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What we need to see in a BP oil spill settlement

2012-02-13T17:59:11Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Rumors are flying that the feds and BP are about to announce a deal on what damages BP will pay for the April, 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. I have zero inside information on what the settlement terms will be, but here are some terms I think should be included.

A Decent Reopener Clause. A reopener clause is designed to deal with consequences of the oil spill that occur or come to light in the future. In the Exxon Valdez matter, the feds (and the State of Alaska) agreed to a reopener clause that was limited in terms of how and when it could be invoked, and also in terms of how much total money Exxon could be forced to pay. Exxon walked away with a pretty sweet deal, and the feds have learned a lot since. Here, the reopener clause should be unlimited in time and should not be capped. BP needs to pay to clean up the mess it made, no matter where or when, and no matter when the need for additional work comes to light.

A Citizens’ Advisory Panel. One thing the feds got right in the Exxon Valdez matter was setting up a citizens’ advisory panel that was funded by the Alyeska Pipeline Company. The same thing should happen here, funded by BP.

Full Funding of the Trustees’ Restoration Plan. The Trustees Draft Early Restoration Plan for eight projects is out now and more early plans are likely before the overall restoration is released. We’re now hearing that the comprehensive restoration plan may not happen until the end of 2012. I described the restoration plan process here. BP should agree not to fight the preliminary or final plans in court and should commit to doing, and paying for, what the natural resource Trustees want it to do.

Release of Information Collected in the NRDA Process. The Trustees and BP have collected a huge amount of data in connection with the NRDA restoration planning process, but so far have kept most of it from the public on the theory that it needs to be protected for litigation. If and when BP agrees to a settlement including full funding of the Trustees’ restoration plan, as described above, the litigation threat will disappear and BP and the Trustees should make all of the restoration plan-related data public.

An Escrow Account for Current and Future Work. The price tag for compliance with the restoration plan will be big. To avoid payment delays and wrangling over invoices, BP should be required to escrow a substantial amount of cash now.

Put BP on Probation. No criminal charges have been filed against BP, but the feds very publicly have threatened to do so. If there is a settlement of criminal violations, BP should be put on probation to deter future bad conduct – as it was after the BP refinery explosion in Texas and pipeline spill in Alaska.

A Penalty Clause for Future Spills. As additional deterrence against future misconduct, the agreement should have a stiff penalty clause that would be invoked if there is another serious oil spill from any BP well anywhere in U.S. waters.

I’ll follow up after the settlement, if it happens, to report on whether these ideas found their way into the agreement.

Investing in Clean Fuels Benefits Everyone

2012-01-20T00:59:07Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

The process to implement California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard has had an interesting month. In mid-December we achieved a great victory when California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously agreed to move forward with implementation of the low emission fuel standard . However, a couple weeks after the December 15th vote, a legal ruling was issued that might delay that progress. Following is an explanation of the LCFS and what the ruling means for the program’s future.

What is LCFS?

California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) is part of California’s strategy to reduce pollution under the state’s global warming law (AB32) and is expected to produce roughly 15% of the reductions needed to return to 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. California’s LCFS would help reduce harmful air pollution from the fuels used by our cars and trucks, reduce our dependence in petroleum, and drive innovation of advanced fuels. The program is designed to incentivize all producers of motor fuels, including gasoline and corn ethanol, to reduce by 10% the carbon intensity of motor fuels sold in California. It is a performance based standard that works by assigning a carbon intensity score to all transportation fuels and setting up a trading system for credits.

Under the LCFS, all producers, both domestic and importers, must meet the average carbon intensity standard for their fuel products. Producers of fuels with a carbon intensity score greater than the standard set by the CARB can meet the standard by selling more lower-carbon fuels, using banked credits, or purchasing credits from other fuel providers. This raises the value of lower-carbon intensity fuels and decreases the value of higher carbon-intensity fuels. If you’re interested in learning more about the details of the LCFS, you can check out my post on Legal Planet here or my colleague Simon Mui’s post here.

