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Which 2024 California bills will Gavin Newsom sign into law?

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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

For California laws, the buck does really stop at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. While the Legislature approves hundreds of bills each session — and will add to that list before adjourning Saturday — Newsom decides whether they become law.  As of Aug. 15, Newsom had signed 164 bills and vetoed four. He has until Sept. 30 to decide on bills passed in the final days; he sometimes waits until right before the deadline to weigh in on contentious ones.  Newsom gives a few typical reasons for vetoing bills: He deems them redundant, or calculates that their potential cost threatens to worsen the state’s budget situation. But he also blocks bills because they’re controversial, or opposed by powerful special interests.  Last year, Newsom vetoed 156 bills and signed 890, or about 15%, a similar ratio as in 2022, when he blocked some very significant ones. In 2021, he vetoed less than 8%. While the Legislature can override vetoes, it takes a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and Senate and that rarely happens. Governors can also allow bills to become law without their signature, but that doesn’t occur very often, either. Here are some noteworthy bills being tracked by CalMatters reporters. Bookmark this page for updates. Allow civilian officers to testify Share by Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook An officer walks to his car at the Alameda Police Department in Alameda on Aug. 28, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters By Ryan Sabalow WHAT THE BILL WOULD DO Senate Bill 804 would allow community service officers — uniformed police department civilian employees who don’t have arrest powers — to testify at preliminary hearings where authorities present evidence to a judge who decides whether to move ahead with a full felony trial. Witnesses or victims are still required to testify in a trial. As it stands, only sworn officers are allowed to testify at “prelims,” despite community service officers often taking witness statements at crime scenes and during investigations.  WHO SUPPORTS IT The Redding Police Department brought the issue to the attention of the region’s senator, Republican Brian Dahle, arguing that as police budgets shrink, community services officers should be allowed to testify to free up sworn officers for other duties. The California State Sheriffs Association, the California Police Chiefs Association, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the state’s police union support the legislation. Proponents say that it would keep officers from having to re-interview witnesses. Plus, they argue that having fewer armed officers interacting with witnesses helps address concerns about over-policing in communities of color. WHO IS OPPOSED ACLU California Action, criminal defense attorneys, including the California Public Defenders Association, and social justice groups opposed the legislation. They argue that the changes could lead to shoddy testimony being admitted into legal proceedings where a suspect’s freedom is on the line. They argue that preliminary hearings are already tilted in the favor of police and prosecutors. “The bottom line is that preliminary hearings are so problematic right now,” Ignacio Hernández of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, told the Assembly Public Safety Committee this summer.  WHY IT MATTERS Since 1990, the state’s population has grown by nearly 10 million people, yet the numbers of California’s sworn patrol officers have dropped to below where they were in 1991, according to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California. Sworn officer staffing shortages are particularly prevalent in rural areas such as those in Dahle’s sprawling Senate district in northeastern California. At the same time, in the wake of high-profile cases of unjustified police violence, social justice advocates have been urging California lawmakers and local governments to scale back the numbers of armed police patrolling communities of color. Some communities are deploying unarmed social or mental-health workers trained to defuse confrontations in situations where armed officers used to be the sole respondents. GOVERNOR’S CALL  © 2024 CalMatters Expedite gender-affirming care licenses Share by Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Buttons with different pronouns at the We Care Health Fair in San Diego on May 18, 2024. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters By Jenna Peterson WHAT THE BILL WOULD DO AB 2442, authored by Los Angeles Democrat Rick Chavez Zbur, would speed up the licensure process for gender-affirming healthcare providers. The bill does not change the requirements to get a license; rather it prioritizes applicants who intend to practice gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental health care. As part of a package of new laws on abortion access, the legislature passed a similar law in 2022 to expedite licenses for abortion service providers after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. AB 2442 has a sunset clause, so the legislature would reevaluate the need for the bill in four years.  WHO SUPPORTS IT Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and Equality California are sponsors of the bill, which also has support from organizations that support LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice and healthcare access.  WHO IS OPPOSED The California Family Council, Our Duty Democrat, Protect Kids Initiative and Protection of the Educational Rights of Kids Advocacy are recorded opponents of AB 2442. The latter group says that other providers should also get expedited licensing, and that the bill could hurt other areas of medicine. Instead, they want to add more staff to the Department of Consumer Affairs so that all medical providers can get licensed more efficiently. The other organizations have concerns about the safety of children undergoing gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy before their brains fully develop, saying it could harm mental health and lead to infertility.  WHY IT MATTERS Twenty-six states have passed laws that ban gender-affirming care. In a 2022 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 47% of transgender respondents said they had considered moving to another state because of these laws. In California, patients seeking gender-affirming care at Stanford Medical Center often have to wait six to eight months to get an appointment. Supporters say AB 2442 would allow California to keep up with the demand from out-of-state patients while continuing to support in-state patients. In 2022, California passed a law protecting those receiving or providing such treatment from prosecution by other states.  GOVERNOR’S CALL  © 2024 CalMatters Stop multiple campaigns by candidates Share by Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Assemblymember Vince Fong speaks before the Assembly at the Capitol in Sacramento on June 13, 2022. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli, AP Photo By Sameea Kamal WHAT THE BILL WOULD DO AB 1784 by Democratic Assemblymembers Gail Pellerin and Wendy Carrillo clarifies state law to prevent candidates from filing papers for more than one office in a primary election. It also allows people to withdraw their candidacy until the filing deadline, which they currently can’t do. The bill does not apply to candidates for statewide office, and clarifies that withdrawal is final.  WHO SUPPORTS IT The bill is supported by Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and California’s League of Women Voters, which said that having someone on the ballot twice can confuse voters and undermine confidence in elections. It could also lead to costly special elections if a candidate wins both contests, the group said. WHO IS OPPOSED There is no registered opposition on file WHY IT MATTERS This bill seeks to address the very specific debacle that resulted from Assemblymember Vince Fong putting his hat in the ring after Rep. Kevin McCarthy stepped down from Congress. Fong was already on the primary ballot to run for re-election in his Assembly district, so the Secretary of State tried to stop him from running for a second office. Fong sued, and won. Authors of the bill want to clarify for future elections that dual candidacies are prohibited. GOVERNOR’S CALL  © 2024 CalMatters Declare three more state symbols Share by Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Black abalone. Photo by Nathaniel Fletcher, California Conservation Genomics Project By Jenna Peterson WHAT THE BILLS WOULD DO AB 2504 would designate the shell of the black abalone — an endangered marine snail — as California’s official state seashell. AB 1797 would name the Dungeness crab the state crustacean. And AB 1850 would recognize the banana slug as the state slug. These would be the latest additions to the state’s 44 official symbols.  WHO SUPPORTS THEM The shell bill was authored by Assemblymember Diane Dixon, a Republican from Newport Beach who notes that the black abalone has an important history to Native American tribes in Southern California, who have used the shell for trading and ceremony regalia and eaten the snail for thousands of years. The crab measure was authored by Assemblymember Jim Wood, a Ukiah Democrat. And the slug bill came from Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat. All three bills won overwhelming support in the Legislature. WHO IS OPPOSED There is no recorded opposition from advocacy groups to any of the three bills. Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican from Palmdale, was the lone vote against the slug bill, but “in good fun.”  WHY IT MATTERS The National Marine Fisheries Service designated the black abalone as an endangered species in 2009, as it faces environmental threats such as overfishing, disease and natural disasters. Lawmakers hope the designation will help Californians be more aware of those dangers. The Dungeness crab was chosen because of its positive impact on the commercial fishing industry and coastal economies. Pellerin chose the banana slug not only because it’s the mascot of University of California, Santa Cruz, but it also symbolizes California’s biological diversity.  GOVERNOR’S CALLS  © 2024 CalMatters

