Business

California cities ban new gas stations in battle to combat climate change

Published

3 years ago

July 11, 2022

California cities ban new gas stations in battle to combat climate change

With out realizing they had been beginning a motion in inexperienced power coverage, leaders of a small Sonoma Valley metropolis appear to have achieved simply that once they questioned the approval course of for a brand new gasoline station — finally halting its growth and others sooner or later.

“We didn’t know what we had been doing, truly,” stated Petaluma Councilwoman D’Lynda Fischer, who led the cost final 12 months to ban new gasoline stations within the metropolis of 60,000. “We didn’t know we had been the primary on this planet after we banned gasoline stations.”

Since Petaluma’s determination, 4 different cities within the Bay Space have adopted go well with, and now, leaders in California’s most car-centric metropolis are hoping to convey the climate-conscious coverage to Southern California.

It opens a brand new entrance in California’s efforts to scale back carbon emissions and already is producing opposition from the gasoline trade, which argues shoppers would undergo.

“It’s actually as much as cities to show round local weather change,” stated Andy Shrader, director of environmental affairs for Los Angeles Metropolis Councilman Paul Koretz, who proposed L.A. work towards its personal ban on new gasoline stations. Whereas the movement hasn’t gained traction, Shrader and different council leaders anticipate a listening to on the matter this summer season.

“L.A.’s huge and damaging ecological footprint actually helped set us on this path,” Shrader stated at a latest convention about gasoline station prohibitions throughout California. “If in case you have lung most cancers, you quit smoking; in case your planet’s on hearth, you cease pouring gasoline on it.”

Whereas Petaluma officers on the time known as its new gasoline pump ban “utterly uncontroversial,” it’s unclear how such a coverage would go over in Los Angeles, a metropolis with about 65 occasions as many individuals and a transportation infrastructure that also closely depends on autos. Lobbyists for gasoline stations stated they are going to oppose the movement in L.A. if it strikes ahead.

However Koretz stated such a ban would higher put together town for a future that doesn’t depend on fossil fuel-powered autos, which California has pledged to cease promoting by 2035.

“Given Gov. Newsom’s timeline to finish the sale of gasoline autos by 2035, gasoline stations are a dying enterprise,” Koretz stated. “Their poisonous chemical compounds take years and thousands and thousands of {dollars} to scrub up.”

In response to the Environmental Safety Company, about half of the nation’s 450,000 brownfields — websites containing hazardous substances, pollution or contaminants — is property compromised by the presence or potential presence of petroleum, a lot of it leaking from outdated gasoline stations.

Jim Moreno, 56, of Los Angeles, takes {a photograph} of the signal exhibiting the worth of gasoline in downtown L.A.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Occasions)

Koretz’s proposal — which calls on town to proceed “main the best way to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions and air air pollution” — would process metropolis officers to draft an ordinance to ban any new fossil-fuel pumps within the metropolis and require that “any expansions of present gasoline stations to be restricted to serving zero-emissions autos and offering non-fuel-related services.”

It could not have an effect on any stations’ present operations.

“Taking the commonsense step of halting new stations and serving to present stations remodel their enterprise fashions ensures we’re defending our small-business house owners and ensuring town doesn’t find yourself footing the invoice to scrub up a bunch of poisonous stranded property within the comparatively close to future,” Koretz stated.

For some, like Karen Huh, who stated she sees 4 gasoline stations at some intersections close to her South L.A. dwelling, the concept is smart.

“I feel we now have sufficient, to be sincere — greater than sufficient,” the 28-year-old stated whereas filling her tank on South Vermont Avenue. She additionally stated, given present gasoline costs, she’s been researching shopping for an electrical or hybrid automobile as soon as she pays off her SUV within the subsequent few months.

Troy Walker, 49, stated he additionally want to swap to an electrical automobile, however their skyrocketing costs have put the concept on the again burner. Nonetheless, he stated he’d haven’t any qualms concerning the metropolis banning new gasoline stations, particularly given what he is aware of about local weather change — which he discovered about throughout a sustainability course.

“If individuals had been extra educated, they’d be extra conscious and would oppose the brand new gasoline stations,” Walker stated, submitting up his tank at a lately opened 7-Eleven on West Century Boulevard, one of many few new stations permitted by L.A. in recent times.

From 2016 to summer season 2021, Los Angeles authorized permits for just one or two new gasoline stations a 12 months, besides in 2017, when three had been authorized, in line with knowledge supplied to The Occasions by Koretz’s workplace. It wasn’t instantly clear whether or not any had been permitted within the final 12 months, as town’s Division of Constructing and Security didn’t instantly fulfill a information request for added data.

“I’m involved concerning the ozone layer for the way forward for my youngsters,” Walker stated. “It’s undoubtedly going to have an effect on the youthful era.”

Brian Mullins, although, stated he’d slightly native officers deal with ramping up electrical energy infrastructure than halting new gasoline stations. He identified the pumps have a restricted lifespan, which implies they finally should be changed.

“How lengthy earlier than you don’t have sufficient gasoline stations?” Mullins, 62, requested, whereas filling up at a station in Westchester.

Koretz’s movement, which was seconded by Councilman Kevin de León, was launched in Might 2021 however tabled by town’s Planning and Land Use Administration Committee in September with out a lot dialogue. Metropolis leaders now say they anticipate a full listening to in August.

5 neighborhood councils — Westside, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park and North Westwood — submitted statements in assist of the movement, at the least three of which voted unanimously to assist the proposal, metropolis information present. Just one particular person addressed the concept throughout public feedback in September, questioning why town wouldn’t “lead by instance and convert the whole metropolis’s fleet to nonfossil fuel-burning earlier than [officials] make life tougher for everybody else within the metropolis?”

