Currently viewing the tag: “California”
Via the Mercury News: Calif. man swept out to sea taking tsunami pics
The Coast Guard searched for a man Friday who was swept out to sea by powerful waves generated by the tsunami in Northern California while taking photos near the mouth of the Klamath River in Del Norte County.
Two friends with him were able to get back to shore, but the man remained missing.
Coast Guard officials said they have dispatched helicopters in search of him.
On the one hand, one wonders about the wisdom of getting too close to the ocean to take photos, on the other as something of a shutterbug myself, I can understand the impulse. Hopefully he will end being okay, but one suspects that he won’t be.
Los Angeles Times |
Pac-10: Stepheson leads USC past California
msnbc.com After testing positive for marijuana twice, Tom Wilhelmsen was suspended by the Brewers and quit baseball. He is back, with the Mariners, and appreciative of another chance. Lynne Sladky / AP Strong gusts have suspended play at the Cadillac … Pac-10 Tournament: USC 70, Cal 56 Fourth-seeded Trojans beat fifth-seeded California, 70-56, to advance to Pac … Pac-10 Tournament Bracket Update: USC Defeats California, Advances To Semifinals |
The Census rolled out new data for four more states this week, including the nation’s most populous state, California, and two presidential bellwethers that are losing congressional representation, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
– Three in five Californians are now ethnic minorities. The state’s Hispanic population grew by more than a quarter in the last decade, and Latinos now make up 38% of the state, which nearly surpasses non-Hispanic whites, who make up 40% of the population. More than half of Californians younger than 18 are Latino. The political and policy ramifications of the rapid demographic shift in the nation’s largest state are huge.
High Latino turnout helped propel Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) to double-digit wins last year, and all 34 Democratic House members were reelected despite Democrats’ struggles nationally last fall. Hispanic growth will almost certainly be reflected in the redistricting process that is already underway.
Latino growth has hurt Republican candidates statewide. But two political reforms approved in last year’s election and Latino demands for more representation should make incumbents from both parties nervous. A bipartisan commission will draw the congressional district lines this time around, undoing the successful gerrymander Democrats achieved last decade (only one seat changed hands through the decade, and that one went Democratic). California voters also approved a multiparty primary system that will allow the top two vote-getters to run in the general election, putting pressure on ideologues in both parties who may be forced to run against moderates of their own party in a general election.
Capitol Confidential has previously reported on legislation introduced by California Democratic Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner that seeks to impose a new, and unconstitutional, tax on out-of-state, online retailers including (ironically) a number of eBay users. Capitol Confidential has since learned that a prominent corporate sponsor of such efforts is retail giant Target, and that a number of other big retailers back the legislation, too. According to one source, that group includes Bloomingdale’s.
So what if neither Target nor Bloomingdale’s collected and remitted sales/use taxes in states where they sell online to customers but in which they maintain no physical presence (the practice Skinner’s bill aims to ban by redefining the concept of “nexus”)? Based on what appears on both companies’ websites when one inputs an order using the data of a resident of such states, it appears both corporations are willingly taking advantage of the same constitutional case law as the online retailers targeted by Skinner’s legislation to avoid tax liability.
Here is a screenshot of the “review” page related to a Target transaction input using a Vermont customer’s information. Target’s website indicates that there are no Target stores in Vermont, and this is the final page at which customers can make adjustments, or discard the transaction:
No sales or use tax appears as a line item in the transaction, and the asterisk next to the $ 0.00 figure merely points to a line saying “why has sales tax been applied?” (which in this case, it has not).
Here is a screenshot of the “review” page related to a Bloomingdale’s transaction input using a Wyoming customer’s information. According to Bloomingdale’s website, there are no Bloomingdale’s stores in Wyoming, and as above, this is the final page at which customers can make adjustments, or discard the transaction.
Again, no sales or use tax appears to be being charged.
Experts say that based on the Supreme Court’s Quill vs. North Dakota decision, there is no reason why either Target or Bloomingdale’s should be charging sales or use tax in instances like these, and that that would almost certainly remain the case were Skinner-type legislation instituted in both states. However, their backing of a measure that would force eBay sellers, Overstock.com and Amazon.com to collect and remit tax in circumstances in which neither of the corporations does the same may strike some as hypocritical. Furthermore, sources say it may suggest that Target and Bloomingdale’s corporate leadership believe the Skinner legislation to be constitutionally dubious, and that their backing of it is less about pure intentions, and more about enlisting a government hand in further bolstering big retail chains’ profits by the back door.
Last month, the LA Times reported that key backers of the Skinner legislation, including Wal-Mart and Home Depot had shown “robust” quarterly profits. Earnings jumped by 26 percent at Wal-Mart, 50 percent at Macy’s- the owner of Bloomingdale’s, and 72 percent at Home Depot. Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble, another corporate backer of Skinner’s legislation, saw a bump in sales, though profits fell due to investment decisions made by the company. (Wal-Mart saw a drop in sales due to internal marketing decisions and competition from dollar stores). That, in turn, has led some to question the merits of the Skinner scheme, as have constitutional arguments and comments recently made by representatives of the state Board of Equalization in a Sacramento hearing.
Reports indicate that Gov. Jerry Brown remains unsold on the proposal, not because it involves a new tax, but potentially because the scheme is expected at best to bring in a mere $ 200-or-so million a year, potentially much less than that, or even result in a net loss to the state. California currently faces a $ 26 billion-plus budget gap.
Earlier this week, Skinner’s bill stalled in an Assembly tax committee, though sources say that is likely to be only a temporary situation. The committee’s Democratic majority appears to support the legislation.
An Amber Alert has been issued for 18 year old mother, Monserrat Caracoza and 8 month old Sebastian Mosqueda who were abducted by Sebastian’s biological father. Full account can be seen at California Highway Patrol website.
Pic from Calif Hwy Patrol
The boy is Hispanic, has brown hair and eyes and weighs 12 pounds. He was wearing red pants and a yellow jacket.
Pic from Calif Hwy Patrol
The woman is Hispanic, with brown hair and eyes, and is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds.