Background on the LCFS litigation so far

Representatives of the oil and ethanol industries filed suit in 2009 to block implementation of the LCFS. On December 29, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence J. O’Neil in Fresno sided with the plaintiffs and ruled that the LCFS violates the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution because, in his view, it discriminates against out-of-state commerce and because it attempts to regulate out-of-state businesses. Judge O’Neill also enjoined enforcement of the LCFS. CARB and intervenors in the litigation, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, have filed an appeal.

Below is a brief summary of the Court’s ruling; for a very carefully-written view from the oil industry’s side, take a look here.

Judge O’Neil’s opinion

Judge O’Neil ruled that California’s low-carbon program facially or “overtly” discriminates against out-of-state corn ethanol and crude oil. He based this conclusion on three main factors:

First, the court found that CARB discriminates against out-of-state fuels by counting the emissions that come from transporting fuels from where they ate produced to where they are sold in California. For corn ethanol, the Court noted the LCFS assigns fuels produced out of state a carbon debit associated with transporting the fuel into California. For crude oil, the court noted the LCFS assigns a lower carbon intensity score to High Carbon Intensity Crude Oil (HCICO) produced in California than its actual carbon intensity value (and, conversely, a higher carbon intensity score than the actual value for HCICO produced abroad). Ironically, California producers do worse than Midwest producers on the transportation factor because of the long distances that corn feedstock must be shipped to get to California refineries.
Second, the Court found that the LCFS differentiates among fuel sources based on activities ‘inextricably intertwined’ with origin; chiefly by assigning carbon intensity scores based in part on the regional generation mix of electricity powering biofuel facilities that produce corn ethanol. In shorthand: Midwest ethanol facilities more often rely on polluting power sources (particularly coal) than California does.
Third, Judge O’Neil ruled that California is unconstitutionally regulating activities outside its border when it uses a formula to compute carbon intensity scores that has an input for lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of a fuel, if those emissions occur outside of California.

Lifecycle Emissions

Here is the problem with ignoring a lifecycle analysis if you’re worried about the effects of GHG emissions on California. A gallon equivalent of fuel made from tar sands, conventional oil, corn ethanol, or cellulosic ethanol will have virtually the same carbon emission from combustion but very different lifecycle emissions due to the differences in producing these fuels. So, contrary to Judge O’Neill’s suggestion that California could achieve its desired result from a simple carbon tax, taxing the amount of carbon in a gallon of fuel will not incentivize anyone to reduce GHG emissions from the production of that fuel, and without those reductions California is just moving the GHG problem somewhere else. As most readers of this blog probably know, a ton of GHGs emitted in Kansas has the same climate change potential for California as a ton emitted in Sacramento.

On the legal issues raised by Judge O’Neill, NRDC argued in our intervenor brief that the LCFS does not facially discriminate against out-of-state ethanol or crude oil. The LCFS evenhandedly regulates all transportation fuels sold in California based on emissions, not on location. California's carbon calculations apply equally to the lifecycle emissions of all fuels, including the emissions needed to refine and transport those fuels. Critically, the same formulas apply whether the fuel is made in California or elsewhere.

On the issue of extraterritoriality, or regulating out of state conduct, ARB’s carbon accounting for out-of-state electricity does not, as a factual matter, involve the type of lifecycle emissions analysis that the court found had the “practical effect” of regulating conduct occurring wholly outside California’s borders and therefore required strict scrutiny. For example, indirect land use change factors, which the court noted are used to discourage farmers “around the world” from converting non-agricultural land into farmland to enter the corn market, are not at play in this case.

Ultimately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will decide this new issue in American law: to what extent can a State rely on a lifecycle analysis of fuels in order to protect its land and residents against adverse physical impacts that occur in that State. It is NRDC’s view that the LCFS does not cross the line and offend the Commerce Clause by protecting Californians.

This blog first appeared in the California Progress Report on January 18, 2011.

Back To Beijing

2011-12-05T18:35:04Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Last week, I was in Beijing and Hefei, China, giving talks on the assessment and cleanup of marine oil spills and other insults to the natural environment. In some ways, the developing areas of China may seem a paradise for those in the U.S. who think that our environmental laws improperly impede development. The Chinese government has a tough-sounding environmental protection law on the books, but it's rarely enforced. The result is that development is booming -- Hefei, the provincial capital of Anhui Province, is growing at 20% per year -- but you can't breathe the air or drink the water.