For California laws, the buck does really stop at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. While the Legislature approves hundreds of bills each session — and will add to that list before adjourning Saturday — Newsom decides whether they become law.  As of Aug. 15, Newsom had signed 164 bills and vetoed four. He has until Sept. […]

Flanked by state lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom shakes another lawmakers hand in celebration while seated at a desk at a Home Depot in San Jose.

For California laws, the buck does really stop at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

While the Legislature approves hundreds of bills each session — and will add to that list before adjourning Saturday — Newsom decides whether they become law. 

As of Aug. 15, Newsom had signed 164 bills and vetoed four. He has until Sept. 30 to decide on bills passed in the final days; he sometimes waits until right before the deadline to weigh in on contentious ones. 

Newsom gives a few typical reasons for vetoing bills: He deems them redundant, or calculates that their potential cost threatens to worsen the state’s budget situation. But he also blocks bills because they’re controversial, or opposed by powerful special interests. 

Last year, Newsom vetoed 156 bills and signed 890, or about 15%, a similar ratio as in 2022, when he blocked some very significant ones. In 2021, he vetoed less than 8%. While the Legislature can override vetoes, it takes a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and Senate and that rarely happens. Governors can also allow bills to become law without their signature, but that doesn’t occur very often, either.

Here are some noteworthy bills being tracked by CalMatters reporters. Bookmark this page for updates.

Allow civilian officers to testify

An officer walks to his car at the Alameda Police Department in Alameda on Aug. 28, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters
An officer walks to his car at the Alameda Police Department in Alameda on Aug. 28, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

By Ryan Sabalow

WHAT THE BILL WOULD DO

Senate Bill 804 would allow community service officers — uniformed police department civilian employees who don’t have arrest powers — to testify at preliminary hearings where authorities present evidence to a judge who decides whether to move ahead with a full felony trial. Witnesses or victims are still required to testify in a trial. As it stands, only sworn officers are allowed to testify at “prelims,” despite community service officers often taking witness statements at crime scenes and during investigations. 

WHO SUPPORTS IT

The Redding Police Department brought the issue to the attention of the region’s senator, Republican Brian Dahle, arguing that as police budgets shrink, community services officers should be allowed to testify to free up sworn officers for other duties. The California State Sheriffs Association, the California Police Chiefs Association, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the state’s police union support the legislation. Proponents say that it would keep officers from having to re-interview witnesses. Plus, they argue that having fewer armed officers interacting with witnesses helps address concerns about over-policing in communities of color.

WHO IS OPPOSED

ACLU California Action, criminal defense attorneys, including the California Public Defenders Association, and social justice groups opposed the legislation. They argue that the changes could lead to shoddy testimony being admitted into legal proceedings where a suspect’s freedom is on the line. They argue that preliminary hearings are already tilted in the favor of police and prosecutors. “The bottom line is that preliminary hearings are so problematic right now,” Ignacio Hernández of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, told the Assembly Public Safety Committee this summer

WHY IT MATTERS

Since 1990, the state’s population has grown by nearly 10 million people, yet the numbers of California’s sworn patrol officers have dropped to below where they were in 1991, according to a recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California. Sworn officer staffing shortages are particularly prevalent in rural areas such as those in Dahle’s sprawling Senate district in northeastern California.

