the environment by his childhood pet — Potter, the river otter.

Some of us thought Gov. Jerry Brown was a bit strange. But he didn’t cozy up to a river otter as a little kid. Nor was Brown particularly concerned about insects — at least that we know about. Newsom was and is. Newsom told reporters about his early introduction to environmental causes last week while unveiling yet another executive order — this one to protect 30% of California’s land and coastal waters in their semi-natural state by 2030.

Not only would that help threatened animals, fish and wildlands, the governor said, but it would also slow global warming by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.

Give Newsom credit. It’s a noble and lofty goal. And probably achievable.

Too bad a forward-looking governor didn’t commit to that a century ago, before California became overrun with people, sickened by pollution and set ablaze by flammable wildlands. It’s not all the fault of climate change.

California has lost 95% of its wetlands since the early 1900s.

“It’s incredible, the loss of wetlands in the Central Valley,” says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. There have been successful efforts in the last 30 years to save what’s left, he says.

“That’s exciting. And it’s what we want to do more of — to stem that loss and maybe add some back.”

Back to Newsom’s early environmental training:

The governor’s grandfather on his mother’s side, Arthur Menzies, who was imprisoned by the Japanese on Corregidor Island during World War II, returned “with one mindset,” Newsom said, “and that was a focus on California native plants. There’s a wonderful Menzies garden in the Bay Area.”

His grandfather “studied for decades — native plants and native species” of California, Newsom said. “I’ve always shared a little bit of that bias.”

His late father, William Newsom, founded the Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation and promoted a successful ballot measure that protected the cougars. The governor’s dad also became enamored with river otters.

“My first pet when I was a young child (was) a river otter,” Newsom said. “Some people have dogs and cats. I had a river otter — Potter the Otter.

“When I think about climate change, I think about animals. I think about plants. I think about insects. I think about farming…”

Last year, Newsom regaled a second-grade class in the fire-ravaged Sacramento Valley town of Paradise with a story about his pet otter.

“I’d get cozy with it,” he told the 7- and 8-year-olds, Times staff writer Taryn Luna reported. Potter slept curled up on little Gavin’s bed.

During the school visit, Newsom told reporters that his parents argued about Potter’s place in the family. “There was the moment where the otter bit the mailman, and my mother said to my father, ‘It is either your son and daughter, or your damn otter,’” Newsom recalled. The governor jokingly added that Potter may have been “one of the reasons for the divorce.”

Newsom’s latest environmental effort is called a “30 by 30” plan — part of a worldwide effort to protect 30% of Earth by 2030. Thirty-eight countries have signed on. California is the first state to do so.

The reason Newsom’s goal seems achievable is because 22% of California’s land and 16% of its coastal waters are already protected, state officials say.

Governments — federal, state and local — own 53% of California. Newsom’s order directs state agencies to work with other governments and private landowners to devise ways to protect animals, plants, water and soil — and improve wildland management to guard against fires.

With his simpler “30 by 30” order, Newsom is hoping to gather all the leery interests around a campfire and lead them in a chorus of Kumbaya.

We all should sing a toast to Potter.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist. © 2020 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

California home prices to grow more slowly next year, Realtors forecast, but sales may be stronger

Kathleen Pender Oct. 13, 2020 Updated: Oct. 13, 2020 6:38 p.m.

Fog shrouds new homes under construction last month in South San Francisco. Sales are expected to grow next year, after being dampened by pandemic restrictions this year.Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Ultra-low mortgage rates and pent-up demand for single-family homes will offset continued economic uncertainty and a supply shortage in 2021, with the net result being a 3.3% increase in California home sales and a modest 1.3% increase in the median price next year versus 2020, according to a California Association of Realtors forecast published Tuesday. With only a few months left to go, sales this year are expected to be 4.5% lower than last year but prices are likely to be 8.1% higher. Last year at this time, the association predicted that 2020 sales would increase 0.8% and prices would rise 2.5%, but that was before the coronavirus pandemic upended forecasts of all kinds. Sales this year were weaker than expected mainly because shelter-in-place orders brought the real estate market to a near standstill for several months starting in March, although sales have since rebounded.

“Prices were a lot stronger (than anticipated) because we were not forecasting mortgage rates to go down to 2.8%,” said Jordan Levine, the association’s deputy chief economist.

Some of this year’s price increase was driven by sales of luxury and second homes. The median is the price at which half of homes sold for more and half for less, and can be influenced by a change in the mix of high- and low-end homes being sold. Robust sales of multimillion-dollar homes are “pumping up the median price,” Levine said. “The stock market came back a lot faster than the labor market. That enabled a quicker recovery at the upper end.”

It’s more evidence that pandemic “really had a disproportionate impact. People in professional services tend to be higher-income individuals and were able to carry on” better than people in lower-paying occupations.

In 2021, “we do expect the market to shift more toward owner-occupant, entry-level homes,” Levine said. That’s why price gains next year will be “a little more muted” than this year.

Rising interest rates could threaten affordability, but the association predicts that 30-year fixed mortgage rates will average 3.1% in 2021, down from 3.2% in 2020 and from 3.9% in 2019, and still low by historical standards.

The association’s forecast covers existing single-family homes, not condos or new construction. It did not break out forecasts for regions within the state, but San Francisco is expected to be the strongest in the state, according to Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist with CoreLogic.

She predicted that between August 2020 and August 2021, the median price of existing, single-family homes and condos will rise 7.8% in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, 6.9% in Santa Clara and San Benito counties, 4.5% in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, 2% in Marin County, 13.2% in Napa County and 0.6% in Sonoma County.

By comparison, she expects prices will be 5% higher throughout California and flat nationwide.

One reason the Bay Area will do better than most is because it has a lower percentage of homes in forbearance and higher average homeowner equity than most places.

Homeowners with government-backed mortgages who have a financial hardship because of the coronavirus can request a forbearance, which allows them to postpone payments, without incurring penalties, for up to 12 months. Next year, as their forbearance period expires, many will be able to work out a modification and keep their homes, but if they can’t, some may be forced to sell and that could put downward pressure on prices.

The more equity they have in their homes, the more options they will have, such as refinancing, Hepp said. The average homeowner equity in San Francisco and San Mateo counties is just over $1 million, she said. The statewide average in the second quarter of this year was $408,000, second only to Hawaii with $450,000 in average homeowner equity. The U.S. average was $185,000. In September, economists with the UCLA Anderson School of Management said construction of new housing will be an area “of particular strength” in the California economy next year. They predicted “a quick recovery to pre-recession levels, with residential building permits almost back to their 2020 first quarter level by year’s end.”

Jerry Nickelsburg, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, said low interest rates, the state’s chronic housing shortage, pent-up demand and “some movement on the regulatory side,” making it easier to build new units, will encourage developers to build. By the fourth quarter of 2022, he expects permit issuance, for rental and owner-occupied housing statewide, will hit 130,000 units on an annualized basis, compared with an estimated 117,400 units at the end of this year and 110,000 units at the end of last year. That increase of about 12,600 units over the next two years includes the replacement of some homes destroyed by wildfires.

“That means an increase in demand for construction workers. That is a bright spot when some of our sectors that are lagging behind,” Nickelsburg said. “It’s not a barn-burner, but it’s a bright spot.”

San Jose leads jobs increase as California unemployment rate falls to 11%

Chase DiFeliciantonio Oct. 16, 2020 Updated: Oct. 16, 2020 6:15 p.m.

The California Employment Development Department recently resumed accepting new unemployment claims after the agency called a two-week halt to change systems. Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

California’s unemployment rate fell from 11.2% in August to 11% in September, according to government data released Friday — but it’s still far from the near full employment the state enjoyed at the beginning of the year, and well above the national unemployment rate of 7.9%.

Some 2,058,800 people statewide were unemployed in September, an improvement from August but up by more than 1.3 million compared to September of last year. In the Bay Area, San Jose saw the largest payroll increase, with the number of jobs rising by 9,000 positions last month, according to analysis by Beacon Economics and the UC Riverside School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development.

San Francisco added 5,400 positions while the East Bay saw 4,300 more jobs, that analysis found.

California has regained about 38% of the 2,615,800 non-farm jobs lost during March and April directly related to the pandemic, according to the state’s Employment Development Department.

California added 96,000 non-farm jobs between August and September, and seven out of 11 major industries showed gains, notably leisure and hospitality, which added almost 50,000 jobs. Government jobs dropped most sharply in September, with more than 14,000 jobs lost, many of which included temporary census positions.

Ben Wright, senior economist with the California Economic Forecast, an economic consulting firm, said the state unemployment report seemed “lukewarm.” Wright said if California consistently added a few hundred thousand jobs each month, it would signal a more robust recovery.

“We’re into a slow, plodding recovery,” Wright said, adding that the unemployment rate raises concerns that the state might not fully recover until 2022 or 2023.

“We’re seeing some (industries) contracting and some stuck in neutral,” Wright said, noting hiring in hospitality as a bright spot despite out-of-state tourism remaining low.

He said that information-sector jobs showed only weak improvement, with 200 positions added between August and September, a worrying sign of potentially more deep-seated weakness.

California’s gains accounted for roughly 15% of jobs added nationwide, according to Michael Bernick, an attorney with law firm Duane Morris LLP and former head of the state’s EDD.

Bernick called the gains “surprisingly strong,” particularly given Californians’ high number of unemployment filings compared to other states in recent months.

While the jobs added were uneven across industries, Bernick noted they were distributed across the state.

While Southern California led the charge with the most jobs added, the unemployment rate for Los Angeles County stood at a stubbornly high 15.1%.

John Johnson, CEO of Edgeworth Economics, said that while the state’s employment recovery has lagged behind the national average, its virus case rates staying where they are bodes well for a future recovery.

For some workers facing long-term unemployment, the prospect of never returning to work becomes more real with each passing day.

Lorenzia Lewis worked as a kitchen supervisor and chef at the Hyatt Place hotel in Emeryville before he was laid off in April as the pandemic shut down travel and ground the hospitality industry to a standstill. Lewis, a member of the Unite Here Local 2850 union, said while he used to regularly make over $3,000 each month, his income has been cut by more than half while on unemployment and he has had to dig into retirement savings to get by.

“We need to know when we’re going to come back to work,” Lewis said, adding that he and his fellow laid-off union members had not been given a timeline from their employer about when they might be able to work again.

Recovery continues, slowly

Unemployment improved in September across the Bay Area, which continues to outperform the state.

County or area September unemployment rate August Alameda 9.3% 11.6% Contra Costa 9.3 9.8

Marin 6.5 7 Napa 7.6 8.3 San Francisco 8.4 8.8

San Mateo 7.1 7.5 Santa Clara 7 7.5

Solano 9.7 10.3 Note: Statewide total is seasonally adjusted, while Sonoma 7.2 7.7 county and Bay Area figures are not. Bay Area 8.4 8.7 Source: California Employment Development California 11 11.2 Department

Lewis said his wife is still working but he has one daughter still in college, and “you’ve still got to pay your bills.” He said he will turn 60 in December, and his situation has forced him to reassess his retirement plans.

Underscoring the ongoing economic pain caused by the pandemic in California, unemployment payments under state and federal programs since March to out-of-work people statewide topped $100

billion this week, according to the EDD.

Some counties, including San Francisco and others in the Bay Area, have made progress combating the virus enough to be allowed to reopen some indoor dining and other businesses at reduced capacity.

Those businesses have brought back some employees, gains which are not necessarily reflected in the state’s September jobs report, which looked at the week of Sept. 12.

Nationwide, new unemployment filings increased last week to 898,000 seasonally adjusted, an increase from 840,000 compared with the week before. California’s unemployment claims numbers were not clear on Thursday as the state’s Employment Development Department only recently resumed accepting new claims after a two-week halt to retool software and systems. It is trying to clear a backlog that currently stretches into next year.

The department officials began accepting new claims again last week.

Lewis, the Hyatt chef, has found refuge in playing the piano, a longtime passion that became all the more important to fill the time and bridge the financial gap.

Lewis said he began to give piano lessons when schools were closed to help make ends meet. But with school back in session remotely and many parents facing financial uncertainty, he has had to cut back how much he charges and teaches fewer students.

“I was really busy,” over the summer teaching four or five days a week and two or three students a day, Lewis said. He said he still plays most days, even with fewer students to teach.

“It was one way I can absorb some of the uncertainty of not working my normal job,” Lewis said. Along with playing music, Lewis said he strongly believes in the power of prayer.

“I pray a lot and through prayer I have hope and through hope I have a future,” he said. “And I’m not giving up.”

Awash in Red Ink: US Posts Record $3.1T 2020 Budget Deficit

It was the government's largest annual deficit in dollar terms, surpassing the previous record of $1.4 trillion set in 2009 By Martin Crutsinger • Published October 16, 2020 • Updated on October 16, 2020 at 3:25 pm

Dan Moore/Getty Images

File photo - The U.S. Treasury Building in Washington D.C.

The federal budget deficit hit an all-time high of $3.1 trillion in the 2020 budget year, more than double the previous record, as the coronavirus pandemic shrank revenues and sent spending soaring.

The Trump administration reported Friday that the deficit for the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 was three times the size of last year's deficit of $984 billion. It was also $2 trillion higher than the administration had estimated in February, before the pandemic hit. It was the government's largest annual shortfall in dollar terms, surpassing the previous record of $1.4 trillion set in 2009. At that time, the Obama administration was spending heavily to shore up the nation's banking system and limit the economic damage from the 2008 financial crisis.

The 2020 deficit, in terms of its relationship to the economy, represented 15.2% of total gross domestic product, the sum of all the goods and services produced by the country. That was the highest level since 1945, when the U.S. was borrowing heavily to finance World War II.

The administration's final accounting of the 2020 budget year shows that revenues fell by 1.2% to $3.42 trillion, while government spending surged 47.3% to $6.55 trillion. That spending reflects the relief programs Congress passed in the spring to support the economy as millions of Americans were losing their jobs.

Many of the benefit programs expired in late July or early August, and so far Democrats and Republicans have been unable to agree on legislation to re-instate them. Republicans have balked at the level of spending sought by Democrats, who warn that without significant support the country could be facing a double-dip recession.

While about half of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April have been recovered, the concern is that without more government support, those still without work will be unable to make their rent or mortgage payments and buy food. In addition to the human toll, the result would be a significant drag on U.S. economic growth.

President Donald Trump has said he is willing to compromise with Democrats on a new relief package but Senate Republicans have indicated they don't support the spending levels being put forward by Democrats.

“The administration remains fully committed to supporting American workers, families and businesses and to ensuring that our robust rebound continues,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement released with the budget report.

The joint report from Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget showed that total government receipts of $1.61 trillion were $286 billion lower than the administration had projected in February. That reflected a drop of $203 billion in individual income taxes from the February forecast and a decline of $51.8 billion in corporate income taxes from the February projection.

The $6.55 trillion in spending — $1.76 trillion higher than the administration’s February estimate — includes the coronavirus relief programs passed by Congress, such as individual economic impact payments of $1,200, expanded weekly unemployment benefits of $600 per week and the Paycheck Protection Program to provide support to small businesses.

Despite all the borrowing required to finance the surging deficit, interest payments on the debt actually came in $53.8 billion below the administration’s February projection. That was due to interest rates being lower than expected this year because of the recession that began in February.

The low interest rates are a key reason economists are not as concerned about the rising debt burden caused by the deficit. The federal deficit is approaching 100% of GDP and is projected to top that amount in 2021.

“It’s disappointing to both candidates for president proposing trillions of dollars in additional debt,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “The deeper we dig this hole, the harder it will be to claw our way out.”

Copyright AP - Associated Press

East Bay fire district seeks emergency declaration Officials with agency say move would let it pursue additional funding, resources

Jose Carlos Fajardo/staff archives

A firefighter drags a hose to battle a grass fire Oct. 27, 2019, on East Cypress Road in Knightsen. Wildfires, droughts and now a pandemic have all combined to push the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District further into a state of emergency, fire officials say, but without the authority to declare itself in such a crisis the district’s cries for help have largely gone unanswered.

By JUDITH PRIEVE | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 15, 2020 at 1:22 p.m. | UPDATED: October 17, 2020 at 4:21 p.m.

Wildfires, droughts and now a pandemic have all combined to push the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District further into a state of emergency, agency officials say.

But without the authority to declare itself in such a crisis — only cities, counties, state and federal agencies can do that — the district’s cries for help have largely gone unanswered, fire officials add. In an effort to change that, the fire district’s board has directed its chief to work with Oakley, Brentwood and Contra Costa County to declare public safety emergencies, which would let the district apply for state and federal money that it cannot secure alone.

“Our situation has not improved,” fire district Board of Directors President Brian Oftedal said about staffing, stations, equipment and response times. “We have been in the eye of the storm for years. This is one of those attempts to weather the storm by reaching out. With the assistance of local counterparts, this could get us on the radar of other governmental agencies to see what opportunities are available.”

Without such help, Oftedal added, the fire district will only be able to provide “a subpar level of service.”

The district has been forced to close several stations in the past few years and is down to three, half as many as fire officials say are needed to serve the district’s 249 square miles and 128,000 residents. Another new station in Oakley sits idle without the money to staff it. In the past few months, the district has been working to revise the impact fees cities charge developers to help pay for fire services.

Those fees haven’t been updated for years, and the district is in the process of creating a community facilities district to also help pay for operating expenses. Resources meanwhile continue to be strained as the wildfire seasons get longer and hotter and the district gets calls to help fight major blazes such as the recent SCU Lightning Complex Fire at Round Valley, Chief Brian Helmick said in his report.

“This is our opportunity to look outside the box,” Oftedal said. “We need to utilize our partners to declare an emergency because at some point we are not going to be able to keep the pace. This is a way to ensure that we can get on different desks — even on the governor’s desk.”

Referring to the the state-of-emergency declarations the fire district is seeking, “This is that cry for help — to try to be creative and turn over every rock and get to every desk that we haven’t gotten to yet,” he added.

Fire district board Director Joe Young agreed with the president’s assessment of their agency’s financial state.

Five-alarm Peninsula hillside fire erupts amid Bay Area heat wave and federal disaster relief controversy Trump Administration swiftly reverses course on decision to deny federal disaster declarations for September wildfires including record-setting Creek Fire

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 16: Firefighters from different agencies contained a five-alarm grass fire oh the signature "South San Francisco The Industrial City" sign as firefighters battle a three-alarm structural fire at Starlite Street near South Spruce Avenue in South San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020(Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) By ROBERT SALONGA | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 16, 2020 at 2:07 p.m. | UPDATED: October 18, 2020 at 5:09 a.m.

California’s ongoing debate with the Trump administration over who or what is to blame for this year’s devastating wildfires careened into a high-stakes battle over a tense 36-hour period, as federal officials denied the state’s latest request for disaster assistance before finally relenting Friday. But it took a phone call from Gov. Gavin Newsom to President Donald Trump to help settle a situation that threatened to saddle a state already facing a huge budget deficit with hundreds of millions in additional costs for a fire season that has already consumed more than twice the acreage of any previous year.

“Just got off the phone with President Trump who has approved our Major Disaster Declaration request. Grateful for his quick response,” Newsom stated in a tweet and news release early Friday afternoon. Unlike many of his fellow governors, Newsom has scrupulously sought to avoid criticizing Trump personally, although he has slipped a few times.

As if to punctuate the issues behind the standoff, a five-alarm grass fire ignited on one of the most distinctive hillsides in the Bay Area on Friday, producing smoke and flames on Sign Hill alongside the signature “South San Francisco The Industrial City” lettering introducing motorists and airplanes to the Peninsula berg.

Nearby residents were ordered to evacuate as firefighters sprayed water from the balconies of their hillside homes and a Cal Fire airplane dropped red flame retardant from the sky. But within an hour of the fire’s eruption just before noon Friday, firefighters made rapid headway in containing the blaze and keeping it from seriously threatening homes.

Two boys — ages 14 and 16 — were reportedly seen leaving the area where the fire started, the South San Francisco Police Department said in a news release late Friday. Police said the boys were questioned by detectives and they admitted to starting the fire. The boys were released to their parents pending the completion of the investigation. The fire came amid scorching temperatures and heightened wildfire precautions during the region’s latest heat wave. But as a cooling trend took hold, the fire danger eased Friday, and electricity began to be restored to area residents who lost power earlier due to concerns that high winds might knock over energized lines, touching off new blazes.

Newsom largely has blamed the weather for the fire season and has announced sweeping new measures to combat global warming over the last two months, including phasing out new gasoline- powered cars in the state by 2035.

Trump, in contrast, has repeatedly faulted the state for poor forest management, while ignoring the fact that the majority of California’s forests are owned by the federal government. Beginning last year, he began to threaten a cutoff of federal wildfire aid if the state did not conduct wildfire policy to his liking.

That recent history loomed large when the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied Newsom’s most recent request for disaster aid, in a letter dated Wednesday. The agency opined that the set of September fires Newsom was citing — the Creek Fire, which has burned about 344,000 acres to date; the Bobcat Fire northeast of Los Angeles; the notorious gender-reveal-party-ignited El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino County; and fires in Mendocino, Siskiyou and San Diego counties — were “not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies.” There wasn’t any additional rationale given for the decision. While state Democrats immediately blamed Trump, it was hard to square the theory with the federal government’s simultaneous move to increase federal resources to help the recovery from the Lightning Complex Fires — CZU, SCU and LNU — that enveloped huge swaths of the North Bay and Santa Cruz County in August. Trump had earlier granted federal disaster status for those fires, and Tuesday FEMA announced it had upped its coverage for debris removal and emergency protective measures from 75% to 100%.

Newsom may not deserve all of the credit for the eventual turnabout on the latest fires. About two hours before Newsom announced he had spoken with the president, Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, whose congressional district encompasses most of the Creek Fire, credited House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — whose district sits between that fire and the Bobcat Fire — as he tweeted Trump’s plans to reverse FEMA’s denial. But whoever persuaded the president, the benefits to California are substantial.

In his Sept. 28 letter requesting the federal declaration, Newsom estimated that the September fires caused nearly $350 million in damage eligible for FEMA relief funds, including damage to roads, bridges, parks and park facilities, downed trees and power stations. The letter also estimated $250 million in damage to homes for this group of fires.

“This all comes during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and relentless successive disasters to strike California, making the impact even more significant,” the letter concludes.

Back in the Bay Area, residents were still grappling with PG&E’s public-safety power shutoffs that were scheduled to end Friday evening, though the utility said it was able to decrease the footprint of affected residents that started seeing service disruptions Wednesday. Most of the red-flag fire warnings — spurred by forecasts of heavy gusts, low humidity and high heat — were expected to taper off Friday night, but residents in the North Bay mountains and East Bay hills are on alert at least through Saturday morning.

Duane Dykema, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area station, said noticeable cooling will start Sunday. Forecasters are predicting another burst of warmth, but given what just went through the region, it will have to pass for relief.

“Based on what we’re seeing in our longer-range models, it will warm up again in the middle of the week,” Dykema said. “But it won’t be a major heat wave.”

California needs forests to fight climate change, but they are going up in smoke

By Nichola Groom 7 M I N R E A D

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California’s record wildfires pose a problem for the state’s plan to use its forests to help offset climate-warming emissions.

It is unclear how much California’s plan for becoming carbon-neutral by 2045 depends on its forests. But as climate change fuels increasingly frequent and intense blazes, any plan that relies on keeping forests healthy could be frustrated.

California’s climate-change agenda is among the most ambitious in the United States, but thanks to wildfires, forests are “part of the problem, not part of the solution,” Edie Chang, a deputy executive director at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), told Reuters.

With global efforts to cut the use of fossil fuels falling short of what is needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change, scientists believe capturing climate pollution already emitted will be necessary to limit warming. Maintaining the health of forests, which suck up and store carbon, are among those solutions.

The most populous U.S. state has suffered five of its six largest wildfires in history this year as heat waves and dry-lightning sieges coincided with drier conditions that climate scientists blame on global warming.

This year, a record 4 million acres in California have burned, releasing decades of stored carbon into the atmosphere. That amounts to more than 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, assuming the scorched acres held similar amounts of carbon as acres burned in previous years, said Emily McGlynn, an environmental economist at the University of California, Davis.

That is equivalent to nearly half the state’s annual human-caused emissions. And that is just for 2020.

Between 2001 and 2014, California’s forests and natural lands lost an amount of carbon equivalent to 511 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, McGlynn said - roughly the same amount emitted by the state’s transportation sector over three years, according to data from the state’s Air Resources Board.

Wildfires accounted for three-quarters of that carbon release from forests, while logging and tree pruning as part of forest management made up the rest, state records show. While some amount of fire is needed for maintaining healthy forests, scientists say the size and frequency of recent fires may be pushing natural systems out of balance here.

“California is kind of ground zero for some of the most extreme climate impacts,” McGlynn said. FORESTS OFFSET EMISSIONS

Alarmed by the scale of destruction, California Governor Gavin Newsom this week asked state agencies to craft policies toward storing more carbon on natural lands, calling that “a critical part of the climate change conversation.”

The state next year will implement changes to its cap-and-trade program that could boost the market price for carbon credits and spark more private investment in improving forests in California.

Under the cap-and-trade scheme large emitters face a carbon limit and can buy allowances if they exceed it. Companies can currently use forest carbon credits to offset up to 8% of their greenhouse gas emissions.

However, conservation projects covered by the program to date account for only about 1.5% of California’s 33 million forested acres, or about 490,000 acres. Since the program launched in 2013, those projects have been issued credits to offset 26 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That is equivalent to about 6% of the state’s total annual emissions.

California’s market prices 1 metric ton of carbon at around $17 - not enough to incentivize landowners to conserve land rather than develop it, said Noah Deich, executive director of Carbon 180, a nonprofit that advocates for practices that remove carbon from the atmosphere. “The goal of that carbon-offsets program was never primarily to incentivize large- scale forest preservation and or restoration,” Deich said, but rather to make it cheaper for emitters to meet their cap and trade obligations.

If the state’s carbon price of about $17 per metric ton were applied to this year’s estimated wildfire emissions, that would work out to roughly $3.4 billion in potential carbon market value up in smoke.

Most of this year’s burned lands, however, are not part of the cap-and-trade scheme, which serves California-based companies but includes conservation projects outside the state. Next year, California will limit the contribution of out-of-state projects in order to make sure the offset program benefits Californians directly. Companies, however, will be able to offset only up to 4% of their emissions with those projects starting next year. SCALING UP INFRASTRUCTURE

Since 2018, another ferocious wildfire year, the state government has sought to help private businesses reduce wildfire risks by gathering forest debris for commercial use such as transportation fuels or building products. An August report by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggested 800,000 acres of California’s forests could be treated profitably each year.

California had developed a forest management plan for state-owned lands, but it was never finalized because Newsom’s administration said it was not ambitious enough and failed to account for the fact that the federal government owns about 60% of the forests, said CARB spokesman Stanley Young.

The state already spends more than the federal government in maintaining forests, according to an analysis here of recent data by Reuters.

In August, California announced an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to reduce wildfire risk in part by using controlled burns and other means to clear 1 million acres of dead wood and other debris each year up to 2025. The deal also seeks to develop markets for woody biomass and a comprehensive statewide plan for forest management that will last 20 years.

The plan is aimed at protecting large trees in particular, which absorb and store carbon over hundreds of years. “We need to be able to scale up an entire infrastructure around this,” said Jessica Morse, deputy secretary for forest resources management with the California Natural Resources Agency.

California Supreme Court to review legality of Bay Area bridge toll hikes At the crux is whether the toll hike required a two-thirds majority approval to pass rather than a simple majority

Commuters slowly pass through the toll booths at the Bay Bridge toll plaza during the morning commute in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, June 7, 2018. A measure to raise bridge tolls by $3 to pay for $4.45 billion in transportation projects passed Tuesday. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)

By WILL HOUSTON | [email protected] | Marin Independent Journal

October 18, 2020 at 7:00 a.m.

By Will Houston, Marin IJ In a case that could decide whether $4.5 billion will be used to improve regional transportation options, the California Supreme Court last week agreed to take up a challenge from taxpayer advocates on whether a $3 toll hike on Bay Area bridges is legal. The case, which affects tolls on seven state-owned bridges is being closely watched by both government officials and transit activists. At its core is whether the toll hike required a two-thirds majority approval by voters in the nine-county Bay Area to pass rather than a simple majority.

Placed on the ballot by the state Legislature in 2017 and approved by 55% of Bay Area voters in 2018, Regional Measure 3 increases tolls on the seven state-owned bridges by $3 between 2019 and 2025. The next $1 toll increase is set to take effect in January 2022. The final increase is slated for January 2025.

Officials from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which manages the bridge tolls and revenues, said they were disappointed by the court’s decision to take up the case, but not surprised.

“What is unfortunate, really, is that we may be held in this limbo and having to escrow these funds for another year or longer,” MTC spokesman John Goodwin said.

About $200 million in toll revenues collected from the measure so far have been held in escrow ever since the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Oakland resident Randall Whitney filed their challenges against the measure in the San Francisco Superior Court in 2018.

If the measure is upheld, MTC plans to use the toll revenues to fund a variety of projects throughout the region including transit expansion, express lanes, sea-level rise adaptation and traffic relief among others.

These include a $135 million project to build a direct connector from northbound Highway 101 in Marin County to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge; completion of the Highway 101 widening project in Marin and Sonoma counties known as the Marin-Sonoma Narrows; a $325 million project to extend BART train service further into Santa Clara County; and a $300 million expansion of express toll lanes in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Solano counties.

