At all levels of government there has been a serious push for increasing access to food among low income households and fostering more nutritious eating habits in communities and schools.
Last July, First Lady Michelle Obama and the Partnership for a Healthier America secured pledges from Wal-Mart, Walgreens, SuperValu and several other stores to open or expand stores in “food deserts”, bringing healthy affordable food to approximately 10 million people over the course of five years. Any specific information on how many will be served in CA?

That same month the First Lady also announced the California FreshWorks Fund, a public-private partnership loan fund with $264 million available to support grocery stores and other healthy food retailers in low-income, underserved communities in California. The California Endowment and a team of partners that include banks, grocers, health care providers, and nonprofits lead this initiative. Modeled after a successful program in Pennsylvania, this loan fund provides grants to healthy food retailers willing to locate stores in “food deserts”, areas lacking access to fresh, healthy food.

On Feb. 1, the First Lady spoke at a community event in Los Angeles to celebrate the progress that the California FreshWorks Fund has made in bringing affordable and healthy food to neighborhoods around the city. As one of its initial projects, the California FreshWorks Fund committed more than $20 million in funding to Southern California grocer Northgate Gonzalez Markets for its first three projects: a San Diego location as well as stores in Inglewood and South Los Angeles. The President and CEO of the California Endowment, Robert K. Ross, MD, also spoke at this event and enthusiastically stated, “we all have a shared interest in ensuring our neighborhoods, grocery stores and school cafeterias contribute positively to the health of our communities. Today’s announcement marks the beginning of what we hope will be a robust effort to expand access to nutritious food for all Californians!”

These commitments are a step in the right direction in the effort to combat the country’s obesity and hunger epidemics. Approximately one in four children in the U.S. live in a household that experiences hunger. Additionally, 30 percent of children in the U.S. are overweight or obese and among African Americans and Latinos the number soars to an estimated 40 percent.

Although hunger and obesity are oftentimes viewed as two distinct problems, they are deeply interconnected. Hunger and food insecurity are key contributors to obesity as low-income Americans are forced to rely upon high calorie, low nutrition foods to quell hunger pangs. Notably, studies have consistently demonstrated the lack of supermarkets and other stores selling healthy, affordable food in low-income communities as compared to wealthier ones. Adults in California neighborhoods with low access to healthy food are 20 percent more likely to be obese than those in higher-access neighborhoods, increasing their risk of developing chronic diseases. The California Fresh Works Fund website features a very useful interactive map that displays “Grocery Gap” statistics for various counties throughout the US and can be broken down into detailed indicators. The California FreshWorks Fund was created to tackle these food access concerns, while also addressing additional challenges faced by communities in so-called “food deserts”. In addition to improving community health, drawing grocery stores into “food deserts” also creates opportunities for economic development. Grocery stores create jobs (an estimated 49 to 120 new jobs per store), attract other small businesses to the area, and increase the surrounding residential real estate values.

Additional benefits include increased property values in the surrounding communities and increased income and property tax. This increased economic activity and property value help relieve pressure on state and local budgets and increase community sustainability.

California’s Freshworks Fund serves as a model for an innovative public-private partnership loan fund with the potential to increase access to healthy and affordable food throughout the state. This new program is proving itself as a vital component in California’s fight against hunger and obesity, and as an important force in strengthening the economies of affected communities.

Katie Wilczak, CAP CA Intern, contributed to this piece.

In 1996, the Supreme Court struck down an anti-gay Colorado constitutional amendment that stripped many gay men and lesbians of their existing legal rights in a case called Romer v. Evans. Today’s opinion relies heavily on Romer, honing in on the fact that Prop 8 stripped gay couples of a right they already enjoyed prior to its enactment — the right to marry a person of their choosing. As the Ninth Circuit explains:

The is not the first time the voters of a state have enacted an initiative constitutional amendment that reduces the rights of gays and lesbians under state law. In 1992, Colorado adopted Amendment 2 to its state constitution, which prohibited the state and its political subdivisions from providing any protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. . . . The Supreme Court held that Amendment 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause because “[i]t is not within our constitutional tradition to enact laws of this sort” — laws that “single out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status,” which “raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected.” . . .

Proposition 8 is remarkably similar to Amendment 2. Like Amendment 2, Proposition 8 “single[s] out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status . . . .” Like Amendment 2, Proposition 8 has the “peculiar property” of withdraw[ing] from homosexuals, but no others,” and existing legal right — here, access to the official designation of “marriage” — that had been broadly available, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution did not compel the state to confer it in the first place.

In other words, the court finds a constitutional violation that is unique to the state of California — only California once extended equal marriage rights to gay couples, then yanked them away through a subsequent amendment.