At the same time, in the wake of high-profile cases of unjustified police violence, social justice advocates have been urging California lawmakers and local governments to scale back the numbers of armed police patrolling communities of color. Some communities are deploying unarmed social or mental-health workers trained to defuse confrontations in situations where armed officers used to be the sole respondents.

GOVERNOR’S CALL 

© 2024 CalMatters

Expedite gender-affirming care licenses

Buttons with different pronouns at the We Care Health Fair in San Diego on May 18, 2024. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters
Buttons with different pronouns at the We Care Health Fair in San Diego on May 18, 2024. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters

By Jenna Peterson

WHAT THE BILL WOULD DO

AB 2442, authored by Los Angeles Democrat Rick Chavez Zbur, would speed up the licensure process for gender-affirming healthcare providers. The bill does not change the requirements to get a license; rather it prioritizes applicants who intend to practice gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental health care. As part of a package of new laws on abortion access, the legislature passed a similar law in 2022 to expedite licenses for abortion service providers after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. AB 2442 has a sunset clause, so the legislature would reevaluate the need for the bill in four years. 

WHO SUPPORTS IT

Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and Equality California are sponsors of the bill, which also has support from organizations that support LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice and healthcare access. 

WHO IS OPPOSED

The California Family Council, Our Duty Democrat, Protect Kids Initiative and Protection of the Educational Rights of Kids Advocacy are recorded opponents of AB 2442. The latter group says that other providers should also get expedited licensing, and that the bill could hurt other areas of medicine. Instead, they want to add more staff to the Department of Consumer Affairs so that all medical providers can get licensed more efficiently. The other organizations have concerns about the safety of children undergoing gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy before their brains fully develop, saying it could harm mental health and lead to infertility. 

WHY IT MATTERS

Twenty-six states have passed laws that ban gender-affirming care. In a 2022 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, 47% of transgender respondents said they had considered moving to another state because of these laws. In California, patients seeking gender-affirming care at Stanford Medical Center often have to wait six to eight months to get an appointment. Supporters say AB 2442 would allow California to keep up with the demand from out-of-state patients while continuing to support in-state patients. In 2022, California passed a law protecting those receiving or providing such treatment from prosecution by other states. 

GOVERNOR’S CALL 

© 2024 CalMatters

Stop multiple campaigns by candidates

Assemblymember Vince Fong speaks before the Assembly at the Capitol in Sacramento on June 13, 2022. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli, AP Photo

By Sameea Kamal

WHAT THE BILL WOULD DO

AB 1784 by Democratic Assemblymembers Gail Pellerin and Wendy Carrillo clarifies state law to prevent candidates from filing papers for more than one office in a primary election. It also allows people to withdraw their candidacy until the filing deadline, which they currently can’t do. The bill does not apply to candidates for statewide office, and clarifies that withdrawal is final. 

WHO SUPPORTS IT

The bill is supported by Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and California’s League of Women Voters, which said that having someone on the ballot twice can confuse voters and undermine confidence in elections. It could also lead to costly special elections if a candidate wins both contests, the group said.

WHO IS OPPOSED

There is no registered opposition on file

WHY IT MATTERS

This bill seeks to address the very specific debacle that resulted from Assemblymember Vince Fong putting his hat in the ring after Rep. Kevin McCarthy stepped down from Congress. Fong was already on the primary ballot to run for re-election in his Assembly district, so the Secretary of State tried to stop him from running for a second office. Fong sued, and won. Authors of the bill want to clarify for future elections that dual candidacies are prohibited.

GOVERNOR’S CALL 

© 2024 CalMatters

Declare three more state symbols

Black abalone. Photo by Nathaniel Fletcher, California Conservation Genomics Project
Black abalone. Photo by Nathaniel Fletcher, California Conservation Genomics Project

By Jenna Peterson

WHAT THE BILLS WOULD DO

AB 2504 would designate the shell of the black abalone — an endangered marine snail — as California’s official state seashell. AB 1797 would name the Dungeness crab the state crustacean. And AB 1850 would recognize the banana slug as the state slug. These would be the latest additions to the state’s 44 official symbols. 

WHO SUPPORTS THEM

The shell bill was authored by Assemblymember Diane Dixon, a Republican from Newport Beach who notes that the black abalone has an important history to Native American tribes in Southern California, who have used the shell for trading and ceremony regalia and eaten the snail for thousands of years. The crab measure was authored by Assemblymember Jim Wood, a Ukiah Democrat. And the slug bill came from Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat. All three bills won overwhelming support in the Legislature.

WHO IS OPPOSED

There is no recorded opposition from advocacy groups to any of the three bills. Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican from Palmdale, was the lone vote against the slug bill, but “in good fun.” 

WHY IT MATTERS

The National Marine Fisheries Service designated the black abalone as an endangered species in 2009, as it faces environmental threats such as overfishing, disease and natural disasters. Lawmakers hope the designation will help Californians be more aware of those dangers. The Dungeness crab was chosen because of its positive impact on the commercial fishing industry and coastal economies. Pellerin chose the banana slug not only because it’s the mascot of University of California, Santa Cruz, but it also symbolizes California’s biological diversity. 