If you're interested, there is a link to the daily hazard level of particulate matter and ozone in Beijing here. The air is so bad in Beijing that I saw bicyclists wearing anti-pollution face masks on a snowy day. I didn’t see any improvement from last year when I visited Beijing.

In Anhui Province, I had the pleasure of meeting with activists from Green Anhui, a local environmental justice group. You can see a powerful Oscar-nominated documentary about one of their campaigns here.

Another positive step is that the Chinese government is considering expanding the right to sue to local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that want to protect the environment. NRDC's Beijing office has an environmental law program, headed by Bernadette Brennan, that has offered suggestions to the government and to Chinese lawyers and academics on ways to improve China's environmental protection system. I hope to go back to China next year to help.

Getting It Wrong On The Environment And Good Jobs In Los Angeles

2011-10-05T22:00:19Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

For years, NRDC, working with allies in labor, have disproved the myth that environmental protection and good jobs can't co-exist. We are not alone in this: NRDC, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and Union of Concerned Scientists are members of the BlueGreen Alliance, which also includes the Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, SEIU and other national and international unions representing tens of thousands of members.

NRDC has focused particularly on promoting the new clean energy economy which brings with it good-paying, local jobs in the manufacturing, construction and service sectors. We have seen this in California where the clean energy sector is growing faster than any other sector, accounting for over 90,000 in Los Angeles area alone.. This is apparently news to the Los Angeles Times. In a misguided editorial on the recent Ninth Circuit ruling in the Port of Los Angeles clean trucks case, the Times wrote: "There's nothing wrong with trying to enhance well-paying jobs in L.A., but that has no connection with improving the environment.”

Oh really? Here are a few examples from the Southern California area, all of which the Times reported on.

30/10 project, now called America Fast Forward, front-load 30 years of Prop. R revenue to help build public transit in Los Angeles. This will reduce air pollution from cars and provide thousands more good-paying union jobs.

LADWP efficiency retrofits. Saving energy is a good idea, and LADWP union workers are helping customers do just that.

China Shipping and TraPac projects at the Port of Los Angeles. Diesel pollution from these huge port expansion projects was significantly reduced in the environmental review process, allowing the projects to go forward and create additional ILWU jobs.

Farmers Field Stadium. This project is planned to be the greenest stadium in the country and will provide thousands of good-paying union jobs.

These projects, and many others around the state, give lie to the claim that good jobs and environmental protection are inconsistent. The Times knows this; they report on it every week. It’s time to stop feeding into unsubstantiated rhetoric that does nothing but give cover to polluting industries that do not want to clean up their act or move California forward.

A win for clean air in Los Angeles

2011-09-29T17:08:42Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

The air in Los Angeles got some good news this week. The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the American Transportation Associations vs. Port of Los Angeles case in favor of the Port’s Clean Trucks Plan. I’ve blogged about this case many times, most recently here.

I’ve seen a lot of inaccurate media reports on what the Ninth Circuit did--some wildly inaccurate--so I’d like to describe very clearly the most important elements of the decision, keeping in mind that the opinion is not yet final.

ATA challenged the legality of certain provisions of the Port’s concession agreements—agreements that trucking companies sign for the privilege of coming onto Port property. First, the court upheld the requirement in the agreements that trucking companies, and not drivers, are responsible for maintenance and repair to port-serving trucks. If a trucking company fails to meet this obligation, it can be barred from sending any trucks to the Port. From the environmental standpoint, this is the most important part of the concession agreement. The fundamental problem that led to the enactment of the Plan in the first place is that the underpaid drivers could not afford to maintain their trucks properly or buy newer, cleaner trucks. Having the trucking companies, rather than the drivers, responsible for maintaining the trucks fixes part of this problem. Unfortunately, we have heard that some trucking companies are still forcing the drivers to pay for the maintenance, even though this maintenance clause has been in effect for over a year. This is unacceptable and the Port needs to step up and put a stop to it.

Second, the court upheld the requirement that trucking companies have to be financially capable of meeting the requirements of the concession agreement. This clause is to prevent those companies that cannot afford, for example, to properly maintain their trucks, from using the Port.