Currently, the state charges a minimum $6 toll for the Antioch, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, and San Mateo-Hayward bridges and between $5-$7 for the Bay Bridge depending on the vehicle type and time of day. The Golden Gate Bridge is not affected by the measure as its tolls are managed by a separate district.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association argues the tolls are a special tax and not a fee because the revenue would disproportionately benefit people who use other modes of transportation, such as transit, and not the motorists paying the tolls.

Opponents of the measure argue upholding the toll hikes could set a precedent for how the courts interpret Proposition 26, the 2010 ballot initiative that broadened the definition of taxes versus fees. If the measure is upheld, it could lead to a trickle-down effect of the state charging exorbitant “tax- like” fees for the use of other public properties such as rights of way, shipping ports and water, the association argued in its court filings.

“This case is not just about bridge tolls,” said Tim Bittle, director of legal affairs for Howard Jarvis. “The way the court ultimately interprets that provision of Proposition 26 is going to spill over into a lot of other areas.” The superior court rejected these arguments in 2019. The First District Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling in June 2020. Howard Jarvis requested the state Supreme Court review the appellate court ruling soon after.

In a brief filed with the state Supreme Court, attorneys for MTC and the state Legislature argue Proposition 26 specifically excludes bridge tolls and other fee charges to enter or use state property from the definition of a tax.

“A toll to cross a state-owned bridge is plainly such a charge,” the court filing states.

The Supreme Court is holding off its review of the toll measure, however, until it decides on a related case in Oakland.

The case, Zolly v. City of Oakland, is a challenge to nearly $28 million waste franchise fees the city charged to two waste hauling companies to use city property such as roads and sidewalks. Customers filed a lawsuit alleging the franchise fee charges, which are typically passed through to customers, were excessive and did not represent the actual costs of services, thus making them an improper tax.

The First District Court of Appeal rejected Oakland’s request to dismiss the case, causing the city to petition the state Supreme Court for review.

“It also apparently agreed that resolution of that legal question in the Zolly case will probably answer the question for the Regional Measure 3 cases,” Bittle said.

In its briefing to the state Supreme Court, the state’s attorneys requested the court review its case alongside the Zolly case rather than decide on Zolly first. They argued the Oakland case has no bearing on the toll measure as the issues and requirements only apply to local governments and not the state. The Supreme Court opted to hear the Oakland case first, however, with the initial briefs due on Thursday. Bittle said he does not expect a decision in that case until next year.

David Schonbrunn, whose San Rafael-based organization Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund opposed Regional Measure 3, said the Supreme Court’s decision could have “huge” implications. He said he plans to file a brief with the court supporting the repeal of the toll measure.

Anne Richman, executive director of the congestion management agency, the Transportation Authority of Marin, said she is disappointed in the court’s decision. Multiple projects in the county including the completion of the Marin-Sonoma Narrows project between Sonoma and Novato are relying on these toll funds.

“The tolls are already being collected,” Richman said. “It’s frustrating to not be able to put them to use to get these projects going and provide the benefits when people are paying the tolls already.”

Coronavirus: California jobless claims fall to seven- month low, best level since shutdowns began Unemployment claims in California are the fewest since March 21

State Employment Development Department main offices at the State Capitol complex in Sacramento. Unemployment claims in California fell to their lowest levels since coronavirus-linked business shutdowns began in March, federal officials said Thursday, a report that marks a key milestone on the recovery path for the state’s feeble job market.

By GEORGE AVALOS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 22, 2020 at 10:46 a.m. | UPDATED: October 22, 2020 at 4:02 p.m.

Unemployment claims in California fell to their lowest levels since coronavirus-linked business shutdowns began in March, a Thursday report showed, marking a key milestone on the recovery path for the state’s feeble job market.

California workers filed 158,900 first-time unemployment claims last week, down about 17,200 from the prior week, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

The decline comes as business shutdowns ease, and the employment picture could further improve in coming weeks.

“With four Bay Area counties moving to less-restrictive tiers, that will create some job growth in the near term,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. Still, even with the decline in claims, California faces slow job growth, lagging the nation in recovering jobs lost during the pandemic. In September, the unemployment rate was 11 percent in California, far higher than the U.S. jobless rate of 7.9 percent.

Nationwide, initial unemployment claims also improved to their lowest levels since mid-March.

Jobless claims in the United States totaled 787,000 for the week ending on Oct. 17, down 55,000 from the prior week, according to the federal Labor Department.

The number of California unemployment claims are the first updated figures since the end of a two- week stretch when the Employment Development Department deliberately stopped accepting new claims as it worked to whittle away a backlog of unpaid benefits.

The number of California claims was the lowest since the week of March 21, when workers statewide filed 186,300 jobless claims, according to this news organization’s analysis of statistics released by the federal government and the EDD. That week is when widespread business shutdowns began in an attempt to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

“With the unemployment claims declining, it appears that the major layoffs may have come to an end,” Levy said.

The current number of unemployment claims represents a dramatic improvement from the week ended March 28, when California workers filed 1.06 million first-time claims, an all-time record for a single week.

During January and February, before the business shutdowns began, unemployment claims averaged 44,800 a week.

The most recent week’s claims remain more than three times greater than the pre-shutdown levels. The disparity serves as a grim reminder of how far California’s economy and job market must travel before they can be considered in recovery mode.

The Bay Area and California have proceeded at a glacial pace to dig themselves out of the economic hole created by the shutdowns.

Both the state and the nine-county Bay Area have recovered the mammoth amounts of jobs lost during March and April at a far slower pace than the United States overall. California has recovered 38 percent of the 2.62 million jobs it lost over the two months of shutdowns, and the Bay Area has regained 33 percent of the 619,500 jobs it lost in March and April, while the United States has recovered 52 percent of the 22.16 million jobs the nation lost during those two months, this news organization’s analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports shows.

Despite the uncertainties, Michael Bernick, a former director of the EDD and an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris, believes the shaky job markets in California and the Bay Area have begun to stabilize.

“The worst is over,” Bernick said.

Equal Rights Amendment battle highlights obstacles to challenging federal decisions in court

Bob Egelko Oct. 23, 2020 Updated: Oct. 23, 2020 7:02 p.m.2

Virginia Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy holds her son, Alex Foy, as she and Delegate Hala Ayala celebrate the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the House chambers at the Capitol in Richmond in January. Virginia was the 38th state to ratify the amendment.Photo: Steve Helber / Associated Press

The prospects of judicial approval of the Equal Rights Amendment have taken a quiet step backward with a ruling that said women — individually or in advocacy groups — cannot sue the government to declare the amendment ratified because they lack a “personal stake” in its passage.

The proposed constitutional ban on sex discrimination, first introduced in 1923, could still be revived by the courts or Congress. But the latest judicial decisions are another signal that some actions by federal or state governments — like changing the Constitution, approving construction in a park or forest or even refusing to defend a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in California — can be difficult or impossible for private citizens to challenge in court.

To establish legal “standing” — the right to sue — in federal court, “you have to have a personal stake in a controversy ... some skin in the game,” said Evan Lee, an emeritus professor at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco who has studied the issue.

“No matter if you’ve devoted your life to pursuing this particular cause,” like environmental protection or the Equal Rights Amendment, “that’s not skin in the game” according to the Supreme Court, said Lee, who is critical of the court’s restrictions. In most cases, he said, the best way to establish standing is to claim the government’s actions will deprive you of money or property.

“People can’t sue just by saying the government is violating the Constitution,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “I wish the court had a different view of standing,” but under its established precedents, “an injury shared in common with everybody is a generalized grievance” that cannot be challenged in court.

Even if that “grievance” is a federal official’s rejection of a constitutional amendment that’s the reason for your group’s existence.

The ERA, which would forbid sex discrimination by both federal and state governments, was approved by Congress in 1972 and needed ratification by 38 states, three-fourths of the total, to become part of the Constitution. But only 35 states had approved it by 1979, a deadline set by Congress in a separate resolution.

Supporters continued campaigning, and in January lawmakers in Virginia made their state the 38th to approve the amendment. But the official in charge of registering amendments, U.S. Archivist David Ferriero, refused to certify it, citing the congressional deadline, which ERA supporters contend is not binding.

A lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts by Equal Means Equal, an organization of more than 20,000 women that advocates for the ERA and women’s rights; the Yellow Roses, a group of high school students formed in 2016 to promote the amendment; and a Massachusetts woman who was assaulted while wearing a rape whistle and said she could not sue her assailant for a hate crime because the Constitution does not guarantee gender equality.

But U.S. District Judge Denise Casper ruled in August that the women, while devoted advocates of the ERA, had no more legal interests or rights at stake than the rest of the population and could not show an “individualized and concrete stake in the outcome.”

Casper said the Supreme Court used the same standard in 1971 to dismiss a suit by the Sierra Club challenging the government’s approval of a new highway and power lines in Sequoia National Forest — construction that may have lessened the forest’s beauty and visitors’ enjoyment but did not harm their individual rights, the court said. Casper also said the assault victim could not attribute her injuries, physical or legal, to the archivist’s refusal to recognize the amendment.

Both Casper and Ferriero were appointed by President Barack Obama. The plaintiffs sought immediate review in the Supreme Court, arguing it was “indisputable and intolerable” that “women suffer harm because they are unequal based on sex” and that the ERA’s advocates have crucial interests at stake. But the court left Casper’s ruling intact on Oct. 13 in a one-line order, with no recorded dissents.

The order did not end the case, which is heading to a federal appeals court. The fate of the amendment could still be affected by a separate suit filed in January by the three late-ratifying states and possible future legal action by Congress. The House passed a resolution by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, in February to eliminate the deadline, and it could reach the Senate floor next year if Democrats gain a majority. On the other side, legislators in at least four states — Nebraska, Idaho, Kentucky and South Dakota — have voted to rescind their previous approval of the ERA.

Whether to enforce the deadline, allow Congress to extend it or let states withdraw their ratification would ultimately be decisions for the nation’s high court. While the court has generally deferred to Congress in such politically charged disputes, it has shown little sympathy for private parties seeking to pursue social causes in lawsuits against the government.

One notable case involved Proposition 8, the 2008 initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.

When same-sex couples challenged Prop. 8 in court, then-Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris refused to defend it, and sponsors of the ballot measure took over the case, with approval from the California Supreme Court. But after a federal judge and an appeals court declared Prop. 8 an unconstitutional act of discrimination, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in 2013, ruling that the sponsors had “no personal stake” in enforcing the ballot measure and thus lacked standing to represent the voters.

The ruling allowed gay and lesbian couples to wed in California, two years before the court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nationwide. It also meant that state officials could effectively veto a voter-approved ballot measure by refusing to defend it in court.

“Proponents of the ERA and opponents of same-sex marriage feel really strongly” about their causes, said Tara Grove, a law professor at the University of Alabama. “If we open up the courts to that, we’re opening up the courts to someone who sees (coverage of the issue) on TV. ... If it affects lots of people, that’s the kind of thing our political system is designed to resolve.”

Lee, of UC Hastings, said the chief purpose of requiring standing to sue — making sure that opposing parties have something important at stake and thus an incentive to present their strongest arguments — seems hard to square with the Supreme Court’s tight restrictions.

“If I’ve devoted my whole life to this cause but if I don’t have 500 bucks at stake, I can’t sue. That makes no sense to me,” Lee said. “I don’t see how that protects the democracy. The people who care about something the most would seem to me the best champions.”

It also made no sense to Wendy Murphy, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the ERA case. She noted that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had allowed the National Organization for Women to intervene in 1982 in a suit by two states seeking to withdraw their approval of the amendment — though the court’s brief ruling contained no explanation, and Casper, the federal judge in Massachusetts, said she found it unpersuasive. “The vitality of the ERA is something that women always have a protected legal interest in,” Murphy asserted. But in the courts, she said, “standing doctrine has been used pretty consistently against women.”

The Supreme Court has relaxed a few of its restrictions, allowing environmental advocates to sue over construction that affected their lands or enjoyment of natural resources, cases now being cited by opponents of President Trump’s border wall. And in the 1968 case of Flast vs. Cohen, an 8-1 ruling by Chief Justice Earl Warren said taxpayers could challenge congressional legislation providing financial aid to religious schools, seeing such suits as the only way to enforce the constitutional separation of church and state.

The court has narrowed Flast in later rulings, rejecting taxpayer suits against executive actions such as President George W. Bush’s administration’s conferences promoting his “faith-based initiative” programs by religious groups.

Justice Antonin Scalia, an ardent advocate of strict standing requirements, wrote a separate opinion in that 2007 case saying the court should overrule Flast and bar private citizens from suing the government for “psychic injury.” His opinion was cited approvingly in a 2017 law review article by Amy Coney Barrett, a former Scalia law clerk and President Trump’s current nominee for the Supreme Court.

The Case for Reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps If the US brought back the Great Depression’s massive worker program, it could put millions of Americans back to work—and help stave off disasters like wildfires.

PHOTOGRAPH: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

IN 1933, WITH the country deep in the Great Depression, the United States government created the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work program that gave young men jobs transforming the American landscape. They built trails and roads, fought fires, and maintained critical infrastructure, among many, many other projects. “The CCC was absolutely massive,” says environmental economist Mark Paul of the New College of Florida. At its peak, it employed half a million workers—over its nine-year lifetime, the total figure was 3 million, about 5 percent of the US male population at the time. “So it's really a kind of hallmark program in American history that provided youth with economic opportunity while bringing them close to nature,” he continues.

In 2020, we face massive unemployment and a host of environmental problems that need fixing: wildfires in the West, flood-prone areas along the Gulf of Mexico, all manner of dams on the verge of collapse. Nearly a century after the original CCC came into being, some folks argue it’s time to bring it back. So say Americans themselves: recent polling shows that 80 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans favor a return of the CCC. Joe Biden has proposed something akin to the CCC if elected: the Civilian Climate Corps. Workers would manage forests, restore ecosystems, and even remove invasive species. In September, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin introduced the RENEW Conservation Corps Act, which would spend $55.8 billion over five years to put a million Americans back to work, doing things like wildlife surveys and monitoring water quality. And last year, Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur introduced the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps Act, which has yet to pass the House, but proposes rehabilitating environments and updating trails and facilities throughout the country’s natural spaces.

Kaptur sees some participants as working in their local communities, while others up for travel might move around the United States. “If we give them an opportunity to broaden their horizons, and at the same time restore America in some of its hidden corners and neglected places, what a great gift to the future,” she says. “I don't know a single person—including my own father, who worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps as a very young man—who wasn't changed and elevated by that experience.”

Representatives from Biden’s campaign and Durbin’s office did not return requests for comment by press time. But in a release announcing his bill last month, Durbin invoked the challenges of a pandemic year: “America’s outdoor spaces have provided recreation for generations, and this year we’ve seen how important and valuable they’ve been to countless Americans looking for a respite,” he stated. “If we are to leave these natural gifts to the next generation, we have to take responsibility in protecting them.”

And it’s probably safe to say that the interest in resurrecting a venerable work program has something to do with the CCC being as American as periodic economic collapse. “The CCC was something that I think has that kind of broad support largely because of its historical precedence in the US,” says Paul. “We don't have to look to Norway or Sweden or Finland to think, ‘How are they doing this?’ We can just look back to US history and see this wildly successful program.”

Whatever the iteration, a revival of the CCC would simultaneously tackle the problems of environmental degradation and economic doom. Simply put, the idea behind putting people back to work is to also get them to spend money again, juicing the economy by boosting aggregate demand, or the desire for goods and services. “If you actually take a broader definition of unemployment and count people who are making below a living wage, we're talking about 25 percent unemployment right now in the US, for people that are either out of a job, have a job part time, or are getting paid poverty-level wages,” says Paul. “We can actually put folks to work, provide them with not only a means to make a living, but also with an ability to contribute to their communities in ways that benefit not just them, but the community writ large—and in this case, the environment as well.”

Take California’s plight, for example. This summer, five of the six biggest blazes in state history burned across the landscape. In total this year, over 4 million acres across the state have gone up in flames, claiming 31 lives and 9,200 structures.

California’s flaming apocalypse is the spawn of two colliding factors. One: Climate change has made the landscape drier than ever, turning dead brush into tinder. And two: Decades of fire suppression—squelching wildfires quickly, before they grow too large—has led to a buildup of that kind of tinder. In a healthy ecosystem, every so often a wildfire would come through and clear all that out. But with more and more people living in the forested mountains of California, the state can’t afford to let wildfires burn and obliterate towns.

After the 1989 earthquake that rocked the Bay Area, California’s government bodies, companies, and citizens have “spent about $70 billion on earthquake retrofits for buildings. And that earthquake itself only caused about $10 billion in damages,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and the director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, which advocates for climate action. “Now, we've been having tens of billions of dollars in damages every single year for the last five years from wildfires in California. And yet, we still have only spent less than $10 billion on effective forest management. So the scale of our response is not really commensurate to the scale of the problem.”

Part of the solution is fuel management, which involves crews either mechanically clearing out brush with heavy equipment like tractors, or setting controlled burns. But California doesn’t have the money or the people required to fully manage the landscape. Plus, the federal government manages 60 percent of the state’s forests, anyway. Private landowners interested in using controlled burns to clear brush can work with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CalFire, which runs a vegetation management program. Under a plan signed in August, the US Forest Service would work with the California Natural Resources Agency (neither returned WIRED’s requests for comment) to thin out a million acres of landscape a year by 2025, double the rate of thinning as it stands now.

But popping up across the state is a glimpse at how a new CCC might help California in its struggle against wildfire fuels: prescribed burn associations, which aim to prevent out-of-control blazes by pre-treating the landscape. About two years ago, Lenya N. Quinn-Davidson, area fire adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension, cofounded the Humboldt County Prescribed Burn Association. The group’s experts craft prescribed burn plans for owners of private land, and local volunteers do the actual work. The association has 90 members, and can easily pull 30 people to do a controlled burn. “It really is a social movement around prescribed fire,” Quinn-Davidson says. Since their founding, a dozen other similar groups have formed across California. “It's a great grassroots, local model of people helping each other out, and getting the work done virtually for free,” Quinn-Davidson adds.

These folks aren’t getting paid, but hell, they should. These are the kinds of jobs a revamped CCC could fund and manage. “There is a huge need for actual jobs, especially in rural areas,” Quinn- Davidson says. “What an opportunity, if we could direct funding toward job creation around fuels and fire management. That would make so much more sense.”

It’d make particularly good sense given the brutal economics of the pandemic. The federal government works just fine running at a massive deficit—that’d be $3.1 trillion this year. “Local governments just don't have the ability to deficit spend the way the federal government does,” says Paul, of the New College of Florida. “So we're going to see some pretty massive cuts in the upcoming state budgets.” Money from the feds could flow both to local initiatives like prescribed burn associations and to the US Forest Service, which is sitting on a backlog of millions of acres in the West in need of management because the agency doesn't have the money or people to actually do it.

A revived CCC could pour money into tackling a bevy of other environmental problems, too. Revitalizing public green spaces, for instance, benefits all Americans. We urgently need to better prepare our coastlines for rising seas. Restoring wetlands and forests would pull double duty, returning ecosystems to their former glory and creating carbon sinks: Plant more trees and you can sequester more CO2 from the atmosphere. Actually, in the case of wetlands, make that triple duty— healthy wetlands work as flood control during hurricanes, absorbing surges of water. Biden’s plan, specifically, calls out the need for planting more trees within cities to counter the heat island effect, in which concrete jungles soak up the sun’s energy and release it slowly throughout the night, resulting in significantly higher temperatures than surrounding forested areas. On a warmer planet, Americans will need all the help they can get to stay cool.

Reviving the CCC would also give the US the opportunity to confront the wrongs of the original program. “I don't want to shy away from the fact that the program does have a troubled history,” says Paul. “For instance, as was the case with many programs at the time, it was racially segregated.” The program was male-only, too. If the US were to bring the CCC back, Paul adds, we’d need to “make sure that we learn from those historic wrongs and make it in an equitable and accessible program for all.”

10/26/20 Roll Call Op-Ed

Protecting our public lands is a national health issue

For Latinos especially, lack of access to outdoors has damaging health consequences

By Maite Arce

In recent months we’ve seen an outpouring of interest in visiting parks and rivers nationwide. As someone who loves spending time outdoors, I can relate to anyone who seeks comfort and relaxation in nature — especially right now.

Studies suggest that access to the outdoors can reduce risks for diabetes, improve heart health and promote mental health. Many of us are coping with the pandemic by visiting neighborhood green spaces to relieve stress, breathe fresh air and hear birds singing.

However, according to a recent report from the Hispanic Access Foundation, 67 percent of Latinos in the U.S. live in “nature deprived” areas, or areas with limited access to the outdoors. Further, Latinos are more likely to be diagnosed with obesity, asthma, diabetes and heart disease. In California, for example, where environmental hazards like pollution are one of the leading causes of asthma, Latinos make up nearly 40 percent of the population.

In order to improve health for Latino communities, we must recognize the ways in which our health outcomes are linked to a lack of access to the outdoors. This is especially apparent amidst the pandemic, when a neighborhood walk is one of the only ways we can safely get outside. By protecting our public lands and rivers, we can reduce health disparities for Latinos and improve access to parks for all.

As a Latina and the president and CEO of the Hispanic Access Foundation, I’m proud that each summer my group hosts Latino Conservation Week: a series of activities nationwide that support Latinos getting outdoors and helping to protect our natural resources.

But more work is needed to ensure nature is accessible to all of us. Improving equitable access to the outdoors should be part of our country’s plan to recover from the pandemic. Fortunately, there are steps our elected officials can take to secure a better future for California and other Western states.

Some are already underway. California Reps. Salud Carbajal, Judy Chu, Jared Huffman and Adam Schiff have championed the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act. And California Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein are shepherding the PUBLIC Lands Act and the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act.

Collectively, these bills will protect and increase access to more than 1 million acres of public lands and well over 500 miles of rivers in California. Thanks to the efforts of congressional leaders from across the West, these safeguards, along with protections for public lands and rivers in Arizona, Colorado and Washington, passed the House as part of the National Defense Authorization Act earlier this summer. This is significant given that the NDAA is “must-pass” legislation for Congress.

I’m grateful to our champions for their dedication to protecting public lands and rivers, and I urge them to continue to advocate passage of these important bills this year.

I also appreciate recent wins for public lands in Congress, including passage of the Great American Outdoors Act. The law permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a national program that has helped protect and improve parks, trails and playfields in every state.

We must build on these recent accomplishments for our parks and public lands.

All Latinos should be able to experience nature, regardless of where we live. The health and well-being of Latino communities, and indeed all communities, relies on increasing access to the outdoors. As we continue the hard work of determining what’s next for our nation, leaders must ensure more protections for public lands and rivers. Our health depends on it.

Maite Arce is the president and CEO of the Hispanic Access Foundation, which works to improve the lives of Hispanics nationwide and promote civic engagement.

Wildfire spending escalates as blazes ravage California

A Cal Fire helicopter makes a drop on the Hennessey fire, Monday, Aug. 17, 2020 in Napa County. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat) 2020

GUY KOVNER

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

October 25, 2020

Cal Fire bought a dozen helicopters for nighttime firefighting as part of a $3.3 billion investment in wildfire response and prevention this year, continuing a spending spree that shows no sign of relenting as wildfires of historic proportions ravage the state. The helicopters and 13 new fire engines, along with $165 million in forest health and fire prevention grants were among big-ticket items cited in a Legislative Analyst’s report on wildfire spending that has mushroomed from $800 million 15 years ago.

“We have done more to address wildfires in just the last few years than has been done in all the last few decades,” said state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa.

But funding for fire prevention programs appears to have matched only half of the more than $200 million authorized by lawmakers, and Dodd said budget cuts or subtracting money from fire response may be necessary to cover the shortfall.

“There’s no way we can go without this,” he said.

Meanwhile, a new coalition of business and environmental groups wants California to spend $2 billion next year on wildfire prevention, including a $50 million commitment to prescribed burns, the time- tested protection against wildfires.

“Ecologically we know that California was born and bred of fire and now we’re seeing a lot of landscapes destroyed by fire,” said Kelly Martin, retired chief of fire and aviation at Yosemite National Park, at a news conference held by the Resilient Forests Coalition. “How we bring fire back into these landscapes is something that is desperately needed.”

The coalition’s call for fire protection — as opposed to what Martin called “reliance on a suppression industry” — comes as nearly 8,700 wildfires have scorched more than 4 million acres, killing 31 people and damaging or destroying more than 9,200 structures this year in California.

Since 2016, wildland blazes have blackened more than 8 million acres, more than three times the size of Los Angeles County.

“Fire behavior in our forests is far too extreme,” Paul Mason, a vice president at Pacific Forest Trust, a conservation nonprofit, said at the virtual news conference.

With climate change exacerbating the threat, he said, “We really need to increase the state effort to prepare for fire.”

The coalition wants that to start with a $500 million state appropriation in January, with half going to Cal Fire’s grant program that addresses forest health and fire prevention.

The $50 million earmarked for prescribed burns includes $10 million for a collaborative tribal burning program, with an additional $100 million for community safeguards like clean air and cooling centers, $75 million for emergency alert systems and disaster planning and $25 million for workforce development.

As step two, the coalition wants next year’s state budget to include $1.5 billion for a variety of fire preparedness actions at a state and local level, including steps to make buildings more fire-resistant.

The federal government, as the largest forest landowner in California, must also get involved, said David Edelson, forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, noting that more than half of the state’s recent wildfires have burned on federal land.

The state’s two largest wildfires — the 1 million-acre August Complex, now 92% contained, and the 459,123-acre Mendocino Complex that ignited in July 2018 — both burned largely in the Mendocino National Forest. Federal agencies own and manage 57% of California’s 33 million acres of forest, while families, tribes and companies own 40% and state and local agencies hold just 3% of the woodlands.

In 2018, California pledged to spend $200 million a year for five years on forest health and wildfire risk reduction, Edelson noted. “No other state has made a commitment like that,” he said.

“The forests are in crisis, requiring an all-hands-on-deck response,” Edelson said at the press conference.

The coalition has not submitted any specific proposals to state or federal officials, but members are contacting them, said Sean Wherley, a coalition spokesman.

“I think the number ($2 billion) is large,” said Dodd, a legislative leader on wildfire issues. But he said the coalition is well respected, adding, “I’d love to work with them.”

The coalition, which has no website, includes the California Native Plant Society, California Wilderness Coalition, Pacific Forest Trust, Sierra Business Council, Sierra Forest Legacy, The Fire Restoration Group and The Nature Conservancy.

Brentwood takes step toward adding more fire services City moves forward with plan that would cost $1.5 million annually

Jose Carlos Fajardo/staff archives

KNIGHTSEN, CA – OCTOBER 27: A firefighter drags a hose closer to battle a grass fire on East Cypress Road in Knightsen, Calif., on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. The grass fire originated 3:08 am on Gateway Blvd. on Bethel Island as reported by the East Contra Costa Fire Department. The fire then spread to a second location on East Cypress Road at 5:45 am. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

By JUDITH PRIEVE | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: October 28, 2020 at 1:45 p.m. | UPDATED: October 29, 2020 at 5:40 a.m.

BRENTWOOD — Brentwood took a first step toward beefing up fire services on Tuesday by tentatively agreeing to spend $1.5 million annually — but only if fire district partners Oakley and Contra Costa County put in their fair share.

The joint funding arrangement, which the council unanimously approved following a long discussion, will give the cash-strapped East Contra Costa Fire Protection District what it needs to create a fourth crew of nine firefighters to operate out of one of the existing stations. Fire Chief Brian Helmick has said the district has half the recommended stations and firefighters that it needs to serve its 128,000 residents and 249 square miles. He and others have also looked elsewhere for more funds, including community facility districts for all new developments, increased fire impact fees and possible revenue from existing residents through a potential tax or additional benefit assessment.

The district and neighboring Contra Costa Fire Protection District are considering consolidating to improve coverage, but Helmick said there are no guarantees it will happen and they might face financial shortfalls even then. He added that East Contra Costa was in emergency mode, with average response times slower than national standards. The district had an average response time in August of nine minutes, eight seconds, according to reports.

“We’re on borrowed time,” the chief said. “Every day, every hour, our firefighters continue to be overrun. We need revenue yesterday. We need rapid decisions now.”

Fire district board Director Carrie Nash said East Contra Costa needs everyone to do their part.

“We need the city of Brentwood to be leaders and say we are willing to do our piece of this. It gives us leverage with the others to get them to step up to the plate as well,” she said of Brentwood’s commitment.

Benjamin Kellogg, a fire district board candidate, added that if Brentwood waited for Oakley to make the first move, “it’s never going to happen.”

The council’s fire services ad-hoc committee had offered several recommendations, including holding a regional meeting to discuss funding or surveying Brentwood residents to see what city services could be reduced or eliminated to provide money for the fire district. It suggested money could come from the city’s general fund, reserve funds, community facility districts or even a sales tax measure.

Council members, however, were not comfortable spending $1.5 million annually, after having recently cut $4 million to balance the city’s budget, unless other fire district partners pitch in, too. Another $1.5 million will be needed to pay the $3 million price tag of funding a fourth engine crew.

Councilwoman Karen Rarey, a member of the fire services committee, said she favored the joint agreement because only a regional approach would work.