GOVERNOR’S CALLS 

© 2024 CalMatters
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Wildlife groups express alarm at plan to ‘streamline’ UK environmental rules

Government wants to spur economic growth and drive housebuilding but charities say nature should be priorityWildlife groups have expressed alarm after ministers promised a radically “streamlined” approach to UK environmental regulation intended to drive economic growth and speed up new housing, as well as major projects such as airports.While officials said the plans should boost nature conservation overall, the removal of what one called “bat by bat” decisions, a reference to the £100m bat shelter constructed for part of HS2, could water down individual protections. Continue reading...

Wildlife groups have expressed alarm after ministers promised a radically “streamlined” approach to UK environmental regulation intended to drive economic growth and speed up new housing, as well as major projects such as airports.While officials said the plans should boost nature conservation overall, the removal of what one called “bat by bat” decisions, a reference to the £100m bat shelter constructed for part of HS2, could water down individual protections.The new regime is based on a report commissioned in the autumn by Steve Reed, the environment secretary. Led by Dan Corry, a No 10 adviser under Gordon Brown, it sets out 29 recommendations, nine of which are being immediately adopted.The most radical is that major projects should only have to deal with a single “lead regulator”, which would be responsible for ensuring environmental decisions happen at speed. This would not be a new body but one of the existing quangos developers already deal with such as the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Forestry Commission.Other recommendations being adopted include a streamlining of environmental permits and guidance, intended to assist “sensible and risk-based” decisions; a single digital portal for such permissions; and a new “infrastructure board” in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), intended to help projects clear barriers.Reed said the intention was to “boost economic growth and unleash an era of building, while also supporting nature to recover”. However, some nature groups expressed concern that the former would overshadow the latter, with ministers visibly pushing against protection that could hold up new housing or big projects.Joan Edwards, the head of policy at the Wildlife Trusts, said: “Slashing red tape won’t work for this government any more than it worked for the last because protecting wildlife and wild places is essential to achieving truly sustainable growth.“We don’t need more short-term sugar-rush economics – we need housebuilding which supports healthy communities and which is built on a foundation of nature’s recovery.”Beccy Speight, the chief executive of the RSBP, said the bird charity would support changes that could help natural recovery and would “thoroughly review” Corry’s proposals.She added: “However, any changes must prioritise nature, ensuring that protected areas are shielded from harmful development that could cause irreversible damage. Reassurances alone are not enough.”Kit Stoner, the chief executive of the Bat Conservation Trust, said: “The secretary of state talks about a commonsense approach to better regulation; we would urge him to work with us to take an evidence-based approach. Without this, the cutting of corners is likely to accelerate nature and economic decline.”The 64-page review by Corry aims to end what one official called the current “merry-go-round” of regulators, replacing it with a streamlined approach based on outcomes, rather than one that was “too risk-averse and focused on process”.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionProtecting nature, such as the Bechstein’s bats shielded by the HS2 tunnel in Buckinghamshire or the fish whose fate could delay the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, was important, it said.“But in mitigating our impacts, we shouldn’t be rigidly protecting everything exactly as it is, at any cost. Our approach must also make ample space for innovation, development and growth.”Corry wrote that he would expect environmental groups to be “nervous” about whether the new focus and parallel plans to give regulators more discretion, could mean nature suffered.He added: “But everything I have heard and learned during this review suggests that the current system does not work as well as it could for nature and the environment, let alone for growth.”Officials acknowledge that this is very likely to mean a less stringent policy for specific protection, particularly around distinct major projects, with this “focus on proportionality” meaning something such as the bat tunnel would be unlikely to happen again.There are, however, no plans to amend or scrap wider habitats regulations, introduced under EU laws and blamed by previous governments for creating unnecessary red tape.Reed said: “Nature and the economy have both been in decline for too long. That changes today. I am rewiring Defra and its arms-length bodies to boost economic growth and unleash an era of building while also supporting nature to recover.”

Bob Brown urges Greens to punish Labor at election if Albanese amends law to protect salmon farming

