Legislation, Testimony, and Position Statements
2011
December 2011, SF PSR signs on to letter in support of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard
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December 2011, SF PSR supports Ankara Declaration on IPPNW Middle East Core Group Meeting: Strategies for Peace and Health in the Nuclear Free Middle East
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2010
Bob Gould, Testimony to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, January 6, 2010
California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Update
1) The Air District’s CEQA Guidelines provide guidance to local lead agencies on how to evaluate air quality impacts on projects and plans in CEQA documents. The Guidelines were last updated in 1999.
2) Air District staff has completed a comprehensive update to the CEQA Guidelines. This update includes revised and new thresholds of significance, revised analytical methodologies, updated mitigation measures, and more.
- The proposed thresholds of significance include more stringent thresholds for certain impacts. The proposed thresholds also include new thresholds for impacts not previously addressed: greenhouse gases and local community risk and hazards. These latter thresholds address critical emerging issues of cumulative impacts in vulnerable communities and are thus considered extremely important.
- Air District staff believes statewide guidance is needed. However, the California Air Resources Board has not provided such guidance and it does not appear to be forthcoming. The Air District’s proposed GHG thresholds are based on statewide climate protection planning processes under AB 32, and thus provide a methodology that could be replicated elsewhere in the state. Air District staff considers these GHG thresholds to be interim thresholds, to be revisited if and when the state provides guidance.
- The local community risk and hazards thresholds address localized air quality impacts that may arise from residential projects, schools, health care facilities, or other “sensitive receptors” are located close to freeways, ports, or other sources of pollution. The thresholds address toxic air contaminants and fine particulate matter.
January 15, 2010, SF PSR SUPPORT American Lung Association’s public health letter to the California Air Resources Board to provide public health input into the development of any cap and trade policies.
February 2, 2010, SF PSR Steering Committee member Dr. Jeff Ritterman
Public Health Input on Preliminary Draft Regulation for a California Cap and Trade Program
On Tuesday evening, February 2, the Richmond City Council passed a 350 CITIES RESOLUTION which recognizes 350 ppm CO2 as the sensible limit to prevent catastrophic climate change. The resolution was sponsored by Vice Mayor Dr. Jeff Ritterman, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and Councilmember Jim Rogers. Given the lack of national leadership on lessening climate change Vice Mayor Ritterman decided to take action on the local level. The Richmond resolution recognizes 350 and commits the city to a series of educational presentations. The city will work with the school district, the neighborhood councils and the Council of Industries to begin a city-wide effort to help everyone understand the necessity of adopting the 350 standard. In addition, the city will organize a series of meetings to enlist broad based participation in the creation of a Climate Action Plan.
February 19, 2010, SF PSR SUPPORTS comments to the EPA about its proposal to “seek disclosure of inert ingredients in pesticides.” Center for Environmental Health organized.
February 2010, SUPPORTS American Lung Association in California letter to engage the public health sector in the SB 375 implementation process around smart growth and transportation planning to reduce global warming and improve public health.
The letter also stresses the public health urgency and benefits of reducing greenhouse gases from transportation planning, and need for local transportation agencies to commit to reducing GHG in their transportation projects.
February, 2010, SF PSR SUPPORTS Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) legislation
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger, Speaker Pérez, and Senate Pro Tem Steinberg:
We, representatives of the undersigned associations, companies, and organizations, remain passionately dedicated to passing strong renewable energy legislation that will help California tap its clean, safe, and free sources of renewable energy. Now more than ever, the state must send the market a clear signal that it’s time to start investing and reinvesting in California. We urge you to keep renewable energy on the front burner and work with each other and with good faith stakeholders to pass and sign a strong 33 percent by 2020 RPS bill before the Fourth of July. Signing a strong RPS bill into law would truly be a declaration of independence from our over-reliance on fossil fuels.
March 2010, SF PSR SUPPORTS EPA Draft Recommended Interim Preliminary Remediation Goals for Dioxin In Soil at CERCLA and RCRA Sites: Docket ID Number: EPA-HQ-SFUND-2009-0907
March 2010, SF PSR SUPPORTS SB 1157 (DeSaulnier)
Protecting CA school kids from “bad actor” pesticides.d that PSR would consider endorsing this bill if not help sponsor it.