“I know we need it right now, but you can’t rob Peter to pay Paul because Brentwood services would be hurting as well, because there is nowhere else to cut from,” she said. “It’s not just one year, it’s ongoing.”

“If there’s an easy way to move something forward, we have to do it,” Vice Mayor Joel Bryant said. “We have to consider the human costs of firefighters; they get hurt.”

Bryant acknowledged that the issue was districtwide, but the city “also has to do something as soon as we can.”

“This isn’t like we are deciding not to add an extra park — we are talking about lives.”

Councilman Johnny Rodriguez, though, wanted to know if Oakley and Contra Costa County would agree to helping fund the plan, but City Manager Tim Ogden said they haven’t taken up the matter yet. He will return soon to the council with suggested areas to cut or adjust to meet the $1.5 million expense, he said.

“We’ll know pretty quickly if the other partners aren’t willing to spend the money,” he said.

Mayor Bob Taylor made a motion to move forward with a caveat: “We can’t carry it ourselves. We’ll withdraw if all parties don’t agree.”

PUBLIC LANDS Anticipation surrounds outdoors act's election eve deadline Emma Dumain and Jennifer Yachnin, E&E News reportersPublished: Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Renovations on the Desert View Watchtower at Grand Canyon National Park in 2010. Grand Canyon National Park/Flickr

Environmentalists, outdoor industry advocates and elected officials are all nervously awaiting news of which public lands projects will receive the first round of funding through the newly passed Great American Outdoors Act.

This coming Monday, Nov. 2, is the deadline for the Interior Department to send Congress its selections for which deferred maintenance projects to prioritize for fiscal 2021, along with an up-to-date list of projects to be paid for through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Assuming the priority lists are handed over to lawmakers in time, it would give the Trump administration and its allies a chance to take another victory lap on the eve of Election Day — an opportunity to remind voters that the GOP is truly delivering on the landmark conservation law the president signed just three months earlier.

Advocates are cautioning, however, that just meeting a deadline mandated by statute won't be enough to give the administration an automatic win.

"My understanding is the process at Interior is going well, and that they will be getting a list to Congress on or before the deadline," said Marcia Argust, the director of the Restore America's Parks project at Pew Charitable Trusts. "We are hoping that what we see is going to fulfill the intent of the law." For an administration that has been eager to burnish its environmental record in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, a failure to meet the moment could alienate a core constituency that has been relying on smooth implementation of GAOA to boost local outdoors economies that have been failing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Two vulnerable Republican senators — Montana's Steve Daines and Colorado's Cory Gardner — have staked their reelection prospects on their work in shepherding this bill to President Trump's desk.

And at a virtual briefing for Capitol Hill lawmakers and aides last week hosted by the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, leaders of some of the largest outdoor recreation trade associations cited implementation of the public lands bill as the No. 1 salve the federal government could deliver to flailing businesses.

"The passage of the Great American Outdoors Act was an enormous victory — and the real benefit will show when this money flows to projects across the nation," said Outdoor Recreation Roundtable Executive Director Jess Turner.

Planning ahead

GAOA, which passed back in August, fully and permanently reauthorized the LWCF at $900 million annually, plus created a five-year trust fund to drive down some of a $20 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects at national parks and on public lands.

The legislation laid out specific parameters for how the LWCF and maintenance backlog dollars should be allocated, and those watching this process closely will be paying attention to whether the administration's priority lists — due within 90 days of the bill's enactment, or Nov. 2 — conform to or depart from these parameters.

The LWCF portion of the bill stipulates that at least 40% of the program's dollars must be spent on federal land acquisition and at least 40% must be allocated for outdoor recreation projects in the states.

Multiple sources told E&E News they don't expect the list Interior sends to Congress next week to differ enormously from the list it sent to lawmakers back in April — which included more than $116 million for 61 projects requested by the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. If there are major discrepancies between the two lists, that could be a red flag that something is amiss.

The deferred maintenance backlog component of GAOA specifies the percentage each agency can receive for projects under its jurisdiction, and mandates that 65% of available funding must go toward nontransportation projects.

Observers will be scrutinizing this set of priorities to ensure compliance with the percentage requirements, as well as whether the selected projects will, as required, be on track for completion in fiscal 2021.

While the two Republicans credited with pushing the legislation across the finish line in the Senate, Daines and Gardner, have showcased the law during their respective reelection bids, neither responded to repeated requests for comment about the law's implementation or the upcoming deadline.

But New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich (D), a champion of GAOA, told E&E News he is concerned that the administration hasn't given sufficient attention to actually implementing the measure it has spent months boasting about.

"Given the scale of what we're talking about, this is something that deserves more than a piecemeal approach or some sort of executive statement from the secretary of Interior," Heinrich said.

He asserted that Interior and Agriculture department officials should be reassessing LWCF and the maintenance backlog as a $14 billion, five-year plan for the nation's public lands.

"This is something that could have such a long-lasting impact on our country," Heinrich said. "I think it deserves a multiagency, cross-jurisdictional plan about how to maximize that investment and how to hit a number of different goals that are important to the American people, ranging from solving historical equity issues to dealing with the wildlife and biodiversity crisis that we have to really maximizing our outdoor economic recovery."

Heinrich argued that the list due next week — or future versions — shouldn't merely be a repeat of the administration's earlier requests: "I just think the toolbox that we have given to this administration and the next is so robust and expansive, it deserves someone to take a step back and really make a plan to maximize this and make sure these investments are done in a coordinated, thoughtful way."

'Legal promises'

Conner Swanson, a spokesman for the Interior Department, told E&E News that the agency will meet deadlines established in GAOA, including Nov. 2.

"The funds will be allocated to maximize the impact of the historic conservation law signed by President Trump by determining priority funding needs, so we can expeditiously serve the American public in rebuilding their national parks, American Indian schools and public lands," Swanson said.

Swanson did not elaborate on what additional algorithms or set of criteria the administration is using to make its recommendations.

But experts say there is plenty of room for federal officials to make their own, more subjective determinations about what projects ought to be at the front of the line, which could in turn be creating opportunities for outside groups to make pitches and seek to influence the deliberations.

Sources close to the process said Interior has been actively seeking advice from sportsmen's groups and the outdoor recreation industry about their priorities, particularly around access to public lands.

Turner confirmed that Outdoor Recreation Roundtable leaders were recently invited to engage in a broad conversation with Interior Department officials, which the coalition used as an opportunity to discuss GAOA.

"We sent over our recommendations ... and, importantly, shared that the recreation community is going to step up more now that we have secured $900 [million a year] to come up with new, and prioritize existing, projects that haven't been funded," Turner told E&E News.

"We want to be at the table with recreation access and rural development solutions through LWCF, and I think those lists in the coming months/years will be well received, as they seemed interested in our lens."

Julia Peebles, government relations manager for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, praised the Forest Service for staging a brief public comment period to gather input.

BHA is urging the agency to apply $1.6 million in deferred maintenance funds to the Kiasutha Recreation Area in Allegheny National Forest, for example.

But even Peebles lamented the lack of "concrete information" from Interior officials ahead of next week's deadline.

"We're at the wait-and-see moment," Peebles said. "BHA, our members and supporters, have worked really hard advocating and supporting the Great American Outdoors Act, and we want the administration to follow suit and keep their legal promises."

'Wait-and-see mode'

A guessing game about how the administration will be making its decisions has also led members of Congress to submit their own specific requests for prioritizing projects in their districts.

Last week, Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, a senior appropriator who is vying to be the House Appropriations Committee's top Democrat in the next Congress, sent a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt asking for him to consider prioritizing funding specific to deferred maintenance projects at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

And in another sign that stakeholders have gone on the offensive in the weeks leading up to the rollout of the priority lists, Kyle Simpson, senior government affairs manager for the National Recreation and Park Association, said his group recently sat down with acting National Park Service Director Margaret Everson, who is leading the GAOA implementation task force. "We reached out to them because we knew they were working through this," said Simpson, "so we wanted to make sure we made contact with them and were able to share our priorities, and we really emphasized how we want this to be implemented in a way that keeps it bipartisan."

Not everyone shares faith that Interior will meet its first deadline. Congressional Democrats have expressed partisan skepticism about the Trump administration's commitment to carrying out the law.

Rep. Raúl Grijlava (D-Ariz.), the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which has oversight authority over Interior, has twice sought briefings on the bill's implementation, without success.

"They haven't given us any definite dates," said Grijalva spokesman Adam Sarvana. "We're in wait-and-see mode at the moment."

At the same time, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who was a lead sponsor of GAOA, has heard nothing from Interior about its progress, according to his office.

But the top Republican on the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, David Joyce of Ohio, has made contact with Interior, said the congressman's spokeswoman, Katherine Sears.

"They have assured him they are working as hard as they can to meet that deadline as required," she said.

Federal agencies fall short of Trump forest protection goals By JOHN FLESHEROctober 31, 2020

FILE - In this Nov. 17, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump talks with then California Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, left, during a visit to a neighborhood impacted by the wildfires in Paradise, Calif. Nearly two years ago President Trump ordered the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Interior to make federal lands less susceptible to catastrophic wildfires. But the agencies fell short of his goals in 2019, treating a combined 4.3 million acres — just over half of the 8.45 million acres the president sought. It was only slightly better than their average annual performance over nearly two decades, according to government data. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Nearly two years ago, President Donald Trump stood amid the smoky ruins of Paradise, California, where he blamed the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history on poor forest management.

“You’ve got to take care of the floors, you know? The floors of the forest, very important,” the president said.

He ordered the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Interior to make federal lands less susceptible to catastrophic wildfires with measures such as removing dead trees, underbrush and other potentially flammable materials.

But while Trump has accused California and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of doing a “terrible job” of forest protection, his own agencies fell short of his goals for federal lands in 2019.

They treated a combined 6,736 square miles (17,446 square kilometers) — just over half of the 13,203 square miles (34,196 square kilometers) the president sought, according to government data. It was only slightly better than their average annual performance over nearly two decades.

Without directly addressing the figures, the Forest Service said in a statement Friday to the Associated Press that prospects are “very good” for stepping up forest treatments in the next several years, assuming Congress provides more funding and state and private landowners play bigger roles. The agency has formed stewardship agreements with 19 states and “will rely on partnerships with state governments to get this work done,” it said.

The numbers show it will take more than executive orders to make significant progress on a problem that has been building for a century, scientists and advocates say. More money and personnel are needed, along with policy changes.

“The fires are getting bigger, the fire seasons are longer and costs are significantly increasing,” said Dylan Kruse, director of government affairs for Sustainable Northwest, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit that seeks collaboration between forest industries and conservationists. “We need billions of dollars and we’re not even close.”

Trump and Congress have provided only modest spending increases for forest treatments in recent years, he said. The president sought a nearly $50 million cut in 2018, which lawmakers rejected. His 2021 budget recommends $510 million, up from $445 million allocated this year.

Trump has drawn ridicule from political foes and some scientists for arguing that western forest floors should be “raked” and ignoring the role of climate change-induced warming and drought in the West’s worsening wildfire crisis.

But protection measures like those sought in his 2018 executive order have drawn support from administrations of both parties for two decades. A national fire plan developed under President Bill Clinton and continued under President George W. Bush called for hazardous fuel reduction and suppressing invasive beetles, along with restoration of burned-over lands to prevent erosion. The Obama administration released a fire management strategy that embraced fuel removal and controlled burns.

The amount of land receiving such treatments from the Forest Service and Department of Interior has edged upward, peaking at 10,469 square miles (27,115 square kilometers) in 2009 before declining to almost half that for several years. It jumped to 8,505 square miles (22,027 square kilometers) in 2016 — President Barack Obama’s last year in office.

Under Trump, the treated area has gone from 6,367 square miles (16,490 square kilometers) in 2017 to nearly 7,336 square miles (19,000 square kilometers) in 2018. Last year it was up to 6,736 square miles (17,446 square kilometers).

Still, the Forest Service says 125,000 square miles (323,748 square kilometers) it manages need work such as tree thinning and regulated burns to reduce fuel loads. The agency estimates many times more that much government and private land is vulnerable to severe wildfire.

The Department of Interior, which includes the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, did not respond to written questions from AP.

“These agencies are still lagging far behind on these projects,” said Susan Jane Brown, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center.

Federal officials acknowledge their longstanding policy of putting out fires as quickly as possible, instead of letting some take their natural course, made forests overgrown and less able to cope with drought and disease.

A Forest Service study this month found that about one-third of trees in areas where excessive vegetation had not been removed died between 2014 and 2018. In thinned out places, the tree mortality rate was 11%.

Some treated areas had been subjected to “prescribed” burns — fires intentionally set and carefully monitored.

In its statement, the agency said it now uses prescribed fire on about 2,187 square miles (5,664 square kilometers) of national forest land each year and plans to do more. But it said the practice “has its challenges,” including smoke pollution in nearby communities and a minor risk of losing control.

Those burns — along with other fuel reduction measures — also are costly, requiring gear, materials and skilled personnel. Yet the Forest Service has fewer staffers to devote to them, while hiring thousands more people to extinguish fires that have grown bigger and more numerous. The service lost 7,000 non-firefighter positions between 1998 and 2015. The share of its budget devoted to firefighting has shot up from 16% in the mid-1990s to more than 50% today and is expected to keep rising as the agency buys more helicopters, fire engines and other equipment.

Shifting resources from forest treatment to firefighting doesn’t bode well for long-term prevention, said John Bailey, an Oregon State University forestry professor who worked with federal officials on a fire management strategy released in 2014. It emphasized fuel reduction efforts, from clearing forest debris to rangeland grazing.

“We’re on a trajectory where fire seasons are going to get longer and drier and resources stretched thinner,” he said. “We’re just not making the progress we need to.”

Americans May Add Five Times More Plastic to the Oceans Than Thought

The United States is using more plastic than ever, and waste exported for recycling is often mishandled, according to a new study.

The Santa Lucia beach in Acapulco, Mexico, in June. Credit...Francisco Robles/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Veronica Penney Oct. 30, 2020

The United States contribution to coastal plastic pollution worldwide is significantly larger than previously thought, possibly by as much as five times, according to a study published Friday.

The research, published in Science Advances, is the sequel to a 2015 paper by the same authors. Two factors contributed to the sharp increase: Americans are using more plastic than ever and the current study included pollution generated by United States exports of plastic waste, while the earlier one did not. The United States, which does not have sufficient infrastructure to handle its recycling demands at home, exports about half of its recyclable waste. Of the total exported, about 88 percent ends up in countries considered to have inadequate waste management.

“When you consider how much of our plastic waste isn’t actually recyclable because it is low-value, contaminated or difficult to process, it’s not surprising that a lot of it ends up polluting the environment,” said the study’s lead author, Kara Lavender Law, research professor of oceanography at Sea Education Association, in a statement.

The study estimates that in 2016, the United States contributed between 1.1 and 2.2 million metric tons of plastic waste to the oceans through a combination of littering, dumping and mismanaged exports.

At a minimum, that’s almost double the total estimated waste in the team’s previous study. At the high end, it would be a fivefold increase over the earlier estimate.

Nicholas Mallos, a senior director at the Ocean Conservancy and an author of the study, said the upper estimate would be equal to a pile of plastic covering the area of the White House Lawn and reaching as high as the Empire State Building.

The ranges are wide partly because “there’s no real standard for being able to provide good quality data on collection and disposal of waste in general,” said Ted Siegler, a resource economist at DSM Environmental Solutions, a consulting firm, and an author of the study.

Mr. Siegler said the researchers had evaluated waste-disposal practices in countries around the world and used their “best professional judgment” to determine the lowest and highest amounts of plastic waste likely to escape into the environment. They settled on a range of 25 percent to 75 percent.

Tony Walker, an associate professor at the Dalhousie University School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said that analyzing waste data can amount to a “data minefield” because there are no data standards across municipalities. Moreover, once plastic waste is shipped overseas, he said, data is often not recorded at all.

Nonetheless, Dr. Walker, who was not involved in the study, said it could offer a more accurate accounting of plastic pollution than the previous study, which likely underestimated the United States’ contribution. “They’ve put their best estimate, as accurate as they can be with this data,” he said, and used ranges, which underscores that the figures are estimates.

Of the plastics that go into the United States recycling system, about 9 percent of the country’s total plastic waste, there is no guarantee that they’ll be remade into new consumer goods. New plastic is so inexpensive to manufacture that only certain expensive, high-grade plastics are profitable to recycle within the United States, which is why roughly half of the country’s plastic waste was shipped abroad in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available.

Since 2016, however, the recycling landscape has changed. China and many countries in Southeast Asia have stopped accepting plastic waste imports. And lower oil prices have further reduced the market for recycled plastic.

“What the new study really underscores is we have to get a handle on source reduction at home,” Mr. Mallos said. “That starts with eliminating unnecessary and problematic single-use plastics.”

Here are the Bay Area and Silicon Valley bigwigs who raised huge sums for Biden

Peter Fimrite Nov. 2, 2020 Updated: Nov. 2, 2020 6:03 p.m.

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LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has been a top donor to the Biden/Harris campaign.Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2015

A list of Joe Biden’s top fundraisers released over the weekend revealed a who’s who of Silicon Valley tycoons and Bay Area big shots, including diplomats, philanthropists, politicians and the beau monde of San Francisco society.

The Biden campaign listed 817 of its top donors on Saturday, the first update since he won the Democratic presidential nomination, and it showed that the Bay Area played a prominent role in raising a record-breaking $383 million for the campaign last month.

Each of the big money donors, called “bundlers,” raised at least $100,000 for the candidate, most of them after making the maximum allowed individual contribution to the Biden campaign. The big names from Silicon Valley on the list included LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist Ron Conway and entrepreneur-investor Jon Fisher, who lives in mansion-packed Belvedere, in Marin County.

The bundlers include physicians, lawyers and five current or former U.S. ambassadors, including Denise Bauer, the former ambassador to Belgium who also lives in Belvedere.

The local politicians who chipped in were Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, of San Francisco, and Reps. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; Barbara Lee, D- Oakland; Jackie Speier, D-Burlingame; Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin; and Doris Matsui, D- Sacramento. They were among more than 30 current and former members of the U.S. House who bundled for Biden.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Richard Blum, were among the big-name fundraisers. Biden also received financial support from San Francisco political heavyweights Clinton Reilly and Tom Steyer, a hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist and liberal activist. Relatives of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also raised money.

San Francisco philanthropists Susie Tompkins Buell, Vanessa Getty, John Goldman, the Swig and Pritzker families also heaped money on Biden. In all, 37 people from San Francisco were on the list.

Wall Street executives and Democratic officials from all over the country were also on the list. Among the Hollywood glitterati who helped Biden were film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, director Lee Daniels, writer, director and producer Ryan Murphy and Star Jones, a former host of “The View.”

Despite all the money he raised, Biden’s list of $100,000 donors was smaller than Hillary Clinton’s was in 2016, when she listed 1,129 people. Former President Barack Obama’s campaign listed 769 big-bucks fundraisers in 2012.

Biden’s treasure chest is bigger than that of President Trump, who has not disclosed his top donors.

Opinion We Waited in Vain for a Repudiation That Never Came

Trump may well end up losing to Biden, but Trumpism remains a viable political strategy.

By Jamelle Bouie Opinion Columnist Nov. 5, 2020

The liberal hope for the 2020 presidential election was a decisive repudiation of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. This is no longer on the table. A Joe Biden win, if it happens, will be as narrow an Electoral College win as Trump’s was in 2016. Biden has won the national popular vote — which matters for popular legitimacy, even if it doesn’t weigh on the outcome — but Trump outperformed his job approval, winning more total votes than any Republican presidential nominee in history.

In spite of everything, the president expanded his support, most likely saving the Republican Senate majority in the process. A Trump loss is still possible — perhaps even probable, since Biden holds a lead in states totaling 270 electoral votes — but there’s every reason to think Trumpism will survive as a viable strategy for winning national elections.

And what is Trumpism? It is a performance, or rather, a series of performances. It is a performance of nationalism, one that triangulates between open chauvinism in favor of the dominant ethnic group and narrow appeals to inclusion, with the promise of material gain for anyone who joins his coalition. It is a performance, on the same score, of success, projecting an image of wealth and power and urging the public to embrace it as its own — a version of “The Apprentice” in which the contestants are the American people. It is also the performance of an aggressive and aggrieved masculinity centered on the bullying and domination of others.

Even without policy to match the populist persona — the Trump administration has been as generous to the wealthy and connected as it has been stingy with the poor and the working class — Trumpism appeals to tens of millions of voters, from the large majority of white Americans to many people in traditionally Democratic constituencies.

That, if anything, is the surprise of this election. Although it is still too early to make any definitive statement about the shape of the electorate (broad white support for Trump notwithstanding), it is clear that the president made modest inroads with Black and Hispanic voters, especially men. This is most apparent in the states of Florida, Georgia and Texas, where Trump outperformed his 2016 totals in several areas where Hispanic voters make up a majority.

We don’t yet know why Trump made those gains — although the aforementioned performances, which figured prominently in his outreach to those groups, may have something to do with it — but this shift is a useful reminder that politics does not move along a linear path. For all of our data, the political world is still a fundamentally unpredictable place. A decade ago, for example, Democrats believed that demographic change — the shift from a “majority white” country to a “majority minority” one — would give the party an almost unbreakable lock on national politics; that a growing population of Asian and Hispanic Americans would inevitably redound to liberal benefit. At the time, I wrote that this was unlikely, that while it was a seductive theory, there was not much evidence to support the vision of an enduring Democratic majority. Racial and ethnic identity, I argued, were too fluid, and there was no guarantee that future members of those groups would think of themselves as “minorities” in the way that has been historically true of Black Americans. Changing conditions — greater assimilation and upward mobility — could make them as volatile in partisan politics as European ethnic groups were in the 20th century.

Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

If the Hispanic shift is as large as it appears to be, then we are living in that reality. What I didn’t expect is that it would come heralded by a Republican like Trump. But this only speaks to the diversity, ideological and otherwise, of the Hispanic electorate, which is as varied in racial background and national origin as most other groups of Americans. To extend an earlier analogy, it is probably as useful to speak of “Hispanics” in 2020 as it was to speak of “Europeans” in 1950. The category is just too broad, obscuring (in electoral politics, at least) far more than it illuminates.

Again, it is too early to say that there’s been a permanent realignment, although some trends — like the rising partisan significance of gender and education — are clear. It’s true, though, that the possibilities for change and transformation are wide open. Perhaps a future Republican, one with the same or similar fame and charisma, will build a real majority from the foundation laid over the last four years. Perhaps a future Democrat will turn the party’s consistent voting majority into a greater share of electoral votes and congressional seats. Perhaps we see neither and are in for another decade of fierce partisan competition between two equal and evenly-matched sides.

The 2020 election, in other words, will have an outcome. But it won’t be conclusive. It will be an uncertain result for an uncertain time in American life. Political trench warfare will continue. Total victory, whether in politics or anywhere else, is not on the immediate horizon. The future remains unwritten and is perhaps even more unknowable than before.

Fed signals readiness to do more for economy as virus rages By MARTIN CRUTSINGERNovember 5, 2020

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Thursday Sept. 24, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington about the CARES Act and the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. (Drew Angerer/Pool via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate at a record low near zero Thursday and signaled its readiness to do more if needed to support an economy under threat from a worsening coronavirus pandemic.

The Fed announced no new actions after its latest policy meeting but left the door open to provide further assistance in the coming months. The central bank again pledged to use its “full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time.” The economy in recent weeks has weakened after mounting a tentative recovery from the deep pandemic recession in early spring.

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“I think we have to be humble about where we are,” Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference when asked whether the economy was at risk of enduring a severe setback with confirmed viral cases in the United States setting record highs. “We are very far from saying that we’ve got this and eliminated” the risks.

Several Fed officials have expressed concern that Congress has failed so far to provide further aid for struggling individuals and businesses. The Fed’s policy statement, issued after a two-day meeting, made no mention of lawmakers’ failure to act. But when asked about the danger to the economy without a new rescue aid package soon, the chairman was clear:

“I think we will have a stronger recovery if we can get more fiscal support” from Congress, Powell said.

A multi-trillion-dollar stimulus, enacted in the spring, had helped sustain jobless Americans and ailing businesses but has since expired. The failure of lawmakers to agree on any new aid has clouded the future for the unemployed, for small businesses and for the economy as a whole. There is some hope, though, that a logjam can be broken and more economic relief can be enacted during a post-election “lame-duck” session of Congress between now and early January.

“The outlook for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain,” Powell said at the news conference.

The chairman said the policymakers discussed this week whether and how their bond buying program might be altered to provide more economic support. The Fed is buying $120 billion a month in bonds — $80 billion in Treasurys and $40 billion in mortgage bonds — to try to keep long-term borrowing costs low. Powell’s comments appeared to raise the possibility that changes could be announced as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in December.

In addition to buying bonds to keep long-term borrowing costs low, the Fed has kept its key short-term rate, which influences many corporate and individual loans, near zero.

The Fed’s latest policy meeting coincided with an anxiety-ridden election week and an escalation of the virus across the country. Most economists warn that the economy cannot make a sustained recovery until the pandemic is brought under control and most Americans are confident enough to return to their normal habits of shopping, traveling, dining and congregating in groups. “The recent rise in COVID-19 cases both here and abroad is particularly concerning,” Powell said. “All of us have a role to play, to keep appropriate social distance and to wear masks in public.”

The central bank’s policy statement Thursday was approved on a 10-0 vote. Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, who had dissented at the previous meeting, voted with the majority this time. Another dissenter in September, Neel Kashkari, head of the Minneapolis Fed, was absent, with his alternate, Mary Daly of the San Francisco Fed, approving the statement.

The statement was nearly identical to the one the Fed issued in September. At that meeting, it adopted a policy goal change it had made in August to keep rates low for some period of time even after inflation hits its 2% annual target. The reason was to allow the Fed to supply a longer boost to the economy and for unemployment to fall further before the policymakers begin to worry about inflation.

At his news conference, Powell was asked about a nationwide shortage of coins that has developed as a decline of shoppers at retail stores has depressed the normal circulation of change. He noted that the circulation of coins and currency was especially important for low-income people who do not have credit cards.

The chairman said he had been told by Fed officials who are reviewing the problem that “things have gotten significantly better” and that the situation was “well on the way to normalizing.”

Even as economy heals, damage is likely to linger

San Francisco Chronicle 7 Nov 2020 By Neil Irwin Are you, by nature, an optimist or a pessimist? Either way, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has some numbers for you. That is the reality of the October employment report, which Friday showed genuine evidence that the economy is healing from its pandemic induced collapse in the spring but also scars suggesting that the harm it did may linger for a long time to come. To start with the happier signs: Employers added 638,000 jobs in October, and that number was held back because the Census Bureau cut 147,000 temporary positions as it wound down its onceadecade count. If you exclude those losses, the 785,000 net jobs added represent an acceleration from the rate of job gains in September, and at that adjusted rate the economy would return to prepandemic levels in 13 more months. The share of Americans who say they are working rose by 0.8 of a percentage point, a sharp improvement both in terms of its level and in terms of the pace of improvement. The employment to population ratio rose only 0.1 of a percentage point in September. And the unemployment rate fell by a full percentage point to 6.9%, a steeper drop than any single month in the 71 years of employment data stretching from 1948 to 2019. (There have been three other months in the pandemic recovery this year with steeper declines.) A look at the industries that are adding jobs suggests this recovery is relatively broadbased. In particular, some of the sectors that would be expected to keep bleeding jobs if we were settling in for a protracted recession are rebounding. Construction employment rose by 84,000 in October, retail rose by 104,000, and transportation and warehousing was up by 63,000. Temporary help services employment rose by 109,000, a sign that employers need more labor even if they aren’t willing to make permanent hires yet. All that is particularly impressive when you consider that we’re now starting to feel the brunt of the expiration of federal bailout efforts. The $1,200 stimulus checks many Americans received in the spring have probably already been spent. Expanded unemployment benefits have now been unavailable for three months. There has been no reupping of the government’s program to support small business. Yet the economy has not fallen into the abyss. So it is entirely reasonable to celebrate the progress the economy is making. If, on the other hand, you take a more dour approach, there is a lot of reason to worry about the ways the economy is still deeply broken — and about the signs that healing will not be a speedy process, especially if the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen over the winter, as appears likely. For one, even if this rate of job creation can keep up for another 13 months, that still implies a lengthy period in which the economy is functioning far below potential. That in turn implies that many people who want to work will remain jobless for reasons out of their control. They may be out of work for long enough that they are at risk of losing their connections to the labor force and their skills, as well as the income they need to support their families. Part of what made the 200809 recession so damaging was that the slow recovery left many people on the sidelines of the workforce for months or years, and the risk is of a repeat of that episode. In October, for example, the number of longterm unemployed — those out of work for more than half a year — rose by 50% to 3.6 million and now account for about a third of total unemployment. It is considerably more damaging to be out of work for long periods than for short periods, and that is the type of unemployment that is rising. Some of the job gains are taking place in sectors that would be highly vulnerable if rising virus caseloads caused new shutdowns. Restaurants and hotels — “accommodation and food services” in the more formal government classifications — added 226,000 positions in October, about 35% of total job creation. Those jobs may go away again if public health concerns cause a new retrenchment in those industries — and the latest data on coronavirus infection rates suggests that is a possibility. The deeper the hole, the harder it is to fill back in. The United States is filling in the deep economic hole caused by the pandemic. But at the rate things are going, Americans will be at risk of falling in for quite some time to come.