PM’s pledge to protect Tasmanian industry will weaken laws already failing to protect natural sites and at-risk species, environmentalists sayFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFormer Greens leader Bob Brown has urged the minor party not to preference Labor ahead of the Liberal party in Tasmanian seats at the upcoming election if the Albanese government legislates to effectively exempt salmon farming from national environment laws.Conservationists have sharply criticised Anthony Albanese’s pledge that he will rush through legislation next week to protect the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, from the potential results of a long-running legal review.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Former Greens leader Bob Brown has urged the minor party not to preference Labor ahead of the Liberal party in Tasmanian seats at the upcoming election if the Albanese government legislates to effectively exempt salmon farming from national environment laws.Conservationists have sharply criticised Anthony Albanese’s pledge that he will rush through legislation next week to protect the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, from the potential results of a long-running legal review.The legislation has been listed to be introduced in parliament on Tuesday as an amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It is planned to end a formal reconsideration by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of fish farming in the harbour in 2012 was properly approved.The reconsideration was triggered by a legal request from three environmentally focused organisations. An environment department opinion released under freedom of information laws suggested that it could lead to salmon farming having to stop in the harbour while an environmental impact statement was prepared.Guardian Australia has learned the legislation would prevent reconsideration requests in cases where developments were deemed “not a controlled action” – meaning they did not need a full federal environmental assessment. To qualify, the developments would need to be ongoing or recurring, have been under way for at least five years before the request was made, and be subject to state or territory oversight.A spokesperson for Albanese this week said the government would amend the “flawed” environment law “to secure jobs and local industries”.Asked on Friday if he would support the amendment, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said: “Absolutely. We’ve proposed it. We’ve been months and months and months ahead of the game in relation to the salmon industry. We have stood with the salmon industry, with workers.”Environmentalists said the change would weaken laws that were already failing to protect Australia’s most celebrated natural sites or to stop species going extinct.Brown said if Albanese acted on his pledge it would be “the lowest direct act by a national Labor government against Australia’s environment in memory”.“On coalmines, gas fracking, forest logging and now industrial fish farms, Labor and Liberal are in lockstep in this epic age of environmental destruction,” he said. “Greens voters should be directed to preference like-minded candidates on this critical issue, but then be left to decide which of the old parties to put last.”The Wilderness Society said the legislation could lead to the extinction of the Maugean skate, an endangered species endemic to the harbour, and undermine the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Its campaign manager, Sam Szoke-Burke, said: “If passed, this bill will be remembered as Prime Minister Albanese cementing species loss into law. It would be in stark contrast to Bob Hawke’s legacy of protecting the Franklin [River].”Brendan Sydes, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, said Albanese had failed to deliver a promised revamp of environmental law, had intervened on behalf of mining and resources interests to shelve a proposed national environment protection agency and was now planning to reduce nature protection.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“We really need a PM who is prepared to step up and deliver on the commitments his government has made on environmental law reform and start acting in the national interest, rather than acting in the interests of environmentally harmful industries,” he said.The independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie said Albanese was prioritising winning a seat that “they’re probably not going to win anyway” – Braddon, in the state’s north-west – over saving a species from extinction.“That’s just an appalling misstep by Anthony Albanese and his government, and an appalling breakdown in good governments and proper process,” Wilkie said. “I’m very disappointed in Albo, he’s better than this.”A spokesperson for the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said preferences were “a matter for the party, but our focus is on keeping Peter Dutton out and getting Labor to act”. “This attempt to ram through further weakening of our environment laws at the behest of big corporations is going to make people very angry,” they said.The government has said it remained committed to reforming environment law if it wins the next election, but not released details.

Point Reyes' historic dairies ousted after legal battle. Locals say it's conservation gone mad

Environmentalists are celebrating a legal settlement that will close historic family dairies they say are degrading Point Reyes National Seashore. Locals say the settlement shows no understanding of this place and its people.

