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| | | | |  | | By Debra Kahn | PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off next week for the holidays but back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 3.
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta is watching you, USPS. | Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP | CALIFORNIA DREAMS ON — Now that there's a Democrat in the White House, California can relax — so the thinking went. The Golden State branded itself as a bulwark against the Trump administration's rollbacks of climate and environmental policies, and state politicians took former President Donald Trump's attacks on California as hay-making opportunities. That all ended when President Joe Biden took office — but it turns out there's still plenty of room for California to flex. Politicians are sticking to the same playbook they did under Trump: showing up at international talks as their own unit and suing the feds to enforce environmental laws. California lawmakers and state officials were out in force at U.N. biodiversity negotiations in Montreal that ended this week, pointing out the awkward fact that the U.S. wasn't at the table because it's never ratified the underlying agreement and highlighting Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order requiring the preservation of 30 percent of state lands and waters by 2030 (although, like the U.S., California hasn't been able to get it through the legislature). "When other countries are acknowledging their ecosystems are collapsing and they're facing famine, that we would choose not to participate in being part of the solutions is horrifying," said Assemblymember Laura Friedman, a Democrat from Los Angeles County who was part of a delegation of about 50 California lawmakers, officials and NGOs that went to Montreal. "We're letting China lead the world on the environment? That doesn't make sense to me." California also took partial credit this week for the U.S. Postal Service's announcement that it would electrify its fleet completely starting in 2026. Attorney General Rob Bonta cited his and 15 other states' lawsuit from April challenging USPS' original plans to purchase up to 90 percent gas-powered vehicles, while Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph pointed to upcoming state rules that would require government-owned fleets to completely switch to zero-emissions by 2035. "Transitioning away from combustion delivery vehicles eliminates neighborhood-level pollution, and shows everyone that the zero-emission era is right on their street," CARB deputy executive officer Craig Segall said in a statement. "That’s why CARB is putting rules in place to require all delivery fleets to go to zero, including USPS, and why we have been putting regulatory, legal and oversight pressure on USPS all year." USPS credited $3 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for its decision. A USPS spokesperson declined to comment on what role, if any, California played. California isn't bothered. "We will continue to review the Postal Service’s actions to make sure it complies with the National Environmental Policy Act in its procurement," Bonta's office said in an email.
| | | BIOMASS BOOST — The omnibus spending bill on track to pass Congress today assigns wood-burning some positive attributes, to environmentalists' chagrin, Marc Heller reports for POLITICO's E&E News. The $1.7 trillion bill includes a perennially bandied-about paragraph calling on agencies to “establish clear and simple policies” for forest biomass as an energy source, including policies that “reflect the carbon neutrality of forest bioenergy and recognize biomass as a renewable energy source.” Scientists say it's not so cut and dry. Forest biomass can have climate benefits, but it also might not, depending on how quickly forests grow back and how many emissions occur in the harvesting, transporting and ultimately burning of wood for energy. Environmentalists are frustrated, but Senate Appropriations Committee member Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is pleased. “Recognizing the carbon neutrality of biomass not only aligns with the science, but also encourages investments in working forests, harvesting operations, bioenergy, wood products, and paper manufacturing,” said Collins' spokesperson, Christopher Knight.
| | | RISKY BUSINESS — 2022 was a pretty quiet year for wildfires. But the insurance industry isn't breathing easy, as Avery Ellfeldt reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Regulators in Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Washington and California are all worried about rising wildfire risk and insurance availability. Colorado and California are already in the thick of it, while the other states are looking on nervously and watching policy nonrenewals tick up. Oregon, which has had nearly $3 billion in wildfire damages in the past three years, is seeing an increase in customer complaints about insurers not renewing their policies, Insurance Commissioner Andrew Stolfi said. Washington is "very concerned,” said David Forte, who serves as a senior policy adviser to the state’s insurance commissioner. “I would say that if we had a big event, it would probably change the mindset of many insurance companies.” So far, mitigation — home-hardening and clearing brush away from structures — seems to be the most popular solution. People don't seem to be leaving risky areas. On the contrary: Fire-prone areas of the U.S. have seen an 18-fold increase in building density since 1945, three times the national average. “The trends have not shown us that the threat is decreasing population or causing an exodus," said Carole Walker, the president of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association, which represents insurers in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. "Quite the opposite; we're seeing an increase.”
| | | THE S WORD — We noticed a surprising uniformity in our interview subjects' definitions of sustainability earlier this week. Is it a problem that Exxon Mobil is using the same wording that the U.N. came up with in 1987? Ohio University professor Geoff Dabelko points out that the definition ("meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs") was borne out of the desire to bridge the tensions between environment and economic growth and between the Global North and Global South. He asks: "Is the definition a flexible, enduring umbrella for a needed diversity of efforts? Or is it a feel-good aspiration that suggests we can have our cake and eat it, too, without a fundamental rethink of how we define the “good life?” Dabelko said he, for one, is trying to broaden people's thinking. He said Ohio University's new master's degree is in "sustainability, security and resilience," in order to "try to capture a wider set of connected issues and responses."
| | | GAME ON — Happy Friday, and happy holidays! Hope you're staying home, and if not, you're avoiding the bomb cyclone. Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn, and reporters Jordan Wolman and Allison Prang. Reach us at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com,jwolman@politico.com and aprang@politico.com. Want more? You can have it. Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still free. That’s sustainability!
| | | — Calm down about the Labor Department's ESG retirement plans rule, two law professors write in the WSJ. — The shipping industry is just at the beginning of its green transition — and it's messy. — This head-scratcher of a story from the WaPo about a hastily pitched, Israeli-owned, Mexico-to-Arizona desalination project. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
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