PUBLIC LANDS

Interior releases belated $900M outdoors spending plan

Jennifer Yachnin, E&E News reporter • Published: Tuesday, November 10, 2020

The Interior Department belatedly rolled out its plans yesterday for spending $900 million under a landmark public lands package but offered few specifics — aside from snubbing federal land management agencies and earmarking nearly 75% of funds for state grants.

In a Monday letter to the chairs and ranking members of the key appropriations and authorizing committees in the House and Senate, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt outlined how his agency plans to spend funds made available under the Great American Outdoors Act.

"This is an unprecedented funding commitment for recreation and conservation," Bernhardt wrote.

Under the new law, the LWCF will receive permanent annual funding of $900 million, which is paid for with proceeds from offshore oil and gas drilling.

Funds from the program can be used to acquire land and water for the federal estate — including acquiring parcels to increase access to outdoor recreation, preserve historical or cultural sites and conserve wildlife habitat.

LWCF monies are also distributed to states via a grant program — with federal funds accounting for up to half of a project's costs — to acquire new lands or waters and develop facilities for recreation.

According to Bernhardt's missive, fiscal 2021 funding will dedicate $540 million to state grants, including $20 million for National Park Service "battlefield grants" and $25 million for Fish and Wildlife Service cooperative endangered species fund grants.

The remaining $360 million in funds will be divided among acquisition projects at land management agencies, with the bulk of funding going to the Forest Service.

Disappointment

But while the Forest Service will claim $100 million for additional land and water, it will also see $120 million for its Forest Legacy Program. The latter is technically a state grant program — and not federal land management funding — that aims to protect privately owned forestland through conservation easements or land purchases. The Forest Service website notes that it has acquired 2.6 million acres since 1990.

That designation irked conservation advocates, who accused the Trump administration of knowingly skirting federal law mandating that no less than 40% of LWCF money go to stateside grant programs and no less than 40% to federal land acquisitions (E&E Daily, Nov. 10).

John Gale, conservation director for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, told E&E News that the substance of the new list, in addition to having missed the first reporting deadline, has sportsmen "questioning the administration's commitment to implementing GAOA."

Gale also noted that while Interior allocates $2.5 million to the Bureau of Land Management, all of the projects proposed in the agency's preliminary LWCF priority list from back in April intended for sportsmen access "were axed."

"Two of these were slated for Montana," Gale continued, "and would have pushed $13.3 [million] into direct access enhancement for hunters and anglers."

In the meantime, $140 million of the federal funds will be split among the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service, according to the list Bernhardt issued.

FWS would receive $75.5 million to address 20 projects across two dozen states.

No information is included beyond the names of the units, including the Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Pennsylvania and water rights for the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, which straddles California and Oregon.

The Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation urged Bernhardt to fund the latter in September, warning that what was once a "vast natural lake and marsh is now in danger of reverting to desert."

The foundation noted that it could cost up to $60 million to purchase senior water rights in the Klamath Basin to provide sufficient water to the nation's original waterfowl refuge.

Other FWS sites listed by the Trump administration — such as Arkansas' Cache River and Felsenthal national wildlife refuges and Louisiana's Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge — match those in a deferred maintenance report the agency provided to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in mid-2019.

Another $50 million would go to NPS to fund more than two dozen projects, including one identified solely as the agency's "battlefield parks." The NPS website lists 39 sites — including Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Park and the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland — in that category.

The list also includes the Vicksburg National Military Park across Louisiana and Mississippi.

Although she voted against the Great American Outdoors Act, Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) told The Vicksburg Post in July that fixing erosion-damaged roads at the park should be a top priority.

The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres of public lands and another 700 million acres of subsurface minerals, would receive the smallest slice of funds, with just $2.5 million. Interior did not include a list of BLM projects.

Does it matter?

But congressional Democrats have indicated that the administration's proposals could all be moot: New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich and Rep. Deb Haaland have both indicated that they could institute their own priorities for the fund, rather than the lame-duck administration's.

"I'm disappointed, but in the end it's not about me. It's about the little girl who loses out on an opportunity to go fishing with her grandfather," said Heinrich in a statement late last night responding to the new LWCF lists. "We were able to pass the Great American Outdoors Act by rising above politics. That's exactly how it should be implemented."

No new funding for LWCF projects in New Mexico was included in Interior's priority list Monday.

The Great American Outdoors Act also established a five-year trust fund to address $20 billion worth of deferred maintenance projects at national parks and on public lands.

While the Trump administration submitted its fiscal 2021 list of 725 deferred maintenance projects to Congress last week, the $1.9 billion proposal likewise proved to be light on details (Greenwire, Nov. 3).

The Senate Appropriations Committee today likewise chided the Trump administration over that insubstantial proposal.

"The Committee is disappointed by the lack of specific bureau and project-level information contained in the submissions and believes additional details regarding proposed projects are necessary for Congress to exercise its right to modify the Administration's proposal," Senate appropriators wrote in a statement accompanying the Interior, environment and related agencies bill released today.

Reporter Emma Dumain contributed.

Election 2020 results: Environment, wildlife and parks measures win big Despite struggling economy, voters approve $3.7 billion for parks and open space

Voters in Colorado narrowly approved a measure to require the state to reintroduce gray wolves by 2023, one of many environmental ballot measures that passed last week. (AP Photo/Dawn Villella-File)

By PAUL ROGERS | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: November 10, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: November 10, 2020 at 2:40 p.m.

They weren’t the marquee attraction, but environmental issues came out among the big winners in last week’s election.

While voters were choosing a new president and members of Congress, they also gave the green light to dozens of ballot measures in California and across the nation that will provide more money to nature and efforts to restore it — from parks and open space programs to wildlife and renewable energy. The number of people visiting parks around the United States has spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Cooped-up residents with few other options have streamed in record numbers to hike, bike and camp, often in public parks near their homes, building political support for them in bi- partisan ways, experts say.

This election, voters approved $3.7 billion in new funding for parks and open space measures nationwide, according to a review by the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit conservation group based in San Francisco. Since 1988, such measures have won approval 76% of the time on average, according to the group. But last Tuesday, 48 of 49 measures passed, a 98% rate of success.

“In a time of COVID-19, Americans are coming to appreciate parks and natural areas and trails perhaps in ways they haven’t before,” said Will Abberger, director of conservation finance at The Trust for Public Land. “In times of stay-at-home orders and lockdowns, parks are providing a way for people to get outdoors and enhance their physical and mental health. The election results showed voters were willing to vote yes for parks funding, including new taxes, even with the bad economy.”

Here are six highlights:

1) In Silicon Valley, voters reauthorized a $24 annual parcel tax that raises roughly $8 million a year for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, a government agency based in San Jose. The funding, which does not have an expiration date now, will protect roughly 15,000 acres over the next 10 years for parks, open space and farmland preservation in San Jose, Santa Clara, Campbell, Milpitas, Morgan Hill and unincorporated Santa Clara County.

As of Tuesday, the tax was passing by 82-18% — well above the two-thirds margin needed. In the past year, the open space authority has made headlines with deals to preserve open space in Coyote Valley, a bucolic area south of San Jose where Apple, Cisco and other companies proposed building huge campuses in the 1980s and 1990s, only to encounter significant opposition.

2) To the north, voters in San Francisco approved $239 million for city parks and recreation programs as part of Measure A, a $487 million bond measure for homeless services, street repairs and parks. The money will fund playgrounds, sports fields, community gardens and other facilities from Golden Gate Park to a proposed new shoreline park at India Basin in the Bayview-Hunters Point area.

3) In Nevada, a constitutional amendment passed easily, requiring utilities to provide 50% of their electricity from solar, wind and other renewable energy by 2030. Nevada is considered the state with the best potential for solar energy in the nation. But it still imports large amounts of fossil-fuel- generated electricity.

4) Voters in Colorado narrowly approved the nation’s first law requiring a state to reintroduce gray wolves. The Trump administration has proposed removing gray wolves from the endangered species list, which would allow them to be hunted. Wolves were eliminated in Colorado in the 1940s following a bounty program.

Environmental groups and many biologists say the predators are important to keep deer, elk and other species in balance. Proposition 114 will restore wolves to lands west of the Continental Divide by the end of 2023. It was opposed by farming and ranching groups, although it requires the state to compensate landowners if a wolf kills livestock. The measure could be copied by wildlife groups in other Western states.

5) Montana was one of four states where voters legalized marijuana for adult use. The others were Arizona, South Dakota and New Jersey, bringing the total number of states with recreational use to 15. In Montana, part of the tax proceeds on marijuana sales, estimated at $360 million over the next 20 years, is earmarked for land and water conservation programs.

6) In Denver, voters approved a quarter-cent “climate sales tax” with Measure 2A. The new law is expected to generate $800 million over the next 20 years for a wide variety of climate-related programs, including solar projects, bike lanes, building efficiency programs and job training in clean energy. That new law may also be copied by other cities.

Meanwhile, voters approved new taxes and bonds for parks in Portland, Oregon; Rochester, Minnesota; Volusia, Manatee and Collier counties in Florida; Hays County, Texas; and Traverse City, Michigan.

The one prominent measure that failed was in Douglas County, Nevada, on the eastern shores of Lake Tahoe. Voters there rejected a quarter-cent tax hike to buy development rights from ranches, forests and other large properties. That measure was put on the ballot not by environmental groups, but by the board of the Douglas-Carson Farm Bureau.

“It’s consistent with polling that we’ve seen year after year,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental group in Denver. “Protecting public lands is not a controversial or partisan issue. It’s not at all surprising that when public lands go on the ballot, those measures are likely to pass.”

Facebook expands again in Fremont as big tech lifts real estate market

Roland Li Nov. 11, 2020 Updated: Nov. 11, 2020 5:14 p.m.

Facebook leased offices at 6700 Dumbarton Circle and 6750 Dumbarton Circle in Fremont.

Photo: Google Street View

Facebook has signed another large office lease in Fremont.

The social media giant said Tuesday that it has leased 115,000 square feet at 6750 Dumbarton Circle. That follows leases totaling 230,000 square feet at two neighboring locations. The three buildings have room for around 1,500 employees, though they may temporarily house fewer as office-density practices may change due to the pandemic.

The lease, signed in February and publicly confirmed by the company this week, stands as one of the largest in the Bay Area this year, as the coronavirus pandemic brought the commercial real estate market to a virtual standstill. It’s further evidence that despite a significant embrace of working from home, some tech companies are still looking for real estate. Facebook also has a major expansion planned at Willow Village in Menlo Park with 1.25 million square feet of office space

Google recently expanded slightly in San Francisco, and the nonprofit OpenAI leased 95,700 square feet at 575 Florida St. in San Francisco. But the city’s leasing activity was the lowest it has been in decades in the third quarter, and the vacancy rate is spiking.

Fremont has become one of Facebook’s largest office hubs, where it now leases around 1.5 million square feet. In 2018, it leased 750,000 square feet among 14 buildings, also in the Dumbarton Circle area. Developer Peery Arrillaga owns all the buildings that Facebook leased. Fremont is a short drive across the Dumbarton Bridge from Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters.

“The Bay Area is our home, and we’re committed to being good neighbors as we grow — including in Fremont. We’re supporting teachers during distance learning through the Fremont Education Foundation, exploring opportunities to support STEM programming for Fremont youth, and we’ve partnered with the City of Fremont to invest in local small businesses,” said Chloe Meyere, a Facebook spokeswoman, in a statement.

It isn’t clear when the offices will open. Facebook employees can work from home through June 2021. Half of the company could work from home permanently within a decade, CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said. But remote work has proved challenging for certain tasks like content moderation.

Despite ongoing controversy over its role in spreading misinformation and boycotts or spending pullbacks from some advertisers, Facebook had blockbuster earnings in the third quarter, with profit jumping 29% to $7.84 billion from a year earlier.

The company hired 4,100 new employees in the third quarter, for a total of more than 56,600 workers, up 32% from the previous year. The company exceeded its goal of 10,000 new hires in 2020 and already hired over 11,000 through September.

In August, Facebook leased 730,000 square feet at the James A. Farley Building in Manhattan, one of the largest office leases since the pandemic started.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number and timing of leases by Facebook in Fremont this year.

Prop. 15: California voters reject revamp to property tax system

FILE – In this May 27, 2020, file photo, closed businesses line a street in downtown San Francisco. California voters have rejected a proposal to partially dismantle the state’s cap on property taxes, a move that would have have raised taxes for many businesses in a pandemic-hobbled economy. Since 1978, California has limited tax increases to 2% a year until a property is sold. With prices climbing at a much higher rate, taxpayers who have held homes and businesses for many years pay far less than what the market value would determine. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

By ASSOCIATED PRESS |

PUBLISHED: November 11, 2020 at 6:13 a.m. | UPDATED: November 11, 2020 at 2:41 p.m.

By ELLIOT SPAGAT | The Associated Press SAN DIEGO — California voters rejected a proposal to partially dismantle the state’s 42-year-old cap on property taxes, a move that would have have raised taxes for many businesses in a pandemic-hobbled economy.

Following Tuesday’s update to the vote count, Proposition 15 had only about 48% support and was trailing by more than a half-million votes.

The loss is another blow to organized labor, which also came out on the losing side of the most expensive ballot question in state history. It would have required Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other app-based delivery services to treat their drivers as employees rather than independent contractors.

Since 1978, California has limited tax increases to 2% a year until a property is sold. With prices climbing at a much higher rate, taxpayers who have held homes and businesses for many years pay far less than what the market value would determine.

Proposition 15 would have allowed local governments to reassess commercial and industrial property every three years, while residential property, including home-based businesses, would remain under 1978 rules. The change would have generated up to $12.5 billion in revenue.

Supporters argued a “split-roll” system would help fix inequities that shield wealthy corporations from paying a fair share and deprive tax revenue for public schools and local governments. Several polls released before or during early voting showed the measure ahead, though not by much.

The No on 15 campaign had a simple message: “Stop Tax Hikes,” its red-and-white yard signs read.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable and co-chair of the No on Prop 15 campaign, said the outcome signals efforts to dismantle the 1978 tax system will fail.

“From day one, we knew that if voters understood the harm this deeply flawed tax hike would impose on California’s economy and its families, farmers and small businesses, voters would reject this ill-advised effort,” he said.

The Yes on 15 campaign said Tuesday that it took on “the third rail of California politics” and achieved a level of support that many thought could never be achieved.

“It represented a big step forward for a more equitable and prosperous state, and it provides a framework and base of power for future work and reform to truly take on the biggest challenges of our times on behalf of all Californians,” the campaign said.

As expected, the measure performed far better in Democratic strongholds, including Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. But it still fell short in many areas that went solidly for President- elect Joe Biden, who endorsed it along with his running mate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

In San Diego County, the state’s second most populous, voters rejected Proposition 15 by 13 percentage points, while backing Biden over President Donald Trump by 23 points. In Sacramento County, No votes outnumbered Yes votes by 7 percentage points, while Biden won by 29 points.

The voter-backed 1978 Proposition 13 sparked a nationwide tax revolt and held enduring popularity. Jerry Brown, California’s governor from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019, said several years ago that Proposition 13, enshrined in the state constitution, is “a sacred doctrine that should never be questioned.”

But backers of Proposition 15 mounted a formidable challenge by targeting only commercial and industrial properties, with exemptions aimed at small businesses.

The measure would have raised $8 billion to $12.5 billion a year. After costs to counties to reassess property and some tax cuts for business equipment, local governments and schools would net $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion a year in a 60-40 split. Businesses would have been exempt if the property owner had $3 million or less worth of commercial property in California. For businesses with fewer than 50 employees that occupy half a building’s space, the changes wouldn’t take effect until 2025. For others, they would begin in 2022.

Supporters raised $56.3 million by Oct. 16, fueled by the California Teachers Association, Service Employees International Union and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative started by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan.

Opponents raised $60.9 million, led by business groups including the California Business Roundtable and the California Farm Bureau.

Another ballot measure that would allow homeowners who are 55 and older, disabled or wildfire victims to transfer a primary residence’s tax base to a replacement home was narrowly ahead.

ENVIRONMENT NOVEMBER 10, 20203:55 PMUPDATED 23 DAYS AGO Biden transition team for environment, transportation includes former Obama officials

By Valerie Volcovici, David Shepardson 3 M I N R E A D

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Joe Biden’s transition teams for the Environmental Protection Agency and Transportation Department will be run by several agency alumni who served under President Barack Obama and helped craft regulations like the Clean Power Plan and tougher fuel economy standards for vehicles.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden departs after spending the day at the theater serving as his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. November 10, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The head of the EPA team is Patrice Simms, an environmental attorney at Earthjustice - which has filed over 100 lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration. He worked as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s environment division.

Other Obama EPA lawyers have also been named, including Joe Goffman, general counsel at the agency under Obama EPA chief Gina McCarthy, and Cynthia Giles, who was assistant administrator in the EPA’s enforcement office.

The Trump administration rolled back Obama-era fuel economy standards and stripped California of the ability to set zero emission vehicle rules. Both actions remain under appeal.

Biden vows to “establish ambitious fuel economy standards” and to negotiate them with workers, environmentalists, automakers and states. Biden’s Transportation Department team is headed by Phillip Washington, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

It also includes New York City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, a former Transportation official under Obama, and Therese McMillan, former acting head of the Federal Transit Administration under Obama.

For the Interior Department, Biden named former Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn to head up the transition, signaling an emphasis on indigenous representation at the agency that oversees federal and tribal lands.

Other Obama era Interior officials on the team include Elizabeth Klein, former deputy assistant secretary, policy, management & budget, who has been working with an organization representing state attorneys general challenging the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks, and Kate Kelly, a senior adviser to former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

The team also includes Maggie Thomas, previously a climate policy adviser to Senator Elizabeth Warren and Washington Governor Jay Inslee.

The Energy Department transition team is headed by Arun Majumdar, former head of the agency’s advanced research division called ARPA-E. Dan Arvizu, former head of the National Renewable Energy Lab, and Jonathan Elkind, former international energy and climate policy official under Obama are also on the team.

In the State Department transition team, Biden named one of the key legal architects of the Paris Agreement, Sue Biniaz, as a member, signaling the agency will prioritize international climate diplomacy under Biden.

Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and David Shepardson; Editing by Peter Cooney

News//Bay Area & State With No Work To Do, Weapons Station Citizen Committee Disbanded Bay City News Service

Nov. 12, 2020Updated: Nov. 12, 2020 2:01 a.m.

By Sam Richards Bay City News Foundation CONCORD (BCN)

Saying there's no real work to be done on planning for the transformation of the Concord Naval Weapons Station property until a new master developer is selected, the Concord City Council has disbanded the city's Concord Naval Weapons Station Reuse Project Community Advisory Committee.

The committee was formed in 2016 to provide community input into plans to remake the former Concord Naval Weapons Station in northeastern Concord into a new 2,300-acre community with 13,000 housing units, a regional park and millions of square feet of commercial space.

But when the original reuse project master developer Lennar Concord LLC's exclusive negotiating agreement expired in March, shortly after the City Council voted not to give Lennar more time to negotiate with the area's labor unions, forward progress on the whole project was paused.

The city must now find a new master developer, and start some reuse planning processes from scratch. The delays in the overall project could amount to years.

The committee has not met since July 2018, and had been waiting for a draft reuse Specific Plan for public review when Lennar departed.

The community participation process, meanwhile, isn't expected to resume until after a new reuse project master developer is selected.

The committee nonetheless still formally had 10 members upon its dissolution Tuesday night. Councilman Edi Birsan voted against disbanding the committee, saying he wanted to get as many of them together again at least one more time for what he called an "exit interview" so members could provide information for how the next such committee should work in the future.

But Guy Bjerke, director of the Concord Community Reuse Project, said none of the committee members responded to messages about Tuesday's vote. And Councilwoman Laura Hoffmeister said the city could contact those committee members if they want to debrief them on committee operations if need be. The council then voted 4-to-1 to disband the committee.

2020 ELECTIONS Meet the contenders for Biden’s Cabinet

The president-elect is expected to nominate a mix of progressives, moderates and even a few Republicans as he seeks to satisfy a broad coalition.

The president-elect will face incoming on several fronts, including from Democrats who expect him to nominate the most diverse Cabinet in history. | POLITICO illustration / Getty / AP

By POLITICO STAFF 11/07/2020 11:39 AM EST

In the next two and half months, Joe Biden needs to build a governing team to help him tackle an historic pandemic and rebuild the economy — all while winning approval from what's likely to be a Republican- controlled Senate and holding together an unruly coalition of Democrats.

It's a task that will be nearly impossible to pull off.

The Biden transition team has been vetting potential candidates for months and will present the president- elect with potential choices in the coming days. Biden is expected to focus first on posts involving public health and the economy, including the secretaries of the Treasury and Health and Human Services, along with West Wing personnel. The former vice president intends to be deliberative and is not likely to announce Cabinet nominations in the first week, according to an official close to the Biden team.

The president-elect will face incoming on several fronts, including from Democrats who expect him to nominate the most diverse Cabinet in history. That goal is not always compatible with the push from the party's vocal left wing to nominate the most progressive Cabinet since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Wall Street and Silicon Valley interests that poured money into Biden's campaign over the final stretch have a different set of priorities. So do Senate Republicans, at least a handful of whom Biden will need to confirm his nominees, if, as seems likely, the GOP maintains control of the chamber.

Biden can make history by nominating a person of color or a woman to head the Treasury or Defense departments — the only two remaining departments that have only ever had white men lead them.

Michele Flournoy, a former under secretary of Defense for policy, is already the frontrunner to lead the Pentagon. A number of women and people of color are also in the mix for the top job at Treasury, including Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard and TIAA CEO Roger Ferguson.

Biden, who pledged to unite the country during the campaign, will likely try to keep his coalition together by nominating a mix of progressives, moderates and even a few Republicans. He's also likely to draw in some fresh faces alongside longtime Biden loyalists. “I think one thing Joe Biden has always liked is a variety of viewpoints,” said former Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who served for six years alongside Biden in the Senate. In other words, expect Biden’s own self-styled “Team of Rivals.”

The likelihood that Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell will remain Senate majority leader, however, means that every Biden nominee will need to win at least a few Republican votes. That will limit Biden’s choices and makes it less likely some left-wing choices would be confirmed. House Democrats are also more wary of Biden tapping any of their members from competitive districts, given that their majority just narrowed and they don’t want to risk any upset special elections.

POLITICO has compiled lists of the early contenders for each Cabinet post, but new candidates may emerge. Biden has long been superstitious about making personnel decisions ahead of Election Day, and longtime allies expect some twists and turns as he assembles his team. The following names are based on dozens of conversations with Biden aides, his close allies, lobbyists and Hill staff.

DEFENSE

MICHELE FLOURNOY

CEO, WestExec Advisors; former under secretary of Defense for policy; co-founder, Center for a New American Security

Just about everybody you talk to says the Defense secretary post in a Biden administration is Michele Flournoy’s job to lose. The undersecretary of defense for policy in Obama’s first term, Flournoy is a respected policy wonk with significant management experience in co-founding the centrist Center for a New American Security.

She’s been as active as ever in recent months, including co-authoring a blueprint this summer on how the Pentagon needs to accelerate efforts to develop new technologies to outpace China.

For her, that means the department’s role needs to take on a portfolio far beyond the traditional military preparation. “I do think that experience of Covid-19 will broaden the definition of what gets included in the national security basket,” Flournoy said in a recent interview.

“I think there’s a growing awareness of the competition with China, which is first and foremost economic and technological,” she added. “And I think people understand that to have a national security posture, we’ve got to reinvigorate our domestic foundations, our economy, our technological edge and so forth.” Another possibility for secretary of defense is Illionois Sen Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who was on Biden’s shortlist for vice president. Duckworth earned a Purple Heart after being injured in Iraq when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. She ultimately lost both her legs. Duckworth served as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and as assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration.

Jack Reed, a West Point grad and top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, has been on Dems’ shortlist for secretary of defense for years. However, Reed, of Rhode Island, would likely take the committee gavel if Democrats win control of the Senate, and may not want to pass that up. Like Duckworth, he is seen as a less likely contender versus Flournoy.

— Bryan Bender

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH Illinois senator, former Illinois congresswoman, assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs, ret. Army lieutenant colonel

SEN. JACK REED Rhode Island senator, former Rhode Island state senator, ret. Army captain

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AMB. SUSAN RICE

Visiting fellow at American University’s School of International Service; former Obama national security advisor; former U.N. ambassador

If Biden wins, the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic devastation is likely to consume his early months. Current and former U.S. officials say that could lead him to choose a secretary of State with past experience at the State Department because the person wouldn’t need much on-the-job-training in Foggy Bottom.

That makes Susan Rice — an experienced foreign policy hand who’s held jobs all the way from junior NSC staffer to top Africa diplomat to U.N. ambassador to national security adviser — an appealing option for secretary of State. She and Biden are said to have a warm relationship, though they disagreed over how to deal with tumult in places like Egypt and Libya when Biden was vice president.

But strong Republican opposition — largely revolving around the aftermath of the 2012 killing of the American ambassador in Benghazi, Libya — may hurt Rice’s chances. That was partly what forced her to withdraw from consideration for the position in Barack Obama’s second term, and could be a factor again in 2021.

Another potential candidate with deep department ties is William Burns, a longtime Foreign Service officer who served as deputy secretary of State under Obama. He is now the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, who now holds the Senate seat once held by Biden, and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy also could be in the mix, with Coons in particular expressing interest.

— Nahal Toosi

ANTONY BLINKEN Biden for President foreign policy advisor; Managing partner, WestExec Advisors; former deputy secretary of State; former deputy national security advisor

SEN. CHRIS COONS Delaware senator; former New Castle County Council president

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY Connecticut senator; former Connecticut congressman and state House member

AMB. WILLIAM BURNS President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former deputy secretary of State; career ambassador

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TREASURY

LAEL BRAINARD

Federal Reserve governor; former under secretary of Treasury

The showdown over Joe Biden’s Treasury secretary is likely to be Democrats’ first and most intense fight, given that Biden is expected to name his financial team early to give them ample time to start crafting another round of coronavirus relief and economic stimulus. And his ultimate choice to lead the agency will send a signal about how much of his advisers’ allusions to an FDR-like presidency were just rhetoric.

Republicans’ likely control of the Senate makes nominating a progressive like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren a much bigger fight that could expend a lot of political capital.

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, meanwhile, want a person of color like former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Roger Ferguson or investor Mellody Hobson — either of whom would rankle progressives, given their corporate ties.

That complex reality is part of the reason why Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard has emerged as an early frontrunner: She doesn’t upset anyone too much. She’s been at the Federal Reserve during the current crisis and worked at Obama’s Treasury department. She has signaled support for the left and the center without expressing solidarity with either. And she would make history as the first woman ever to lead the department.

— Alex Thompson and Megan Cassella

SARAH BLOOM RASKIN Visiting law professor at Duke University; former deputy secretary of Treasury; former Federal Reserve governor

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN Massachusetts senator; former chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)

ROGER FERGUSON President and CEO of TIAA-CREF; former Federal Reserve vice chairman and governor

MELLODY HOBSON President and co-CEO of Ariel Investments; former chairwoman of DreamWorks Animation

RAPHAEL BOSTIC President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

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JUSTICE

DOUG JONES

Alabama senator; former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama

With Tommy Tuberville’s defeat of Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) on Tuesday, Jones will be unemployed come January and available to join Biden’s cabinet. Jones wouldn’t add to the Cabinet’s diversity, but the former U.S. attorney in Alabama has credibility when it comes to civil rights: He led the successful prosecutions of two members of the Ku Klux Klan involved in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, nearly 40 years later. Jones also happens to be a friend of Biden’s, dating back to his work on Biden’s first presidential campaign in 1988.

Jones, however, is likely to have competition for the Attorney General post, including from Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. Perez is “in the mix,” said Oscar Ramirez, a Democratic lobbyist who worked in the Obama administration and is active in Latino Democratic circles. Another person who’s tracked the early jockeying for attorney general said allies of Perez have floated his name.

Perez has Justice Department experience: He served as assistant attorney general for civil rights in President Barack Obama’s administration before Obama tapped him as Labor secretary. But he also faces a potential obstacle with Republicans likely to remain in control of the Senate: No Republicans voted to confirm him as Labor secretary in 2013, and it’s unlikely that his years leading the DNC have endeared him to the GOP.

Another name being mentioned is Sally Yates, a former deputy attorney general in the Obama administration, who became a progressive cause célèbre when President Donald Trump fired her in the early days of his presidency for refusing to defend his executive order barring entry to people several Muslim countries. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is another potential candidate, Ramirez said, although he’s also been mentioned as a possible Homeland Security secretary. California Gov. Gavin Newsom might also tap Becerra, a former congressman, to fill the Senate seat that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will vacate in January. (Becerra previously succeeded Harris as California attorney general in 2017 following Harris’ election to the Senate.)

— Theodoric Meyer

XAVIER BECERRA California attorney general; former California congressman and state House member

SALLY YATES Partner, King and Spalding; former acting attorney general and deputy attorney general; former U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Georgia

TOM PEREZ Chair of the Democratic National Committee; former secretary of Labor; former assistant attorney general for civil rights

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HOMELAND SECURITY

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS

Partner, WilmerHale; former deputy secretary of Homeland Security; former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; former U.S. attorney for the Central District of California

Alejandro Mayorkas, who served as the Department of Homeland Security’s deputy secretary during the Obama administration, would be the first Latino secretary in the department’s nearly 18-year history. He also headed up the implementation of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). If he’s nominated, Mayorkas could face criticism from Republican senators who were almost uniformly opposed to Obama’s executive action on DACA. No Republicans voted to confirm Mayorkas as deputy secretary in 2013, which could hurt his chances if Republicans maintain control of the Senate.