Third, the court held that the employee driver provision in the concession agreements is illegal. This clause required trucking companies to transition to a system in which the trucking companies employ the drivers, instead of hire them as independent contractors. The clause has important environmental consequences because it would be a check on trucking companies’ efforts to slough off their maintenance requirements and other costs onto the so-called independent owner-operator drivers. Without this clause, the Port will have to step up its inspection efforts and make sure that trucking companies, and not non-employee drivers, are paying to keep the trucks clean and safe.

Port officials and local activists across the country have been waiting for this decision. What does it mean for them? Three things: it’s legal to require trucking companies to pay to maintain their trucks, it’s legal to bar them from port property if they don’t, and it’s legal to kick under-capitalized trucking companies off port property. These measures, taken together, can help to clean up the air at every port in the country.

Why NRDC Supports The AEG Stadium Bill

2011-09-08T22:54:47Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Over two hot Sacramento days, something unusual happened in the California State Capitol building. Assembly Speaker John Perez and his staff brought together the California building trades unions and two major environmental groups, the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) and NRDC, to negotiate changes to a bill that would fast-track litigation review for a new football stadium in Downtown Los Angeles. The trade unions and enviros don’t always see eye-to-eye on projects, but with the help of the Speaker's tough negotiation skills we were all able to support a much-amended version of Senate Bill 292 -- the AEG stadium bill.

I harshly criticized the original bill on Switchboard, in public hearings and in the media. What changed? Here is what my colleagues at CLCV (Tom Adams and Warner Chabot) and NRDC (Annie Notthoff, Victoria Rome, Joel Reynolds) and I were able to achieve:

The biggest environmental problem I see with the stadium is traffic congestion and an attendant increase in air pollution. The original bill contained a vague and unenforceable requirement for AEG to implement "best in nation" mode shift provisions to incentivize stadium attendees not to use private cars for travel to and from events; even that requirement went away after 10 years. The final bill put teeth into the mode shift requirement, made it permanent, and authorized the City of Los Angeles to enforce it so long as the stadium exists.
The original bill also had a vague carbon neutrality provision that would have allowed AEG to buy its way out through purchasing non- local carbon offsets. This was changed so that AEG has to pursue local (job-creating) offsets first, and only then can purchase offsets within the South Coast Air Basin.
One of the most problematic provisions of the original bill was an opt-out provision that would have let AEG take its ball and go home of it didn't like how the judicial review process was going -- and to get out of its commitments to mode shift and carbon neutrality. This was a provision that couldn't be fixed. It had to go, and with the Speaker's help, it went.

So what is left? AEG has to go through the entire environmental review process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). There is no CEQA exemption. None. AEG will have to mitigate all traffic impacts down to the "baseline" level -- as though the AEG stadium never existed. What AEG gets for its mode shift and carbon neutrality commitments is an expedited judicial review process that starts in the California Court of Appeal rather than in the Superior Court, similar to the way that many federal environmental cases are handled. This is way tougher than what developer Ed Roski got for his City of Industry stadium project -- a free pass from all CEQA litigation. AEG will have to face the music in court.

AEG has also committed to a project labor agreement for the project as well as a community benefits agreement.

Make no mistake -- this was a tough negotiation. AEG is a savvy negotiator and had a lot of momentum backing the original stadium bill. Bottom line, this is a good project in a perfect a location in LA - with access to public transit. I'm not a sports economist and I don't know whether the stadium will be a net benefit to Los Angeles when built. But I do know that the project will get thousands of construction workers back on the job, and that's good for everyone. And without Speaker Perez's keen understanding of both the environmental and labor concerns involved, this would not have happened.

One Playing Field For Everyone

2011-07-29T17:11:56Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Entertainment giant AEG wants to build a new football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. My colleague Damon Nagami blogged about the AEG project here, and the Los Angeles Times had a long editorial about the project here.

This week, the Los Angeles City Council is holding hearings on a proposed agreement between AEG and the City called a “Memorandum of Understanding” or “MOU.” You can read the MOU, the AEG proposal and related documents here.

The City hearings are focusing on the economic merits of the MOU. I’m no expert in stadium financing and I don’t know if the MOU is a good deal for the City or not.

