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New tactic to close Aliso Canyon gas storage facility: Switch more neighbors to electric appliances

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New tactic to close Aliso Canyon gas storage facility: Switch more neighbors to electric appliances

Ever since a historic, methane-spewing blowout in October 2015, local lawmakers, residents and activists have been pressuring state regulators and officials, including the governor, to close the Aliso Canyon gas storage field.

The leak at the Porter Ranch facility lasted for 121 days and pumped more than 100,000 tons of methane and other chemicals into the sky. It was the largest gas leak in U.S. history, and neighbors complained of headaches, nausea and other symptoms. Meanwhile, the facility, owned by Southern California Gas Co., remains open.

Now, activists and supporters are changing tactics. Instead of focusing primarily on the facility’s closure, they also want residents to adopt green technologies, and they’re using a hefty SoCalGas settlement to help make it happen.

At a news conference Wednesday in front of the gas company’s regional headquarters in Chatsworth, state Sen. Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) and state Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) implored community members to hasten Aliso Canyon’s closure by consuming less gas and turning to electric appliances.

The duo, along with community activists, announced that funds from the $71-million settlement between SoCalGas and its regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission, would be used to further those efforts as the commission deliberates on a plan to potentially close Aliso Canyon in the distant future.

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“We still believe the facility can be closed,” Stern said, “but this funding is really designed to help average homeowners, people who send their kids to school in the Valley, take the closure of Aliso Canyon into their own hands.”

The funding is expected to be broken up into four chunks: $40 million to push for replacement of home and water heaters now powered by natural gas, $15 million to make schoolyards greener; $14 million to combat extreme heat and aid community resilience programs, and $2 million for community outreach and decarbonization education.

“This is a significant step forward on delivering some level of justice and creating healthier and more sustainable communities and futures for the communities that were impacted by the Aliso Canyon disaster,” Schiavo said.

The $40 million will go toward a statewide program that promotes the use of electric residential heat pumps for space and water heating. Although every homeowner within SoCalGas is eligible for a $1,000 rebate, the program will give special priority to those in the Aliso Canyon-impacted communities of Porter Ranch, Granada Hills, Northridge, Chatsworth, North Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, Winnetka, Lake Balboa, Van Nuys and West Hills.

“Heat pumps can create safer and healthier homes and communities and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and the market is increasingly ready to meet the rise in demand,” Robin Tung, associate director of communications for the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said at the news conference. The group is one of several working with the affected Aliso Canyon community pushing for electric over gas options and appliances.

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All other monies will only be available specifically to Aliso Canyon-impacted communities.

As for green schoolyards, the $15 million will be aimed at increasing green space, reducing asphalt and blacktops for affected cities, counties, school districts, special districts and nonprofits. The $14 million in extreme heat aid will support senior community centers with adequate and efficient air conditioning.

The settlement funding these endeavors is separate from a $1.8-billion agreement settlement between Aliso Canyon neighbors and SoCalGas in 2021, or other payments and fines paid by SoCalGas and its parent, Sempra Energy.

SoCalGas spokesperson Chris Gilbride, who was at the news conference, did not offer a direct comment on the settlement.

He did note that SoCalGas “share[s] the commission’s view that Aliso Canyon is a necessary part of California’s energy infrastructure today.”

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California Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo listens as California Sen. Henry Stern speaks about the $71-million settlement check presented to members of the communities affected by the Alison Canyon Well failure in front of the Southern California Gas Company in Chatsworth on Wednesday.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The news conference comes after the CPUC released a proposal Nov. 13 that could lead to closing Aliso Canyon years from now. Local activists and politicians criticized the plan, saying it didn’t provide a fast enough or clear enough timeline to shut down the site.

The proposal calls for moving ahead with closing the site once Southern California’s demand for natural gas declines to a level at which peak demand can be served without Aliso Canyon.

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According to the plan, the CPUC would initiate proceedings to review and potentially close the facility only when the peak demand forecast for a date two years in the future is below 4,121 million metric cubic feet per day.

Peak demand, currently forecast at 4,618 million metric cubic feet per day, is expected to drop to 4,197 million in 2030, according to the CPUC.

Stern estimated the earliest the facility could be closed under the proposal would be 2039.

Activists such as Matt Pakucko, president of the advocacy group Save Porter Ranch, which has fought to close the storage facility since shortly after the leak, said SoCalGas and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s framing on the issue has always been wrong.

“This isn’t an energy issue, it’s a health issue,” Pakucko said.

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The closure plan will be discussed at the commission’s Dec. 19 meeting in San Francisco. The public can attend in person or virtually.

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Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan

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Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan

Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.

In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”

“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”

Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.

In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.

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The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.

“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.

Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.

The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.

Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.

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Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.

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Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

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Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.

The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.

The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.

The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.

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It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.

However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.

Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.

Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.

“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.

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In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”

The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.

“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.

Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.

Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.

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Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.

The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.

But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.

Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.

A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.

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“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .

Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.

Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.

Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.

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How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.

But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.

While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.

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“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.

It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”

Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.

“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.

The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.

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Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.

Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”

Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.

Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.

“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”

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For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.

“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”

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