If Biden taps Mayorkas, he could also face questions about a 2015 inspector general’s report that found that Mayorkas went around normal agency channels and intervened with CIS career staffers in ways that led them “to reasonably believe that specific individuals or groups were being given special access or consideration” in the EB-5 visa program. Mayorkas said at the time that he disagreed with the report’s conclusions but would learn from it.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has also been mentioned as a potential pick for Homeland Security or attorney general. California Gov. Gavin Newsom could also tap Becerra to fill Kamala Harris’ Senate seat.

— Theodoric Meyer

XAVIER BECERRA California attorney general; former California congressman and state House member

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HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM

Governor of New Mexico; former New Mexico congresswoman; former New Mexico secretary of health and secretary of aging and long-term services

Several of the contenders for top health positions in a Biden administration have already been working for the campaign or transition, advising Biden on both the policies and staffing needed to tackle the pandemic and protect the Affordable Care Act. The list is also heavy on women and people of color as Biden’s team looks to replace the slate of Trump’s top health officials that are overwhelmingly white and male.

In the mix to lead the Department of Health and Human Services are former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and North Carolina Health Secretary Mandy Cohen.

Lujan Grisham, who ran New Mexico’s health agency before serving in the House of Representatives, currently co-chairs Biden’s transition team. She also commissioned a study on implementing a public option at the state level -- which aligns with Biden’s push for creating one at the federal level. Murthy has been part of a core group of doctors briefing Biden on the pandemic since early spring and he was tapped for the new coronavirus task force Biden plans to activate during the transition. Cohen was a top official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Obama administration before she was tapped to run North Carolina’s health agency.

A source close to Biden told POLITICO that governors and former governors are strong contenders because they bring so many of the skill sets necessary for the job.

“Governors are very familiar with health care because it’s such a huge part of their budget,” the person said, pointing to past HHS Secretaries with gubernatorial experience like Kathleen Sebelius, Mike Leavitt and Tommy Thompson. “They’re also generally decent managers and good communicators and they have political skills.”

Someone like Murthy, who is “widely respected in the medical world” would also be advantageous, particularly in the middle of a pandemic, the source added, but “It can’t just be someone with an MD by their name. It has to be someone with meaningful management experience.” Should Republicans hold the Senate, Murthy could also run into opposition over his record of advocacy for gun control -- something that became an issue during his confirmation as surgeon general back in 2014.

Though none of these top candidates are particular favorites of progressives, none are raising major red flags on the left. The same is true for health care industry leaders, who oppose Biden’s pledge for adding a public option to Obamacare but are relieved that no hardcore “Medicare for All” advocates are in the running to helm HHS.

— Alice Miranda Ollstein

DR.VIVEK MURTHY Former U.S. surgeon general; former vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps; founder of Doctors for America

DR. MANDY COHEN North Carolina secretary of health; adjunct professor in health policy and management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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TRANSPORTATION

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI

Mayor of Los Angeles; former L.A. City Council president; ret. lieutenant in U.S. Navy Reserve

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has long been loyal to Joe Biden and is expected to be rewarded accordingly. In 2016, he declined to endorse Hillary Clinton until Biden had made his own decision about running. In 2020, he endorsed Biden in January when the prognosticators were writing off the former vice president. He will be out of a job in March of 2022, due to term limits, and has not ruled out leaving early for the Biden administration.

The most likely landing spot -- but not the only one -- is secretary of Transportation given his experience as mayor of Los Angeles.

Also watch out for Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who has long been active on transit policy and is the co- chair of the Congressional Bike Caucus. Blumenauer comes from a safe Democratic seat so there is less of a chance the district would flip in a special election. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is another name being floated for the job, although he would likely face scrutiny during confirmation hearings about his handling of the 2014 Chicago police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

— Alex Thompson

REP. EARL BLUMENAUER Oregon congressman; former member of the Portland City Council

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL Former mayor of Chicago; former chief of staff to President Barack Obama; former Illinois congressman

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COMMERCE

MEG WHITMAN

CEO of Quibi; former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard; former Republican candidate for governor of California

The Commerce Department could be a place for Biden to reach across the aisle and appoint a Republican secretary, people close to the transition say, and Meg Whitman — the CEO of Quibi, which is shutting down, and former CEO of eBay — is on the list. The move would help Biden make good on his campaign promises to unite the country, but it’s sure to incite criticism from progressives, who want to see Democrats fill the Cabinet.

Mellody Hobson, a businesswoman and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, has also been named as a potential Commerce secretary. Her appointment would be embraced by some Democrats in the Congressional Black Caucus and elsewhere who are pushing for Black officials to fill senior Cabinet roles, but her ties to the financial services sector could rankle some progressives.

Longtime Democratic fundraiser and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is also in the mix for the Commerce secretary nod, a position that he has been considered for in the past. McAuliffe is a former banker, investor, and chairman of the Democratic National Committee who has a close professional and personal relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

— Megan Cassella

TERRY MCAULIFFE Visiting professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government; former governor of Virginia; former chair of the Democratic National Committee

MELLODY HOBSON President and co-CEO of Ariel Investments; former chairwoman of DreamWorks Animation

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ENERGY

ERNEST MONIZ

President and CEO, Energy Futures Initiative; former Energy secretary; professor of physics and engineering systems emeritus at MIT

Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist who served as President Obama’s Energy secretary, has served as an informal adviser to the Biden campaign on energy issues. Moniz’s ties to the fossil fuel industry, including serving as an independent director on the board of utility owner Southern Company, worry climate change activists on the left. His unanimous confirmation as energy secretary in 2013 could make him a no-drama pick although some Republicans could oppose him given his prominent role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal during the Obama administration.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, another Energy Department veteran, is also close to Biden and is considered a legitimate contender for the Cabinet job. Randall served as deputy secretary of energy during Obama’s second term, as well as White House coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control. She is now a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Arun Majumdar is best known in Washington, D.C. as the founding leader of the Advanced Research Project Agency - Energy, making it a permanent fixture in the federal government. He later became acting under secretary of the Energy Department under then-Secretary Moniz. During the Trump administration, he did a stint at Google as vice president for energy, before joining the faculty at Stanford University.

— POLITICO Staff

ELIZABETH SHERWOOD-RANDALL Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology; former deputy secretary of energy; former hite House coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction

ARUN MAJUMDAR Engineering professor at Stanford; former acting under secretary of Energy; founding director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy

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INTERIOR

SEN. TOM UDALL

New Mexico senator; former New Mexico congressman; former New Mexico state attorney general

The top job at the Interior Department, which manages more than half a billion acres of federal land, typically draws candidates from western states, where the vast majority of those lands are. And so far, all roads seem to lead to New Mexico.

The state's Rep. Deb Haaland and Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich have become increasingly visible in pitching themselves as potential heads of the Interior Department. Udall -- whose father, Stewart, led Interior for eight years under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations -- is not seeking reelection to the Senate but has made clear he wants to remain in public life.

Haaland's backers are pushing for her to make history as the first Native American to serve in a presidential cabinet. She's also teamed up with Udall as a lead sponsor of a resolution setting a national goal of conserving 30 percent of U.S. land and oceans by 2030.

Heinrich, now in his second term in the Senate, has played key roles behind-the-scenes in getting two major public lands packages —the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act and the Great American Outdoors Act — across the finish line this Congress. He led Democrats' charge to remove William Perry Pendley from atop the Bureau of Land Management, and is well-connected within influential sportsmens groups.

— Anthony Andragna and Ben Lefebvre

SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH New Mexico senator; former New Mexico congressman; former state natural resources trustee

REP. DEB HAALAND New Mexico congresswoman; former Democratic state party chair; former chairwoman of Laguna Development Corporation board of directors

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AGRICULTURE

HEIDI HEITKAMP

Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs at Brown University’s Watson Institute; former senator from North Dakota; former North Dakota attorney general

Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is considered to be the top pick for Biden’s Agriculture secretary, the same role that Trump considered tapping her for in 2016. The North Dakota Democrat, who lost her Senate seat in 2018, has strong moderate credentials and has in the past broken from her party on controversial policy issues. Many environmentalists strongly oppose her because of her support for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and because she voted to confirm President Donald Trump’s top two nominees at the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, meanwhile, have been pushing Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) to take the top job at the Agriculture Department. Fudge, the top candidate among progressives, chairs a House Agriculture subcommittee on nutrition and has made increasing food stamp benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program a primary issue. She has also been fiercely critical of the nutrition rollbacks at USDA and other actions there, including the approach to scientific research.

Fellow House Democrat Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), who chairs her caucus’ campaign arm, is also under consideration. Bustos sits on the House Agriculture Committee but her seat in a vulnerable district will likely be a strike against her, given that Democrats will not want to risk losing a member of the caucus in a close special election.

— Liz Crampton and Megan Cassella

REP. MARCIA FUDGE Ohio congresswoman; former mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio

REP. CHERI BUSTOS Illinois congresswoman; former member of East Moline, Ill. City Council

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LABOR

JULIE SU

Secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency; former California Labor commissioner

After centering his campaign on the need to empower American workers and rebuild the middle class, Biden is widely expected to choose a more progressive candidate to lead the Labor Department, one that would help balance out more moderate nominees he’s expected to place at other agencies.

Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a former union organizer who also has Labor Department experience, is high on the list of potential nominees, as is California Labor Secretary Julie Su. Levin comes from a potentially vulnerable district, however, and Democrats may be wary of a special election there, given their unexpectedly narrow control of the House.

Other possibilities for Biden’s Labor secretary include DNC Chairman and former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez, AFL-CIO Chief Economist Bill Spriggs and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who POLITICO reported is interested in the position.

— Megan Cassella

BILL SPRIGGS Chief economist at the AFL-CIO; professor of economics at Howard University; former assistant secretary of Labor

REP. ANDY LEVIN Michigan congressman; former acting director of director of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth; former assistant director of organizing at the AFL-CIO

SARA NELSON President of the Association of Flight Attendants; former vice president of AFA and communications chair of the United section of AFA

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS Vermont senator and former Vermont congressman; former mayor of Burlington, Vt.

TOM PEREZ Chair of the Democratic National Committee; former secretary of Labor; former assistant attorney general for civil rights

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HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

ALVIN BROWN

Former mayor of Jacksonville, Fla.; former executive director of the White House Community Empowerment Board

High on the list of candidates for secretary of Housing and Urban Development is Alvin Brown, who worked at the agency under Bill Clinton. Brown, who also worked at the Agriculture and Commerce Departments in the Clinton administration, was later elected the mayor of Jacksonville, Fla. In 2018 he challenged Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.) for his seat in Congress but lost in the Democratic primary.

Maurice Jones, who held the No. 2 slot at HUD under Secretary Shaun Donovan while Obama was president, is another likely candidate for the role. Jones left the agency to serve as Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade under Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and now leads the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a nonprofit that supports community development.

In the mix as well is Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Yentel was also at HUD during the Obama administration, directing the public housing management and occupancy division.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms have also been floated as possible HUD nominees.

— Katy O’Donnell and Megan Cassella

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS Mayor of Atlanta; former member of Atlanta City Council

REP. KAREN BASS California congresswoman; former speaker of the California Assembly

DIANE YENTEL President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition; former director of the Public Housing Management and Occupancy Division at HUD.

MAURICE JONES President and CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation; former HUD deputy secretary in the Obama administration

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LILY ESKELSEN GARCIA

Elementary school teacher; former president of the National Education Association

Biden has committed to putting a public school teacher atop the Department of Education, a pledge that has encouraged unions and public education advocates, alike, and is seen as a hard rule within the transition team. Given Biden’s close ties to organized labor, there is also a widespread expectation that he wants to put a union official or someone with union ties in his Cabinet.

Both of those factors have made Lily Eskelsen Garcia, an elementary school teacher and the immediate past president of the NEA, an early favorite for the position. Garcia is a former Utah “teacher of the year” and got her start in schools as a lunch lady in the cafeteria.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, is also frequently mentioned as a contender although she would likely prompt strong Republican opposition on both policy and political grounds. Weingarten is a former high school history teacher and an attorney who previously served as counsel to the president — and then president — of the United Federation of Teachers. She backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bid earlier this year but has more recently been campaigning for Biden across the country.

Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor of education and president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute, is also in the mix. Darling-Hammond led Barack Obama’s education policy transition team in 2008 and was widely seen as a possible choice for Education secretary at the time.

— Megan Cassella

RANDI WEINGARTEN President of the American Federation of Teachers; former president of New York City’s AFT Local 2

LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND Education professor emeritus at Stanford University; president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute

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Jump to the next element in th is story to read more about president-elect Joe Biden's potentia l cabinet picks. There are 6 2 people wh o could possibly join his cabinet.VETERANS AFFAIRS

PETE BUTTIGIEG

Former mayor of South Bend, Ind.; ret. intelligence officer in U.S. Navy Reserve

Ask plugged-in Democrats around town and they will tell you that VA Secretary is a low-reward, high-risk job with bureaucratic scandals ensnaring several of the post’s most recent occupants. That makes it a tricky proposition for young, ambitious politicians like Jason Kander and Pete Buttigieg, both veterans who are in the mix for the job.

Buttigieg has been recently touting his foreign policy knowledge and his allies have been lobbying for a foreign policy post, with some openly suggesting he’d be a great ambassador to the United Nations. Buttigieg has some chips to cash in with Biden after his crucial endorsement ahead of the Super Tuesday primary elections in March and his busy campaign schedule for the Democratic nominee.

Both Buttigieg and Kander are likely candidates for a Biden administration job in part because their political prospects for statewide office in Indiana and Missouri are grim. Kander didn’t dissuade speculation about the VA post, telling POLITICO: “I’m not commenting on that subject quite yet.”

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth has more qualifications for the post -- she served as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and as assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration -- but would need to be persuaded to leave her Senate seat. Like Buttigieg and Kander, she is a veteran.

— Alex Thompson

JASON KANDER President of Veterans Community Project; former Missouri secretary of state and state House member; ret. captain in the Army National Guard

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH Illinois senator, former Illinois congresswoman, assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs, ret. Army lieutenant colonel

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REP. JIMMY GOMEZ

California congressman; former state House member

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) is often floated as a potential U.S. trade representative, a Cabinet-level position within the Executive Office of the President. Gomez, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, served as part of a House working group in 2019 that worked with the Trump administration to make changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which ultimately passed in a bipartisan vote later that year.

A candidate with Hill experience would be helpful given that a major trade bill, Trade Promotion Authority, will expire next summer, setting up a possible legislative fight. But Biden is only likely to consider Democrats in Congress who represent solidly blue districts, as Gomez does. And it would not be unprecedented for Biden to choose someone without significant trade experience.

Nelson Cunningham, president and CEO of the global advisory firm McLarty Associates, has also been listed as a possible contender. Cunningham served as general counsel of the Senate Finance Committee when Biden was its chairman. An early backer of Biden’s presidential campaign this year, he also has experience in the Clinton White House, on John Kerry’s presidential campaign and on the Obama-Biden transition team in 2008.

— Megan Cassella

NELSON CUNNINGHAM President and co-founder of McLarty Associates; former White House special advisor on Western Hemisphere affairs; former general counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee

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MARY NICHOLS

Chair of the California Air Resources Board; former California Natural Resources secretary; former Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation

The party's left flank is strongly opposed to any EPA candidate with ties to the oil and gas industry, although party moderates contend that experience with fossil fuels is needed to implement climate change policies designed to help wind down greenhouse gases such as methane emissions. At the same time, Senate Republicans will resist the most progressive candidates.

Mary Nichols, the chair of California’s powerful Air Resources Board regulating air pollution in the Golden State, is beloved by the progressives. Nichols current term on the Air Resources Board ends in December, and she recently said she’d be willing to return to Washington and help rebuild the battered agency. Nichols served as an assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation in President Bill Clinton’s administration.

Heather McTeer Toney, a clean air activist who is currently the national director for Moms For Clean Air Force and a former regional director of the EPA’s Southeast Region, is another progressive favorite.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s name has been rumored for several climate-related posts in a Biden administration, including EPA and “climate czar,” should Biden create such a position in his White House. But Inslee, who made climate change a focus of his short-lived Democratic presidential campaign, is currently running for reelection as governor in 2020. And it may take considerable wooing to lure him from his home state.

— POLITICO Staff

GOV. JAY INSLEE Washington governor; former Washington congressman

HEATHER MCTEER TONEY Senior director of Moms Clean Air Force; former regional administrator EPA’s Southeast region

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Jump to the next element in th is story to read more about president-elect Joe Biden's potential cabinet picks. There are 6 2 people wh o could possibly join his cabinetUN AMBASSADOR

AMB. WENDY SHERMAN

Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership; senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group; former under secretary of State

Wendy Sherman, who helped lead nuclear negotiations with Iran as the State Department’s under secretary for political affairs during the Obama administration, is seen as a potential pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Sherman also served in the State Department in President Bill Clinton’s administration.

Pete Buttigieg doesn’t have the traditional qualifications that Sherman and many — although certainly not all — previous U.N. ambassadors have boasted, such as State Department experience or Council on Foreign Relations membership. But he also wouldn’t have to answer Republican senators’ questions about his role in the Iran nuclear deal during his confirmation hearing. It’s considered almost a fait accompli that Buttigieg will serve in the Biden administration; the question is whether he lands in Turtle Bay or elsewhere.

— Theodoric Meyer

PETE BUTTIGIEG Former mayor of South Bend, Ind.; ret. intelligence officer in U.S. Navy Reserve

Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks ‘Slams’ Department of the Interior Over Its Land and Water Conservation Fund, Funding Projects List

Last Updated: Thursday, 12 November 2020 05:21

Published: Thursday, 12 November 2020 05:21

November 12, 2020 - WASHINGTON, DC — On Tuesday morning, the Department of the Interior published a list of projects it intends to allocate with the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s support. The list comes a week after the deadline, which the Trump administration inexplicably missed.

As per the guidance laid out in the Dingell Act of 2019 and the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020, the Department of the Interior was required to publish a list of allocations for the full and permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund by November 2, 2020.

Phil Francis, Chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, explained:

“By large, bipartisan margins, Congress voted to pass the Great American Outdoors Act and fully fund the highly popular Land and Water Conservation Fund. But not only did the Trump Administration and Department of the Interior fail to produce their LWCF allocations and project lists on time; their lists are absolutely inadequate and violate the intent of the Great American Outdoors Act and the Dingell Act.

“Full funding for the LWCF was supposed to mean improvements to and better access to parks, hiking trails, hunting and fishing access, recreational facilities and the great outdoors, benefiting communities across the nation. Instead, the Administration’s proposal cuts the list of projects at our National Parks and Wildlife Refuges, and entirely eliminates federal public land protection through the Bureau of Land Management. “Make no mistake, Congress was clear and explicit about what it wanted from the Department of Interior – specifically calling for 40% of LWCF funds to go to federal land protection. This did not happen and to add insult to injury, this list includes $120M for the Forest Legacy Program under ‘Federal Land Grants’ — but Forest Legacy grants go to states and have always been counted as state grants. This is a clear attempt to fudge the math, since including that $120M gets the federal land portion to exactly 40%. Without it, it’s only 27%.

“The projects listed have nowhere near the level of detail required by Congress and are a slap in the face to the many bipartisan supporters of the GAOA who have been hailing it as an historic conservation achievement. This is utterly unacceptable and demonstrates bad faith on the part of not only Secretary Bernhardt but President Trump, who signed this bill into law.

“We encourage Congress to make sure the intent of the law is followed by ensuring the federal side of LWCF is wholly funded.”

Last week, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks submitted a FOIA request for the National Park Service list(s) of properties to be purchased using the Land and Water Conservation Fund for FY 2021 and beyond. Source: Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks

California voters approve Prop 19, changing property tax breaks Firefighting gets a new shot of state funds

Californians narrowly passed Prop 19, expanding certain property tax breaks for older residents, while closing other tax loopholes and creating a dedicated firefighting fund. (File Photo: Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

By LOUIS HANSEN | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: November 12, 2020 at 12:43 p.m. | UPDATED: November 13, 2020 at 1:05 p.m.

California voters have narrowly passed Prop 19, a measure expanding property tax breaks for older homeowners, closing tax loopholes on inherited properties and creating a new firefighting fund.

Supporters say the law will encourage empty-nesters to downsize, bringing homes to the market and easing the supply shortage in places like the Bay Area. The measure is similar to an ambitious expansion of Prop 13 brought by California Realtors that was broadly rejected by voters in 2018.

The Associated Press called the race Wednesday evening, with the measure garnering roughly 51 percent of the 15.4 million votes cast. Jeanne Radsick, president of the California Association of Realtors (CAR), said the new law will give older homeowners a chance to downsize without getting hit with soaring tax bills. “It will allow them to move and be closer to their families,” she said.

The measure was fueled by the real estate industry, which benefits from a busy market. CAR spent $35.7 million on the campaign and the National Association of Realtors kicked in another $4.8 million, according to campaign finance reports. California Professional Firefighters also contributed $100,000.

The measure was supported by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state Democratic Party, and a coalition of unions and nonprofits. It drew little organized opposition.

The real estate industry modified the 2018 ballot proposal this year, adding dedicated firefighting funds and closing off favorable state provisions which allowed families to inherit homes, rent them and keep low tax bills.

The new measure broadens the landmark Prop 13 provisions. Property taxes are based on the assessment of a home when it’s purchased. New homeowners typically pay dramatically more in taxes than their long-established neighbors.

Prop 19 allows most homeowners over the age of 55 to sell a house and preserve a lower tax assessment on the purchase of another property in California. The preferential tax treatment is also available to severely disabled residents and homeowners who have had their property ruined by a natural disaster or other catastrophe.

Older California homeowners now can only take their low tax assessment to their home county or 10 others, including Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

With home prices soaring to record levels, many agents say long-time homeowners feel locked into their properties and unable or unwilling to pay higher taxes on a new purchase.

Santa Clara agent Myron Von Raesfeld said he believes the measure could have a major impact on the Bay Area, bringing a new supply of homes to the tight market. Many of his clients are empty-nesters seeking to downsize, but can’t afford to move. “They don’t want to move into a condo and pay twice as much in property taxes,” Von Raesfeld said.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the measure initially could reap the state tens of millions of dollars a year by closing tax loopholes. Some of the new money will be earmarked for fire protection.

John Bagala, Marin Professional Firefighters local 1775 president, said it was an important victory. Firefighters have often depended on unpredictable state funding, and the measure will bring additional, dedicated money for personnel and resources.

Bagala and others expect state budget cuts will trim spending on firefighting — even as fire seasons grow longer and more violent. The additional funds will help.

The measure will also aid firefighters who have lost their homes in blazes. About 120 firefighters lost their houses to the Tubbs fire, even as they battled it, he said.

“This got real personal for us several years ago,” Bagala said, adding that he’s worried about fire seasons ahead. “I hate to say it, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

Homegrown Alex Lee, 25, becomes youngest state legislator in decades Lee will represent District 25 in State Assembly, filling seat vacated by Kansen Chu

MILPITAS, CA – NOVEMBER 6: Democrat Alex Lee, 25, the youngest and first openly bisexual member of the California State Assembly poses for a photograph at Milpitas High School in Milpitas Calif., on Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

By JOSEPH GEHA | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: November 9, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: November 9, 2020 at 6:17 a.m.

Like many other young adults in the pricey Bay Area who can’t afford to move out, 25-year-old Alex Lee still lives at home with his mom, in North San Jose.

But soon he may have to find a second home in Sacramento because on Tuesday he was elected to represent District 25 in the California State Assembly. In addition to becoming the youngest person elected to the Legislature in several decades, his accomplishment was marked by some firsts: the first Generation Z legislator, the first openly bisexual state legislator and the youngest Asian American legislator.

“It’s been an exhilarating whirlwind,” Lee said of his campaign and watching the election results pour in last week, giving him a landslide victory to represent a district that encompasses his hometown of Milpitas and portions of North San Jose, Santa Clara, Fremont and Newark. Among the progressive Democrat’s endorsers was presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Quite a ride for someone who grew up splitting time between his mother’s home in North San Jose and his father’s in Milpitas. He went to Milpitas High School, often getting there on VTA buses or light rail trains from his mother’s home.

Lee looks back fondly at his days at Milpitas High, the only comprehensive high school in the city of 80,000 residents, where he was comfortable despite knowing “from an early age that I did not fit the traditional cishet male” stereotype. Lee said his time there melded his approach as a candidate and soon-to-be lawmaker.

“It’s a very diverse town and everyone has different political beliefs, and I think that was a strong empathy-building and relationship-building foundation for me,” he said.

“I got to experience through other people’s lives and working with them in classes, that everyone has different challenges in life and different experiences,” he said. “Growing up that way, I really did want to make a difference in everyone’s life no matter their different challenges in life.”

State Sen. Henry Stern, from Calabasas in Southern California, said he’s not surprised that Lee, one of his former legislative aides, connected with voters.

“I think people are looking for authenticity first, a real person. So even if he was to the left of some people, or to the right of some people, he’s real,” Stern said.

“Being a young person in that community, growing up there, there’s a trust that gets built in when you really know where people are coming from,” he added.

Lee may be young but he and his supporters say he’s far from inexperienced.

During his college years at UC Davis, where he majored in political science, and in the following years, he interned for several legislators including Congressman Mike Honda and Assemblymembers Ed Chau, Evan Low, Cecilia Aguilar Curry, and his predecessor in District 25, Assemblyman Kansen Chu.

Soon after Lee became his intern, Stern said he hired him as a policy aide because he was so knowledgeable and dedicated. Lee even managed a spreadsheet tracking every piece of legislation in the Capitol.

“He was my guy to keep a finger on the pulse of the whole building. You knew whose bill lived, whose bill died, who was mad at who,” Stern said.

“He became the Siri of the Senate floor in a way,” Stern added. That dedication and know-how helped Lee climb his way into the general election over seven Democratic candidates in the March primary. On Tuesday, he trounced perennial Republican candidate Bob Brunton.

When Chu announced in May 2019 he wouldn’t seek re-election to his District 25 seat, Lee jumped right into the race the next month. Near the end of June, he and a group of volunteers were already pounding the pavement, talking to voters about their concerns and his progressive agenda.

“We knocked on every door we could get to, and that was 30,000 doors by the primary, and that really paid off,” Lee said, noting some of his opponents outspent him by 15 to 1.

“There’s no real secret to it,” he said.

“I think it is refreshing — albeit not a new invention — to my constituency to have someone actually show up and ask them what they care about, listen empathetically, and commit to doing something about it,” he said.

Lee said residents told him they were frustrated with the status quo.

When he was campaigning, Lee had to work as a gig-worker for an app-based delivery service to make ends meet. He says being an app worker who still lives at home helped him relate to voters on one of the region’s biggest issues: the affordable housing crisis.

“I live at home because that is the economic survival, economic necessity to live at home. Even with a college degree and a professional job, it just wasn’t cutting it,” he said.

“That is an insecurity that people of Republican, Democratic or Independent households feel, because it is way too expensive in the Bay Area, and I feel it personally,” he said.

“That always strikes a chord with either parents, young people, new families, immigrants, everyone,” he said.

As a legislator, he wants to eventually repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act, which limits rent control in California.

“We really need to be moving toward a vision where the public is in the driver’s seat when it comes to affordable housing and we aren’t just relying on the goodwill, inclusionary housing of for-profit developers,” he said.

Lee hopes to quickly “introduce a bill to vastly curb corporate political special interest money” in California politics once he’s sworn in on Dec. 7.

“Even if he’s not in charge of the conversation, being the unabashed progressive voice that he is, he’s going to move that machine,” Stern said of Lee.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets something big done early,” Stern added.

While some people might get hung up on his youth, ethnicity or bisexual identity, Lee said it’s the whole package that makes him who he is.

“I wasn’t running to be the first bisexual. I’m running on my ideas and my merits in my hometown,” he said.

Layoffs hit Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s nonprofit partner

Kurtis Alexander Nov. 13, 2020 Updated: Nov. 13, 2020 5:04 p.m.7

Park Ranger Mia Monroe walks down to the Dipsea Trail in Muir Woods, where the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy runs the visitor center.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2019

The nonprofit that supports the Golden Gate National Recreation Area says it will lay off more than a quarter of its staff, or about 108 employees, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Like much of the tourism sector, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy has been forced to scale back operations, which include running tours and visitor centers at such popular spots as Alcatraz, Muir Woods and the Marin Headlands. The reductions have cut deep into the organization’s budget. As a result, the organization is facing hard decisions about what programs, from education to ecological restoration to facility improvements, it can afford to continue across the recreation area’s 84,000 acres of Bay Area lands. About a third of the staff was temporarily cut over the summer, and now the conservancy says many of those furloughs will become permanent, effective Dec. 31.

“This year has been tough for everyone, there’s no way around it,” Christine Lehnertz, the organization’s president and CEO, said in a statement emailed to The Chronicle.