But one thing I do know is that there is no reason to give AEG a free pass out of our judicial system for this project, as some have suggested. We don’t have a separate legal system for the super-rich. Yes, billionaire Ed Roski’s still-unbuilt stadium project got a free pass from litigation from the California Legislature – but that was wrong, and I think many in Sacramento have now realized this.

Successful mega-projects have been and are being built in California without any exemption from our environmental laws. Local examples are Staples Center and L.A. Live – both owned by AEG. Here is a rendering of the proposed new stadium, called Farmers Field, not coincidentally located right next to Staples Center and L.A. Live.

AEG says that it is worried about frivolous or extortionary lawsuits delaying the project – but I’m not. I know that AEG’s lawyers are extraordinarily capable, and I have confidence in the ability of our court system to quickly dispose of cases that shouldn’t be there.

In a week or so, the City Council will move from the economic merits of the MOU to the type of environmental review that the project will receive. NRDC’s message is clear: no one-off deal for the AEG project, and no exemptions from California environmental laws. We have one system of justice, one level playing field, in California, and let’s keep it that way.

Communities To California Railroads: Clean Up Your Act

2011-06-21T18:15:21Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Today, NRDC and two of our community partners, East Yards Communities For Environmental Justice and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice sent letters to California’s two major rail yard operators regarding illegally disposing hazardous waste thereby increasing the risk of serious health problems such as chronic respiratory disease and cancer in neighboring communities. The 90-day notice letters tell the railroads to clean up their California rail yards or face litigation under the federal Resource Conservation and Restoration Act (RCRA).

As I've written about before, these rail yards, owned by Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, are major sources of diesel particulate emissions in their surrounding neighborhoods. These emissions contain hazardous solid particles that contribute to elevated cancer risk in the areas surrounding the rail yards.

Under RCRA, parties can sue to obtain an injunction halting an imminent and substantial danger to human health or the environment; what we did today was give the required 90 days notice to BNSF and UP that we intend to sue unless they clean up their property and reduce the diesel pollution harming Californians living within breathing distance of these 16 facilities.

I hope that the railroads will come to the table and work this out. But if not, the courts are open.

No Checks, No Balances, No Reform

2011-06-06T18:21:20Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Masquerading as regulatory reform, a new proposal now circulating in Sacramento would create an unelected administrative dictatorship with unchecked powers over every California regulatory agency.

Here is some context for this proposal. There is a little-known administrative agency in California called the Office of Administrative Law (OAL). The head of the OAL is appointed by the Governor subject to confirmation by the California Senate. Its website describes its mission this way:

The Office of Administrative Law (OAL) ensures that agency regulations are clear, necessary, legally valid, and available to the public. OAL is responsible for reviewing administrative regulations proposed by over 200 state agencies for compliance with the standards set forth in California's Administrative Procedure Act (APA), for transmitting these regulations to the Secretary of State and for publishing regulations in the California Code of Regulations.

The legislation that created the OAL is very clear that the OAL must not second-guess the wisdom of the regulatory agencies whose work it reviews. California Government Code Section 11340.1 states that: "It is the intent of the Legislature that neither the Office of Administrative Law nor the court should substitute its judgment for that of the rulemaking agency as expressed in the substantive content of adopted regulations."

But the proposal I'm writing about would enshrine second-guessing and add potentially years of delay to all new California regulations -- which is obviously its aim. The proposal would amend California Government Code Section 11346.3 to insulate the changes it makes from judicial review. That's a danger sign, just by itself.

Tellingly, the proposal would eliminate the Government Code language that now states: "It is not the intent of this section to impose additional criteria on agencies, above that which exists in current law . . ." So what are the "additional criteria" that would be required?

Here's the meat of the proposal. It would require all state agencies, when the agency adopts, amends or repeals a regulation, to perform an economic analysis as provided in the provision. That sounds innocuous -- until you look at what that analysis must contain. Here are two of the new sections. First the analysis must examine "the extent to which the regulation will achieve the regulatory or statutory objective intended." Second, it must examine "whether there is a less burdensome regulatory alternative that will effectively achieve the same benefits." That is second-guessing, pure and simple.

What’s more, the the proposal gives OAL the authority to reject an analysis that it thinks does not "adequately" comply with the new economic analysis requirement. It the hands of a hostile Administration, regulations could be delayed for years under that language, shifting power from the legislature to the executive branch and giving the executive sole, unreviewable discretion over all state regulations.