There are two upshots to this California-specific reasoning. The first is that it reduces the likelihood that the Supreme Court will hear the case, although Supreme Court review remains very highly likely. Had the Ninth Circuit applied Judge Walker’s much broader reasoning, the implication would be that every single state has a constitutional obligation to marry gay couples. The justices typically hear cases that present an exceptionally important legal question of national importance, and such a broad decision would certainly qualify. Today’s decision, by contrast, is narrow enough that there is an off chance the justices could pass on it.

The other upshot is that today’s opinion gives an out to the justices in case a majority of them find Prop 8 constitutionally offensive but aren’t yet ready to kick off a political firestorm by ordering Alabama to marry same-sex couples. The opinion is, at its heart, a decision that discretion is the better part of valor, and that the Constitution is best served by banking an easier victory today and putting off the big fight until tomorrow. Gay couples in Alabama — and indeed the Constitution itself — may suffer longer for that decision, but today’s decision also maximizes the likelihood that Proposition 8 will stay dead.

Patricia and "Buck" McKeon

Lee Fang reports that Patricia McKeon received at least $19,200 in contributions from defense contractors or their registered lobbyists in her first few months of fundraising. McKeon’s run for the California assembly occurs as defense contractors are working to mitigate impending defense budget cuts which could affect their bottom line.

The influx of funding from defense contractors for a California State Assembly campaign doesn’t make much sense from an influence peddling standpoint as Patricia McKeon’s most high profile campaign plank has been to call for an end to plastic bag taxes [PDF]. But the campaign contributions overlap with her husband’s efforts to protect the defense industry from his perch as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Fang writes:

Lockheed Martin, a company locked in a pitched battle to stave off cuts to the lucrative F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, cut Patricia McKeon’s campaign a $3,000 check.

Rep. Buck McKeon has rigorously defended the jets, despite growing concerns that the planes will run almost $90 million over budget each.

Donors such as Max Valente, a D.C. defense lobbyist who had already maxed out in contributions to McKeon’s congressional campaign, contributed to Patricia McKeon’s campaign in his only campaign contribution to a state politician.

Fang adds that Patricia McKeon has benefited financially from Buck McKeon’s campaign committee — since 2001 she was paid over $547,584 — but she now appears to have tapped her husband’s cash flush supporters in the defense industry for her own foray into elected politics.

Jesus Navarro wears a surgical mask to prevent infection while undergoing dialysis treatments.

For eight years, Navarro has used a home dialysis machine to cleanse his blood after his kidneys began to fail. He reached the top of the waitlist for a kidney in the spring, but doctors called off his transplant when they discovered his immigration status. Even after his wife offered her kidney for the transplant, administrators still refused to allow the surgery. Reece Fawley, executive director of transplantation at UC San Francisco, said in a statement that the hospital considers socioeconomic stability for all patients, including immigration status.

Navarro’s situation highlights a dilemma for hospitals when it comes to organ transplants for immigrants, especially if their undocumented status threatens their continued access to insurance:

Though no data are available, anecdotal evidence suggests clinics sometimes perform organ transplants on illegal immigrants, especially when the patients are young. In one high-profile case, UCLA Medical Center gave an undocumented woman three liver transplants before she turned 21.

But health administrators also reject patients because of their immigration status, though that usually happens when the patients lack insurance. Bellevue Hospital in New York attracted attention last year when it refused to transplant a kidney between brothers because they could not pay for the operation. [...]

Some bioethicists say the hospital should have performed the surgery because Navarro would not be taking resources away from other patients or putting his wife at serious risk.

After all, many legal residents fail to follow their post-surgical plan.

Some lawmakers would even want hospitals to check the immigration status for all patients. The Arizona legislature considered a bill that would require that, and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said in November that it would not be going “too far” to have hospitals ask patients about their immigration status.

But in the meantime, Navarro’s private insurance from his job would cover the transplant and follow-up care, but he lost job last month after an immigration audit and his insurance could run out. If he is unable to extend his insurance and ends up in California’s Medi-Cal program, his problem would worsen because Medi-Cal would not cover the immunosuppressive drugs that prevent organ rejection after a transplant. “We don’t know what to do,” his wife said. “It’s like we’re on a ledge — we can’t go here or there.”

Last Friday, California regulators unanimously approved a robust package of progressive automobile standards known as the California clean car rules.

After three years in the making, this emissions-control program will increase the number of low-pollution vehicles available to consumers starting in 2017, with a goal to have 1.4 million zero-emission cars on the road by 2025. These vehicles, which include plug-in hybrids, electric battery-powered cars, and hydrogen fuel cell cars, currently make up a tiny portion of all the fleet in California and around the country.