The 400-person conservancy has been a partner with the National Park Service since 1981. Last year alone, the group estimates that it rallied thousands of volunteers and contributed $47 million worth of services to GGNRA.

The recreation area, which consists of a constellation of park sites from San Mateo County to Marin County, is one of the busiest properties in the National Park Service. In 2019, the area counted 15 million visits.

The conservancy operates the GGNRA’s visitor centers and shops, and conducts a wide range of programs in the park, from building trails in the Presidio to bringing school groups to Hawk Hill to restoring habitat for coho salmon in Muir Woods.

One of the group’s most lucrative services is providing self-guided audio tours at Alcatraz, which have ceased since the cell house closed with the pandemic. Along with sales of merchandise, the tours account for nearly 60% of the conservancy’s revenues.

The organization estimates that its annual operating budget of about $55 million will be less than half that next fiscal year.

The Presidio Trust, which manages most of the GGNRA’s Presidio, has also been hit hard by the pandemic. Earlier this year, the agency laid off about 20% of its 350 employees. The trust is financially dependent on leases with housing and businesses in the Presidio, including restaurants and inns, which have struggled this year.

Black people saved America in 2020. We might not be there next time

Justin Phillips Nov. 12, 2020 Updated: Nov. 12, 2020 7:07 a.m.

Brianna Noble, 25, rides her horse named Dapper Dan, through the streets of downtown Oakland at the start of a protest honoring George Floyd on Friday, May 29, 2020 in Oakland. "There is no image bigger than a black woman on a large horse," said Noble. "This is the image we would like to see portrayed in our community."Photo: Sarahbeth Maney / Special to The Chronicle

As word spread Saturday morning that Joe Biden had secured enough electoral votes to become the 46th president of the United States, cars driving past my Oakland apartment were honking their horns and blasting songs like Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.”

Within a few hours, masked people were hugging in the street and dancing. It felt like a socially distanced block party. And the theme song for it, based on the number of times I heard it played through nearby apartment windows, was “FDT” by rap artists YG and the late Nipsey Hussle. (“DT” stands for Donald Trump; you can imagine what the “F” stands for.)

Everyone around me was happy. Yet all I wanted to do was sleep.

I’m exhausted. My friends, my family, every Black person I know at this point in 2020 is just tired. That’s because as much as America seems to be celebrating right now, Black folks know 2020 has been a year of unprecedented pain and struggle for our people. Even before the pandemic, the Black community, especially in California, was dealt a significant blow with the death of former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, and his daughter, in a January helicopter crash.

We were still coming to grips with that when the pandemic started. Almost overnight we became the face of the disease in the Bay Area. State public health data in May showed we were dying from COVID-19 at a rate twice as high as any other race.

Shelter-in-place orders crippled the Black-owned small business economy in California and across the country. Job losses were high. We were scared over the health of our communities.

Then George Floyd was killed.

Yet, when it came to the presidential election, Black people put their pain and anger for this year aside to vote Donald Trump out of office. Joe Biden secured 87% of the Black vote, according to Edison Research numbers. Even with all of what happened to the Black community, my people, one of the most disenfranchised groups in this country, took on the task of dragging America toward progress. This role isn’t unfamiliar to us.

We’ve been battling to improve this country, often against the desires of white people, since the 1800s, when Black abolitionists worked to end slavery through resistance and rebellion. From the 1940s through the ’60s, Black Americans led the civil rights movement in America. Fast-forward to 2008 and it was young Black voters who participated in the election in greater proportions than whites for the first time, according to Census Bureau data, to elect the nation’s first Black president.

In 2020, Black people amplified calls for police reform through the Black Lives Matter movement. Those Confederate monuments that were pulled down in places like Alabama and South Carolina because they were symbols of America’s dark legacy of slavery? Black people made that happen. We’re stuck in a cycle of saving this country from itself. But America has always been slow to care as aggressively about its Black populace.

What if we aren’t in the mood to do it next time?

Against the backdrop of a racial reckoning, white America showed us that it was fine with the direction this country was heading under Trump, with the rise of white nationalists, a crumbling economy, poor pandemic response, racist rhetoric and all. Trump has reportedly already said he plans to run again for president in 2024. He’ll have a base of supporters waiting — according to election poll data, 58% of white people in America voted to re-elect Donald Trump this year. It can feel like the Black community’s cries are falling on more deaf ears than we ever realized. The country works best when Black people can consider at least a majority of white America as allies. Based on this election, we know that can’t be a reality. It’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. It’s tiring.

I thought about this Sunday afternoon when white people in my neighborhood were partying and riding bikes all over while holding Biden and Harris signs. It was a celebration for them.

But all that bounced around my mind was how some of my Black friends in places like Louisiana and Florida wondered whether they needed to arm themselves before voting. Simply going to a polling place felt like a matter of life and death. They went anyway, caring less about themselves and more about the future of this country, a country that doesn’t always seem to have our well-being in mind.

One friend took his children with him when he went to vote in Texas this year. His kids are too young to understand the election process, but he explained as much as he could. He felt it was important for them to see it in action. When I caught up with him, he wasn’t celebrating. Instead, he was at home, “finally getting some sleep.”

I understood. Hopefully America will too the next time it expects the Black community to bail us all out.

Proposition 15, California’s sweeping property tax reform, defeated

Roland Li Nov. 11, 2020 Updated: Nov. 11, 2020 3:08 p.m.

Proposition 15 would have raised taxes on commercial properties in San Francisco and other California cities, in a partial rollback of the state’s Prop. 13.

Photo: Eric Risberg / Associated Press

Proposition 15, California’s biggest real estate tax proposal in more than four decades, was narrowly defeated in the latest setback for progressives in the high-turnout presidential election. The measure, which would have removed the landmark Proposition 13’s property tax protections for commercial properties, was rejected by 51.8% of the voters as of Wednesday. More than 8 million Californians voted against the measure. As of Wednesday, just over 7.5 million had voted in favor, significantly below the more than 10 million in the state who voted for President-elect Joe Biden, who ran on a platform that included higher taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations and supported Prop. 15.

Supporters of Prop. 15 similarly characterized the measure as a tax increase that would largely affect large corporations and make them pay their fair share, but voters appeared to be reluctant to raise taxes during an economic meltdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

With some 1.48 million mail-in and provisional votes left to count, Prop. 15 would need to win more than two-thirds of the remaining votes to close its current deficit. But the measure has consistently fallen behind in the vote, and its deficit has been almost unchanged in the past week of vote counting.

The rejection of the measure, along with the defeat of other progressive-backed propositions like Proposition 16’s restoration of affirmative action and Proposition 21’s expansion of rent control, was evidence that California’s economic and social liberalism is tempered by voters who are more moderate and conservative. Republicans also won back at least one House seat held by a Democrat and were poised to flip more.

Prop. 15 would have generated an estimated $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion annually for local governments and schools, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, making it one of the largest tax proposals in state history. Opponents, which were largely business groups and the real estate industry, said the tax increase would be passed down to tenants and consumers, hurting the economy.

“From day one, we knew that if voters understood the harm this deeply flawed tax hike would impose on California’s economy and its families, farmers and small businesses, voters would reject this ill-advised effort,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable and co-chair of the opposition campaign, in a statement. “Today’s victory should send a clear message to the proponents and warn all politicians that voters will continue to reject attempts to dismantle Prop. 13.”

It would have required buildings to be reassessed for tax purposes at least once every three years starting in 2022, rather than only when they are sold or after new construction. Annual property tax increases in California are capped at 2% because of 1978’s Prop. 13. As a result, some buildings that have not been sold in decades pay far less in annual taxes than neighbors that were sold more recently.

The measure was supported by major labor unions, who have sought to undo parts of Prop. 13 for years. Gov. Gavin Newsom also supported the measure. “California’s challenges are not going anywhere, and this election result has shown that there is strong public demand for closing the corporate tax loopholes which cost our local communities billions every year,” said Alex Stack, spokesman for the Yes on 15 campaign.

The defeat of Prop. 15 means that the legacy of Prop. 13, passed amid a tax revolt that helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency two years later, remains intact.

Pandemic makes building homes, not apartments, California’s hot property In California this summer, multifamily permits fell 15% By JONATHAN LANSNER | Southern California News Group Columnist

PUBLISHED: November 15, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. | UPDATED: November 16, 2020 at 3:58 a.m.

Building homes, not apartments, is housing’s sweet spot in this pandemic era.

Homebuilders across California filed 17,042 permits this summer for single-family homes — the second-busiest quarter since 2007, according to U.S. Census Bureau stats compiled by the St. Louis Fed. My trusty spreadsheet says that pace is a 42% surge from the spring’s pandemic- induced chill and up 18% from a year ago.

It’s all part of a widespread and curious coronavirus impact on housing. Amid the pandemic, house seekers share a growing desire for more living space. As the economy emerged from a springtime lockdown, we saw house hunters, lured by historically low mortgage rates, push California homebuying to levels not seen since before the Great Recession.

That thirst for ownership ran into significant challenges. Many owners have been unwilling to sell in a pandemic. Builders had been cautious with construction, even years after the last bubble burst. The resulting inventory shortage meant California’s median selling price hit record highs in June through September.

All these market forces mean builders have literally been overrun with house hunters, according to data from new-home sales tracker Zonda.

In September, builders across the U.S. signed 47% more new home sales contracts than a year earlier. In California, that buying binge was 88% in Riverside and San Bernardino counties; 58% in the San Francisco market; 66% in Sacramento; 44% in Los Angeles and Orange counties; and 42% in San Diego. It was up just 6% in the San Jose area.

“Mortgage rates are literally turning back time,” says Ali Wolf, Zonda’s chief economist, noting that low financing rates mean a typical house payment is roughly at 2015 levels despite price hikes. “This is good for buyers for now, but the strong demand is driving home prices up, and threatens affordability in the future, especially when mortgage rates start to tick up.”

This sales surge requires more new homes to complete orders. That explains why, nationwide, 276,700 single one-family permits were filed in the third quarter — the busiest three-month period in 13 years and up 29% from the spring. The third quarter’s building binge is also 29% higher than the average pace of the previous six years.

Rental pain Now, let’s contrast all that new home expansion with development plans for multifamily housing, largely apartments but with some ownership condominiums, too. The pandemic’s economic pain disproportionally slammed the lower-paid renter class. Landlords have struggled to collect rents and keep units occupied. So property owners can barely raise rents — and in many cases have to offer discounts in order to lure in tenants.

We’re in the worst rental market since the Great Recession, which doesn’t get developers excited about building more apartments.

In California, 10,974 permits were filed this summer for multifamily units. Yes, that’s up 15% from the depressed spring, but it’s down 15% from the previous six year’s pace.

The drop is loosely in line with national patterns: U.S. multifamily permits were up 7% from the spring and flat compared with the six-year average.

Enough lots? The question remains as to whether homebuilders can build fast enough in light of ownership’s sudden popularity.

“Builders are juggling supply and demand right now,” Wolf says. “Contract sales are up double- digits and yet many of the homes being sold today are to-be-built. This means builders are entering 2021 with a robust backlog but will need to navigate the supply chain issues (from lumber to staffing) to deliver those homes on time.”

Let’s look at the pandemic’s twist on residential development this way: The single-family home’s slice of all statewide permitting.

In the years after the Great Recession, developers focused more on building more apartments than houses. Then came the coronavirus.

California’s single-family share of all planned units was 61% this summer — a sharp increase from the 50% average since 2011. It’s a change seen across the nation, too, with 70% of U.S. homebuilding permits this summer filed for single-family residences vs. a 63% average in the past nine years.

Of course, more homes of any kind is certainly good news for housing-short California. But the summer’s total permits of 28,016 is by no means any panacea.

The tally was down 2% from a year ago while permitting nationwide was up 6%. That left California — home to 12% of the U.S. population — with 7.1% of all nationwide homebuilding permits vs. a 7.9% average since 2010 and 10% in 1988-2009.

And Wolf says some builders fear they’ll run out of lots on which to build homes.

“If that’s the case, home sales could flatten or even drop compared to 2020 solely based on supply issues, not demand,” she said.

Walters: What next for tax advocates after defeat of Prop. 15? If Newsom and the Legislature won’t act, would advocates risk another a ballot measure in 2022?

When Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Proposition 15, he pointedly said he would not sanction more bites on his fellow high-income Californians or a “wealth tax,” both of which have been floated in the Capitol. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool, File)

By DAN WALTERS |

PUBLISHED: November 15, 2020 at 5:45 a.m. | UPDATED: November 15, 2020 at 5:51 a.m.

Proposition 15, which would have boosted property taxes on commercial real estate by billions of dollars a year, finally bit the dust last week.

It wasn’t a surprise. Although its advocates — unions, mostly — may cite the COVID-19 pandemic and recession as causes for failure, the measure never polled strongly even before the twin crises struck. Their pitch was two-fold — schools and local governments need the money and big commercial property owners benefit from an unfair loophole.

The successful counter argument from business opponents was also a two-fer — if Proposition 15 passed, property owners would shift extra taxes to business tenants and their customers, and it would be the first step toward dismantling Proposition 13, California’s iconic and popular property tax limit.

Proposition 15’s rejection creates a dilemma for public employee unions and other spending advocates who ardently believe that despite already having one of the nation’s highest taxation levels, somewhere over 12% of personal income, California governments need much more money.

Those advocates enjoy strong support in the overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature, which could simply raise sales, personal income or corporate tax rates without going to voters. Tax increases will no doubt be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes in December since putting a bill in the hopper is a cheap way for a legislator to show solidarity with unions and other pro-tax factions.

However, having enough Democratic legislators to pass new taxes and putting up enough votes for specific levies are not the same thing, particularly if they lack gubernatorial support.

When Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Proposition 15, he pointedly said he would not sanction more bites on his fellow high-income Californians or a “wealth tax,” both of which have been floated in the Capitol.

“In a global, mobile economy, now is not the time for the kind of state tax increases on income we saw proposed at the end of this legislative session and I will not sign such proposals into law,” Newsom said.

Newsom’s reference to a “global, mobile economy” implies awareness that the state budget is already very dependent on taxing incomes of the wealthy. In fact, the top 1% of taxpayers — about 150,000 in a state of 40 million — generate more than a third of the state’s unrestricted revenues. Hitting them up for more could encourage tax avoidance, such as freezing taxable income from capital gains, or even fleeing to other states.

If Newsom and the Legislature won’t act, would advocates risk another a ballot measure in 2022? The California School Boards Association and its allies had wanted to put a $15 billion personal and corporate income tax hike on this year’s ballot, but bowed to pressure from Proposition 15’s advocates, particularly the California Teachers Association, to not compete.

“After conducting a significant amount of polling and analysis, we have determined that having two measures on the same ballot that — at least in part — provide funding for public schools, risked a scenario where our measure would come up short,” California School Boards Association CEO Vernon Billy said last December as his group backed off.

An extra $15 billion a year would raise California’s per-pupil spending to the national average on the way to the education community’s goal of entering the top ranks of states in school support, which would require another $15 billion per year.

Those are big numbers and don’t take into account demands from health, social welfare and early childhood education advocates for billions more they want to expand services. Does Proposition 15’s defeat cool the jets of tax increase advocates, or spur them to greater efforts?

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

OPINION // OPEN FORUM At 78, Joe Biden lifts us out of 2020 malaise

By Carolyn Jones Nov. 20, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden takes off his mask to speak following a meeting with governors in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday.

Photo: Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images

Like millions of Americans, I’ve been listening raptly to Joe Biden’s speeches and interviews since election day. Hearing the passion in his voice, his hope, his vision, I’m left with only one conclusion:

This man actually wants to be president!

This has come as a surprise. All along, I thought he was in it at the behest of others, that he was a reluctant candidate doing his patriotic duty. I figured that, like the rest of us, he’d rather be lying on the couch watching baking shows, pretending none of this was happening. But no, it’s clear now. Joe Biden, who turned 78 Friday, when he could be happily retired in Wilmington, Del., has chosen to undertake the most stressful job on the planet. With enthusiasm.

So, that raises the question, what’s our excuse?

Let’s face it, most of us have sunk into low-level despair and self-pity since the pandemic lockdown began. It hasn’t helped that we’ve been bombarded with messages about the importance of hunkering down, maintaining mental health, lowering expectations, cutting ourselves plenty of slack — mentally, emotionally and otherwise. Schools have been going easy on grades, workplaces have adapted to slower outputs. Banks are letting bills slide. Consider this a lost year, has been the mantra.

Well, Biden did not get to be president-elect by practicing self-care, puttering around the house with sourdough starter and houseplants. And he is practically an octogenarian! I am (many, many) decades younger and I constantly complain how my back hurts, I’m tired, I need to “take it easy, for a change.” I see now that I’m actually just lazy, enabled by the mental health industry.

Maybe it’s time we collectively got off the couch and stopped indulging in pandemic malaise. This global funk is not going to improve — climate change will not reverse, the crooks will not leave Washington, social justice will not prevail — if the entire population is playing “Words With Friends” and eating cheesecake.

I have a few friends who’ve been extra active, campaigning for underdog candidates or doing ambitious home repair projects. Writing screenplays, learning español. But most people I know, myself included, are deep into inertia. Why bother doing anything worthwhile, when the future is so relentlessly bleak?

Perhaps Joe Biden would tell us, that’s exactly why we have to get off the couch.

Another thing: I never want to hear an ageist remark about Joe Biden again, especially from someone who’s been in his or her pajamas since March and been whining about “the COVID 19.”

That includes you, Gen Z.

Biden has shown a level of stamina and resilience that most people couldn’t even imagine. He endured untold inanities from the outgoing president and his minions, ran a yearlong campaign via Zoom, won the support of nearly 80 million voters, and crafted detailed policies aimed at saving humanity. He even shared a debate stage with Tulsi Gabbard. How many snarky Millennials could pull that off?

Biden campaigned on ambitious platforms intended to heal a fractured country and save the planet from catastrophe. But to me, he’s been a symbol of something more personal: the importance of getting up every day, casting aside ennui and aching-back complaints, and thinking big. Thinking of the world beyond the kitchen table. Biden would tell us to stop doomscrolling at 3 a.m., and focus on high-minded goals that require spending energy, not conserving it.

The next four years will surely be a jumble of victories and frustrations, but Joe Biden will always be a winner to me. He got me off the couch and feeling optimistic for the first time in you-know-how-long. And by Inauguration Day, I might even give up cheesecake.

CONGRESS Hoyer: Earmarks are likely coming back next year No. 2 House Democrat is optimistic Republicans, Democrats will participate if change goes through

Hoyer, D-Md., attends a news conference on Nov. 18, 2020. (Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call)

By Jennifer Shutt

Posted November 20, 2020 at 12:13pm

House Democratic leaders are proceeding with plans to bring back earmarks for the 117th Congress, according to Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer.

Hoyer, D-Md., said in an interview Friday that sometime after the Appropriations Committee’s new chairwoman is elected the week of Nov. 30, she will begin soliciting House lawmakers to “ask for congressional initiatives for their districts and their states.”

The three candidates to replace retiring House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., are all on board with restoring “congressionally directed spending,” as it has come to be known. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida had previously endorsed the return of earmarks. Connecticut’s Rosa DeLauro had hesitated but now “unequivocally” backs restoring line items for members’ districts after further conversations, an aide said.

Hoyer said all three support, with leadership’s backing, transparency measures similar to those in place a decade ago before the practice was banned entirely. That includes making a project’s requestor publicly available as well as the justification for spending taxpayer dollars on it, and clearly noting in legislation which provisions constitute member- requested items.

“There are three candidates for chair of the Appropriations Committee. All have indicated they are for congressional initiatives, congressional add-ons with the structure I’ve just talked about — transparency when you ask, when it’s given, when it’s on the floor,” Hoyer said.

He left a little wiggle room on the topic, noting that the decision was ultimately up to appropriators and the caucus.

“Obviously, the committee is going to have to consider how they are going to do it, and I think that will largely be up to the new chair of the Appropriations Committee and the subcommittee chairs and very frankly the members of the Congress,” Hoyer said. “There could be a situation in which the committee could decide they don’t want to do that.”

Hoyer said he's optimistic that both Republicans and Democrats will participate in the process if earmarks come back into the picture.

He isn’t concerned that Senate Republicans’ permanent ban on earmarks will complicate negotiations on appropriations bills if the GOP keeps control of that chamber following two Georgia runoffs on Jan. 5.

“I don’t expect it to be a partisan effort. Now that doesn’t mean that everybody does participate,” he said. “But I know there are a lot of Republicans on our side and a lot of Republicans on the Senate side who want to . . . have the ability to invest in their states.”

Democrats and Republicans have been talking about bringing back earmarks since just after Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, added a ban to House GOP rules in 2011. Senate Democrats followed a few months later with the support of President Barack Obama.

Senate Republicans made their earmark prohibition permanent last year, but several party members, including Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., support bringing the practice back.

When Democrats regained control of the House in 2019 the prohibition on earmarking in that chamber technically ended, and internal discussions began about when and how to bring back congressionally directed spending. Lowey opted not to bring back earmarks during this session after receiving pushback from new, more moderate members of the Democratic Caucus who were concerned about oversight, transparency and the politics of bringing back earmarks.

Freshman New York Rep. Max Rose was one of those, but he has conceded defeat to his GOP challenger. The Associated Press hasn’t yet called the race but the most recent tally has him behind by about 37,000 votes.

Rosie Riveters honored with Congressional Gold Medal Award honoring WWII women workers to be available for display at Richmond park, other locations

Jane Tyska/staff archives

World War II defense workers Priscilla Elder, of Pinole, from left, Marian Wynn, of Fairfield, Kay Morrison, of Fairfield, Marian Sousa, of El Sobrante, and Phyllis Gould, of Fairfax, appear together previously in the visitors center at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond. The U.S. Senate on Nov. 12 gave final approval to an act awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to all of America’s women who worked on the country’s World War II home front. By CHRIS TREADWAY | Correspondent

PUBLISHED: November 17, 2020 at 11:05 a.m. | UPDATED: November 20, 2020 at 3:57 p.m.

It took almost exactly a year for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to approve legislation awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the women who worked on the World War II home front. The Rosie the Riveter Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2019, passed by the House on Nov. 14, 2019, remained on hold until Nov. 12, when it won the Senate’s approval. Phyllis Gould, a 99-year- old former Rosie at the Kaiser Richmond shipyards, watched the vote on C-SPAN from her home in the Marin County town of Fairfax.

Gould and Mae Krier, a former Rosie from Pennsylvania, have a track record of successfully lobbying for official recognition for the millions of women who stepped into crucial roles on the home front during the war. Gould and Krier’s efforts include a 2014 visit with then-Vice President Joe Biden in Washington, D.C., and the official declaration of a national Rosie the Riveter Day by Congress in 2018. U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo County, introduced the bill authorizing the medal in 2019.

“While Congress has honored many World War II heroes with a Congressional Gold Medal, it has disgracefully overlooked the sacrifice and service of the incredible women who heeded our nation’s call to action on the home front,” Speier said when it passed. “Rosies like Phyllis Gould and Marian Sousa learned new jobs as welders and draftsmen. Mae Krier helped build B-17 and B-29 bombers. Betty Reid Soskin worked as a file clerk in the Boilermakers Union hall.”

Approval of a companion bill in the Senate languished due to a lack of sponsors, though, much to the frustration of the women it was meant to honor.

“It’s been a long time,” said the aforementioned Sousa, 94, of El Sobrante, who is Gould’s younger sister.

All of the surviving Rosies are in their 90s or more than 100 years old.

“It’s so darned late,” Sousa said. “It should have been done a long time ago.”

“They had to get enough signatures on the bill, and it took a long time to get ’em,” Gould said. “Finally, they got 70 signatures, so it was veto-proof.”

Speier, in a statement, said she is “thrilled that the Senate has joined the House in passing legislation to finally honor our Rosie the Riveters for their courage, sacrifice and immense contributions to our nation just like our other World War II heroes.”

The bill authorizes a single gold medal “collectively, to the women in the United States who joined the workforce during World War II, providing the aircraft, vehicles, weaponry, ammunition and other material to win the war, who were referred to as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ in recognition of their contributions to the United States and the inspiration they have provided to ensuing generations.”

It will be given to the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution and made available for display at “appropriate locations” such as the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond. A Rosie’s work is never done, though, as far as Gould is concerned. Gould and Krier “decided a Rosie should design the medal, and I’m working on it,” Gould said. “I don’t know how far it will go, but it seems appropriate for a Rosie to do the design.”

Gould has a design concept in mind, featuring the heads of four real-life Black, Latina, Asian and white Rosies.

“It just needs to be done, and I have plenty of time,” she said. “I hope it ends up being considered at least.”

In ‘remarkable’ turnaround, California schools can expect huge one-time windfall next year, LAO says Despite high unemployment, state revenues rebound quicker than predicted. SCHOOL FINANCE

NOVEMBER 18, 2020 JOHN FENSTERWALD

CREDIT: ANDREW REED/EDSOURCE An uneven recession savaging low-income Californians, but a surprisingly fast economic rebound advantaging higher-income Californians, will create a huge unexpected state budget surplus that will provide an unexpected $13.1 billion in one-time revenue for K-12 schools and community colleges in the fiscal year starting July 1, 2021, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported on Wednesday.

While tempering its forecast because of the pandemic’s unpredictability — “Despite being our best assessment, our main forecast will be wrong to some extent” — the LAO’s report documents what it calls a “remarkable” turnaround. The LAO’s annual projection precedes the governor’s budget by about two months, but usually is an accurate forecast of revenues and spending obligations.

K-12 schools and community colleges are entitled to about 40% of General Fund revenue, which could exceed forecasts by $26 billion, the LAO forecasts. That’s the median projection, because, with so many variables at play, the surplus could be as low as $12 billion or as high as $40 billion, the LAO said.

The projected $13.1 billion increase for Proposition 98, the formula that determines revenue for K-12 schools and community colleges, would be 18.5% next year. It would far surpass the previous record of $6.3 billion and 10.3% in 2014-15, the LAO said.

Districts shouldn’t assume that will result in pockets bulging with cash, however. To avoid budget cuts this year, the state issued $11 billion in IOUs, called deferrals, in which it’s forcing districts to borrow or use reserves, with the promise that the state will repay them next year for money owed. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature could decide to end the deferrals and once again be on track with its payments next year. Doing so could eat up part or nearly all of the $13.1 billion. The LAO is endorsing that conservative budgeting approach. If it chooses, the Legislature could get a head start and use surging revenues to start paying down the deferrals this year, giving immediate relief to districts.

“This is obviously good news in a year when we haven’t gotten much of it,” since the school community had been anticipating more pain next year, said Edgar Zazueta, senior director of policy and governmental relations for the Association of California School Administrators.

But he said restoring lost funding doesn’t solve the additional resources schools will need to reopen schools and keep them open. “There still could be difficult times ahead.” The projected total state surplus is possible because the budget the Legislature passed in June assumed dire forecasts. While unemployment is still 16%, the highest since the Great Depression, the budget assumed 25%. And while workers earning less than $20 per hour have borne the brunt of layoffs, high-wage Californians, particularly in the technology sector, have been relatively unaffected. With the stock market soaring, state revenue, primarily from personal income taxes and capital gains, is up 22% — $11 billion — after a little more than a third of the way through the current fiscal year.

“Millionaires are doing great, and billionaires are doing even better sums up why these revenue figures are so good,” said Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors Group, an education consulting firm.

The LAO is characterizing the surge in revenue as a one-time windfall, because it essentially will restore the guaranteed funding for Prop. 98 to little more than what it would have been before the recession caused plummeting revenues and a cut of $14.6 billion in the budget adopted in June.

Looking ahead, the LAO is projecting a growing General Fund deficit, starting with $2.6 billion next year, growing to $17.5 billion three years later. That’s why it is recommending that the Legislature and Newsom divert half of next year’s surplus into the state’s rainy-day fund.

But the forecast for schools is different: slow, steady growth in Prop. 98 funding, from $84 billion in 2021-22 to $98 billion in 2024-25. The biggest factor is that Newsom has pledged, as part of this year’s budget, to gradually increase school funding as a proportion of the General Fund by a few percentage points each year. It would start with $2.3 billion next year growing to about $6 billion by 2024-25.

A $6 billion increase would provide more money to schools and community colleges than they would have gotten had voters passed Proposition 15, an initiative on the November ballot raising taxes on commercial property. It would have raised a maximum of $4.5 billion per year.

The LAO suggested that Newsom reconsider his funding commitment, since it was based on the assumption that the recession would cut funding for schools and community colleges at least several years — circumstances that no longer apply.

But schools are not likely to let that new money be taken away without a fight. “It’s important that the state doesn’t sneak money out the back door by revoking supplemental payments for public education that are critical to meeting our current crisis and to recovering from the damaging impacts of the pandemic on student performance, socialization and mental health,” Troy Flint, a spokesman for the California School Boards Association, said in a statement.

The California State University system will ask the Legislature next year for more than half a billion dollars of the state surplus. The $556 million request includes restoring $299 million that the state cut from the 23-university system in the current budget. It also includes a $16.5 million request to fund the mandatory ethnic studies requirement known as Assembly Bill 1460. The CSU’s highest priority is $150 million for its Graduation Initiative 2025, which aims to increase graduation rates and close racial equity gaps.

With more investment, the system would “add more high-demand course sections required for graduation,” said Steve Relyea, CSU’s executive vice-chancellor and chief financial officer, during the Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday.

