The bill, if approved, would place a bond before voters aimed at helping ports build capacity to assemble, construct and transport wind turbines and other large equipment. Long Beach and Humboldt County have plans to build such expansion projects.
Port expansion is considered critical to the viability of offshore wind projects, which are a key component of the state’s ambitious goal to switch to 100 percent clean energy. The California Energy Commission projects that offshore wind farms will supply 25 gigawatts of electricity by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13 percent of the power supply.
The first step to building these giant floating platforms has already been taken: The federal government has leased 583 square miles of ocean waters about 20 miles off Humboldt Bay and the Central Coast’s Morro Bay to five energy companies. The proposed wind farms would hold hundreds of giant turbines, each as tall as a skyscraper, about 900 feet high. The technology for floating wind farms has never been used in such deep waters, far off the coast.
An extensive network of offshore and onshore development would be necessary. Costly upgrades to ports will be critical, along with undersea transmission lines, new electrical distribution networks and more.
Under proposed regulations Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced Thursday, major insurers will be required to cover a certain share of homeowners in the state’s most wildfire-prone areas. In exchange, the Department of Insurance will allow companies to charge more to cover the rising costs of doing business in a fire-ravaged state.
Lara called the package of new proposed regulations “the largest insurance reform” since 1988, the year California voters passed a proposition requiring insurance companies to get prior approval before raising premiums.
The plan is meant to reverse what has amounted to a slow-motion exodus of private home insurers from the state. In the last year and a half, seven of the top 12 property insurers operating in California have either placed new restrictions on where they do business or stopped selling new policies here entirely.
The biggest player of all, State Farm, announced a freeze on new policies in May, kicking off a fresh round of panic among homeowners scrambling to find affordable insurance policies and lawmakers eager to tackle the crisis.
For years, insurance companies have complained that current rates and the existing regulatory process don’t allow them to recoup the cost of doing business in the state’s most at-risk regions. By easing some of those restrictions, while requiring the companies to expand their coverage, “it’s the department calling the bluff of insurers,” said Rex Frazier, president of Personal Insurance Federation of California, a trade group.
In principle, that’s a trade-off insurers are willing to make, he added, though it will ultimately depend on how the specific regulations are crafted in the coming months.
Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer group United Policyholders, struck a similar note.
Lara “did not sell out to the industry here, in my opinion, he struck a deal,” she said. “Whether it’s going to manifest positively overall…the proof will be in the premiums.”
On Thursday:
Gun tax: After years of failed efforts, the Legislature sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a measure to tax firearms and ammunition to fund gun violence prevention in California, CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff reports.
Assembly Bill 28 by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Woodland Hills Democrat, would impose an 11 percent excise tax on retailers and manufacturers for sales of guns or ammunition. Modeled on a similar federal levy for wildlife conservation, the tax could bring in an estimated $160 million annually for violence intervention programs, school safety improvements and law enforcement efforts to confiscate guns from people who are prohibited from owning them.
Lawmakers unsuccessfully pursued sales or excise taxes on guns and ammunition — which face a higher two-thirds threshold for approval — half a dozen times over the past decade, some of which never even got a hearing.
That made Thursday particularly momentous for supporters. In the morning, Gabriel and several Assembly colleagues watched a lengthy floor debate in the Senate from the back of the chamber; Democrats narrowly approved AB 28 over the objections of Republicans, who said businesses would simply pass the cost onto customers, an unfair burden for sports shooters and hunters who frequently buy ammunition. After a final vote in the Assembly hours later, Gabriel was bombarded with congratulatory hugs.
“I’m going to cry. I’m going to cry. What a journey,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat whose husband leads the gun control organization Giffords.
The bill now goes to Newsom, who has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto. Though he has been a vocal proponent of adopting more gun safety laws in California, a spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment on the measure.
Workplace retaliation: Alejandra Reyes-Velarde of CalMatters’ California Divide team reports that in a victory for labor activists, a bill is headed to the governor desk that would require employers to prove they are not retaliating if they fire, demote or cut the hours of workers who have lodged workplace complaints against them.
The Assembly passed SB 497 on a 45-15 vote. The bill would mandate the California Labor Commissioner’s office and state courts assume employers are illegally retaliating if they take certain disciplinary actions against a worker who in the prior 90 days has made a wage claim or a complaint about unequal pay.
“California has some of the strongest workplace and equal pay protections in the country,” said Assemblymember Ash Kalra, the San Jose Democrat who presented the bill on behalf of Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, the Los Angeles Democrat who authored the bill. “However, our strong workplace protections are meaningless if workers are too afraid to speak up when their rights are violated.”
Employers will be able to rebut the retaliation assumption by showing to the labor commissioner or courts that there is a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for the employee discipline, Kalra said.
Noise pollution: Meanwhile, Newsom is signing some noteworthy bills. Thursday, he announced his blessing of a measure to remove noise pollution from the list of potential environmental harms that can block housing. AB 1307 was authored by Assemblymember Wicks after a court ruling this year that halted a UC Berkeley student housing project under the California Environmental Quality Act.
This article was originally published by CalMatters.