The suspect, Pedro Mosqueda, was last seen driving a 1991 Honda Civic, with a CA license 5VOY539. Mosqueda is believed to have entered the woman’s home through a window and forced the two victims into his car.
The suspect may be traveling through Santa Barbara and/or Ventura Counties.
If any one has any information on the missing mother and child, please call 911 or the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department at 559-733-6211.
(Eugene Volokh)
A commenter on the court-ordered hysterectomy thread asks,
To put this in another context, would a court be allowed to sterilize an incompetent person for the betterment of society? They did this in Indiana in the early part of the last century and a SCOTUS opinion ruled that such actions by a court were unconstitutional. Can’t remember the cite though. How is this different? I’m sure the courts in Indiana said that they did it for the benefit of the incompetent person….
It turns out that the matter is much more complex than that. Many people know that in Buck v. Bell (1927), the Supreme Court upheld involuntary sterilization of the allegedly mentally retarded; that’s where Justice Holmes his famous line (to which I add one more sentence of context) that, “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” And it seems nearly certain that courts today would generally reject any law that’s this broad; see Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) for an early, though limited, step towards that rejection.
But what I didn’t know until several years ago is that many courts are indeed authorizing sterilization of mentally retarded women, if certain procedures are used to try to make sure that the sterilization is really necessary to serve the woman’s best interests (and even if the woman is unable to meaningfully consent herself). In fact, the California Supreme Court actually struck down as unconstitutional a state law — passed in reaction to the sterilization movement exemplified in Buck v. Bell — that categorically barred such sterilizations. Other decisions have authorized sterilization of the mentally retarded under similar rationales (though no statutory bans on such sterilization were involved, so the court didn’t have to decide whether the ban was unconstitutional); see, e.g., In the Matter of the Guardianship of Hayes (Wash. 1980), Matter of CDM (Alaska 1981), Estate of CW (Pa. Superior Ct. 1994), In re Conservatorship of Angela D. (Cal. Ct. App. 1999), and (with a somewhat different approach, and involving the sterilization of a man), In re Sterilization of Moore (N.C. 1975). Here’s an excerpt from the California Supreme Court case, Conservatorship of Valerie N. (Cal. 1985) (emphases and some paragraph breaks added); for more of the case, including the dissents, see the full opinion:
Mildred and Eugene G., her mother and stepfather, are coconservators of the person of their adult developmentally disabled daughter Valerie. They appeal from a judgment of the probate court denying their petition for authorization to have a tubal ligation … performed on Valerie….We shall conclude that the Legislature, in enacting subdivision (d) of section 2356[, which banned sterilization of the mentally retarded,] … intended to discontinue the longstanding, but discredited, practice of eugenic sterilization, and to deny guardians and conservators authorization to have the procedure performed on their wards and conservatees…. [But we] conclude … that the present statutory scheme denies incompetent developmentally disabled persons rights which are accorded all other persons in violation of state and federal constitutional guarantees of privacy….
Valerie was born on July 13, 1955, apparently a victim of Downs Syndrome as a result of which she is severely retarded. Her IQ is estimated to be 30. She is now 29 years old. She lives with her mother and stepfather. Although she has no comprehension of the nature of these proceedings, she has expressed her wish to continue to have her parents care for her. Her parents’ long range plan for Valerie is that she will move to a residential home should they become mentally or physically unable to care for her. She has received therapy and training for behavior modification which was not successful in eliminating her aggressive sexual advances toward men. Her parents are attempting to prepare her for the time when they can no longer care for her, and to broaden her social activities as an aspect of this preparation. They have concluded that other methods of birth control are inadequate in Valerie’s case….
[The parents] submitted a declaration by a physician who had treated Valerie from the time she was 10 years old. He stated that in his opinion a tubal litigation procedure was “advisable and medically appropriate in that a potential pregnancy would cause psychiatric harm to VALERIE.” A second declaration, this by a licensed marriage, family and child counselor having a masters degree in developmental psychology, was also submitted. This declarant had worked with Valerie on a weekly basis for a year during 1977–1978. She believed that a tubal ligation was “an appropriate means of guarding against pregnancy,” and had observed that Valerie acted “affectionately” toward adult men and made “inappropriate” sexual advances toward them. This declarant was of the opinion that because Valerie’s parents had found it necessary to be overly restrictive in order to avoid a possible pregnancy which would have “severe psychologically damaging consequences” to Valerie, close monitoring had severely hampered Valerie’s ability to form social relationships. She also believed that the level of Valerie’s retardation meant that no alternative birth control methods were available that would ensure against pregnancy.
Valerie’s mother testified that Valerie had not been sexually active, apart from masturbation, because she had been closely supervised. She was aggressive and affectionate toward boys. On the street she approached men, hugged and kissed them, climbed on them, and wanted to sit on their laps. Valerie had been given birth control pills in her early teens, but she rejected them and became ill. Her doctor then recommended the tubal ligation. Valerie was unable to apply other methods of birth control such as a diaphragm, and would not cooperate in a pelvic examination for an intrauterine device which the witness believed was unsafe in any event…. It was conceded that the court had the power to authorize an abortion should Valerie become pregnant….
[We turn to the parents’] contention that the scheme is unconstitutional. Both appellants and counsel for Valerie pose the constitutional question in terms of the right of procreative choice. [The parents] argue that subdivision (d) of section 2356 deprives Valerie of that right by precluding the only means of contraception realistically available to her, while counsel for Valerie contends that the legislation furthers that right by protecting her against sterilization forced upon her by the will of others.
The sad but irrefragable truth, however, is that Valerie is not now nor will she ever be competent to choose between bearing or not bearing children, or among methods of contraception. The question is whether she has a constitutional right to have these decisions made for her, in this case by her parents as conservators, in order to protect her interests in living the fullest and most rewarding life of which she is capable. At present her conservators may, on Valerie’s behalf, elect that she not bear or rear children. As means of avoiding the severe psychological harm which assertedly would result from pregnancy, they may choose abortion should she become pregnant; they may arrange for any child Valerie might bear to be removed from her custody; and they may impose on her other methods of contraception, including isolation from members of the opposite sex.