March 2010, SF PSR sign on to letter calling on President Obama to announce at the upcoming Global Nuclear Security Summit on April 12-13 that he will hold a summit on disarmament next year. The letter will be delivered on April 5, to coincide with the one year anniversary of his Prague speech calling for a nuclear weapons free world.
March 2010, SUPPORTS AB1963: The Farmworker Health Act essentially a very simple fix to an existing law that has the potential of protecting farmworkers from long-term and continuous overexposure to pesticides.
March 2010, SUPPORTS a blue-green coalition sign-on letter to the Senate in support of chemical disaster prevention and security legislation, identical to legislation Senator Lautenberg authored in 2009 (S. 3598 & S.3599).
March 2010, SUPPORTS SB 394, the Healthy Schools Act of 2011, creating measures to protect the health and safety of California school children and teachers and better ensure a safe learning and working environment. This bill requires that all “schoolsites” participate in critical Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) training on least toxic pest management and take other steps to reduce or eliminate exposure to pesticides.
April 2010, SUPPORTS SB1291, Flame Retardant Information, This bill requires health information on flame retardant chemicals before they are used in furniture, baby products, and bedding. California’s flammability standards have in some cases become de facto national standards, so health and environment are widely impacted.
April 6, 2010, OPPOSES AB2691 (Hall) – GHG emissions fee. This bill prohibits state and regional agencies and all local jurisdictions from imposing a greenhouse gas emissions fee, whether emissions-based or otherwise, on a source of greenhouse gas emissions that is included in a market-based compliance mechanism and a fee regulation adopted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
April 2010, SUPPORTS HR 2293/S 1644 proposes precisely the kind of Tier 2 Public Health Advisory Committee on Trade that the ITAC Committee Chairs describe. The creation of such a committee, and the opportunity for formal communication at periodic plenaries, would certainly mark an important milestone in setting a 21st century trade agenda.
June 2010, SUPPORTS AB 2774 (Swanson). This bill is a necessary first step to bring the California occupational safety and health program into compliance with Federal OSHA. It does so by amending Labor Code Section 6302 to add a specific definition for "serious physical harm."
September 2010, SUPPORTS Green Science Policy Institute consensus statement on organohalogens flame retardants. After decades of research, a large body of scientific literature documents the toxicity and persistence of organohalogens flame retardants and new information shows their lack of fire safety benefit in many applications. The Green Science Policy Institute, in collaboration with a small group of scientists, wrote this consensus statement to support future policy actions to reduce their use and a move to safer alternatives. This should help prevent the continued accumulation of these chemicals in humans, animals, and the environment and the reproductive, neurological, thyroid, and endocrine disorders associated with organohalogen exposure.
September 2010, SUPPORTS SB797, Toxin Free Infants and Toddlers Act.
September 22, 2010, SUPPORTS Health Network for Clean Air. Letter to California Air Resources Board to advocate for the most ambitious targets possible for 2020 and 2035 as part of implementation of SB 375.
October 8, 2010, SUPPORTS letter from Env Defense Fund. Comments/feedback on EPA’s TSCA Inventory Reporting Rule, IUR.
November 1, 2010, SUPPORTS HR 6252, Exporting Toxic Waste to Developing Countries (Rep. Green and Rep. Thompson)
November 2010, Letter opposing award. We are writing to express our serious concern about the recent decision of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to award an $180,000 Specialty Crop Block Grant to the Alliance for Food and Farming, an industry communications group. According to CDFA documents, the group intends to use the money to “correct the misconception that some fresh produce items contain excessive amounts of pesticide residues” and to rebut “claims by activist groups about unsafe levels of pesticides…” The federally funded Specialty Crops Block Grant (SCBG) Program in California is a valuable effort intended to support research, marketing and nutrition programs in order make produce, nuts and flower crops more competitive, accessible and in the case of research, more sustainable. While we strongly support this program, we object to the Department’s decision to fund an industry communications initiative against legitimate public interest concerns related to pesticide residues on food.
