California lawmakers approve Newsom’s oil bill. Here’s what you need to know
LA TIMES, TARYN LUNA: "California lawmakers on Monday approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s legislation to increase transparency in the oil industry, ending a special session he called last year to penalize excessive profits.
After months of deliberation, the final bill does not cap oil refinery profits or penalize the industry as Newsom had intended when he accused companies of intentionally driving up gas prices to boost revenue. Instead, the bill, SBX1-2, gives the California Energy Commission the power to set a cap and impose penalties through a regulatory process if it decides that oil companies are making excessive profits and that a penalty will not result in higher prices for consumers.
The legislation focuses on transparency, including requiring the industry to provide more information about maintenance and pricing decisions in order to allow state officials to better understand the market and deter companies from gouging consumers."
California approves nation’s first Big Oil watchdog. Here’s how it will work.
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, ELIYAHU KAMISHER: "In a bid to tamp down the Golden State’s highest-in-the-nation gas prices, California lawmakers on Monday passed legislation to set up the country’s first watchdog body tasked with investigating the oil industry.
The bill, SBX 1-2, which passed the State Assembly in a 52-19 vote on Monday, is the culmination of a bitter battle between Gov. Gavin Newsom and some of the country’s largest oil companies after the state saw gas prices topping $6.40 a gallon twice last year. After a large dip over the winter, California gas prices have slowly ticked higher to an average of $4.82 on Monday.
Newsom slammed the industry for “price gouging,” an accusation that gained political traction after oil giants reported historic profits. But industry representatives said the state’s environmental regulations, high taxes, and the transition away from fossil fuels are the cause of high prices and an increasingly volatile gas market."
Freshman files: Assemblymember Liz Ortega
CAPITOL WEEKLY, JULIETTE WILLIAMS: "Labor unions have been at the center of Assemblymember Liz Ortega’s life since early childhood and the centerpiece of her career.
So it’s natural that her top priorities in the state Assembly are also labor aligned, including legislation mandating that high school students learn about labor laws.
Ortega, 45, learned at a young age that her family had health insurance because her parents had union jobs, her mother doing laundry for hotels and her father as a dishwasher and then a second job, this one a union position as a janitor at the Oakland Coliseum."
Looming atmospheric river may put California at highest snowpack level ever. What’s your forecast?
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, SCOOTY NICKERSON: "Call it the Greatest Snow on Earth. Well, at least the largest ever recorded in the state of California.
As yet another atmospheric river speeds toward the Golden State, threatening to deliver several inches of rain to the Bay Area and several new feet of snow to portions of the Sierra by Wednesday evening, the Sierra snowpack is on track to top 1952 as the snowiest season on record."
Map shows unusual impact California storms are having on the ocean
THE CHRONICLE, JOEL UMANZOR: "While the world’s oceans have hit a record high temperature, the Pacific Ocean off the California coast remains colder than average.
In fact, in virtually no place in the world is the ocean so much colder than normal, according to a map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
‘Nature gave us a lifeline’: Southern California refills largest reservoir after wet winter
LA TIMES, HAYLEY SMITH: "Following a series of winter storms that eased drought conditions across the state, Southern Californians celebrated a sight nobody has seen for several punishing years: water rushing into Diamond Valley Lake.
The massive reservoir — the largest in Southern California — was considerably drained during the state’s driest three years on record, with nearly half of the lake’s supply used to bolster minuscule allocations from state water providers.
But an extraordinarily wet winter allowed officials from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to turn on the taps in Hemet once again. Water transported from Northern California roared out of huge concrete valves Monday and into the blue lake at 600 cubic feet per second — marking an incredible turnaround for a region that only months ago had barely enough supplies to meet the health and safety needs of 6 million people."
California storms: Chance of tornadoes for these cities along Highway 1
THE CHRONICLE, SAM WHITING: "The latest round of stormy weather set to slam into Northern California beginning Monday night is expected to bring thunderstorms near coastal regions — and the possibility of tornadoes Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.
San Francisco Chronicle Meteorologist Gerry Díaz said cities and towns along Highway 1 in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties could see thunderstorms capable of producing small hail and gusts of 35 mph that could form into tornadoes of 100 yards in length, lasting a few minutes."
These 33 important buildings owned by L.A. County could be at risk in a major quake
LA TIMES, REBECCA ELLIS, RONG-GONG LIN II: "For six decades, a boxy downtown building has been the beating heart of Los Angeles County government — home to the five supervisors, half a dozen departments and hundreds of employees who filter through its halls each week.
For just as long, the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration has been vulnerable to collapse in the event of a major earthquake — one of 33 county-owned concrete buildings determined to be potentially at risk, county records show.
Many of the facilities house officials who would be critical to steering the county through an emergency. In addition to the Hall of Administration, they include the Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner, where autopsies are performed, and the headquarters for the departments of public health and health services, which house some of the two departments’ top officials downtown."
Bay Area landslides are a big concern for this week’s storm. Here are the high-risk locations
THE CHRONICLE, RACHEL SWAN: "The specter of more battering rains in the Bay Area early this week prompted a warning from geologists across the region: Beware of landslides that could cause roads to crater and snap, send rocks pouring onto highways or tilt homes perilously close to cliff sides.
“Soil saturation is at the level of concern for debris flows that could occur with this incoming rainstorm,” said Jeremy Lancaster, an associate state geologist with the California Geological Survey, referring to information his agency has received from its federal counterpart."