They are precluded from making, and Valerie from obtaining the advantage of, the one choice that may be best for her, and which is available to all women competent to choose — contraception through sterilization. We conclude that the present legislative scheme, which absolutely precludes the sterilization option, impermissibly deprives developmentally disabled persons of privacy and liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and article I, section 1 of the California Constitution….
In its enactment of section 2356, subdivision (d), and the omission of any provision in other legislation authorizing sterilization of incompetent developmentally disabled persons, the Legislature has denied incompetent women the procreative choice that is recognized as a fundamental, constitutionally protected right of all other adult women. We realize that election of the method of contraception to be utilized, or indeed whether to choose contraception at all, cannot realistically be deemed a “choice” available to an incompetent since any election must of necessity be made on behalf of the incompetent by others. The interests of the incompetent which mandate recognition of procreative choice as an aspect of the fundamental right to privacy and liberty do not differ from the interests of women able to give voluntary consent to this procedure, however….
An incompetent developmentally disabled woman has no less interest in a satisfying or fulfilling life free from the burdens of an unwanted pregnancy than does her competent sister. Her interest in maximizing her opportunities for such a life through habilitation is recognized and given statutory protection by both the LDDSA and the DDA. If the state withholds from her the only safe and reliable method of contraception suitable to her condition, it necessarily limits her opportunity for habilitation and thereby her freedom to pursue a fulfilling life….
Respondent suggests that the interest of the state in safeguarding the right of an incompetent not to be sterilized justifies barring all nontherapeutic sterilization of conservatees who are unable personally to consent. We do not doubt that it is within the police power of the state to enact legislation designed to protect the liberties of its residents. The inquiry does not end there, however, since the means selected are not simply protective of a liberty interest, but restrict the exercise of other fundamental rights by or on behalf of the incompetent. The state has not asserted an interest in protecting the right of the incompetent to bear children. Neither the “involuntary imposition” of other forms of contraception, nor abortion, has been banned. A conservator is permitted to exercise his or her own judgment as to the best interests of the conservatee in these matters, excepting only the election of sterilization as a means of preventing conception.
The state interest therefore must be in precluding the option of sterilization because it is in most cases an irreversible procedure. Necessarily implicit in the interest asserted by the state is an assumption that the conservatee may at some future time elect to bear children. While the prohibition of sterilization may be a reasonable means by which to protect some conservatees’ right to procreative choice, here it sweeps too broadly for it extends to individuals who cannot make that choice and will not be able to do so in the future. The restriction prohibits sterilization when this means of contraception is necessary to the conservatee’s ability to exercise other fundamental rights, without fulfilling the stated purpose of protecting the right of the conservatee to choose to bear children. That right has been taken from her both by nature which has rendered her incapable of making a voluntary choice, and by the state through the powers already conferred upon the conservator.
Respondent argues that the ban is, nonetheless, necessary because past experience demonstrates that when the power to authorize sterilization of incompetents has been conferred on the judiciary it has been subject to abuse. Again, however, the rationale fails since less restrictive alternatives to total prohibition are available in statutory and procedural safeguards as yet untried in this state. Respondent offers no evidence of abuse in other jurisdictions in which the option has been made available….
The record in this case is inadequate to establish that the trial court erred in denying the application by [the parents]. Inasmuch as the trial court believed that it lacked power to grant the application the record is devoid of any specification of the factors which the court found relevant, or any findings as to their existence. Nor would the evidence support an order granting the application. Although there is an implicit assumption by the parties and the trial court that Valerie may become pregnant, there is no evidence in this record that she is capable of conceiving. Even were we to accept this assumption arguendo there is no evidence that less intrusive methods of preventing conception are unavailable to Valerie. There is medical evidence that an intrauterine device is contraindicated in Valerie’s case, but the only other evidence regarding alternative methods of birth control is the testimony of Valerie’s mother that several years ago Valerie became ill and refused to ingest birth control pills. The record does not reveal whether more than one formulation of birth control pill was tried, or whether alternative methods of administering these contraceptive drugs are available and were considered.
Even as to those intrusive medical procedures permitted after court authorization the Legislature has required a judicial determination that the condition of the conservatee “requires the recommended course of medical treatment.” Here there was neither a finding that sterilization is “required” nor evidence that would support such a finding. Under these circumstances the order of the trial court denying appellants’ petition was proper.
Inasmuch as there was neither evidence of necessity for contraception, nor sufficient evidence that less intrusive means of contraception are not presently available to Valerie, the judgment is affirmed. The affirmance is, however, without prejudice to a renewed application for additional powers at such time as appellants have available adequate supporting evidence….
This may or may not have much relevance to the separate question of operations aimed at stopping a deadly disease, and not just preventing pregnancy, and (more importantly) operations performed on people who are not mentally retarded but are supposedly laboring under a religious delusion. But since the issue of sterilization of the mentally retarded came up, I thought I’d post about it.
Karen Lugo is protecting the culture of Disneyland from the "tyranny of the minority"
The organizers of the anti-Muslim hate rally in Yorba Linda are suddenly on the defensive. Refusing to admit that they behaved like demented racists, or that there is anything wrong with demonizing Muslim citizens of the United States, the North OC Conservative Coalition’s Karen Lugo, Jewish Federation love instructor Rabbi David Eliezrie, and others are claiming that they participated in a peaceful “patriotic” rally that was corrupted by members of an unwanted “splinter group” (was it led by a one-armed man?) who appeared from out of the blue to shout racial slurs at families entering the Muslim charity event.
Lugo and Eliezrie must have been nowhere near Villa Park Councilmember Deborah Pauly when she made the following statement: “I have a wonderful 19 year old son who’s a United States Marine. As a matter of fact I know quite a few Marines who will be happy to help these terrorists [Pauly pointed towards the community center] to an early meeting in paradise.” Actually, Eliezrie has admitted to being in the audience and Lugo was on stage beside Pauly, where she served as the official emcee. How absolutely unfair of CAIR to turn its cameras on the extreme racists at the gates and not focus on the more moderate racists on stage!