That's not democracy. That is rule by an elite, in secret and with no public review. Today, California's regulations are enacted after a long public process that is open to the public and reviewable in court. Making that process end in a secret proceeding isn't reform -- it's destruction.

Speaking Truth To The Los Angeles Department Of Water And Power

2011-06-06T16:12:17Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

A couple hundred people spend their Saturday morning last week at a meeting, organized and chaired by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, with Commissioners and staff of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The meeting was called to allow the public to hear LADWP’s presentation about its financial future, and to offer public comment. As is so often the case, LADWP’s presentation, and the colorful Powerpoint presentation that accompanied it, were long on happy talk and short on specifics.

By far the best public comment was from a student who looked to be about 12 years old. Here he is at the podium:

His message was very clear and straightforward: LADWP needs to stop buying out-of-state power generated from dirty, polluting coal plants. He got a huge ovation from the crowd.

Another issue that Liz Crosson of Santa Monica Baykeeper and I addressed was LADWP’s deplorable record of on the California’s once-through cooling regulation. My colleague Noah Long described the problem here. In short, there are a number of coastal powerplants that need to stop sucking in huge amounts of ocean water for cooling, and then discharging heated water back out to sea. After a five-year multi-stakeholder process, the California State Water Board issued regulations giving California utilities, including LADWP, a timeline to end this harmful practice. The ink had hardly dried on the regulations before LADWP was trying to sabotage them in order to give itself virtually unlimited time to comply. LADWP recently submitted a once-through cooling compliance plan to the State Water Board which was beautifully produced but, again, very light on substance. Word in Sacramento is that LADWP’s political supporters have a “spot bill” ready to overturn the State Water Board’s once-through cooling regulations if LADWP does not get a free pass to ignore them.

Given this context, it was amusing, at best, to see the slide on Saturday from LADWP’s Powerpoint that read: “We are totally eliminating ocean water cooling at our costal power plants to protect marine habitats.” During my (60 second) remarks, I pointed out that this slide didn’t say when LADWP would eliminate once-through cooling, and I challenged the LADWP Commissioners present to commit to following the law as written. They looked blank. Councilwoman Perry then said she would do me one better and introduce a motion called for a hearing on LADWP’s practices on the once-through cooling issue, and asked me to work with the City’s Legislative Analyst to get this done.

I will. The public – LADWP’s ratepayers – needs to know what its agency is doing to subvert California law while pretending to honor it. Stay tuned for future reports.

Urban Wetlands In Los Angeles

2011-05-05T22:26:54Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

This week, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry took me on a tour of two urban wetland sites in South Los Angeles, one under construction and one fully built out.

The 9-acre site under construction at 54th and Avalon is an old MTA bus repair area. Councilwoman Perry’s office rounded up $26 million in funding to turn it into an innovative engineered wetland that will divert stormwater from an existing storm drain, run it through a hydrodynamic separator to remove oil, grease and trash, and transport it into a three-cell wetland for pollutant removal before the water returns to a downstream storm drain. Here is a photo of the construction site, with a new high school across the street:

Here is another construction photo, giving some scale for the project:

Here is a rendering of what the built-out park will look like:

After seeing this promising area, we went to a nearby site where the promise has been fulfilled: Augustus F. Hawkins Nature Park at Compton and Slauson in South LA. Formerly a pipe storage yard, there is now an 8.5 acre park that includes a 0.5 acre engineered wetland, the first of its kind in the City of Los Angeles. The wetland is surrounded by cottonwoods, willows, sycamores, cattails and yellow pond lilies and has two islands where ducks and other waterfowl can nest.

Here is a photo of a dramatic faceoff between two ducks and a turtle:

And another giving a view of the wetlands that I'd never known existed in urban LA:

Our natural wetlands are disappearing in California. With innovative urban projects like these two in South Los Angeles, everyone wins: polluted stormwater is cleaned, rare habitat created and more parkland developed in an underserved area.

