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It’s fair to complain that the state legislature views OC as a hopeless disfigurement on the state’s body politic and takes frequent opportunities to siphon more money from the county than is injected back into it, among other indignities.
Gee, why do they feel this way about us? OJB might just have uncovered a clue!
SB-100 is a bill that commits the state to move its electricity generation entirely off of fossil fuel sources by 2045. As the CBS News site puts it:
The vote comes on the heels of a sobering report detailing the effects of climate change on the state. California stands to lose up to two-thirds of its beaches to erosion, and a similar portion of its water supply, depending on how quickly the world reduces greenhouse gas emissions, the report found. Average summer temperatures are set to rise between 5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average area burned during yearly wildfires would increase 75 percent.
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“California would really become a shining state in terms of creating a real example for the rest of the country to look toward for creating an alternative to fossil fuels and having a healthy, growing economy,” said Dan Jacobson, state director for Environment California, which supports the bill.
About 72 percent of Californians back the proposal, according to public polling. The state’s business groups, as well as some utilities, oppose it. It narrowly failed in the assembly last year after some utility worker unions opposed it, citing concerns about jobs.
The nation’s largest state currently gets just over one-third of its energy from wind, solar or geothermal power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Another 9 percent comes from nuclear plants. Natural gas, considered a “cleaner” fossil fuel, makes up 49 percent of the energy mix.
If you scroll down to the link to yesterday’s roll-call vote, you’ll see that of the 33 votes cast against this bill in the Assembly, seven of them — over 21%! — came from OC Asssemblymembers.
Forlorn Travis Allen, Bill Brough, Philip Chen, Steven Choi, and Matt Harper are Republicans — and at least a couple of their seats have a decent chance of switching to Democrats this year. Tom Daly is the most Republican-voting Democrat in the Assembly, so there’s no shock there. (No Democrat has been bold enough to oppose him since his election, though this year he does face a challenge from Autumn Browne, a Libertarian whose dispalcement of Daly might free up the seat for an actual Democrat in two years.) But I was shocked to see Sharon Quirk-Silva’s name in the “Nay” column. I think of her as someone inclined to take “safe” votes when she can, but this isn’t even a safe vote for her. Politically, this is a calamity for her.
While I’ve dutifully supported Sharon over the years, and will still support her for reelection over the worse in many ways Alexandra Coronado, at some point a supporter who doesn’t shriek when she does something this bad becomes an enabler. I don’t know what Sharon’s plans for higher elected office may be, but this vote is high-profile enough to kill any chance she might have had to become Speaker when she has the seniority. Running for her mentor Loretta Sanchez’s Congressional seat, now held by Lou Correa, won’t happen until after Correa leaves office — probably decades from now. This loosens what might otherwise have been her grip on the Ed Royce seat, even if Gil Cisneros doesn’t beat Young Kim and stay there for two decades himself. She may have eyes on taking the Fiona Ma, Betty Yee, John Chiang tour through the Treasurer’s and Controller’s offices some day — but having stood with Republicans against clean electric energy makes it likely that she’d lose in a primary. This was one of hugest deals I can remember among activists — and it won’t be forgotten.
The charitable explanation would be that Fullerton’s foothills do stand to become beachfront property after more decades of rising sea levels, but that won’t happen soon enough to benefit Sharon’s political future. (Well, probably not. And even if it did, the ruckus over the loss of the rest of OC — which will probably continue to exist, and to vote Republican, from a system of barges and rafts — will disrupt politics as usual even north of Orangethorpe.) The less charitable explanation is that Sharon will simply do whatever the unions ask of her in order to preserve a few jobs no matter what the cost– and that characterization as a “union stooge” is much more perilous to her near-term political future.
I don’t even want to talk to Sharon about this vote. It makes me too sad — and knowing that she’s not going to listen anyway leaves me too frustrated. But if other of Sharon’s closer and dearer friends might like to hold an “intervention” for her, I wish you good luck. The rest of us can write her through her official government link. Take a screenshot if you do.
Just going to say that It’s probably a union thing.
I am getting a little tired of feeling repaetedly punched in the gut by this lady (who did pay for an ad here.)
I’m tired of having to defend her “on balance” in statewide political forums. If she “got a pass from leadership” because her vote wasn’t needed, but would have been there if her vote had been needed, that’s great — but she should not have WANTED a pass on this issue. We in North County DON’T LIKE having to buy bottled water because of fracking.
Good vote.
Thanks, Sharon.
^^^^^^^ —- SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE, SHARON!!!
It never ceases to amaze me how people never cease to be amazed.
Sharon voting in her self-interest doesn’t amaze me. Usually her self-interest aligns with what I favor, so it doesn’t bother me.