POINT REYES STATION, Calif. — With fog-kissed streets featuring a buttery bakery, an eclectic bookstore and markets peddling artisanal cheeses crafted from the milk of lovingly coddled cows, Point Reyes Station is about as picturesque as tourist towns come in California.It is also a place that, at the moment, is roiling with anger. A place where many locals feel they’re waging an uphill battle for the soul of their community.The alleged villains are unexpected, here in one of the cradles of the organic food movement: the National Park Service and a slate of environmental organizations that maintain that the herds of cattle that have grazed on the Point Reyes Peninsula for more than 150 years are polluting watersheds and threatening endangered species, including the majestic tule elk that roam the windswept headlands. Locals in Point Reyes Station say a legal settlement that will force out historic family dairies shows no understanding of the peninsula’s culture and history. In January, the park service and environmental groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Center for Biological Diversity announced a “landmark agreement” to settle the long-simmering conflict. The settlement, resolving a lawsuit filed in 2022, would pay most of the historic dairies and cattle ranches on the seashore to move out. The fences would come down, and the elk would roam free. Contamination from the runoff of dairy operations would cease. There would be new hiking trails. More places to camp. More conservation of coastal California landscapes.“A crucial milestone in safeguarding and revitalizing the Seashore’s extraordinary ecosystem, all while addressing the very real needs of the community,” said Deborah Moskowitz, president of the Resource Renewal Institute, one of the groups that sued. She added that the deal “balances compassion with conservation” while also “ensuring that this priceless national treasure is preserved and cherished for generations to come.”As news of the settlement spread, however, it quickly became clear that many in the community did not agree. In fact, they thought it showed no understanding at all of this place and its people.A rarity for the National Park Service, the Point Reyes National Seashore has, since its founding in 1962, encompassed not just pristine wilderness but also working agricultural land. Those historic dairies have supplied coveted milk products to San Francisco for well more than a century, and today play an outsize role in California’s organic milk production. Why would anyone want to destroy one of the most preeminent areas for organic farming in the country in the name of the environment? What’s more, the closing of the historic dairies means not just that legacy families and their cows will have to leave, but so will many dairy workers and ranchhands who have lived on the peninsula for decades. An entire community, many of them low income and Latino, are poised to lose their jobs and homes in one fell swoop. In the weeks since the settlement was announced, there have been a spate of heated community meetings. At least two lawsuits, one from tenants being displaced and one from a cattle operation, have been filed. “It’s a big blow to the community,” said Dewey Livingston, who lives in Inverness and has written extensively about the history of Point Reyes. He said he believes the environmental harms wrought by the cows have been exaggerated. And moving the cows out, he said, will irreparably harm the local culture. “It will turn what was once a rural area into a community of vacation homes, visitors and wealthy people.”Environmental groups say they are sympathetic to these concerns, but that it is the duty of the National Park Service to protect and preserve the land — and that the land is being degraded. “This degree of water pollution, which threatens aquatic wildlife habitat and public health, shouldn’t be happening anywhere, and definitely not in a national park,” said Jeff Miller, of the Center for Biological Diversity.“If you listen to the rancher narrative, it makes it sound like ranching has always been this environmentally sustainable activity that serves all,” said Erik Molvar, of the Western Watersheds Project, another of the groups that sued. “But what we’re seeing was this herd of elk, locked up, having massive die outs. We had severe water pollution, some of the worst water pollution in California.” A road leads to Historic C Ranch at Point Reyes National Seashore. About 20 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Point Reyes Peninsula rises up, a paradise of ocean, dunes, cliffs and grassland that feels delivered from another time and place. Whales and elephant seals glide through the shimmering water, while bears and mountain lions patrol the misty headlands. There are pine forests, waterfalls, wildflowers and more than 50 species of endangered or threatened plants, along with the colorful flickers and chirps of more than 490 species of birds. And, of course, there are thousands of acres of green and golden hills, their grasslands softly rolling in the coastal breeze.Intensive dairy ranching began here more than 150 years ago, spawned by the Gold Rush population explosion in San Francisco.By the late 1850s, two brothers, Oscar Lovell Shafter and James McMillan Shafter, had established a large operation to produce butter and cheese, and ferried their goods to San Francisco on small schooner ships. By 1867, Marin County was producing more butter than anywhere else in California: 932,429 pounds a year.Bob McClure’s ancestors arrived in 1889. His great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland and worked on the dairies. In 1930, the family acquired a ranch known — as are almost all the ranches on Point Reyes — by a letter.“The I ranch,” McClure said. “I grew up here my whole life.” Like his father and grandfather before him, he watched over his cows as the fog rolled in and out over pastures that stretched from the hills to the sea. It was relentless work. “The cow has this; the cow has that,” McClure explained, “and out of bed you go.” And yet, he loved it. Historic C Ranch is seen from a hillside at Point Reyes National Seashore. As the decades went by, other immigrant families, many of whom started out as dairy workers, purchased land from the remnants of the Shafter dairy empire. The Nunes family came in 1919. The Kehoe family took over the J Ranch in 1922. Eventually, the area became a mecca not just for milk and butter, but also for some of the fanciest cheeses in America: Cowgirl Creamery with its Mt. Tam brie and Devil’s Gulch triple cream; Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., with its blue cheese and Toma; Marin French Cheese Co., with its Rouge et Noir camembert.Over the decades, other entities also had eyes on the peninsula. By the late 1920s, developers had swallowed up much of the Eastern Seaboard and were pursuing properties on the Pacific and Gulf coasts. Conservationists pushed to preserve Point Reyes, worried it would be recast as yet another coastal resort, with hotels and arcades marching along the shoreline. In 1935, an assistant director of the National Park Service recommended that the government buy 53,000 acres on Point Reyes, but the purchase price of $2.4 million was considered too steep.The dream persisted, and in 1962, thanks to a boost from President Kennedy, the Point Reyes National Seashore was authorized, with land purchases continuing through the early 1970s. A view of the Point Reyes Lighthouse. Today, the park encompasses about 70,000 acres, and is visited by about 2 million people a year. But woven into its creation was an understanding that the livestock and dairy operations would be allowed to continue.Under an agreement with the Department of the Interior, ranchers conveyed their land to the federal government and in exchange were issued long-term leases to work that land. For many visitors, the cows — quiet herds of Devons, Guernseys and Jerseys happily munching on the flowing grasses — are just one more piece of the picturesque landscape.But behind the scenes, tensions were brewing almost from the beginning. McClure was only 10 years old when the park was created, so he wasn’t aware of the legal intricacies. But he recalls that his family wasn’t wild about the sale.