EdSource reporter Ashley A. Smith contributed to this article.

Dan Walters: California’s revenue windfall creates political dilemma By DAN WALTERS | CalMatters

November 22, 2020 at 12:12 a.m.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom makes the final decisions on writing a 2021-22 budget, he’s receiving some good revenue news from his bean counters.

During the first four months of the 2020-21 budget cycle, which began on July 1, state general fund revenues were more than $11 billion higher than the apocalyptic estimates on which the budget was based. Moreover, the windfall could easily double to $26 billion in the first months of 2021, according to the Legislature’s budget analyst, Gabe Petek.

What happened?

The sharp recession triggered by Newsom’s COVID-19 business shutdowns has been very uneven, striking hard at Californians on the lower rungs of the economic ladder while affecting those on the upper rungs very softly, if at all.

Those on top are able, unlike the working poor, to continue earning from home. Many have also benefited from stock market gains, and they generate most of the state’s income taxes. Hence, the state’s revenues have been far healthier than the 2020-21 budget had assumed.

Whatever its size, the one-time windfall is not an unleavened blessing because Petek also projects that during the years beyond the 2021-22 period, the state faces structural budget deficits — a built-in gap between income and outgo.

Petek said in his report, “although the budget is expected to have a windfall in 2021-22, it is also expected to have an operating deficit in that year. The operating deficit is relatively small in 2021-22, but would grow to around $17 billion by 2024-25.”

Thus, it creates a dilemma for Newsom and the Legislature — whether to use the extra bucks to offset spending cuts and repay loans that were used to close the projected 2020-21 gap, or sock the windfall away to cushion the impact of projected longer-term deficits.

Petek proposed a solomonic solution, appropriating about half of the extra money before the spending cuts fully kick in, and keeping the remainder in the piggy bank.

However, from a purely political standpoint, such a measured approach would be difficult because the pressure to spend is heavy, as Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon indicated in his reaction to Petek’s report. “In light of the revenue analysis of the Legislative Analyst’s Office, it should be our priority to restore funds to critical programs that were cut and prevent additional cuts,” Rendon said. “I agree with Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins’ approach for making use of the $26 billion that has been identified.”

Ever since the 2020-21 budget was passed in June, advocates for education and other programs that were cut back have been pressing for tax increases, especially after it became clear that a massive new federal relief program to offset the reductions was not happening.

They had hoped that voters would bolster their cause by passing Proposition 15, a hefty increase in commercial property taxes, but the measure was defeated. Newsom has also thrown cold water on calls for income tax increases and the windfall would make a tax increase politically impossible in the short run.

With new taxes seemingly off the table, advocates will press, as Rendon hinted, for spending most or even all of the windfall, even though such an approach would worsen the longer-term deficits.

The situation then raises another scenario. The windfall may make a tax increase impossible in the short run, but if the state faces the longer-term deficits that Petek projects, they will fuel pressure for either another try at a property tax hike or an income tax increase circa 2022.

Furthermore, we also don’t know how long the pandemic and the recession it induced will last.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary

Land conservation plan stirs fight over Trump restrictions

POLITICS by: MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

Posted: Nov 20, 2020 / 03:53 PM EST / Updated: Nov 20, 2020 / 04:08 PM EST

FILE – In this July 30, 2014, photo is Margerie Glacier, one of many glaciers that make up Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. U.S. officials on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, released details on proposed land conservation purchases for the coming year amid bipartisan objection to restrictions on how the government’s money can be spent. (AP Photo/Kathy Matheson, File)

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Proposed land conservation purchases in dozens of states would preserve parts of natural areas in tourist destinations, U.S. officials announced Friday as lawmakers from both parties pushed back on Trump administration restrictions on how the money can be spent. The $125 million in congressionally authorized spending would buy up private property inside the boundaries of places including Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, Kentucky’s Green River National Wildlife Refuge and Florida’s Everglades region.

It comes as some senators objected to an order last week from U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt that empowers local and state officials to block the purchases. Bernhardt’s order also limits land acquisitions to property inside the existing boundaries of parks and refuges, rather than expanding their footprint.

Notable among critics of the order is Sen. Steve Daines. The Montana Republican helped barter a bipartisan agreementthat authorized the conservation fund purchases under the Great American Outdoors Act, which was signed into law in August.

Daines said in a statement that the order ran counter to “the transparency, collaboration, and partnerships that have made this critical conservation program so successful for decades.”

“This must be corrected going forward to ensure Montana voices are heard,” Daines said. “Fortunately, Congress maintains oversight.”

Democratic Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico, Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia also have raised objections.

Udall called it a “last-gasp attempt” by the President Donald Trump’s administration to hinder land preservation efforts. Several conservation groups also have raised objections. A Tester spokesman said it was a “slap in the face” for the administration to push through the order just weeks before Trump leaves office.

An Interior Department official closely involved in the development of the spending plan defended Bernhardt’s order in an interview with The Associated Press. Margaret Everson, a counselor to Bernhardt, indicated there are no plans to rescind the order as Tester has requested.

“This idea about being a good neighbor and coordinating with state and local counterparts is a good idea,” she said. “That’s something that’s really important as we prioritize recreational access and opportunities for everybody.”

Tester spokesman Roy Loewenstein said the senator would push the administration of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden to quickly strike down Bernhardt’s order.

BIZ & TECH // BUSINESS Business Highlights

By The Associated Press Nov. 23, 2020

AP source: Biden taps ex-Fed chair Yellen to lead treasury

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has chosen former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to serve as treasury secretary, a pivotal role in which she would help shape and direct his economic policies. Her nomination was confirmed to The Associated Press by a person familiar with Biden’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss them. Yellen, who is widely admired in the financial world, would be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department in a line stretching back to Alexander Hamilton in 1789. The 74-year-old Yellen was also the first woman to serve as Fed chair. She later became an adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign.

GM to recall 7M vehicles globally to replace Takata air bags

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors will recall about 7 million big pickup trucks and SUVs worldwide to replace potentially dangerous Takata air bag inflators. The move came Monday after the U.S. government told the automaker it had to recall 6 million of the vehicles in the U.S. GM says it will not fight the recall, which will cost $1.2 billion. The company had petitioned the agency four times starting in 2016 to avoid a recall, contending the inflators are safe. Takata used ammonium nitrate to create a small explosion to fill air bags in a crash. But the chemical can deteriorate and blow apart a metal canister, spewing shrapnel. Twenty-seven people have been killed worldwide by the exploding inflators.

Google faces UK scrutiny over new advertising data revamp

LONDON (AP) — Google faces fresh regulatory scrutiny in Britain over plans to revamp its ad data system, after an industry lobbying group complained to the competition watchdog that the changes would cement the U.S. tech giant’s online dominance. Marketers for an Open Web, a coalition of technology and publishing companies, said Monday that it’s urging the U.K. competition watchdog to step in and force Google to delay the rollout of its “privacy sandbox” scheduled for early next year. The new technology would remove so-called third party cookies that allow users to be tracked across the internet by storing information on their devices, replaced by tools owned by Google. That means login, advertising and other features would be taken off the open web and placed under Google’s control, the group said.

Employers start sending workers shopping for health coverage

NEW YORK (AP) — Some companies are turning health insurance shopping over to employees. They’re sending workers to individual insurance markets to find coverage and then reimbursing them at least partially for the cost. This new approach can give employees more choices while protecting companies from huge cost spikes. But it’s also a big change for workers who may be used to having their employer lay out their benefit choices every year. A federal rule change last year stoked this new approach. It allows employers to reimburse their workers for individual coverage without paying a tax penalty. Retail trade group sees solid holiday sales despite pandemic

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Retail Federation expects that holiday sales could actually exceed growth of prior seasons despite the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. The nation’s largest retail trade group predicts that sales for the November and December period will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% over 2019 to a total between $755.3 billion and $766.7 billion. That excludes automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants. It compares with 4% growth to $729.1 billion last year. Holiday sales have averaged gains of 3.5% over the past five years. The NRF delayed the release of its forecast by about a month, citing the uncertainty around the pandemic. Still, it warns any further shutdowns of stores as virus cases surge would derail sales.

GM flips to California’s side in pollution fight with Trump

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is switching sides in the legal fight against California’s right to set its own clean-air standards, abandoning the Trump administration as the president’s term nears its close. EO Mary Barra said in a letter Monday to environmental groups that GM will no longer support the Trump administration in its defense against a lawsuit over its efforts against California’s standards. And GM is urging other automakers to do the same. The move is a sign that GM and other automakers are anticipating big changes when President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. Already at least one other large automaker, Toyota, said it may join GM in switching to California’s team.

Pandemic has taken a bite out of seafood trade, consumption

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has hurt the U.S. seafood industry due to a precipitous fall in imports and exports and a drop in catch of some species. Those are the findings of a group of scientists who sought to quantify the damage of the pandemic on America’s seafood business. The group also found that the industry suffered in part because of its reliance on restaurant sales. They found that consumer demand for seafood at restaurants dropped by more than 70% during the early months of the pandemic. The scientists published their findings recently in the scientific journal Fish and Fisheries.

The S&P 500 rose 20.05 points, or 0.6%, to 3,577.59. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 327.79 points, or 1.1%, to 29,591.27. The Nasdaq composite added 25.66 points, or 0.2%, to 11,880.63. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks gained 32.96 points, or 1.8%, to 1,818.30.

POLITICS Divided Washington will test House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s prowess next year

Tal Kopan Nov. 23, 2020 Updated: Nov. 23, 2020 4 a.m.

President-elect Joe Biden, speaks during a meeting with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., left, Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Photo: Alex Brandon / Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Next year could put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reputation as a master legislator to the greatest test of her career, with Washington poised to enter one of its most sharply divided periods in a generation. The San Francisco Democrat will be presiding over the narrowest House majority in her career as speaker. With a few races left to be officially called, Democrats are likely to have only a handful of seats more than the 218 needed for a majority.

Pelosi is likely to be one-third of a triumvirate of battle-hardened legislators occupying the main power centers of Washington. It’s a dynamic that could result in one of the more productive stretches in recent years — or prove that political dysfunction has become inescapable.

Like the House, the Senate will be closely divided, with control to be decided in two Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia. Democrats would need to win both to have the effective majority, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking vote.

The White House will be held by Democrats — specifically President-elect Joe Biden, a Washington veteran who spent 36 years in the Senate and eight in the White House as vice president.

Democrats are the underdogs in the Georgia races, making Joe Biden likely to take office as the first new president in 30 years whose party doesn’t fully control Congress.

Assuming Republicans hold the Senate, Biden and Pelosi will have to contend with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who blocked much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda and ignored virtually every piece of legislation Pelosi’s House Democrats passed in the past two years.

Pelosi and her allies are nevertheless projecting confidence that having a Democrat as president will shift the ground in their favor.

“Whether you’re in the minority or majority, if the president is of your party, you have more power,” Pelosi said this month. “That’s what Mitch McConnell’s going to find out now, that whether he’s in the majority or the minority, not having Donald Trump in the White House is going to change his leverage and that dynamic.”

Her optimism and reputation as a skillful tactician will be tested as she and Biden try to work through his agenda. But those who know her say people shouldn’t discount Pelosi’s chances of working with McConnell, even in a Washington that has been bitterly partisan.

“The speaker has absolutely earned and deserves her reputation,” said Blake Androff, a former Democratic leadership staffer under Pelosi who now works for the Signal Group, a lobbying and public relations firm. “You’d be hard pressed to find a more effective negotiator on Capitol Hill than Nancy Pelosi.”

Those who have watched the three politicians up close say several factors will affect the strategy next year. Both Pelosi and McConnell will be focused on the 2022 midterm elections and maintaining or growing their narrow majorities. Pelosi’s members say that after Democrats’ underwhelming performance in 2020 House races they want to have more legislative results to bring home to their constituents. And McConnell will have eight more seats to defend than Democrats in 2022, including potentially competitive races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, where Biden either won or was close. Those senators also may demand successes to show their voters — and with Biden in the White House, McConnell will be unable to fill the Senate calendar confirming Republican nominees and judges, as he has for the past four years. Democrats will control the megaphone of the White House and be able to set the agenda, creating pressure on McConnell that didn’t exist under Trump.

The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic crisis also will create an urgent need for cooperative action.

Another factor will be Biden himself, a man who has negotiated plenty of deals with McConnell as both a senator and vice president and is not afraid of giving some ground to get to a compromise.

One man who knows all three, and their ability to negotiate with each other, is former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who led Senate Democrats from 2005 until his retirement in 2017. He doubts McConnell is willing to work with Biden and Pelosi, but says that if anyone can find a way, it’s those two Democrats.

“Nancy Pelosi has been speaker twice. She’s done a good job both times,” Reid said. “She has good control of her entire caucus, so that’s her.”

Reid said Biden will come into office with a fair amount of goodwill among Republicans and is “somebody that they know, that McConnell knows, and they’ve done deals before. I know that because I was the recipient of a deal or two that they engineered. ... Compromise is how you get things done, and Joe Biden understands that. And I think he has the ability better than anybody at this stage to do a deal or two or three with McConnell.”

Obama likewise praised Pelosi’s acumen in his new memoir, saying she often outmaneuvered her opponents.

“[P]oliticians (usually men) underestimated Nancy at their own peril, for her ascent to power had been no fluke,” Obama wrote. “She’d grown up in the East, the Italian American daughter of Baltimore’s mayor, tutored from an early age in the ways of ethnic ward bosses and longshoremen, unafraid to play hardball politics in the name of getting things done.”

Neither McConnell nor Pelosi can be moved by flattery, only by pure strategy, which is why they take each other seriously. They also know how to get what they want in negotiations, including when that takes giving up something else.

“Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Pelosi, these are two battle-scarred politicians,” said Antonia Ferrier, a former senior staffer for McConnell. “They both know how to cut a deal when they want to, and they have before. The two of them have a level of respect for one another.”

But the potential for deal-making rests on compromise — meaning that Democrats might need to temper their ambitions. Pelosi has made clear what she thinks are winning areas of focus: health care and prescription drug prices, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure and fighting corruption in politics. Policies she has pushed through the House on those fronts in the past two years resemble proposals from Biden’s campaign, giving them a common starting point.

Those are areas that could also potentially be bipartisan. Ferrier noted that under the Obama administration, the two parties agreed to pass a major highway bill, which may not have generated major headlines but was nonetheless significant. “If there’s a will there’s a way, but that needs to be measured of the art of the doable, not the art of dream-able,” Ferrier said, suggesting Pelosi may have to resist the demands of progressives looking for more.

Androff, Pelosi’s former staffer, said the speaker knows how to focus her energy without giving up her ambitions.

“I think the expectations are going to be even higher this year, given they have the White House, so I think where you’ll see them focus is where there is the highest probability of the boldest change,” he said.

It will help to have a president who doesn’t change his mind midstream and respects the role of Congress, he added.

“Right now you’ve got goalposts moving up and down the field, based on what the president’s mood is and what segment he was watching on Fox News,” Androff said. “If you have clear goals for all parties involved and then you let negotiators in the room hash it out, left to her own devices, I think the speaker can very easily negotiate with McConnell to get stuff done.”

What makes both of them good at negotiating, both Ferrier and Androff said, is that they always know where their votes are.

In Pelosi, “there is no better vote counter in D.C., there is no one better at delivering her caucus when she offers it up,” Androff said.

Reid agreed. He said that when Pelosi was working with Obama on what would be their greatest legislative achievement, passing the Affordable Care Act, she gave Reid an ultimatum: Bring me a letter signed by all of your Democrats saying they will vote for it, or I won’t move it in the House.

“The Senate had disappointed the House so many times,” Reid said. “They would pass something and we would end up killing it. So she said, ‘I’m not going to go out on a limb unless you can guarantee me that you will have the votes to pass this.’”

It took two letters, Reid said, because one senator insisted on writing his own. But he got them. “I took them both to Nancy Pelosi,” he said. “I said, ‘Here’s the proof.’ And we got it done.”

US & WORLD // NEWS How Biden administration could upend Prop. 22 and make Uber, Lyft drivers employees

Bob Egelko Nov. 25, 2020 Updated: Nov. 25, 2020 4:16 p.m.2

People gather outside Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco to urge voters to reject California’s Proposition 22 last month. The measure passed, making ride-hail drivers contractors.Photo: Jim Wilson / New York Times Press

Californians voted decisively this month, by more than 58%, to classify drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft as contractors rather than employees after the companies spent a record $200 million on Proposition 22. But the federal government may have the last word on the issue.

Labor officials in the incoming Biden administration could propose rules that would overturn key provisions of Prop. 22, entitling the drivers to minimum wages, worker benefits and union representation. And if Democrats, who already control the House, capture the Senate by winning two Georgia runoff elections in January, they may be able to enact legislation that would strike down the entire ballot measure, and any similar laws in other states.

“We’ve got to do everything we can to defend working people’s benefits,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D- Concord, a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, said when asked about a possible congressional response to Prop. 22. “The war against workers, the inequality we have in this country is something we’ve got to fix.”

President-elect Joe Biden, who has not spoken publicly about the issue, will have to weigh powerful financial interests — like former Obama administration officials now affiliated with Uber and Lyft — against his own longtime support of labor unions, said Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco.

But if Biden sticks to his principles, she said, “I think there is a good chance that many aspects of Prop. 22 will be preempted.”

That’s highly unlikely, countered Geoff Vetter, spokesman for the Yes on 22 campaign.

“Any effort by Washington politicians to overturn the will of California voters would lead to outrage and create chaos and uncertainty for millions of ride-share and delivery drivers who depend on this work to earn additional income,” Vetter said in a statement.

And if the Biden administration acted to “undermine” the California measure, “a future Republican administration could do the exact opposite — it might make Prop. 22 mandatory nationwide,” said Kurt Oneto, legal counsel for Yes on 22.

The initiative, which takes effect Dec. 16, defines the drivers as independent contractors, overriding state laws and a California Supreme Court ruling that classified such workers as employees if they were in the same field as the company that hired them. As contractors, they are not entitled to the same benefits state law provides to employees, including minimum wages and overtime, sick leave, workers’ compensation, unemployment coverage and reimbursement for workplace expenses.

While Prop. 22 defines the issue under state law — it can be amended only by a seven-eighths vote of the Legislature or a new ballot measure — state labor laws can be superseded by federal laws and regulations for enterprises that affect interstate commerce.

For example, said William Gould, a Stanford labor law professor and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, that board could pass regulations that declare Uber and Lyft drivers to be employees, under federal law, with the right to join unions. That would require the companies to negotiate with them over wages, benefits and working conditions.

In addition, he said, President Biden’s labor secretary could announce rules making the drivers eligible for minimum wages, overtime and workplace expense payments.

Such changes would not come easily, Gould said. For one thing, the NLRB, which normally has five members, has three Republican members and one Democrat, all appointed by President Trump, and one vacancy. It could potentially have a Democratic majority in August, when one member’s term expires, but any Biden nominee with a pro-labor background might not win confirmation if Republicans retain their Senate majority, Gould said. The same would hold true for the new president’s choice to be secretary of labor.

When he was nominated by President Bill Clinton to lead the labor board in 1994, Gould said, his 58 confirmation votes in the Senate included five Republicans. “Today I would get none,” he said.

NLRB decisions can also be challenged in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. That court’s rulings can be appealed to the Supreme Court, “not likely to be the most sympathetic forum” to labor concerns, Gould said.

The appeals court in 2017 overturned a ruling by the labor board under President Barack Obama that found drivers for Federal Express to be employees rather than contractors. In April 2019, the general counsel of the Trump-appointed board issued a nonbinding “advice memo” saying Uber drivers were contractors, finding that they were free to act on their own as “entrepreneurs.” A newly appointed NLRB could reach the opposite conclusion, subject to judicial review.

The widest-ranging change, and probably the most difficult to achieve, would come from Congress in the form of a federal law declaring the drivers and comparable workers elsewhere to be employees.

Even if Democrats win both Georgia runoff elections in January and gain a 50-50 Senate split, enabling Vice President Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes, any controversial legislation could face a Republican filibuster, which requires 60 votes to defeat. Senate Democrats could eliminate legislative filibusters by a majority vote, but it’s not clear if every Democrat would support such a change.

DeSaulnier, who has worked on labor issues as a congressman and previously as a state legislator, said a Democratic Congress might be able to negotiate with the companies and Republicans on a system of “portable benefits” that would move them toward employee status and could be transferred between businesses.

“It would be better to have a federal standard” with nationwide coverage, DeSaulnier said. “This is a national issue and a global issue.”

Election 2020: Is California really still counting votes? Yep. GOP just flipped another Congressional seat

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 3: Voting stickers at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose voting site on Election Day in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

By EMILY DERUY |

PUBLISHED: November 27, 2020 at 1:11 p.m. | UPDATED: November 27, 2020 at 1:13 p.m.

Most Californians may have moved on from the stress and uncertainty of the 2020 election but the work of tallying votes and certifying results is still ongoing in the Golden State.

In fact, on Friday the Associated Press just called an extremely tight race for a Central Valley congressional seat that Republican David Valadao won back after being defeated two years ago by Democrat TJ Cox to represent District 21 in the U.S. House — one of at least three House seats the GOP reclaimed in California this year.

Here are a few key deadlines and a look at other close races where there isn’t yet a key winner. Dec. 1 — Counties must report the final results of the presidential contest to the California Secretary of State. Dec. 4 — Counties must report the final results of all other state and federal races to the California Secretary of State. Dec. 11 — The Secretary of State will certify the results. Dec. 14 — The Electoral College convenes to formally choose the next president. So counties can still count ballots? What’s left? Yes, ballots had to be cast or in the mail by Nov. 3, but counties are continuing to count and verify what’s left. In some cases, that means reaching out to voters whose signatures didn’t match what the county had on file to verify it’s really them voting. In other cases, it means verifying the eligibility and residency of voters who registered the day of the election.

As of Wednesday, the state estimated there were about 135,000 ballots left to process — a tiny fraction of the more than 17.7 million votes cast. What’s already been decided? In many cases, officials can determine the fate of a candidate or ballot measure before every vote is counted because the winner has built up an insurmountable lead. That’s true with the presidential race, and in California there was never any doubt about who would win. By Friday morning, the state had tallied more than a record 11 million votes for President-elect Joe Biden (63.5%) and more than 5.9 million for outgoing President Donald Trump (34.3%). Despite the drubbing, Trump recorded over 400,000 more than any Republican presidential candidate in California ever — a result of this year’s record voter turnout. All of the statewide ballot measures have also been decided. Californians backed five of 12 measures, including:

• Prop 14 — more money for stem cell research • Prop 17 — restoring voting rights to people released from prison • Prop 19 — making some changes to property tax rules, including for people affected by wildfires • Prop 22 — allowing app-based companies like Uber to classify drivers as independent contractors • Prop 24 — strengthening consumer privacy laws Voters rejected seven measures, including:

• Prop 15 — increasing commercial property taxes • Prop 16 — restoring affirmative action • Prop 18 — allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections • Prop 20 — restricting parole for some offenses • Prop 21 — making it easier for cities and counties to pass rent control • Prop 23 — tightening requirements for kidney dialysis clinics • Prop 25 — eliminating cash bail Most other local and statewide races have also been decided, with results posted online by each county. Dave Cortese beat Ann Ravel in a closely watched race to represent the South Bay in the state Senate. In the East Bay, the activist behind Moms 4 Housing, Carroll Fife, won a seat on the Oakland City Council. In the Bay Area, longtime members of the U.S. House of Representatives — including Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, Jackie Speier, Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo, Ro Khanna, Eric Swalwell and Mark DeSaulnier — hung onto their seats.

Which races are close? As of Friday, the District 25 congressional seat just north of Los Angeles was too tight to call. Republican incumbent Mike Garcia was beating Democratic challenger Christy Smith by just a few hundred votes — 169,375 to 168,970. It’s not the first time the pair have faced off. After Rep. Katie Hill, a Democrat who won in 2018, resigned amid reports of an inappropriate relationship with a campaign staffer, Garcia beat out Smith in a tight special election that ultimately ended in a runoff.

In the same area, Republican incumbent Scott Wilk held a slight lead — roughly 6,000 votes — over Democrat Kipp Mueller in the race to represent District 21 in the state Senate. And in Orange County, Democratic incumbent Cottie Petrie-Norris held a roughly 2,000 vote lead over Republican Diane Dixon to represent District 74 in the state Assembly.

Are Republicans making gains after the blue wave of 2018? Yes. In 2018, Democrats successfully flipped seven Republican seats in the House. At least three of those Democrats — Katie Porter, Mike Levin and Josh Harder — won reelection in 2020. But at least three — Cox, Harley Rouda and Gil Cisneros — lost to Republicans Valadao, Michelle Steel and Young Kim in 2020. And Garcia seems likely to hold onto his seat, meaning four of the seats that flipped blue in 2018 would revert to red.

The campaigns have been bitter in some cases, and expensive. According to Open Secrets, which tracks campaign spending, Cox raised more than $4.7 million while Valadao raised more than $3.7 million, surpassing their 2018 totals. Opponents of Cox poured more than $8 million into beating him, while opponents of Valadao spent more than $7 million against him.

Rouda and Steel both raised north of $5 million, although Rouda didn’t come close to raising the nearly $8 million he picked up in 2018 to pick off longtime Republican Rep, Dana Rohrabacher.

Cisneros was also way off his 2018 fundraising number. Two years ago, he raised more than $12 million to defeat Kim, who raised less than $3 million. In 2020, Kim grew her fundraising to $5.3 million while Cisneros’s fell to $3.8 million.

Garcia also raised more than Smith, roughly $8.3 million compared to her $5.1 million.

Trump administration moves ahead on gutting bird protections By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and MATTHEW BROWNNovember 27, 2020

FILE - This June 5, 2009, file photo shows a Redtail hawk feeding a snake to one of her young ones nested at the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo. The Trump administration moved forward Friday, Nov. 27, 2020, on gutting a longstanding federal protection for the nation's birds, over objections from former federal officials and many scientists that billions more birds will likely perish as a result. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

The Trump administration moved forward Friday on gutting a longstanding federal protection for the nation’s birds, over objections from former federal officials and many scientists that billions more birds will likely perish as a result.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its take on the proposed rollback in the Federal Register. It’s a final step that means the change — greatly limiting federal authority to prosecute industries for practices that kill migratory birds — could be made official within 30 days.

The wildlife service acknowledged in its findings that the rollback would have a “negative” effect on the many bird species covered by the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which range from hawks and eagles to seabirds, storks, songbirds and sparrows.

The move scales back federal prosecution authority for the deadly threats migratory birds face from industry — from electrocution on power lines, to wind turbines that knock them from the air and oil field waste pits where landing birds perish in toxic water.

Industry operations kill an estimated 450 million to 1.1 billion birds annually, out of roughly 7 billion birds in North America, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recent studies.

The Trump administration maintains that the Act should apply only to birds killed or harmed intentionally, and is putting that “clarifying” change into regulation. The change would “improve consistency and efficiency in enforcement,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said.

The administration has continued to push the migratory bird regulation even after a federal judge in New York in August rejected the administration’s legal rationale.

Two days after news organizations announced President Donald Trump’s defeat by Democrat Joe Biden, federal officials advanced the bird treaty changes to the White House, one of the final steps before adoption.

Trump was “in a frenzy to finalize his bird-killer policy,” David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, said in a statement Friday. ”Reinstating this 100-year-old bedrock law must be a top conservation priority for the Biden-Harris Administration” and Congress.

Steve Holmer with the American Bird Conservancy said the change would accelerate bird population declines that have swept North America since the 1970s.

How the 1918 treaty gets enforced has sweeping ramifications for the construction of commercial buildings, electric transmission systems and other infrastructure, said Rachel Jones, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers. Jones said the changes under Trump would be needed to make sure the bird law wasn’t used in an “abusive way.” That’s a longstanding complaint from industry lawyers despite federal officials’ contention that they bring criminal charges only rarely.

It’s part of a flurry of last-minute changes under the outgoing administration benefiting industry. Others would expand Arctic drilling, favor development over habitat protections for imperiled species and potentially hamstring future regulation of environmental and public health threats, among other rollbacks.

BIZ & TECH // BUSINESS Janet Yellen, Biden’s Treasury nominee, has long thought about Bay Area’s challenges

Roland Li Nov. 27, 2020 Updated: Nov. 27, 2020 9:48 p.m.

Janet Yellen receives an honorary degree from Yale in 2015.Photo: Peter Hvizdak 2016

Janet Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden’s expected nominee for Treasury secretary, spent three decades in the Bay Area as a professor at UC Berkeley and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

If confirmed, Yellen would be the first woman to lead the department, after breaking barriers as the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. Her impending nomination would be the latest example of Biden seeking historic picks, following the choice of Sen. Kamala Harris, an Oakland native, as his running mate.

Former colleagues describe Yellen as a brilliant thinker who cares deeply about the practical consequences of economic policy on people’s lives, a critical question as the country struggles with a historic recession and raging coronavirus pandemic.

Yellen couldn’t immediately be reached for comment through the Brookings Institution, where she is a fellow.

Yellen was born in Brooklyn in 1946 and attended Brown and Yale, where she received a doctorate in economics. In 1980, she began teaching macroeconomics at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

“People could see she was going to be really talented at teaching and research right off the bat. It was very clear this was a very keen intellect,” said James Wilcox, a Haas professor who taught alongside Yellen for about two decades. “We had found a gem.”