This was a vote AGAINST her political self-interest, and she doesn’t seem to get it (most likely having been advised otherwise.) That *does* surprise me. She needs to have a word with her advisers, who apparently didn’t emphasize the power and significance of the bear trap she was stepping into.
“I don’t even want to talk to Sharon about this vote.”
I do. Interestingly enough, her website released the following tidbit the same day she took this vote on the renewable energy act:
“The California State Budget currently includes $15 million due to the efforts of Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva, and former Senator Josh Newman, for the purpose of acquiring, operating, and maintaining West Coyote Hills Open Space. Currently, the land is owned by Chevron’s subsidiary, Pacific Coast Homes. The budget bill (Senate Bill 862) will next be heard on the floor of the California State Senate.”
Chevron’s subsidiary owns Pacific Coast Homes, which owns West Coyote Hills, which she wants to save “as a park and educational resource for residents and children…” Intriguing…surely the timing here is just a coincidence…
So I take it what you think that it was some sort of political quid pro quo?
Well, if she sold out to preserve the West Coyote Hills, at least that would be an understandable reason. I don’t know how much you know about the WCH saga over the years, but it’s seriously worth preserving, both for recreational and conservationist — including animal habitat, much as the Bolsa Chica wetlands are critical as a bird habitat — purposes. It’s been a cause celebre in North County for years; Vern knows more about it than I do. if you want to check our archives.
But here’s what I still don’t understand: if the state is paying Chevron a fair price for the land, why would Sharon’s vote against 100% renewable energy electric generation 27 years from now have to be part of the bargain?
To paraphrase one private piece of feedback that I got on this piece, “maybe you shouldn’t care more about Sharon’s political future than she seems to,” which was pretty insightful.
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of quid pro quo, but her press release doesn’t really answer that. I find the timing curious. It may mean nothing at all.
Given the overlap in the assembly and senate districts, the most important consideration for her has to be what to do after Newman’s ouster: what other Democrat in the Assembly is in quite so vulnerable a spot? How much of the money spent to orchestrate his ouster was punishment for efforts to block development in the Coyote Hills? The sorts of developers who would have an eye on a plot like that have long time horizons…
Could also be that it was a stupid proposal.
Sometimes saying no to stupid is the right thing to do.
“…to orchestrate his ouster”
Unfortunately, Josh orchestrated his own ouster – with help from Deleon and Brown.
Bad politics and bad policy.
How charmingly pretend-naive, Zenger. Give yourself and your team more credit. Actually, more the rest of your team, as I don’t think that the public got to the point of agreeing with you that the state employs too many engineers working on traffic issues (or whatever it was you said to argue that repairs should be paid for by alleged waste in the budget rather than by people who want to drive on unbroken roads.)
Ryan, it’s not clear from your comment whether you’re saying that the “stupid proposal” is the bill that Josh voted for that led to her ouster, the bill that Sharon voted against, or the proposal to develop W Coyote Hills.
In this context, the bill she voted against.
But since you brought it up, Newman should have voted against the gas tax.
He’d still be in office voting for whatever he’d like to benefit his constituents in whatever way he saw fit if he had.
I don’t see why SB100 is either bad politics or bad policy — particularly not bad policy. Arguably — due to its visibility as the largest state in the world’s dominant country and as the entertainment capital of the world, its wealth, its high tech, it being sited where alternative energy sources are common, and its having a rare progressive political culture where rapacious energy corporations are not *guaranteed* political success, California is *literally* the world leader in the move to moving to renewable energy sources of electricity generation.
What we do here is literally justifiable by the “city on the hill” justification from the Sermon on the mount to be “the light of the world,” which mantle John Winthrop claimed for the U.S. and Ronald Reagan used for his own rhetorical purposes. Success here at stripping fossil fuels from electric production could have a resounding impact worldwide, potentially saving countless lives in generations to come.
Maybe you have a point about the political hazards of failing to cater to the Mammon of fossil fuel vendors and the selfishness of those who don’t want to focus in problems that will plague the world’s future. But why would you possibly call providing an example of priming the pump for renewable energy to be “bad policy”? Is this part of the “Beachfront Fullerton” plan?
It’s failing to cater to the needs and desires of the people.
People need to get to work, feed their families, and thrive.
An aspirational energy policy that’s not actually achievable without a bunch of new crap being invented and a policy that hasn’t considered (let alone demonstrated conformance) basic economic rules is stupid policy.
Laws like this have a record of failing. To repeat them and hold them up as a beacon of righteousness on a hill is stupid.
There are a lot of poor people in this state struggling to raise children. Dipshit laws like this one are a big reason why.
Ryan probably knows more about it than I. (WCH)