“Nobody really wanted to,” he recalled, but the government “could have eminent-domained it,” so the families took what they could get.Laura Watt, a retired professor of geography at Sonoma State University whose book, “The Paradox of Preservation: Wilderness and Working Landscapes at Point Reyes National Seashore,” chronicles the history, said many of the old ranching families were discomfited by the notion of their home becoming a wilderness playground. A cow eyes a visitor at Historic C Ranch at Point Reyes National Seashore. The families, she noted, were “a freakish embodiment of the classic American dream.” Most had come to the U.S. as immigrants, worked as tenant farmers for the Shafter dairy empire, and eventually managed to buy land and make a go of it, passing their enterprises on to their children.Then along comes the federal government, saying their land should be set aside as a park. “That was part of what rubbed them the wrong way,” Watt said. The ranching families had “worked so hard to be able to get this land and take care of this land” and now suddenly it was “for other people to go and play?”Enter the elk. In the late 1970s, the government moved a dozen or so tule elk to Tomales Point at the northern end of the peninsula. The animals had once roamed the area before being hunted to extinction there; scientists were seeking to reestablish the species.At first, the arrival of the giant mammals was not terribly controversial. The herd was small, and stayed at the top of the peninsula, where a long strip of land juts into the water between Tomales Bay and the Pacific Ocean.Before too long, however, the herd multiplied, eventually outgrowing its range on Tomales Point. Some animals were moved south, where they began to compete with cows for pasture. Even as the elk moved in, many ranching families were beginning to chafe at what they said was government red tape that made it hard to run their operations. “They will force us out with all the paperwork we have to fill out,” one rancher, Kathy Lucchesi, complained to the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “By the time they approve a project it’s too late.”Still, the park service superintendent at the time, Cicely Muldoon, insisted the agency was committed to maintaining the ranches. “The park service has always supported agriculture, and will continue to do so,” she said in 2014.Ranchers and the park service discussed updated leases, which would enable the ranches to make investments and long-term plans.Environmentalists, however, were aghast, especially after word spread that the park service planned to shoot some of the elk to curb the population. In 2016, three groups — the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project — filed a lawsuit, asking a federal judge to require the park service to prepare a new general plan for the seashore, one that analyzed “the impacts of livestock ranching on the natural and recreational resources.”The suit alleged that the ranching operations were harming coastal waters, and cited examples from the park service’s own studies that found fecal pollution in some areas. The suit alleged a long list of harms. Among them: degradation of salmon habitat; threats to the habitat of the California red-legged frog, Myrtle’s silverspot butterfly and western snowy plover; plus, members of the public reported “unpleasant odors” from the cows and their manure.In 2017, the park service settled the suit by agreeing to draft a new plan, which it did in 2021. That plan offered ranchers new long-term leases. The park service said it would authorize the culling of elk herds, to keep them separate from the cows.In 2022, the same groups that sued in 2016 filed suit again, this time challenging the park’s new management plan.Molvar, of the Western Watersheds Project, said the groups feared an environmental catastrophe. “We had cattle pastures where the native grasslands had been so completely destroyed only the invasive species survived,” he said. Combine harvesters had been spotted mowing over baby deer and baby elk. He said he had seen videos that showed flocks of ravens hovering behind the harvesters so they could “feast on the carnage.” “The national seashore, from an ecological standpoint, was a train wreck,” he said. After the lawsuit was filed, the park service and environmental organizations entered discussions. Eventually, the Nature Conservancy, which was not a party to the suit, agreed to raise money to try to buy out the dairies and ranching operations. The amount has not been officially disclosed, but is widely reported to be about $30 million. The parties involved are barred from discussing financial details because of non-disclosure agreements. Many ranchers reached by The Times said they were heartbroken, but felt they had no choice but to capitulate, because it had become too difficult to continue operations. People stroll through the Cypress Tree Tunnel in Inverness. On Jan. 8, the parties announced the settlement, and said the ranchers, their tenants and workers would have 15 months to move out. Two beef cattle operations would be permitted to stay in the park and seven ranches would remain in the adjoining Golden Gate National Recreation Area.“It’s very hard,” said Margarito Loza Gonzalez, 58 and a father of six, who has worked at one of the ranches for decades and now wonders how he will support his family. He added that it feels as though the people who crafted the settlement “didn’t take [the workers] into account.”The settlement contains some money to help workers and tenants make the transition; it has been reported to be about $2.5 million, but many in West Marin think that is insufficient to replace people’s homes and livelihoods. Jasmine Bravo, 30, a community organizer whose father worked at a dairy and who lives with her family in ranch housing, has been organizing tenants facing displacement. “This huge decision that was going to impact our community was just made without any community input,” she said. “They thought we were going to be complacent and accepting,” she added. But “there are tenants and workers who have been here for generations. We’re just not going to move out of West Marin and start over. Our lives are here.”On March 11, the Marin County Board of Supervisors voted to declare an emergency shelter crisis to make it easier to construct temporary housing for displaced workers. Many residents showed up to applaud it — and also to say it wasn’t nearly enough.Albert Straus, whose legendary Straus Family Creamery sources organic milk from two of the local dairies, said that the organic operations in Marin and Sonoma counties “have become a model for the world,” and that the ousted dairies are family operations that worked in concert with the community and the land. He recently published an op-ed calling on the Trump administration to reverse the decision. “The campaign to displace the ranchers reflects a misguided vision of nature as a pristine playground suitable for postcards and tourists, with little regard for the community or the planet,” Straus wrote. In an interview, he said that the issue feels “very raw, and we’re trying to change that direction to save our community, our farms and our food.” He added: “I never give up.”

