Deputy Mayor, City of Los Angeles
Deputy Mayor of the City of Los Angeles and Interim General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and author of Winning Our Energy Independence; President of the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commission, he formerly held energy-policy positions at the New York Power Authority and Tennessee Valley Authority, as well as several positions in the State of California
Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Villaraigosa Go to Copenhagen Reports from Copenhagen are not optimistic about reaching important agreement on climate change. The US is taking heat for refusing to budge on greenhouse gas reductions the rest of the world calls inadequate. Tens of thousands of delegates — and more than 100 heads of state — are waiting for President Obama to show up on Friday. In the…
Measure B: Solar Power Nobody disagrees that solar power should be developed -- the sooner the better, but there's a major debate about Measure B on the March 3 ballot for the City of Los Angeles. It calls for 400 megawatts of solar power by 2014, installed, operated and maintained by the city-owned Department of Water and Power .
Clean-Truck Incentive Money Up in Smoke? Today’s Los Angeles Times says officials at the Ports of LA and Long Beach are worried that their reputations are on the line. They promised $20,000 for every truck that exceeded their new clean air standards.
Proposition 7 Sounds Good, So Why Don’t Most Environmentalists Like it? Proposition 7 is called The Solar and Clean Energy Act of 2008. We're already seeing a blitz of TV commercials on a measure that has divided environmentalists in California. Current law requires private utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. Prop 7 would speed that up by mandating 50% by 2025.
Cleaner Trucks at the Ports The ports of LA and Long Beach handle half of all America's imports from overseas. Together, they are a principal economic engine for Southern California. But they're also a major polluter and a menace to public health, causing significant illness and premature deaths.
Global Warming and the Presidential Campaign More and more scientists say global warming is happening faster than they expected, while the world's major polluters fail to take meaningful action. As a candidate in the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush promised reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
Is America Growing Itself to Destruction? America's continuing drive for material well-being has made it the world's colossus, but it may also contain the seeds of destruction. That sounds like fire-and-brimstone preaching, but it's also a warning from pragmatic experts on energy independence and global warming.
Do We Have Too Much? America's continuing drive for material well-being has made it the world's colossus, but it may also contain the seeds of destruction. That sounds like fire-and-brimstone preaching, but it's also a warning from pragmatic experts on energy independence and global warming.
Carbon Tax Bill Would Charge McMansions for Global Warming For several years the battle to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases has focused on the automobile. Hummers became public enemies and the Prius was suddenly chic. Now, Washington has found a new villain in the fight against global warming—American homes.
Big Rig Pollution and the Port’s Green Truck Program The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach account for almost 25% of the region’s diesel emissions. Studies show human cancer risks fifteen miles inland, and diesel exhaust has been linked to asthma, heart disease and underweight newborns. The Ports have embarked on a massive cleanup effort focusing partly on 16,000 trucks that cause a big…
What are LA parents doing with their kids during the strike? During the teacher strike, a lot of students are not going to class.
What are charter schools? LAUSD teachers were picket lines for a second day Tuesday. And this morning the teachers union organized a march to the California Charter Schools Association office downtown, to draw attention to their criticisms of local charter schools. But what are charter schools anyway?