The clean car rules will begin a new chapter for the automobile industry in California. By 2025 one in seven new cars sold in the state must emit little or no pollution. Half a million of these cars are expected to be fuel cell or electric powered.  The clean car rules also set the goal that by 2050 87% of vehicles must be fueled by clean technologies.

The California clean car rules also address emission standards for gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by extending limits on greenhouse gas emissions and smog forming pollutants. Again, by 2025 all new vehicles must emit 34% fewer global warming gases and 75% fewer smog forming emissions. These provisions should be welcomed in a state with over 26 million cars and the top five smoggiest metropolitan areas in the country.

Automakers have been given sufficient lead-time to adjust to these new demands and have largely been receptive. Although they have expressed concerns that new technologies needed to meet the standards may drive up the price of a vehicle by $1,900 and potentially lower consumer demand. However, the California Air Resources board estimates that the initial increase in cost will be offset by an average of $6,000 worth of fuel savings over a vehicle’s lifetime.

Automakers also initially expressed fears that consumers would steer clear of new clean car technologies without alternative fueling stations in place. This problem has been addressed by a private-public partnership designed to build new infrastructure for vehicle charging and fueling.

With more than 26 million cars on California’s roads, this ground-breaking clean car standard will help combat  smog, reduce carbon emissions and spur a new era of innovation in the automobile sector.

Araceli Ruano is a Senior Vice President and the Director for California at the Center for American Progress. Rebecca Friendly is a special assistant in the Center for American Progress California office.

The destruction of ecosystems necessary to sustain California’s ranching and timber industries could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year by 2070, according to a new study.

By combining an economic analysis with environmental models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, researchers from eight different institutions calculated the amount of environmental and economic damage to woodlands and shrub lands necessary to sustain California’s timber and livestock industries.

The costs could add more than $200 million each year in the next six decades.

The research was conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund, Duke University, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation Biology Institute, USDA Forest Service, Stanford University and the University of California at Santa Barbara. It concluded that global warming will lead to the destruction of non-irrigated vegetation and a “consistent decline” in the acreage of conifer forests, an environmental impact that will force the “gritty worlds of cattle ranching and forestry [to] take it on the chin.”

“It’s important for policymakers to better understand the value of services that nature provides to California’s economy, so that they can work to protect our natural resources and the economy in the face of climate change,”  said lead researcher  Rebecca Shaw, Ph.D.,  associate vice president of EDF’s ecosystems program and a working group member of the IPCC.”

Most of the costs to the livestock industry would be attributed to additional feed expenses necessary to overcome a lack of naturally growing grasses used by ranchers to forage their cattle:

“A less stable climate will reduce the ability of natural landscapes to support cattle grazing, so ranchers may have to grow or buy extra hay instead of getting it for free from nature, as they do now,” said lead report author Rebecca Shaw, Ph.D., associate vice president of EDF’s ecosystems program and a working group member of the IPCC.

The threat to forestry, agriculture and livestock is very real: In the last year alone, Texas has seen $5.3 billion in losses in the agricultural sector and $2 billion in losses in the livestock industry due to a serious, prolonged drought that was made worse by global warming.

The collaborative study on California was issued just as the state implements a carbon cap and trade system under the Global Warming Solutions Act – a program that will provide farmers and ranchers new economic opportunities by allowing them to sequester carbon and sell credits.

— Zachary Rybarczyk is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress

Related Post:

• Catastrophic $5.3 Billion Texas Drought Hits Global Cotton, Beef, Peanut Butter and Even Pumpkin Market
• Warming-Enhanced Texas Drought Is Once in “500 or 1,000 Years … Basically Off the Charts,” Says State Climatologist: Leading experts explain how human-caused warming exacerbates the drought

“We’re about to release 30,000 prisoners in the state of California because we can’t house them in a humane way,” said Executive Producer James Duff. “Last year in pursuit of the death penalty, the state of California spent $172 million.”

This, of course, is true—Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget is projected to bring the state’s deficit down to $9.2 billion, which is not small potatoes, and leaves the state with a long way to go. And that fiscal crunch and prison overcrowding are a tremendous problem that has a real impact on how people carry out their duties, whether it’s prison guards using different tactics on maintain control on unit, or the situations in which prosecutors are willing to cut deals and how they think about probation versus jail time. It’s intelligent to have a show acknowledge that, and to draw its drama from the ongoing structural problems of the state. It’s not exactly Tony Kushner’s East Coast Ode to Howard Jarvis, which is about the reasons California is broke and the tax-dodging mentality that crops up like an infectious disease. But it’s still a decision that reflects a sense of both time and place, that actually makes use of the fact that the show is happening in California instead of just being there because it’s easy.