How to Honor the Lives of Oil Industry Workers

2011-04-28T20:49:49Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

This week, I spoke at a conference sponsored by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) on the topic of the future of oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The speaker before me, representing the oil industry, closed his presentation by solemnly reading the names of the 11 workers who died on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April, 2010, and suggested that it would dishonor their memories if we did not continue to drill for oil on the OCS.

I was appalled and angry. Here is what is at stake in OCS drilling from the consumer standpoint. The EIA has estimated that, if the oil industry gets to drill everywhere it wants to in the U.S., the price of gasoline at the pump might decrease by 3 cents by 2030. Is that worth eleven lives? Is a 3 cent price drop worth the billions of dollars in damages that people and businesses in the Gulf have suffered thanks to BP's Macondo well blowout? Are the worker's deaths justified by the many billions of dollars of profits that the major oil companies are reporting for the first quarter of 2011?

Here is how to honor the memories of the people who died on April 20, 2010 on the Deepwater Horizon: let's implement the recommendations of the President's Oil Spill Commission and do our best to make sure that not one more life is lost in the name of oil company profits. And let's get on the road to a clean energy economy so that dangerous, destructive extractive industries can't fund shills who dishonor the memories of the dead.

Coming soon to LA, Electric Vehicles that charge up at "$1 per gallon"

2011-04-27T20:58:23Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

Last week, I had a chance to show NRDC’s support for electric vehicles, which are beginning to gain in popularity in California as a cost-effective alternative to paying more than $4.50 to fill up your car. I should know, I just paid $65 the other day to fill up my Subaru.

At the press conference, Mayor Villaraigosa announced that the city will make it even easier for residents to own and charge all-electric vehicles through a pilot project – Charge Up LA – for customers of the Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The project will enable the first 1,000 electric car owners to receive a rebate of up to $2,000 to install chargers for electric vehicles at their homes. The goal is to provide rebates for up to 5,000 chargers by the end of program.

In exchange, customers will help get Los Angeles “EV ready” by participating in LADWP’s special electricity rate program and provide valuable data to the city about EV charging patterns to help the utility ensure that stresses on the grid are minimized. The project could also help the city take advantage of renewable wind power if the vehicles are charged during the evening and night-time, the peak hours of wind production. The pilot project will also further LA’s efforts to be a hub for clean, innovative transportation solutions and reduce the city’s dependency on oil. When charging at discount off-peak or nighttime hours, operating costs for an electric car are around a dollar a gallon, much more economical than the current volatile gas prices.

What’s more, though these are steady improvements, car drivers are being offered a chance to help clean up some of the worst air in the country. According to American Lung Association State of the Air Reports from 2007-2010, Los Angeles has been reducing its air pollution, but is still ranked 4th on the list for short-term particle pollution and 3rd in year round particle pollution.

Running our cars and buses on cleaner fuel sources will remove tons of harmful air pollution daily and over time make a dramatic impact on the air quality of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. In LA, 300,000 pounds of daily emissions are eliminated because of the more than 2,000 clean buses on the streets and that’s in addition to the City’s 3,707 alternative fuel vehicles including small, low-speed electric vehicles to large trucks and heavy equipment operated by liquefied and compressed natural gas, propane, electric batteries, and hybrids.

LA is a big city known for our car addiction, but through electric vehicles, we can at least contribute to reducing mobile source pollution produced by running 6 million cars on our road every day. Hopefully a thousand electric cars today may soon be one million.

Reforming key regulations to increase drilling safety in the Gulf

2011-04-12T16:18:48Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

There are a few conceptually simple steps that the federal government could take to improve rig safety and oil spill prevention, response and containment. Whether those steps are politically feasible in today’s Congressional environment is another question.

At the Congressional level, there are three positive changes we recommend that were also proposed by the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. First, the $75 million liability cap on offshore facilities in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 needs to be eliminated entirely. If an oil company can’t afford to clean up its mess, it shouldn’t be drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf in the first place.

Second, the 30-day limit in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act for the Department of Interior to respond to applications for exploration permits should be at least doubled. Thirty days is just not enough for the federal regulators to assess complicated permit applications and the newly-required worst-case oil spill scenarios.

Last, in addition to the need for Congress to adequately fund the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management and Regulation (BOEMRE), there should be a chief science officer within the department who would have the final say over approval of exploration and drilling applications on the Outer Continental Shelf. This change would elevate science over oil company profits, as it should be.