Lugo has put herself forward as the official face of the hate rally, yet she has only been identified in the press as a “protester” or “demonstrator.” In fact, Lugo is a veteran right-wing operative and self-proclaimed constitutional law professor who dazzled the crowd with her knowledge of American’s founding documents: “The Constitution is not supposed to protect a tyranny of the minority,” she exclaimed. ”It is not discrimination to say no when a group is less than one percent of our population.”
Lugo speaks at 9:30
According to Lugo, who appears to be obsessed with the Muslim menace, patriotic Americans need to save the culture of Disneyland. As she said, “It is a matter of importance to our culture and society to tell a corporation like Disneyland, ‘We support you in keeping your culture and in not allowing the hijab to be worn as part of an employee’s garb.’”
Despite holding such views and having presided over what basically amounted to a cross burning, Lugo’s bio indicates that she has managed to secure an appointment on the California Civil Rights Commission Advisory Committee, which reports directly to the US Civil Rights Commission. I’m not sure how Lugo’s appointment came about, but perhaps it was an attempt to establish a sense of balance after Col. Moammar Gaddafi secured a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
Karen Lugo is protecting the culture of Disneyland from the "tyranny of the minority"
The organizers of the anti-Muslim hate rally in Yorba Linda are suddenly on the defensive. Refusing to admit that they behaved like demented racists, or that there is anything wrong with demonizing Muslim citizens of the United States, the North OC Conservative Coalition’s Karen Lugo, Jewish Federation love instructor Rabbi David Eliezrie, and others are claiming that they participated in a peaceful “patriotic” rally that was corrupted by members of an unwanted “splinter group” (was it led by a one-armed man?) who appeared from out of the blue to shout racial slurs at families entering the Muslim charity event.
Lugo and Eliezrie must have been nowhere near Villa Park Councilmember Deborah Pauly when she made the following statement: “I have a wonderful 19 year old son who’s a United States Marine. As a matter of fact I know quite a few Marines who will be happy to help these terrorists [Pauly pointed towards the community center] to an early meeting in paradise.” Actually, Eliezrie has admitted to being in the audience and Lugo was on stage beside Pauly, where she served as the official emcee. How absolutely unfair of CAIR to turn its cameras on the extreme racists at the gates and not focus on the more moderate racists on stage!
Lugo has put herself forward as the official face of the hate rally, yet she has only been identified in the press as a “protester” or “demonstrator.” In fact, Lugo is a veteran right-wing operative and self-proclaimed constitutional law professor who dazzled the crowd with her knowledge of American’s founding documents: “The Constitution is not supposed to protect a tyranny of the minority,” she exclaimed. ”It is not discrimination to say no when a group is less than one percent of our population.”
Lugo speaks at 9:30
According to Lugo, who appears to be obsessed with the Muslim menace, patriotic Americans need to save the culture of Disneyland. As she said, “It is a matter of importance to our culture and society to tell a corporation like Disneyland, ‘We support you in keeping your culture and in not allowing the hijab to be worn as part of an employee’s garb.’”
Despite holding such views and having presided over what basically amounted to a cross burning, Lugo’s bio indicates that she has managed to secure an appointment on the California Civil Rights Commission Advisory Committee, which reports directly to the US Civil Rights Commission. I’m not sure how Lugo’s appointment came about, but perhaps it was an attempt to establish a sense of balance after Col. Moammar Gaddafi secured a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
Karen Lugo is protecting the culture of Disneyland from the "tyranny of the minority"
The organizers of the anti-Muslim hate rally in Yorba Linda are suddenly on the defensive. Refusing to admit that they behaved like demented racists, or that there is anything wrong with demonizing Muslim citizens of the United States, the North OC Conservative Coalition’s Karen Lugo, Jewish Federation love instructor Rabbi David Eliezrie, and others are claiming that they participated in a peaceful “patriotic” rally that was corrupted by members of an unwanted “splinter group” (was it led by a one-armed man?) who appeared from out of the blue to shout racial slurs at families entering the Muslim charity event.
Lugo and Eliezrie must have been nowhere near Villa Park Councilmember Deborah Pauly when she made the following statement: “I have a wonderful 19 year old son who’s a United States Marine. As a matter of fact I know quite a few Marines who will be happy to help these terrorists [Pauly pointed towards the community center] to an early meeting in paradise.” Actually, Eliezrie has admitted to being in the audience and Lugo was on stage beside Pauly, where she served as the official emcee. How absolutely unfair of CAIR to turn its cameras on the extreme racists at the gates and not focus on the more moderate racists on stage!
Lugo has put herself forward as the official face of the hate rally, yet she has only been identified in the press as a “protester” or “demonstrator.” In fact, Lugo is a veteran right-wing operative and self-proclaimed constitutional law professor who dazzled the crowd with her knowledge of American’s founding documents: “The Constitution is not supposed to protect a tyranny of the minority,” she exclaimed. ”It is not discrimination to say no when a group is less than one percent of our population.”
Lugo speaks at 9:30
According to Lugo, who appears to be obsessed with the Muslim menace, patriotic Americans need to save the culture of Disneyland. As she said, “It is a matter of importance to our culture and society to tell a corporation like Disneyland, ‘We support you in keeping your culture and in not allowing the hijab to be worn as part of an employee’s garb.’”
Despite holding such views and having presided over what basically amounted to a cross burning, Lugo’s bio indicates that she has managed to secure an appointment on the California Civil Rights Commission Advisory Committee, which reports directly to the US Civil Rights Commission. I’m not sure how Lugo’s appointment came about, but perhaps it was an attempt to establish a sense of balance after Col. Moammar Gaddafi secured a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
All hail anthropogenic global warming, which has created more than usual snow in California. For a change, Treehugger decides to not actually mention “climate change” (they’re actually avoiding global warming and climate change quite a bit over the last week), and just shocks us with the awesomeness of the natural world
With what might cause a whiplash-like doubletake, California has some happy news about its water supplies. The Sierra snowpack is larger than normally expected at this time of year. Up to 60% of California’s water comes from the Sierra snowpack, and it’s a pleasant twist that after quite a few dry years, there’s finally a lot of it. Part of the reason has been some crazy rain and snowfalls unexpected with the current La Niña year, but researchers wonder if it will hold out.