The apparent stumbling block involves contract restrictions imposed by federal law, but utilities elsewhere in California have signed similar agreements with the agencies with few problems or delays.

“There’s 24-plus systems in the Southern California Edison area that have been installed in the last three years that we have not been able to negotiate an interconnection agreement on,” said Jack Williams, who retired this month as the National Park Service’s Oakland-based regional facilities manager. [...]

The impasse has hindered the parks’ ability to meet renewable energy goals at a time when federal agencies are rushing to comply with orders to reduce carbon footprints. Equally troubling, officials say, is the financial fallout: a projected saving of tens of thousands of dollars from utility bills hasn’t been realized during the two years the park service and forest service have been negotiating with Edison.

Millions of dollars have been invested in renewable energy projects, like an $800,000 solar project at Death Valley National Park, that remain used while the parks instead continue to buy Energy from SCE. Parks officials at Death Valley told the LA Times that they hoped the project would cut an estimated $31,828 from an annual electric bill of $45,724, a 70 percent drop in energy cost. “It is disappointing to see this big investment sitting idle when we could easily flip the switch and produce benefits,” said park superintendent Woody Smeck.

“I don’t think it is working,” said Cantil-Sakauye, elevated from the Court of Appeal in Sacramento to the California Supreme Court by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “It’s not effective. We know that.”

California’s death penalty requires “structural change, and we don’t have the money to create the kind of change that is needed,” she said. “Everyone is laboring under a staggering load.” . . .

“I don’t know if the question is whether you believe in it anymore. I think the greater question is its effectiveness and given the choices we face in California, should we have a merit-based discussion on its effectiveness and costs?”

Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye’s comments are just the latest sign that our national consensus is moving away from state-sponsored executions. Although most Americans continue to support the practice, a recent poll found support for the death penalty at a 39 year low and the number of death sentences declined below 100 this year for the first time in over three decades. Illinois recently abolished its death penalty and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) declared a moratorium on executions while he is in office.

Californians will soon have the opportunity to follow Illinois’ lead. Petition signatures are currently being collected for a ballot initiative which will abolish the death penalty in that state as well.

Size of oil industry production investments and subsidies (globally) over the past five years (2006 to 2010).

by Simon Mui, in an NRDC Switchboard cross-post

NRDC has long supported efforts by companies to invest in cleaner technologies. We have started tracking oil industry investments in renewable fuels such as advanced biofuels, down to the company level. In a new analysis, NRDC compares those investments to traditional investments in conventional oil production and even dirtier unconventional sources such as tar sands.

For years, the oil industry has promoted itself as getting cleaner and investing in alternatives to oil. But when it comes to transportation fuels – still their main business – are  oil companies truly going green and investing in cleaner alternatives to oil?

NRDC to Oil Companies: “Actually, We Don’t Agree”

Based on our research of the overall industry, our conclusions is a resounding “NO”.  The oil industry as a whole has spent at least fifty (50x) times in producing more dirtier fuels sources such as tar sands than their entire global investments in producing renewable fuels. I note that this does not include oil industry investments in other dirtier fuel sources such as oil shale, extra-heavy oil, and coal to liquids.

Breaking it down on a global basis: the oil industry’s investment over the past five years amounted to

• $2090 billion in capital expenditures to find and produce more oil, of which

• $190 billion went to producing dirtier tar sands
• $4 billion in renewable fuels

Results like these will not surprise skeptics of the oil industry. But the trend is especially unsettling for motorists in places like California where the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) is being attacked by the oil industry. Oil companies are spending hundreds of millions to convince the public they are investing in renewable energy and cleaner fuels, but also simultaneously trying to weaken and slow down clean fuel standards. The latter would ensure they are increasing their portfolio in cleaner, alternative fuels and not just saying they are.

The industry group Western States Petroleum Association, together with California based Chevron, is now on track to spend $7 million in lobbying in California alone, the highest of any other industry group.

So what can be done? NRDC is working to protect the Low Carbon Fuel Standard against oil industry attacks. Join us in asking the California Air Resources Board to tell Big Oil that “We Agree: Oil Companies Should Invest More on Cleaner Fuels than Dirtier Ones.”

Already, thousands of citizens are starting to weigh in. Do Californians care? To paraphrase the famous Chevron campaign, “People Do.”

Submit your comments at:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm/bcsubform.php?listname=lcfs2011&comm_period=A

or write to: Clerk of the Board, California Air Resources Board, 1001 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Simon Mui is a Scientist with the Clean Vehicles and Fuels program at NRDC in San Francisco. This post was originally published at the NRDC Switchboard blog.

(HT: @OccupyKSt)