At least 39 die in migrant detention center fire near U.S.-Mexico border
AP, MARIA VERZA: "A fire in a dormitory at a migration detention center near Mexico’s border with the U.S. left more than three dozen people dead, a Mexican government agency said Tuesday, in one of the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration lockup in the country.
Hours after the fire broke out late Monday, rows of bodies were laid out under shimmery silver sheets outside the facility in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso and a major crossing point for migrants. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue were assembled at the scene.
Thirty-nine people died, and 29 were injured and are in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute. There were 68 men from Central and South America being held in the facility at the time of the fire, the agency said."
California districts vary enormously in reading achievement, report finds
EDSOURCE, ZAIDEE STAVELY: "Some districts with substantial numbers of low-income Latino students vastly outperform others when it comes to reading and writing. The results appear to have more to do with how schools are teaching students to read and less about their family’s income or their English proficiency.
That’s according to a new report from the California Reading Coalition, a literacy advocacy group made up of organizations of educators, advocates and researchers.
The report ranks 285 districts based on how many Latino third graders from low-income families met or exceeded grade-level standards in English language arts on the Smarter Balanced test in 2022. Districts with fewer than 100 low-income Latino third-graders were excluded."
What Will it Take to Get the Mentally Ill Homeless Off the Streets?
CAPITOL WEEKLY, STAFF: "CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom released a proposal for a $3 billion bond measure aimed at the 2024 ballot, to fund housing for people with severe mental illness. At the same time, Newsom asked the legislature to revise 2004’s Proposition 63 – which enacted a 1% tax on individuals with earnings of $1 million or more, used to help people with mental illness. These latest moves follow Newsom’s other recent efforts to engage on the issue of homelessness, something his predecessors in the Horseshoe have largely avoided.
Author and journalist Dan Morain wrote about the Governor’s plans last week, and joined us to talk about the two proposals. He also digs into the half century of policy and politics that got us to where we are today: the common answer is The Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, but, as Dan explains, LPS is only part of the story. Also, Dan shared his own experience about a family member unable to live on his own after a devastating accident.
Plus, Who Had the Worst Week in California Politics?"
Silicon Valley Bank bought, but Silicon Valley has already moved on
BANG*MERCURY NEWS, ETHAN BARON, GEORGE AVALOS: "Silicon Valley Bank’s rapid fall this month initially felt cataclysmic for the Bay Area’s startup industry. Less than three weeks later, news of the bank’s purchase by First Citizens Bank was met Monday with little more than raised eyebrows.
Silicon Valley had moved on, quickly.
“We don’t even think about it anymore except to say, ‘Oh my gosh, remember how crazy it was?’ ” said Chon Tang, general partner at SkyDeck, UC Berkeley’s startup accelerator."
S.F. office vacancy rises to 29.4%, a record high. Why haven’t rents gone down much?
THE CHRONICLE, ROLAND LI: "San Francisco’s office vacancy rate shot up to a record high of 29.4% in the first quarter, nearly eight times the pre-pandemic level.
The city saw the biggest jump in vacancy among any U.S. city in the past three years, and leasing activity remained minimal at the start of 2023, according to preliminary data from real estate brokerage CBRE."
S.F. has a new plan to add housing downtown and revitalize Union Square. Here are the details
THE CHRONICLE, J.D. MORRIS: "San Francisco leaders have a new plan to make it easier for developers to transform downtown office buildings into housing complexes and reduce the abundant vacancies in the Union Square shopping district.
Mayor London Breed and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin are advancing legislation to relax some requirements for downtown office-to-housing conversions in an effort to save developers time and money on such projects. Their legislation would also loosen rules around Union Square to help the struggling district be less reliant on big retail stores."
Why prices on one category of S.F. homes are dropping dramatically — and fast
THE CHRONICLE, SUSIE NEILSON: "If you’re a very wealthy person looking to buy a house in San Francisco, recent trends are on your side. But if you’re not a millionaire several times over, you’re probably out of luck.
Data from real estate listings site Zillow shows that home values in the San Francisco metropolitan area — which includes Oakland and Berkeley — have been declining ever since the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. Yet the region’s cheapest third of homes have stayed stubbornly high, even while prices for the most expensive third are dropping faster and more dramatically."
After police killings, families are kept in the dark and grilled for information
LA TIMES, BRIAN HOWEY: "Luke Smith, 15, high on acid and suffering from severe mental health issues, stabbed his father and uncle before fleeing into the early-morning darkness on Nov. 19, 2016.
As the men were airlifted to a hospital, deputies from the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office closed in on Luke, who was still armed with a knife. They fired beanbags and sent in a dog, but Luke refused to drop the weapon. An officer opened fire, killing the teen.
That night, when detectives grilled Luke’s father at the hospital, they didn’t mention that police had killed his son. Sedated on painkillers, Ian Smith answered their questions, telling them about the boy’s drug use, poor impulse control and suicidal thinking in hopes the information might mitigate his son’s culpability."
Police seek motive as Nashville school shooting captures the attention of a divided nation
LA TIMES, TERRY CASTLEMAN, ALEXANDRE E. PETRI, KEVIN RECTOR: "A private Christian school in Nashville became the nation’s latest mass killing scene Monday after a 28-year-old former student entered with high-powered guns and opened fire, killing three children and three adult staff members, authorities said.
The children were all 9 years old. The staff members included the head of the school, a substitute teacher and a custodian.
The suspect, identified by police as Nashville resident Audrey Hale, allegedly left behind a “manifesto” and maps of the school, though police have not described the manifesto in detail or ascribed a motive to the attack. The shooter was killed by responding officers."
