An international scandal has followed revelations that Volkswagen designed vehicles to detect emissions-testing equipment and cut pollutants while being tested, resulting in cars spewing 10-40 times the legal amount of pollutants while being driven in normal use. Discovery of the company’s deceit has caused its share value to plummet nearly 40% in two days and has caused what may be irreparable harm to the German automaker. Timm Herdt reports that much credit goes to scientists at the California Air Resources Board:
Ventura County Star: “California regulators had noted unexpectedly high in-use emissions from light-duty diesel vehicles and initiated discussions about that with their European counterparts. They were engaged in their own testing last year when the International Council and the University of West Virginia released their own findings that were “consistent and complementary” to the Air Board’s research…
“The timing of the news of the Air Board’s extraordinary investigative work is a bit ironic, as it comes on the heels of a failed attempt by critics in the Legislature to effectively strip it of its authority to enact science-based measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Critics asserted such authority should rest with the Legislature — as if lawmakers and their staffs had the scientific expertise to handle the job.”
Speaking of air quality, CARB released a study Monday reporting that cleaner air has lowered cancer risks by 76% since the 1990. Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times:
“State scientists measured the drop from 1990 to 2012 by tracking airborne concentrations of the seven toxic air contaminants that are most responsible for increasing cancer risks. They include the particulate matter in diesel exhaust, benzene from gasoline, perchloroethylene emitted by dry cleaners and hexavalent chromium from chrome plating operations.
“The authors of the study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, said they were able to link declines in toxic compounds to specific policies, including rules targeting exhaust from diesel trucks, gasoline vapors and emissions from dry cleaners.”
President Obama Tuesday declared the Valley Fire a Major Federal Disaster, freeing up federal aid for recovery and cleanup. Associated Press:
“The presidential disaster declaration allows residents and business owners to apply for grants for repairs and temporary housing as well as apply for low-cost loans for uninsured property.”
Governor Brown signed legislation Tuesday to create what some are calling a successor to the defunct California Redevelopment Agency. Allen Young, Sacramento Business Journal:
“The [bill allows for local creation of] a public entity known as ‘community revitalization investment authority.’ Like redevelopment agencies they use property tax-increment financing to improve buildings and other infrastructure in low-income communities.
“Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation on Tuesday giving local governments a new economic development tool that is essentially a reduced version of redevelopment agencies, which lawmakers eliminated in 2011.
“Unlike redevelopment, the investment authorities cannot take funding that would otherwise go to schools. The reduction of school funding was a primary reason redevelopment agencies were extinguished in the midst of the state’s fiscal crisis.
The CRIA could be created by a city, a county or a special district through a joint powers agreement. It would include a governing board of three elected officials and two public members. The board would adopt a plan outlining the community’s goals for improving infrastructure. Similar to redevelopment law, 25 percent of the tax increment revenues must be spent on affordable housing projects.”
Sac Bee columnist Dan Walters looks at escalating battles among many factions – teachers unions, the state education establishment, charter schools, civil rights groups – over state education policy. A recently-revealed plan to shift huge numbers of Los Angeles-area students into charter schools is likely to get ugly.
“Combatants clash in the Legislature, in the state Board of Education, in local school board meetings, in school district, legislative and statewide elections, and, ultimately, in the courts.
“One of their many specific issues is whether charter schools, despised by school unions and their political allies, should play a larger role in attacking the state’s persistent ‘achievement gap.’
“This week, the Los Angeles Times revealed the existence of a 44-page draft plan circulating among wealthy philanthropists for shifting as many as half of the students in the much-troubled Los Angeles Unified School District into charters – a move that unions would consider a major escalation of the war.”
Sing it, for free: a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the song, “Happy Birthday” is officially in the Public Domain. Christine Mai-Duc, Los Angeles Times:
“In a stunning reversal of decades of copyright claims, the judge ruled that Warner/Chappell never had the right to charge for the use of the "Happy Birthday To You" song. Warner had been enforcing a copyright since 1988, when it bought Birch Tree Group, the successor to Clayton F. Summy Co., which claimed the original disputed copyright.
“Judge George H. King ruled that a copyright filed by the Summy Co. in 1935 granted only the rights to specific piano arrangements of the music, not the actual song.
"’'Happy Birthday' is finally free after 80 years,’ said Randall Newman, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit, which included a group of filmmakers who are producing a documentary about the song. ‘Finally, the charade is over. It's unbelievable.’"
And with that, let’s all sing a verse for today’s birthday buddies: Roman Emperor Augustus (63BC), Typhoid Mary (1869), Mickey Rooney (1920), John Coltrane (1926), George Jackson (1941) and Bruce Springsteen (1949).