The SFGate reports, “The water content of the snow in the Sierra is well above normal for March, according to measurements taken manually and electronically throughout the state. The mountains statewide actually contain more frozen water than what would be standard a month from now, when snowpack in California is typically at its peak.”
I will give Treehugger props for not delving into the silly “globull warming causes snow” meme. Very few posts even attempted to go that route. And they even mention La Nina, a natural event.
Anyhow, funny how our warming world is creating more snow, eh? And then there is this
Of course, the relief is great, but underscores the state’s struggles with water. California’s rising population of people, and it’s role in providing a significant portion of the nation’s fruits, vegetables and dairy, has the state strapped for water. Plus, finding a balance between human wants and ecosystem needs is a struggle, especially around the San Joaquin River delta. While there’s plenty of snow this year, only about 60% of the water requested by cities will be able to be delivered, due to pumping restrictions to protect endangered fish.
So, let’s let humans do without, to protect a freaking fish. Look, I’m all for the environment, but, seriously, a fish? Let it adapt or die out. Darwinism, anyone?
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.
It’s official: California’s investor-owned utilities did not meet their 20 percent renewable energy target by 2010.Together, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric got about 18 percent of their power from geothermal, wind, solar, small hydroelectric, biomass and biogas sources in 2010. That’s up from 15 percent in 2009, overall.
Breaking down the numbers further shows Edison in the lead, with 19.4 percent of its load from renewables. PG&E was just behind, with 17.7 percent met through renewable energy contracts, and SDG&E was way off the pace, at 11.9 percent.
Because PG&E and Edison are far bigger than their counterpart in the San Diego region, the average numbers came fairly close to the 20 percent target. PG&E got 13,760 gigawatt-hours from renewables in 2010, to Edison’s 14,548 GWh and SDG&E’s 1,940 GWh.
The data, from the state’s Public Utilities Commission, confirm a commonly told suspicion that the utilities would not meet the mandate in place since 2003. The PUC in a statement noted that the IOUs have a few more years to meet the 20 percent target under “flexible compliance” mechanisms written into the rule. The commission expects full compliance to occur by the end of 2012.
Geothermal was the most plentiful source of energy under the renewable portfolio standard, accounting for more than 35 percent of renewable generation for the three IOUs. Wind was next in 2010, at close to 30 percent, followed by biomass, small hydro, biogas and solar.
Solar is the area expected to grow most rapidly over the next decade, with PUC estimating its share will grow from about 2 percent of the RPS in 2010 to more than 30 percent in 2015 and even higher in 2020.
Up next for the IOUs is a 33-percent-by-2020 target enacted by executive order by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). Lawmakers in Sacramento are also trying to codify the 33 percent RPS, with the Senate having last month passed a version of the mandate (E&ENews PM, Feb. 24).
Unlike the 2010 target, the 2020 version will apply to all electric utilities in the state, including public power.
Republicans have spent a lot of time this year criticizing the EPA, so one would think that President Barack Obama’s proposal to cut $ 1.3 billion from its budget would be well-received.Not quite.
For all their talk about the “job-killing” EPA, Republicans have a dirty little secret: They actually like many of the agency’s efforts, particularly bread-and-butter programs aimed at cleaning up drinking water and air pollution in their districts.
It’s in those areas where Obama has suggested the most budget pain, putting Republicans in the position of defending EPA and accusing the White House of playing politics.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Washington’s top climate skeptic and most vocal opponent of EPA regulations, took issue with the proposal to slash nearly $ 1 billion from state revolving loan funds — cash that gets doled out to local drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects.
“You can bet these cuts will be restored, because many of my colleagues believe these are worthwhile programs,” Inhofe told EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at a hearing Wednesday.
Inhofe also accused the administration of performing a “fiscal bait and switch” by proposing cuts to those well-liked programs instead of slashing programs “that don’t deserve funding.”
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee that includes EPA, said Obama is “either playing politics with his budget or this further illustrates that the EPA is simply out of touch.”
California Cap-And-Trade Faces Potential Hurdle
California’s cap-and-trade program is being threatened by groups of local residents, even after the ambitious climate plan survived an electoral challenge in November.Communities For A Better Environment, California Communities Against Toxics, Society For Positive Action and other groups and individuals have sued state regulators, claiming the climate plan will not reduce pollution. The plaintiffs argue that industrial facilities should cut their actual emissions, rather than trade rights to pollute.
“All the evidence showed that cap-and-trade programs have failed environmental justice communities,” said Alegria de la Cruz, an attorney with
U.S. solar growth hinges on big cash infusions
A rebounding economy and growing pool of deep-pocketed investors could drive the U.S. solar industry to double its installations for a second year, but the capital costs for the clean energy systems remain huge.The U.S. photovoltaic industry is coming off its best-ever year, with about 1 gigawatt in new panels installed. That is about equal to the capacity of a nuclear power reactor, or enough to power about 1 million homes, and many solar companies expect new installations to reach 2 GW this year.
Costs of the panels that turn sunlight into electricity continue to decline, although they still rely on subsidies to make them competitive with fossil fuel plants, a hurdle that makes many investors wary.
But the industry’s shift toward ever-bigger solar power plants has attracted the interest of large investors.
“We’ve got more than enough money to finance as much solar as I can find,” said John Anderson, senior managing director and the head of power and infrastructure at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston, which spent about $ 3.5 billion last year on power projects and infrastructure.
“I want to find places where I can invest $ 50 million or more,” he said, citing such previous projects as the 14 megawatt Nellis Solar Plant in Nevada and 17 MW Greater Sandhill plant in Colorado.
Even the largest existing U.S. plant, Sempra Energy’s 48 MW plant at Copper Mountain, Nevada, pales in comparison to planned facilities such as First Solar’s 290 MW Agua Caliente plant in Arizona.