‘All the birds returned’: How China led the way in water and soil conservation

The Loess plateau was the most eroded place on Earth until China took action and reversed decades of damage from grazing and farmingIt was one of China’s most ambitious environmental endeavours ever.The Loess plateau, an area spanning more than 245,000 sq miles (640,000 sq km) across three provinces and parts of four others, supports about 100 million people. By the end of the 20th century, however, this land, once fertile and productive, was considered the most eroded place on Earth, according to a documentary by the ecologist John D Liu. Continue reading...

It was one of China’s most ambitious environmental endeavours ever.The Loess plateau, an area spanning more than 245,000 sq miles (640,000 sq km) across three provinces and parts of four others, supports about 100 million people. By the end of the 20th century, however, this land, once fertile and productive, was considered the most eroded place on Earth, according to a documentary by the ecologist John D Liu.Generations of farmers had cleared and cultivated the land, slowly breaking down the soil and destroying the cover. Every year, the dust from the plain jammed the Yellow River with silt (this is how the river gets its name), sending plumes of loess, a fine wind-blown sediment, across Chinese cities – including to the capital, Beijing.And so in 1999 the Chinese government took drastic emergency action with the launch of Grain to Green, a pilot project backed by World Bank funding, to regreen the plateau and reverse the damage done by overgrazing and overcultivation of the once forested hillsides that would become what the bank described in 2004 as “the largest and most successful water and soil conservancy project in the world” (pdf).Eroded valleys and terracing in Loess plateau, Gansu, before the conservation project began. Photograph: Universal Images Group/GettyThe primary focus was to restore agricultural production and incomes in the plateau, but the dust storms descending on already polluted cities, “making people cough even more”, also became a driver, says Peter Bridgewater, an honorary professor at the Australian National University’s Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies.World Bank participants spent more than three years designing the project, working with experts as well as communities, officials and farmers on how to overturn the longstanding but unsustainable grazing and herding of livestock. Tree-cutting, planting on hillsides and uncurbed sheep and goat grazing were banned. The sustainable practices demonstrated in some small villages were scaled up.The project was extraordinarily ambitious, and was powered through by China’s authoritarian system. “If you want major change, the Chinese system is well adapted to making major change,” says Bridgewater wryly.There were grain and cash subsidies for people converting farmland to grassland, economic forest or protected ecological forest. There were tax subsidies and benefits to offset farming losses, long-term land use contracts and conversion to more sustainable farming including orchards and nuts, and widespread tree-planting employment programmes.By 2016, China had converted more than 11,500 sq miles of rain-fed cropland to forest or grassland – a 25% increase in vegetative cover in a decade, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change. Other studies showed large reductions in erosion and positive changes in plant productivity.“When the environment improved, all the birds returned. The forest has developed its ecological system naturally,” the forestry worker Yan Rufeng told the state-run news channel CGTN.Terraces on the Loess plateau covered with layers of green wheat seedlings and dotted with golden rape flowers in Yuncheng, Shanxi province. Photograph: CFoto/Future Publishing/GettyIt wasn’t straightforward, however. There was some community resistance, particularly to demands to plant trees on farming land. “What about the next generation? They can’t eat trees,” said one man interviewed for Liu’s documentary.In the early years there also appeared to be a correlation between the project and a sudden drop in grain yield. Over the years, officials would debate whether the programme was harming China’s food security, although studies found there to be several factors at play, and that yields later improved.In hindsight, the early methods employed to regreen the dusty hills were also problematic. “There was a lot of mass tree planting – not necessarily natives – and in plantation format, in other words, monocultural stands,” says Bridgewater.Mass-species planting eventually began to replace the monoculture plantations, helping to increase wildlife, but there were also issues with water management, with the burgeoning tree cover and agriculture taking more and more water out of the Yellow River system.“It’s looking like there is a point at which the revegetation will become too successful in that it actually then swings the water balance of the landscape, reducing the potential for water to go into the rivers and be available for human use,” says Bridgewater.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“So this is another element that was not really thought about at the start, because the aim wasn’t ‘let’s stabilise the system’. But it’s a good lesson as to how all these interconnecting factors need to be thought about very carefully before you launch into these things.”Eroded terraces on the Loess plateau, Shaanxi province, in 2007. Photograph: China Span Keren Su/Sunset/Rex/ShutterstockA big factor in the success and demands of the programme was and remains the changing climate. The plateau sits in a transition zone between arid and semi-humid climates. The varied natural factors of the region, combined with unsustainable human activity, had contributed to the fragility of the plateau, a 2021 study found. “At the same time, the climate in this region has shown warming and wetting, particularly in the south in which precipitation increased by 20-50 mm from 2000 to 2014.”The climate around the Loess plateau is changing, which means what existed, or even thrived, several decades ago can’t necessarily be put back, says Bridgewater. “But we can produce something, a system that will produce ecosystem services at a better range and a better quality and more regularly than the systems that we’ve destabilised.”An aerival view of Loess plateau terraces after wheat harvest in Yuncheng, Shanxi province, in June. Photograph: NurPhoto/GettyBridgewater adds: “Given the speed of climate change, and not just climate but hydrology and all the other associated global changes, we need to be thinking about what we want. What we want out of our ecosystems are actually services.“We need to think actually in multi-dimensions … to develop a whole new way of thinking as to how we manage the landscape. And in a way, the whole Loess plateau project is a good example of that, [even if] that wasn’t the way of thinking at the start.”Lu FuChin, a former farmer, told the official state news outlet Xinhua that the programme had boosted local employment. “I used to cut trees for firewood, but now I grow them instead,” said the 52-year-old forestry worker. “It used to be that people had to go far for work, but now they can find employment by the Yellow River. As the environment is improving, I believe the villagers’ lives will become more prosperous too.”Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu

Democratic Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona Dies of Complications From Cancer Treatment

Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl M

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona, who championed environmental protection during his 12 terms in Congress, died Thursday of complications from cancer treatments, his office said.Grijalva, who was 77, had risen to chair the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee and was the top Democrat on the committee until earlier this year. He had been absent from Congress as he underwent cancer treatment in recent months. Grijalva’s office said in a statement, “From permanently protecting the Grand Canyon for future generations to strengthening the Affordable Care Act, his proudest moments in Congress have always been guided by community voices.”Grijalva, the son of a Mexican immigrant, was first elected to the House in 2002. Known as a liberal leader, he led the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 2008 and dedicated much of his career to working on environmental causes on the Natural Resources Committee. He stepped down from that position this year, after announcing that he planned to retire rather than run for reelection in 2026.During his time in Congress, Grijalva championed protections for endangered species and wilderness areas, as well as stronger regulations on the oil and natural gas industries. He played a key role in writing the National Landscape Conservation System Act and the Federal Lands Restoration Act, which were passed and signed by President Barack Obama.Grijalva had announced in April last year that he had been diagnosed with cancer, but would be able to continue his work. He also sought reelection and won easily in the blue-leaning district.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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