At the BOEMRE level, there are two important changes that should be implemented. First, the critical flaw in the Cameron-style blowout preventers that was identified in the recent BOEMRE-commissioned technical report needs to be fixed and tested under operational conditions before new OCS drilling is allowed.

Second, the two blowout containment systems on which BOEMRE is relying in granting new exploration permits, one short-term and one long-term, also need to be tested in operational conditions. Table-top exercises are not sufficient unless the table is under 10,000 feet of seawater.

BOEMRE has been actively trying to make OCS drilling safer – I’ve listed some of their positive work here. BOEMRE can adopt these steps tomorrow if it wants to. Congress is another story. Having watched the budget debacle during the past few months, it will be a tougher issue to get either party to focus on OCS drilling safety reforms.

For another overview of what hasn’t happened in Congress, here is a recent article from the Times-Picayune. The lead sentence from that article is: “A year after the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, Congress has done virtually nothing to address the issues raised by the oil spill -- from industry liability limits, to regulatory reform, to coastal restoration, to broader issues of energy policy.” We deserve better as a nation. NRDC and others have urged Congress to implement the recommendations of the President's Oil Spill Commission, without success.

Cleaning Up BP's Mess in the Gulf of Mexico

2011-03-28T23:08:07Z

David Pettit, Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA

How will BP be forced to clean up the mess it caused in the Gulf of Mexico? There is a process created for oil spills by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 called a natural resource damages assessment, or “NRDA,” usually spoken as “nerd-a” by NRDA nerds. There is a good summary of the NRDA process as carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) here. The bottom line is that BP will pay to investigate and restore the damage it did.

In the BP case, the NRDA process is overseen by federal and state natural resource trustees. NOAA is leading this effort for the federal government, and each of the five affected Gulf states has appointed a lead trustee. BP has also been invited to participate in the NRDA process, as the law allows.

The theory behind the NRDA process is simple but the process itself is complex, often becoming constrained by the threat of litigation at its end. First is the preliminary assessment stage, described by NOAA as: “Natural resource trustees determine whether injury to public trust resources has occurred.” This sounds simple but can take years; for example, for marine mammals with long breeding and maturation cycles, it can take 20 years or more to determining whether the oil spill has had an effect.

Second is the injury assessment and restoration planning stage. Per NOAA: “Trustees quantify injuries and identify possible restoration projects.” This can also be complex and time-consuming: how do you restore losses to an endangered species like the sperm whale? How do you restore miles of oiled wetlands where it’s not possible to clean the oil off the vegetation?

Last is the restoration implementation stage. NOAA explains: “The final step is to implement restoration and monitor its effectiveness.” Monitoring can last for many years.

Why does BP care about all this? Because they have to pay for it. And if BP disagrees with what the trustees ask it to do, BP can take them to federal court.

One thing notably absent from this process is the opportunity for public participation. The NOAA regulations only require one public meeting, to take comments on the trustees’ proposed restoration plan. This is pretty late in the process. NRDC is working with NOAA and at the grassroots level to have NOAA allow more and meaningful public input into all three stages of the NRDA process. If there is litigation, it is unclear whether NRDC or other groups could become parties to the lawsuit.

A critical issue to be resolved in the NRDA process or, as in the Exxon Valdez situation, in a negotiated settlement, is the scope of a “reopener” clause. This is important to protect against future damage that we don’t know about now. Exxon negotiated itself a very sweet deal after the Exxon Valdez spill that all but eliminated the trustees’ right to come back to ask for more funding. That should not happen again.

A positive result from the Exxon Valdez settlement was the establishment of a citizens’ advisory board, the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council. Here is that body’s take on its effectiveness: “Given the increasing challenges of operating in the oil industry, and realizing the important role that industry plays in the state and national economies, our nation’s oil supply and its homeland security, instituting a responsible and vigorous citizen oversight can substantially bolster public confidence in the integrity and safety of ongoing as well as new oil operations.”

Public confidence in the integrity and safety of new oil operations is in short supply right now. A rigorous, well-thought out NRDA process for the BP spill, with adequate public participation and a reopener clause that is not a give-away to BP, may help fix that.