The rebounding U.S. economy is likely to lift power prices, making it easier to finance solar projects, but the industry would likely need to raise about $ 10 billion to reach the 1.6 GW mark that consultancy IHS Herold expects to be built in 2011.
U.S. Offers $ 102 Million Loan Guarantee for Maine Wind Project
The U.S. Energy Department offered project developers Wagner Wind Energy and Independence Wind LLC a conditional commitment for a $ 102 million loan guarantee for a wind farm they are planning near Roxbury, Maine.The project is expected to connect to new transmission lines to provide power to Central Maine Power Co., the local utility, the Energy Department said today in a statement.
The 50.6-megawatt Record Hill project, sponsored by the Yale University Endowment fund, will have 22 turbines with capacity of 2.3 megawatts each, from Siemens AG (SIE), according to the statement.
“Record Hill introduces an innovative technology to the U.S. that will boost domestic wind generation and help us reach President Obama’s goal of doubling clean energy produced in America by 2035,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in the statement.
The turbines feature a system of sensors and processing software that allow them to continue to generate electricity under turbulent conditions and with reduced wear and tear.
The Energy Department’s loan guarantee program has issued or offered conditional commitments totaling almost $ 18 billion to 20 clean energy projects, the agency said.
For BP Oil Spill Claimants in Gulf, Needs Haven’t Been Met
When the money ran out, shrimper Darla Rooks gave up her apartment and moved in with her daughter. One of an unprecedented half a million BP claimants, the Louisiana shrimper and oyster harvester has spent her life on Gulf waters — she even got married in her fishing boots. Now she’s swimming in red tape.”We’re starving to death,” she said from her daughter’s home in Mississippi, which she and her husband were renovating – adding a room for themselves. “We’re having to move in with our families and rely on our families, it’s humiliating, my daughter just got married, six months back… ” she said. “We count on our living to supply us with what we need. We know no other way.”
So far, the $ 20 billion Deepwater Horizon disaster compensation fund, headed by Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg, has paid about $ 3.6 billion to 170,000 claimants, the vast majority of which have been emergency payments of a few thousand dollars. But claimants, from shrimpers in Louisiana to hotel owners in Florida, complain the compensation process has been too slow and that their needs have gone unmet.
And what Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility has offered is a pittance compared with what many feel they deserve. Of the 8,200 claimants that have been offered final compensation, only 2.5 percent have accepted it.
For those like Rooks, filing for a claim means miles of overwhelming paperwork. “It will never get done,” she said. “I can never give them what they want. This can go on for 20 years. What they just gave me … I’m owed more than that.”
Calls Mount to Tap U.S. Oil Reserves
As oil prices have risen in recent weeks, calls have been growing in Congress for the Obama administration to consider tapping into the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve, which is now at its full capacity of 727 million barrels.Senator Jeff Bingaman, the influential chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, this week added his voice to the chorus, urging President Obama to be prepared to consider a significant sale of oil from the reserve to stabilize prices and temper any disruption in supply.
“Between the lost production in Libya, the crude oil dislocation associated with additional Saudi production and the prospect of further turmoil in the region,” Mr. Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, said in a floor statement late Wednesday, “we are now unquestionably facing a physical oil supply disruption that is at risk of getting worse before it gets better.”
He said that previous sales from the reserve had quickly brought domestic oil prices down and calmed edgy markets.
Other members have raised similar suggestions, saying that a sale at the current price of nearly $ 100 a barrel could produce billions of dollars to ease pressures on the federal deficit and accelerate policies intended to reduce oil consumption, like tax incentives for the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles.
But the administration has so far resisted these calls, saying that excess oil production capacity around the world remains well above the amount of oil whose flow has been disrupted by unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East. Officials said that opening the spigot on the strategic reserve would send precisely the wrong signal to domestic consumers and international oil markets at a time when gasoline prices have risen only modestly and oil supplies are not yet severely strained.
Steven Chu, the energy secretary, said in an interview that the administration was closely monitoring the situation but warned against an overreaction to recent increases in oil prices.
“We don’t want to be totally reactive so that when the price goes up everybody panics and when it goes back down everybody goes back to sleep,” he said, echoing Mr. Obama’s description of the American public’s response to oil prices as alternating between shock and trance.
Senate Democrat sponsors GOP bill to block EPA climate rules
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a vocal critic of the Environmental Protection Agency, has signed on as a co-sponsor of Republican legislation to permanently block the agency’s climate rules.The addition of Manchin, who is up for reelection in 2012, as a co-sponsor means that the authors of the bill have been able to get at least some Democratic support in both the House and the Senate. Forty-three Senate Republicans sponsored the bill.
The Hill reported earlier Thursday that three House Democrats signed on to the legislation. Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have are both original co-sponsors. Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) also signed on to the legislation.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the panel’s energy subcommittee, authored the House version of the bill, while Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced the Senate version of the legislation.
The bill has a good chance of passing the House, but will face major hurdles in the Senate.
GOP seeks Dem backing to kill climate rules
Republicans managed to get one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), to sign on to broad new legislation that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Staffers for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a lead author of the bill, will be pounding the pavement during the coming weeks to lure more Democrats to support the legislation, an Inhofe aide said.
But the big question is: will they succeed?
The legislation faces major hurdles in the Senate, and liberal Democrats vowed to kill the bill Thursday. “Scientists, citizens, and even the Supreme Court have spoken: EPA should regulate air pollution and safeguard human health,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said in a statement Thursday. “This legislation is a direct assault on the Clean Air Act, and I will fight it with every legislative tool available.”
But there are a handful of centrist Democrats who are queasy about EPA climate rules. To find those on-the-fence Democrats, you need not look any further than the list of co-sponsors for legislation authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) that would delay EPA’s climate regulations for two years.
They include: Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jim Webb (Va.). Other Senate Democrats to watch are Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.), who voted for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) failed plan to block EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse emissions. Rockefeller voted for the Murkowski plan too, but he has more recently urged caution on going “too far” in limiting the agency’s authority.
You can bet those senators will be getting calls from Inhofe’s staff, but it’s unclear if any of them could be persuaded to back Inhofe’s far more sweeping legislation.