Although much of her work was focused on research and data, Wilcox said, she always considered real- world implications.

“She’s really thoughtful about how policies work out in practice. She’s really thoughtful about people, how individuals are affected by these policies,” Wilcox said.

Yellen’s husband, George Akerlof, is a Nobel Prize winner and economics professor who also taught at UC Berkeley.

Sam Zuckerman, who was Yellen’s speechwriter at the San Francisco Federal Reserve, said she demanded hard work from employees but was also gracious, sending flowers to recognize accomplishments, for instance.

“She’s really thoughtful and concerned about the people who work for her,” said Zuckerman, a former Chronicle economics reporter. “It’s really a great argument for why there should be more women in high positions of power.”

Wilcox said Yellen was conscious of her status as a woman in a male-dominated field, but she sought to lift up people of all backgrounds.

“She wanted to look for (people with) talent and abilities and hard work wherever you might find it,” Wilcox said.

In a 2004 interview with Zuckerman in The Chronicle a few months after becoming leader of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, Yellen presciently highlighted two of the biggest challenges for Bay Area: housing and transit, which would explode in severity over the next decade as the economy boomed.

“I’m worried, of course, about affordable housing. In a way, because we are such a skilled workforce, we’ve bid up housing prices to the point where low-income people, even middle-income people, can’t afford it. That and traffic and congestion are problems to worry about,” she said. Yellen also cited the Fed’s twin goals of “maximum employment and price stability.”

A decade later, as chair of the Federal Reserve after being nominated by President Barack Obama, Yellen largely succeeded in achieving those goals as the economy hummed.

But in a break with precedent, President Trump did not nominate her for a second term and she departed in 2018. The Washington Post reported that Trump thought the 5-foot-tall Yellen was too short for the job and also disliked her association with Obama.

In Yellen’s final act in 2018, the Federal Reserve punished San Francisco’s Wells Fargo after its fake accounts scandals, imposing an unprecedented limit of $1.95 trillion on the bank’s assets, and seeking the removal of four board members. The move has won praise from progressives.

On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who had also expressed interest in being Treasury secretary, praised Yellen and cited the regulatory crackdown.

“Janet Yellen would be an outstanding choice for Treasury Secretary. She is smart, tough, and principled. As one of the most successful Fed Chairs ever, she has stood up to Wall Street banks, including holding Wells Fargo accountable for cheating working families,” Warren said on Twitter.

Zuckerman said Yellen’s positions are liberal, but also rooted in economics and data.

“Her values are quite progressive. They’re also rigorous,” he said.

If Yellen returns to government, she will face perhaps the biggest challenge of her career: stabilizing the national economy as the coronavirus pandemic rages and trying to pass additional economic stimulus in the face of a Senate that could be controlled by Republicans, while the country already faces a major deficit.

Last month, Yellen called for more government aid to help workers. “While the pandemic is still seriously affecting the economy, we need to continue extraordinary fiscal support,” Yellen told Bloomberg.

Top California air, climate regulator hopes to run Biden EPA By KATHLEEN RONAYNENovember 27, 2020

FILE - In this Sept. 18, 2019, file photo, California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom at left, discusses the Trump administration's pledge to revoke California's authority to set vehicle emissions standards that are different than the federal standards, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Nichols' term leading the state ARB ends in December 2020. She's held the role since 2007 after an earlier stint as chair in the early 1980s. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Over four decades, Mary Nichols has been the regulator behind some of the nation’s most ambitious climate policies and, in recent years, she’s been their staunchest defender against President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle them.

With Joe Biden heading to the White House, Nichols hopes she is not done yet. Nichols, 75, ends her second tenure as chair of the California Air Resources Board next month, a job that’s made her the top air and climate regulator for the nation’s most populous and economically influential state. She is viewed as a leading contender to be named as Biden’s administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Heather McTeer Toney, senior director of Moms Clean Air Force, and Mustafa Santiago Ali of the National Wildlife Federation, both former EPA officials, also have support for the job. Biden has signaled climate change will be a top priority.

For Nichols, it would cap a career of championing stringent air pollution rules, negotiating landmark vehicle emissions standards and implementing California’s carbon trading system. She worked at the EPA from 1993 to 1997 as head of the Office of Air and Radiation.

“Not everybody has actually run a climate action program, or an air program for that matter. And I like working with large bureaucracies,” Nichols told The Associated Press. “If they offered it, I would take it.”

Biden’s transition team hasn’t said when he’ll announce environmental and energy nominees, and Nichols hadn’t been interviewed as of midweek. Nichols has worked before with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who was previously California’s attorney general. If Republicans hold the Senate, she may have a tough road to confirmation due to their opposition to environmental and business regulation. Republicans loyal to Trump are sure to oppose her, as California styled itself as the resistance to his administration.

To her allies, Nichols’ decades of experience implementing climate policy and her long relationships make her an ideal candidate to lead the agency as it goes through the arduous process of reversing Trump administration actions. During Trump’s tenure, she fought to preserve California’s ability to set its own automobile emissions standards and resisted his efforts to roll back power plant pollution regulations.

“There’s no one in America who combines both the technical and political work and experience as Mary Nichols has,” said former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who first made Nichols chair of the California board in the late 1970s. “Having that wide scope of time and experience is invaluable, totally unique, and absolutely essential to deal with the complexities of climate.”

David Pettit, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles, called her “the most important actor in the climate change movement in California.”

But environmental groups are not united behind Nichols. Cities like Los Angeles and Fresno have some of the nation’s dirtiest air and high childhood asthma rates. Critics of California’s climate approach say the state’s policies have left low-income communities behind. The California Environmental Justice Alliance and Friends of the Earth sent a letter to Biden’s transition team Tuesday saying Nichols has ignored their suggestions and backed policies that favor industry over people. “There are just numerous examples of how Mary Nichols has neglected environmental justice and communities of color,” said Gladys Limon, CEJA’s executive director.

Washington-based Food and Water Action isn’t taking a position on Nichols as a potential nominee, but senior energy policy analyst Jim Walsh said California has pursued a “flawed model that says that we can just make fossil fuels better.”

Nichols began her fight against air pollution in the 1970s, when she brought a lawsuit under the Clean Air Act over dirty air in Southern California. Her current stint on the air board began in 2007 under then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

Transportation makes up the largest portion of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and no state has had more power in reducing them than California, which holds a major share of the American car market. The state won the power decades ago to implement its own emissions standards as smog choked Southern California.

But in 2007, the Bush administration denied California’s request to set higher vehicle emissions standards, which in turn dictate gas mileage.

But the automakers sensed a political change was coming, and by the time President Barack Obama took office in 2009, Nichols was already in talks with car makers and federal officials about setting one national emissions standard, built off California’s rules. Three years later, Obama announced a requirement for the new fleet of vehicles to get 36 miles per gallon real-world driving by 2025, a major step forward.

Just months into his tenure, Trump moved to roll back those standards and revoke California’s authority to set its own. Nichols helped persuade five companies — Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, Volvo and BMW — to buck Trump. A lawsuit is still winding through the courts, but on Monday, General Motors pulled out and joined with California. Other auto makers may soon do the same, and Biden is likely to end the efforts.

Nichols said she never spoke to Trump throughout the ordeal.

The Trump administration also targeted California’s cap-and-trade program, which requires polluters to buy or hold credits to emit carbon, though it lost in court. Some environmental groups oppose the market-based system, arguing it gives polluters too much leeway to continue spewing emissions.

Nichols said the air board is working to reduce pollution in the most polluted areas, but acknowledged there’s more work to be done.

As Nichols prepares to leave the air board, California is pursuing more ambitious goals, including net-zero carbon emissions by 2045 and ending sales of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. They are aggressive targets that Nichols sees as necessary to “avoid catastrophe.” Biden has proposed net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which he says will mean a transition away from fossil fuels, though he is not calling for a ban. Nichols said banning oil production or refining could be an effective strategy but it would need to be coupled with major efforts to help the workforce adapt. California is one of the nation’s main oil- producing states.

Even a hint at moving away from those industries will bring sharp political fights in Washington. To Brown, the former California governor, Nichols has the experience to navigate them.

“The politics of regulating emissions from all the powerful industries in California is not straightforward, are not harmonious or easy,” Brown said. “She’s been able to work through the challenges.”

___

Associated Press writers Tom Krisher in Detroit and Ellen Knickmeyer and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed.

VTA, BART renege on ballot promises made for tax hikes

The Mercury News 29 Nov 2020 Two Bay Area transportation agencies seem to think they can take taxpayer money but ignore the promises to voters that come with it. The nose thumbings by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District display an unacceptable, but sadly not surprising, arrogance. Promises to voters matter. Bay Area residents should remember the agencies’ behavior — and question whether they can be trusted — next time they seek ballot approval for taxes. Bay Area residents should remember the agencies’ behavior — and question whether they can be trusted — next time they seek ballot approval for taxes. VTA Measure B In 2016, 72% of Santa Clara County voters approved Measure B, a half- cent sales tax increase for transportation. Voters approved the tax because they were promised it would fund nine different categories of transportation projects, including repairs to local roads, freeway interchange upgrades, improvements to the Highway 85 corridor, Caltrain grade separations and, yes, helping fund the BART extension. The BART extension was not the primary driver behind this measure. Indeed, spending on the extension was specifically limited to 25% of all the funds raised over the 30year life of the tax. The reason was that the BART extension at the time was already sucking up nearly 80 percent of the revenues from two other county transportation sales taxes. Now, in a stunning display of bad faith, Valley Transportation Authority leaders are proposing to spend most of the money from the tax over the next decade on the BART extension. They say they will balance out the promised funding for the other projects in the remaining two decades of the tax. Whether or not that meets the legal requirements of the measure will probably be up to a judge to decide if VTA goes ahead with this misguided plan. But putting all those other projects on the back burner doesn’t come close to meeting the spirit of the measure or the promises from backers. That’s clear from reading the measure and ballot material. BART wasn’t even the first project listed for funding. That’s also clear from reading our editorial at the time. We were swayed first by the promise to fix local streets and reassured by the 25% limit on BART funding. We would have never supported Measure B if we had known about this deceptive move. Make no mistake, we’re big fans of the BART extension, which has reached two stations into Santa Clara County and has four to go. But, with Measure B, county residents pay for four transportation sales taxes, adding a total 1.625% levy on the purchase of taxable goods. ( The recently approved Measure RR for Caltrain operations will add another 0.125%.) If there’s not enough money for BART in all that without gutting Measure B for a decade, then transportation officials need to trim the costs of the extension or make their case to voters for more money. But this Measure B bait and switch is deplorable. BART inspector general In 2018, Bay Area voters approved a series of bridge toll hikes to help fund capital projects and operation expenses of the region’s transit agencies. The biggest beneficiary of capital money under Measure RM3 is BART, which will receive $1.1 billion, including $500 million for badly needed new cars and $375 million to help extend the system to San Jose. Unfortunately, BART, which has a history of broken promises, excessive salary and benefit costs and inappropriate use of taxpayer money for campaigns, has repeatedly proven it cannot be trusted with public funds. That’s why, at the insistence of state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, Measure RM3 required hiring a new inspector general to review the transit agency’s expenditures and operations. The person selected, Harriet Richardson, has three decades of auditing experience for the federal government in Atlanta, Ga.; King County, Wash.; Washington state; San Francisco; Berkeley; and Palo Alto. The question from the onset was whether BART officials would let her do her job. The answer, we quickly found out, was no. Richardson’s mandate is broad to ensure she can get to the root of the problems with the poorly managed district. Her first big goal was to conduct a districtwide risk assessment to determine the most critical problem areas for deeper examinations. When the pandemic hit, she paused to give BART staff time to deal with emerging crisis. In July, the audit work began. After Richardson’s team conducted interviews with people from just one work area within BART, Deputy General Manager Michael Jones sent an email in mid-September directing staff to stop cooperating, according to Richardson. It took a month to break the logjam. BART said last week it could not make Jones available to explain his actions. And BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost essentially says that, since the issue has been resolved, there’s nothing here to see, move along. In a written statement, she claimed that “BART Management supports (the Office of Inspector General’s) risk assessment initiative and the General Manager has made clear to all staff that the assessment is proceeding and to cooperate with all OIG audits and investigations.” That certainly wasn’t the initial response. We’ll see how cooperative BART is after Richardson issues the first- step risk assessment early next year. By the way, this is not just an issue for East Bay and San Francisco residents. Now that BART has started serving Santa Clara County, South Bay residents are also paying for BART’S inefficiencies.

Skelton: California Gov. Newsom and legislators got a surprise windfall They should resist the urge to spend

Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

Gov. Newsom and the Legislature should make New Year’s resolutions to resist any new permanent spending for the indefinite future.

By GEORGE SKELTON, COLUMNIST | Los Angeles Times

PUBLISHED: December 1, 2020 at 5:51 a.m. | UPDATED: December 1, 2020 at 6:10 a.m.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders can be thankful for one surprise holiday gift: a huge windfall of tax dollars.

But this is a one-time present. Sacramento Democrats should resist the temptation to quickly spend the billions on goodies.

Instead, they’d be wise to sock it away in a sort of Christmas fund to be tapped in future years when state government is expected to be operating in the red. The lawmakers’ chief nonpartisan policy adviser, Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek, recommends a prudent 50-50 approach: Use half for rebuilding cash reserves or paying off internal debt, and the other half for one-time expenditures, such as pandemic relief.

That makes sense if it can be done without the governor and legislators sneaking some bucks into pet projects.

Petek delivered the unexpected package of surplus money last week, projecting a $26 billion tax windfall this fiscal year.

This came after Newsom and the Legislature thought they were facing a horrific $54 billion pandemic-induced shortfall when they adopted the state’s $202 billion annual budget in June.

But Petek also warned of boom and bust. The state is on course to spend $17.5 billion more than it takes in by mid-2025, he cautioned.

Petek advised the Legislature to begin in January to fix the projected deficit spending. That may be wishful thinking.

“This could mean, for example, identifying ways to reduce spending or increase revenues in future years,” the analyst wrote in his fiscal outlook report.

“We strongly encourage the Legislature to engage in long-term planning and consider what needs to be done today to address the budget problem over the multiyear period.”

But long-range planning goes against the nature of term-limited legislators. They’re short-timers, limited to 12 years total as state lawmakers. Many won’t be around to face the consequences of deficit spending. That’s a problem with term limits.

Boxes of opened and emptied envelopes at the state Franchise Tax Board. Income taxes collected in June will probably be $500 million more than Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration projected

Legislators tend to think about today, not tomorrow.

And as for deficit solutions, remember that Democrats hold supermajorities in both legislative houses. They allow legislators to pass virtually any bill imaginable — including a tax increase — if they’re united.

For a tax hike, Democratic unity would be hard to achieve among moderates who perpetually face reelection competition from Republicans. But if Democratic leaders face the dreaded prospect of cutting spending, it’s a good bet they’ll also try to balance this displeasure by raising taxes.

Petek told me he “won’t harp too much” on the Legislature about finding a solution next year to long-range deficit spending.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic,” he said. “There’s high unemployment. I don’t expect them to allocate a lot of political capital to solve a future problem, but it would be prudent to start making plans.”

How did the $26-billion windfall develop? The state’s economy “experienced a quicker rebound than expected,” Petek’s report reads. “While negative economic consequences of the pandemic have been severe, they do not appear to have been as catastrophic from a fiscal standpoint as the budget anticipated.

“But the recovery has been uneven. Many low-income Californians remain out of work while most high-income workers have been spared.”

“This was an atypical downturn,” the analyst told me.

Basically, technology saved the jobs of many people. Employees who work online and can do their jobs at home kept getting paychecks. That wouldn’t have happened before Wi-Fi, smartphones, the internet and Zoom.

These people tended to be college-educated, higher-income workers who are the main targets of California’s very progressive personal income tax system.

In 2018, the last year for which data are available, the top 10% of income earners — those making at least $173,000 annually — supplied 78% of the personal income tax revenue. The top 20% — making at least $108,000 — paid 90% of the tax.

Their money kept flowing into state coffers.

In October, income tax revenue was 40% higher than what had been projected in June, according to the state Department of Finance. All state taxes are up 22% over projections for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The stock market unexpectedly became robust, recently hitting record levels, Petek notes. That provides the state with hefty taxes on capital gains — unlike in a normal recession when that revenue stream slows to a trickle.

And the federal government kicked in $15 billion for the state, cities, counties and the unemployed, the Finance Department says. That was a big boost.

“Workers on the lower end bore the disproportionate brunt of the pandemic,” Petek said. “They tended to be the front-line workers, the service workers who interact with the public.”

Many of their restaurants, shops and offices closed temporarily or went out of business.

“Workers earning less than $20 per hour make up the vast majority of job losses,” the analyst’s report reads. “In contrast, employment among workers earning over $60 an hour remains at pre- pandemic levels.”

California unemployment in October dipped to 9.3% from 11% in September.

Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer pointed to the high unemployment rate as proof that California’s economy isn’t doing as well as the state banking account.

But Petek forecasts state tax revenues growing roughly 1% a year while general fund spending increases by 4.4%.

The Newsom administration basically “agrees with that trajectory,” Palmer said. Newsom and the Legislature should make New Year’s resolutions to resist any new permanent spending for the indefinite future. Unfortunately, that resolution is almost certain to quickly be broken.

George Skelton is a Los Angles Times columnist. ©2020 the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

Budget Congress returns with virus aid, federal funding unresolved Andrew Taylor, The Associated Press November 30,2020

The U.S. Marine Corp's Iwo Jima Memorial can be seen as the morning sun begins to rise behind the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument on Nov. 7, 2020, in Arlington, Va. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — After months of shadowboxing amid a tense and toxic campaign, Capitol Hill’s main players are returning for one final, perhaps futile, attempt at deal-making on a challenging menu of year-end business.

COVID-19 relief, a $1.4 trillion catchall spending package, and defense policy — and a final burst of judicial nominees — dominate a truncated two- or three-week session occurring as the coronavirus pandemic rockets out of control in President Donald Trump’s final weeks in office.

The only absolute must-do business is preventing a government shutdown when a temporary spending bill expires on Dec. 11. The route preferred by top lawmakers like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is to agree upon and pass an omnibus spending bill for the government. But it may be difficult to overcome bitter divisions regarding a long-delayed COVID-19 relief package that’s a top priority of business, state and local governments, educators and others.

Time is working against lawmakers as well, as is the Capitol’s emerging status as a COVID- 19 hotspot. The House has truncated its schedule, and Senate Republicans are joining Democrats in forgoing the in-person lunch meetings that usually anchor their workweeks. It’ll take serious, good-faith conversations among top players to determine what’s possible, but those haven’t transpired yet.

Top items for December’s lame-duck session:

KEEPING THE GOVERNMENT OPEN

At a bare minimum, lawmakers need to keep the government running by passing a stopgap spending bill known as a continuing resolution, which would punt $1.4 trillion worth of unfinished agency spending into next year.

That’s a typical way to deal with a handoff to a new administration, but McConnell and Pelosi are two veterans of the Capitol’s appropriations culture and are pressing hard for a catchall spending package. A battle over using budget sleight of hand to add a 2 percentage point, $12 billion increase to domestic programs to accommodate rapidly growing veterans health care spending is an issue, as are Trump’s demands for U.S-Mexico border wall funding.

Getting Trump to sign the measure is another challenge. Two years ago he sparked a lengthy partial government shutdown over the border wall, but both sides would like to clear away the pile of unfinished legislation to give the Biden administration a fresh start. The changeover in administrations probably wouldn’t affect an omnibus deal very much.

At issue are the 12 annual spending bills comprising the portion of the government’s budget that passes through Congress each year on a bipartisan basis. Whatever approach passes, it’s likely to contain a batch of unfinished leftovers such as extending expiring health care policies and tax provisions and continuing the authorization for the government’s flood insurance program.

COVID-19 RELIEF

Democrats have battled with Republicans and the White House for months over a fresh installment of COVID-19 relief that all sides say they want. But a lack of good faith and an unwillingness to embark on compromises that might lead either side out of their political comfort zones have helped keep another rescue package on ice.

The aid remains out of reach despite a fragile economy and out-of-control increases in coronavirus cases, especially in Midwest GOP strongholds. McConnell has supplanted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the most important Republican force in the negotiations, but he hasn’t shown much openness for politically difficult compromises required for a COVID-19 deal that might anger conservatives. Neither have McConnell’s warnings of a wave of COVID-related lawsuits against businesses, schools and nonprofits open during the pandemic come to pass, undercutting his demand for blanket protections against such suits.

Pelosi seems to have overplayed her hand as she held out for $2 trillion-plus right up until the election. The results of the election, which saw Democrats lose seats in the House, appear to have significantly undercut her position, but she is holding firm on another round of aid to state and local governments.

Before the election, Trump seemed to be focused on a provision that would send another round of $1,200 payments to most Americans. He hasn’t shown a lot of interest in the topic since, apart from stray tweets. But the chief obstacles now appear to be Pelosi’s demand for state and local government aid and McConnell’s demand for a liability shield for businesses reopening during the pandemic.

At stake is funding for vaccines and testing, reopening schools, various economic “stimulus” ideas like another round of “paycheck protection” subsidies for businesses especially hard hit by the pandemic. Failure to pass a measure now would vault the topic to the top of Biden’s legislative agenda next year.

DEFENSE POLICY

A spat over military bases named for Confederate officers is threatening the annual passage of a defense policy measure that has passed for 59 years in a row on a bipartisan basis. The measure is critical in the defense policy world, guiding Pentagon policy and cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, military personnel policy and other military goals.

Both the House and Senate measures would require the Pentagon to rename bases such as Fort Benning and Fort Hood, but Trump opposes the idea and has threatened a veto over it. The battle erupted this summer amid widespread racial protests, and Trump used the debate to appeal to white Southern voters nostalgic about the Confederacy. It’s a live issue in two Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the chamber during the first two years of Biden’s tenure.

Democrats are insisting on changing the names and it’s not obvious how it’ll all end up.

ENVIR ONMENT

NOVEMBER 30, 2020 Trump Has Blown Up His One Decent Conservation Action—of Course

The administration is undercutting a major public lands law that the president used to greenwash his abysmal conservation record

CHRIS D’ANGELO

President Donald J. Trump during a signing ceremony for The Great American Outdoors Act in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Tuesday, August 4, 2020. Looking on at left is US Senator Cory Gardner (Republican of Colorado).Chris Kleponis/Zuma

This piece was originally published in HuffPost and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership.

The Trump administration wasted no time proving what was clear from the get-go: that its support of a major public lands bill was nothing more than pre- election greenwashing for President Donald Trump and two Senate allies. In August, Trump signed the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act into law, falsely portraying himself as a conservationist on par with President Theodore Roosevelt. The measure, widely considered the most significant conservation legislation in a generation, allocates $9.5 billion to fix crumbling national park infrastructure and permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million per year. The decades-old LWCF uses offshore fossil fuel revenues to establish and protect parks, wildlife refuges, forests and wildlife habitat.

But Trump and his team are longtime foes of the LWCF. The administration tried repeatedly to gut the program’s funding. And days after the 2020 presidential election, which Trump handily lost, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed an order that kneecaps LWCF and undermines the new law that Bernhardt previously argued would not have passed without Trump’s “strong and bold action.”

The order, dated Nov. 9, gives state governors and local jurisdictions the power to veto federal land acquisitions made through LWCF. “A written expression of support by both the affected Governor and local county or county government-equivalent (e.g. parish, borough) is required for the acquisition of land, water, or an interest in land or water under the Federal LWCF program,” it reads.

“Once the election was done, it was open season on land protection.” -Aaron Weiss, deputy director, Center for Western Priorities

The move is a parting gift to the anti-federal land movement that has enjoyed extraordinary access to top administration officials but that never convinced the administration to embrace wholesale transfer or sale of public lands. In fact, the requirement in Bernhardt’s order mirrors an amendment that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced when the Great American Outdoors Act was being debated in Congress, as E&E News highlighted.

Lee strongly opposes federal control of public lands in the West. “Our long-term goal must be the transfer of federal lands to the states,” Lee wrote in a 2018 tweet. William Perry Pendley, the highest-ranking official at Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, shares those extreme views, once writing that the “founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.”

Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and outdoor sporting groups have slammed Trump’s Interior chief for trying to circumvent Congress and restrict how LWCF funds are allocated.

“I urge you to immediately rescind this anti-public land order,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a longtime champion of LWCF, wrote in a letter last week to Bernhardt. “This undercuts what a landowner can do with their own private property, and creates unnecessary, additional levels of bureaucracy that will hamstring future land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.”

In a release announcing Bernhardt’s order, the Interior Department said the action “honors Interior’s commitment to be a good neighbor by giving states and communities a voice in federal land acquisition.”

For those paying attention, Trump’s about-face on LWCF felt like little more than a political favor for two Republican senators facing tough bids for reelection in states where protecting public lands is a key issue among voters. Along with showering praise upon himself, Trump credited Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who both previously voted in favor of slashing LWCF funding and supported Trump’s anti-conservation agenda at nearly every turn.

“This landmark legislation would not have been possible without the incredible leadership and hard work of two outstanding senators, in particular, and two fine people―Cory Gardner and Steve Daines,” Trump said at a signing ceremony for the Great American Outdoors Act.

On the campaign trail, Daines and Gardner touted their work on the Great American Outdoors Act. Daines ultimately defeated his challenger. Gardner did not.

As soon as the 2020 election was over, Trump’s team took aim at one of its only conservation achievements. First, the departments of Interior and Agriculture missed statutory deadlines for submitting lists of projects to receive LWCF funding. Then came Bernhardt’s order undermining the program altogether.

The Great American Outdoors Act is no doubt a major victory for America’s public lands and for LWCF, which has been plagued by funding shortfalls all of its 50-year history. The administration’s claimed support for it, on the other hand, was “a ruse” and a “bald-faced lie,” Aaron Weiss, deputy director of Colorado-based conservation group Center for Western Priorities, told HuffPost. He expects Bernhardt was always planning to undercut the law, whether or not Trump won a second term.

“Once the election was done, it was open season on land protection,” Weiss said by email, adding that Bernhardt is “going to throw as much sand into the gears as he can on his way out.”

The Interior Department and other federal agencies are rushing to finalize numerous environmental rollbacks before President-elect Joe Biden assumes office. Those include selling oil and gas leases in Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and permanently slashing protections for hundreds of species of migratory birds.

Contra Costa County to hire first woman, Latinx administrator Her predecessor is retiring By SHOMIK MUKHERJEE | [email protected] |

PUBLISHED: December 2, 2020 at 12:35 p.m. | UPDATED: December 3, 2020 at 1:11 p.m.

Contra Costa County’s new administrator will be the first woman and Latinx person to hold the position in the county’s 171-year history.

The board of supervisors is scheduled to appoint Monica Nino to the top staff job at a meeting next Tuesday. Current administrator David Twa will retire from his position at the end of this year and plans to return to his home state of Minnesota.

Nino, who has served as the administrator of San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, said in an interview that her focus from the start will be on health care.

“In San Joaquin County, we’re probably one of the smallest counties with a hospital that also has a trauma center,” Nino said. “Whether you’re in a recession or a positive economic time, health care is not an inexpensive service for government to deliver.”

She noted that Contra Costa County’s government has a larger budget than San Joaquin or Stanislaus counties. But Nino said her experience navigating high unemployment numbers in the latter two counties will help her bring forth solutions in Contra Costa.

“We’ll be looking at how can we more effectively distribute services so underserved populations can gain a level out of poverty or unemployment, and so they can provide a greater home for themselves and their families,” Nino said.

The starting base pay for the county administrator is over $345,000, according to county documents.

In 2019, Twa made over $517,000 including total pay and benefits, according to Transparent California. His base pay was around $361,000. Twa joined Contra Costa County in 2008 after serving as a county attorney in Minnesota. He didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.

Nino will bring a “strong financial background and a commitment to diversity, equity and justice for underserved populations,” Supervisor John Gioia said in an interview.

“The county is a social safety net,” Gioia said. “(Nino) worked her way up from a relatively entry- level position to county administrator in Stanislaus. She understands the full range of county services.” Supervisor Candace Andersen, the current board chair, said Nino’s financial experience and good communication skills will help the county navigate funding for services between its departments.

While the county will have spent much of its CARES Act funding on coronavirus relief by the end of the year, Andersen said it will be vital for the new hire to handle the county’s $3.5 billion budget wisely amid the ongoing pandemic.

“This isn’t the time to bring in someone with a steep learning curve,” Andersen said. “We need someone who can step right in and carry us forward.”

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Jerry McNerney

⁦@RepMcNerney⁩

Due to extreme weather in our region, PG&E will be

shutting off power in some areas. Outages are expected to begin today and will continue through Tuesday. For more information on if and how this may impact your community, please visit: pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/updates/

10/25/20, 10:39 AM

Midpen Open Space

⁦@MidpenOpenSpace⁩

Info about today's upcoming Red Flag Warning and Wind

Advisory. In response to the Red Flag Warning, the lower area of La Honda Creek Preserve and the Mindego area of Russian Ridge Preserve will be closed on Monday morning. openspace.org/content/red-fl…

10/25/20, 10:32 AM

San Leandro Patch

⁦@SanLeandroPatch⁩

Public Safety Power Shutoff: PG&E Cuts Electricity In 22 Counties dlvr.it/RgCVr4 pic.twitter.com/MJgatY85P6

9/8/20, 9:01 AM