Support from Democrats in the House is less important because Republicans have a majority in the chamber. But Republicans still managed to get two senior Democrats to co-sponsor the bill: Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, are both original co-sponsors. Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) also signed on to the legislation.
GOP Budget Could Hobble Obama Environment Policy
The Environmental Protection Agency and global warming programs government-wide stand to lose big in the battle over the federal budget.The House already passed its bill to fund the federal government for the rest of this year, and it doesn’t just cut EPA programs — it also steamrolls the Obama administration’s environmental policy.
The House bill would slash the EPA budget by nearly a third — more than any other agency. It would stop the agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it would gut many other programs that prevent air and water pollution and enforce environmental laws.
Senate Democrats say the bill drafted by House Republicans would hobble the EPA.
“They have essentially unleashed war against the EPA, and in doing so, they are going to hurt the American people. And we have to stop it,” says Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who heads the Senate Environment Committee.
But Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who heads the subcommittee responsible for the EPA’s budget, says the House bill responds to concerns that Republicans across the country have about EPA officials.
“They’ve gone far beyond their authority and, frankly, are costing jobs in this country,” Simpson says.
He says he’s had only a couple of calls complaining about the budget cuts, but lots of input from people who want to rein in the EPA.
Environmentalists say the public isn’t complaining because few people have heard about the extent of the cuts. They’re trying to spark an outcry with television ads. One, paid for by the Environmental Defense Fund, shows an ultrasound of a fetus and quotes an American Academy of Pediatrics study warning about the risks of mercury exposure to young children.
An announcer says: “The House sided with corporate lobbyists to block limits on mercury pollution. Did they think America wouldn’t notice?”
The ad is referring to pollution standards for cement plants, and an amendment added to the House bill would stop the agency from enforcing the standards.
EPA Chief Grilled on Safety of Hydraulic Fracturing
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as part of its review of a natural-gas drilling procedure, is looking at the radioactivity of wastewater used in the process. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, speaking at a congressional hearing Thursday, defended her agency’s efforts to study the safety of natural-gas drilling and left the door open to further regulatory action on the issue. The process, known as hydraulic fracturing, is used to extract hard-to-reach natural-gas pockets in the ground.
Ms. Jackson suggested that if public water-treatment plants couldn’t adequately treat wastewater from hydraulic fracturing to safe levels—a central concern of critics of extraction method—EPA could impose standards on drillers who send the waste to the plants.
“EPA can at any time set additional standards for what we call pretreatment, for waste that may go to a treatment plant,” Ms. Jackson said.
Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals underground at high pressures to release natural gas from shale deposits. In recent years, new technology has unlocked shale gas that was not previously accessible, leading to a boom of new wells across the country.
Critics say environmental regulators and the industry have failed to ensure the practice is safe, particularly with respect to fracturing fluid contaminating drinking water.
“What we see here are deliberate attempts to shield from the public additional concerns expressed by EPA scientists,” said Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D., N.Y.) said at a congressional hearing on EPA’s budget.
Ms. Jackson pushed back. “We have used a transparent, consensus-based process to scope the study,” she told lawmakers at the hearing. “We don’t want to stifle science.”
She said EPA intends to study the issue and take action to enforce the law if it has evidence of violations and if states, which she called the “primary” enforcers, do not act.
US EPA says big budget cut would hurt public health
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect citizens from premature death and other health problems would be gutted if Congress slashes funding as threatened by Republican lawmakers, its chief said on Wednesday.Republicans in the House of Representatives have been trying to cut the EPA’s budget for this year, saying its regulations on clean air and water hurt businesses.
“Big polluters would flout legal restrictions on dumping contaminants into the air, into rivers and onto the ground,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
Jackson said every dollar that goes to protecting federal clean air and clean water laws saves as much as $ 20 or $ 30 in costs for health problems requiring visits to hospitals.
“I’m simply saying it’s preventive medicine,” Jackson said.
The EPA released a report this week that said cutting pollution under the Clean Air Act will save $ 20 trillion by 2020 in health costs. It will also have prevented 230,000 premature deaths annually from heart attacks, and other health problems that can be brought on by smokestack pollutants such as soot, it said.
GOP hounds EPA chief on regulations, asks whether spilled milk is next
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson came face to face with House Republicans Thursday for the first time since they voted to slash her budget and block funding for environmental regulations.Jackson fielded aggressive questions about the agency’s regulations at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. The topics ranged from the effects of the agency’s proposed climate rules to whether the agency would regulate spilled milk and dust.
“I believe EPA is headed in the wrong direction with an aggressive and overzealous regulatory agenda that far exceeds the authority it’s been granted,” full committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) accused the EPA of trying to regulate spilled milk, even though the agency has consistently said it has no intentions of doing so.
“How can the EPA promulgate new rules like this?” Flake said. “What’s next — sippy cups in the House cafeteria?”
Jackson said Flake’s statements are “not accurate.” She said the agency moved to exempt milk storage from proposed regulations on inland oil containment facilities.
“The rule is for inland oil facilities that need containment to ensure our waterways are protected,” Jackson said. “We made it clear in our rules that we were not going to apply the rules to spilled milk.”
The hearing comes on the same day that House Republicans, with the backing of two top Democrats, plan to introduce legislation to permanently block EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources.
The bill is part of a broad assault by Republicans in Congress on EPA climate rules. The House passed a spending bill last month that would prohibit funding for EPA climate rules through the end of September.
UN postpones “green fund” climate talks to April
The United Nations postponed until April on Thursday a 40-nation meeting due to start designing a green fund to help poor nations fight climate change, missing a March deadline amid disagreements about who should attend.
Groups of Asian and Latin American and Caribbean nations have yet to decide their delegates for the first meeting of a so-called Transitional Committee, which had been due to meet in Mexico this month to work on a “Green Climate Fund”.
“The first meeting of the Transitional Committee…scheduled to be held on 14-15 March in Mexico City…has been postponed until the latter part of April 2011,” the Bonn-based Climate Change Secretariat said in a statement.
“Further information will be provided soon,” it said. Delegates say that many nations wanted to attending the talks, seeing it as a chance to gain early influence over the fund.
The fund, under which aid flows are meant to reach $ 100 billion a year by 2020, was agreed by governments in Cancun, Mexico, in December as part of a deal that the United Nations said reignited “a beacon of hope” for tackling global warming.
The fund was part of a package including steps to protect tropical forests and share clean technologies. It set a goal of limiting limit any rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
Among the few firm deadlines set in the Cancun Agreements was that the transitional committee should hold its first meeting by the end of March 2011. Asian nations have said that they will be unable to decide delegates until early April.
Rising aid is meant to help developing nations curb their greenhouse gas emissions by shifting from fossil fuels towards renewable energies and to help them adapt to the impacts of heatwaves, droughts, floods, storms and rising sea levels.
Earlier on Thursday in Tokyo, Christiana Figueres, head of the climate change secretariat, said that a separate meeting of ministers in Mexico this month would discuss the green fund as well as the work agenda for this year’s U.N. climate talks.
She said that the work on the green fund would start despite wrangling between rich and poor nations over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges almost 40 developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions until 2012.
Amid an Environmental Protection Agency regulatory spree unprecedented in U.S. history, nothing cleared the benches last year like the so-called boiler rule. Some 62 Senators, 177 House Members and 21 Governors publicly objected, business staged a collective revolt, and the EPA itself was forced to retreat and junk the original rule. No matter how ruinous a regulation, this almost never happens.
The problem is that the new rule, which came out last week and is meant to reduce air pollutants like mercury from industrial boilers, is nearly as bad. The Atlantic is smaller than the Pacific, but they’re both pretty …
Jessie Bender was about to be taken on a two-month trip to Pakistan. Why didn’t her mother and stepfather just claim to investigators that their daughter was jumping to conclusions and overreacting?
The parents’ elaborate lies suggest they had something to hide. Britain’s forced-marriage investigators have seen many a case that started with the ruse of an extended “family vacation” overseas.
Child marriage persists in the Muslim world because Muhammad married a nine-year-old himself (in human years, not Galapagos turtle-years as desperate apologists are bound to claim some time), and Qur’an 33:21 upholds him as a “beautiful pattern of conduct” without exception. Jessie Bender’s story shows that “pattern of conduct” can and does endanger girls in America. “Parents of Jessie Bender, 13, lied about daughter, cops say; Was trying to escape arranged marriage,” from the New York Daily News, March 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):
A 13-year-old girl reported missing by her parents was really trying to escape an arranged marriage in Pakistan, police said Wednesday.
Jessie Bender’s folks told authorities last month their daughter ran off because she didn’t want to go on a two-month family trip to her step-father’s native country. They then falsely claimed she was abducted by someone she met on Facebook, officials said.
However, after weeks of investigating leads that wrangled the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Office and police departments nationwide, authorities say it was all a lie.
“Bender family members misled detectives and withheld critical information,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Roxanne Walker said in a news release.
Police soon discovered that another family member had helped the young teen hide out in Apple Valley, about 30 miles from her hometown of Hesperia in Southern California, to avoid becoming a Pakistani man’s bride.
Bender, as well as her three siblings, were taken into child protective custody while authorities decide whether to recommend filing charges against her family, San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said.
“All of the information that was obtained by investigators will be sent to the district attorney’s office for review,” she said.
They were willing to frame a man to save face:
The parents’ claim that she had been kidnapped sparked a nationwide investigation, involving both local and federal agencies. At one point, a person in Chicago was considered a suspect in her disappearance because the girl’s mother, Melissa, believed she had been communicating with him via Facebook.
“He was the last person she spoke to at 1:47 in the morning,” she told KTLA last month, speaking with her husband, Mohammad Khan. “I don’t know who he is … He claims that he doesn’t have her, but I don’t believe it.”
13-year-old Jesse Bender was going to travel to Pakistan with her stepfather Mohammad Khan but she fled over fears that she was going there for an arranged marriage. the Daily Mail reports:
“A 13-year-old girl who had been missing for more than a week ran away over fears she was to be sent to Pakistan for an arranged marriage, police have claimed.
Jessie Marie Bender has been taken into child protective custody after a relative who was protecting her led detectives to the California hotel where she was hiding yesterday.
Jessie’s family had reported her missing on February 22. They told police they feared she had been abducted by a man she met on Facebook.
But last night police slammed the Bender family for ‘misleading’ them over Jessie’s disappearance, wasting time and resources.
‘Bender family members misled detectives and withheld critical information and as a result delayed the investigation and recovery of their daughter Jessie Bender,’ Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Roxanne Walker said in a news release.
‘It was revealed that a member of the Bender family concealed Jessie in the town of Apple Valley out of fear that she would be taken to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.’”
Kamala Harris, the new Attorney General of California, has asked the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals to lift the stay on the order which would have allowed same sex couples to marry while the issue is being reviewed by the courts.
If the court agrees then couples could start marrying now rather than later.
Although I thought the stay was wrong in the first place I doubt the court will reverse itself now.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris today filed a request with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, demanding that they lift their stay on the overturn of Proposition 8 and immediately allow the resumption of same-sex marriages.
Attorney General Harris said it is unlikely that an appeal will succeed in overturning Judge Walker’s ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. The appeal’s likelihood of success has been substantially diminished, Attorney General Harris said, “both by the United States Attorney General’s conclusion that classifications based on sexual orientation cannot survive constitutional scrutiny and by this Court’s certification order to the California Supreme Court, which seriously questions the Court’s jurisdiction to decide the merits of the case.”In addition, Attorney General Harris said, “there is no injury that the proponents of Proposition 8 will suffer if same-sex couples are permitted to enter into civil marriages in California.” But as long as the stay on same-sex marriages remains in effect, Attorney General Harris said, the due process and equal protection rights of same-sex couples will continue to be violated, perpetuating unconstitutional discrimination and making a stay of Judge Walker’s ruling legally inappropriate.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also filed a brief today with the same request.
Subscribe to Joe.My.God.![]()