Not less than one different close by metropolis — West Hollywood — can also be contemplating proscribing new gasoline stations. Its metropolis council authorized a directive in April 2021 for officers to judge the plan earlier than growing a regulation. West Hollywood spokesperson Sheri Lunn stated the proposal is ready for subcommittee evaluate, and if approvals proceed, it might see a full council vote by the top of the 12 months.

“Los Angeles is totally saturated with gasoline stations already and some kind of stations received’t make any distinction in general value.”

— Andy Shrader, director of environmental affairs for L.A. Metropolis Councilman Paul Koretz

Los Angeles County had simply over 2,000 gasoline stations in 2020, in line with knowledge from the California Vitality Fee. The fee doesn’t observe city-level knowledge.

In 2020, about 2,750 million gallons of gasoline had been bought in L.A. County, in line with fee knowledge — about 3 times that of another county in California. In 2019, earlier than the pandemic affected journey and commutes, L.A. County gasoline gross sales totaled 3,600 million gallons, state knowledge present.

As extra cities contemplate the bans, the California Fuels & Comfort Alliance, which lobbies for gasoline station house owners, will proceed opposing the proposals, stated Sam Bayless, the alliance’s coverage director. He primarily worries about how market limits might additional improve gasoline costs and the way an outright ban might have an effect on a metropolis’s growth.

“Not with the ability to serve the individuals who reside there, who’re commuting to work, choosing up their youngsters from soccer follow … can be a disservice to the people who find themselves new to the realm,” Bayless stated.

Whereas he known as the way forward for gasoline stations an advanced subject given the local weather disaster, he stated they’re nonetheless an “important service,” as electrical and different power sources haven’t crammed the hole, particularly for low- and middle-income Californians.

However opposition hasn’t affected the motion’s success for leaders in Rohnert Park and Sebastopol, each small cities in Sonoma Valley that handed new gasoline station bans, in addition to neighboring cities American Canyon and Calistoga. Officers in different California cities, in addition to in New York and British Columbia, have stated they’re growing comparable laws, motivated to restrict reliance on fossil-fuel infrastructure.

“We can not even suppose twice concerning the banning of the gasoline station,” Rohnert Park Mayor Jackie Elward stated. “Why would we wish extra fossil gasoline pollutions with pricey cleanup of extra gasoline stations when we now have sufficient, and California received’t even have gasoline automobiles on the market by 2035?”

However Kevin Slagle, a spokesperson for Western States Petroleum Assn., which lobbies on behalf of oil and gasoline firms, stated he worries how bans can have “unintended penalties.”

Bans will simply make it more durable for shoppers to seek out gasoline, Slagle stated. “Taking what we’re dealing with at this time — lots of demand and never lots of provide — in case you begin taking stations out, new and present, in case you make a commodity harder to seek out, that usually means greater prices,” he stated.

Shrader stated the concept that banning gasoline stations might have an effect on gasoline costs is “nonsense.”

“Los Angeles is totally saturated with gasoline stations already, and some kind of stations received’t make any distinction in general value,” he stated.

Leaders with Stand.earth, an environmental advocacy group pushing the gasoline station bans, argue that air and soil air pollution — which disproportionately have an effect on low-income communities of coloration — in addition to the tough course of to scrub up deserted pumps must be purpose sufficient to ban new stations.

“The true query now that’s arising as we ban new gasoline stations: What will we do with our outdated gasoline station websites?” stated Fischer, the Petaluma councilmember. “As a result of they’re going to take quite a bit to scrub up. … That’s the subsequent wave of this: serious about what’s to come back.”

Business

U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Chronic Delays

Published

2 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Chronic Delays

The federal government sued Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, accusing the airline of harming passengers who flew on two routes that were plagued by consistent delays in 2022.

In a lawsuit, the Transportation Department said it was seeking more than $2.1 million in civil penalties over the flights between airports in Chicago and Oakland, Calif., as well as Baltimore and Cleveland, that were chronically delayed over five months that year.

“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”

Carriers are barred from operating unrealistic flight schedules, which the Transportation Department considers an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice. A “chronically delayed” flight is defined as one that operates at least 10 times a month and is late by at least 30 minutes more than half the time.

In a statement, Southwest said it was “disappointed” that the department chose to sue over the flights that took place more than two years ago. The airline said it had operated 20 million flights since the Transportation Department enacted its policy against chronically delayed flights more than a decade ago, with no other violations.

“Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” Southwest said.

Last year, Southwest canceled fewer than 1 percent of its flights, but more than 22 percent arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines all had fewer such delays.

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In it, the government said that a Southwest flight from Chicago to Oakland arrived late 19 out of 25 trips in April 2022, with delays averaging more than an hour. The consistent delays continued through August of that year, averaging an hour or more. On another flight, between Baltimore and Cleveland, average delay times reached as high as 96 minutes per month during the same period. In a statement, the department said that Southwest, rather than poor weather or air traffic control, was responsible for more than 90 percent of the delays.

“Holding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans,” the department said in the lawsuit.

The government said Southwest had violated federal rules 58 times in August 2022 after four months of consistent delays. Each violation faces a civil penalty of up to $37,377, or more than $2.1 million in total, according to the lawsuit.

The Transportation Department on Wednesday also said that it had penalized Frontier Airlines for chronically delayed flights, fining the airline $650,000. Half that amount was paid to the Treasury and the rest is slated to be forgiven if the airline has no more chronically delayed flights over the next three years.

This month, the department ordered JetBlue Airways to pay a $2 million fine for failing to address similarly delayed flights over a span of more than a year ending in November 2023, with half the money going to passengers affected by the delays.

Business

California drops zero-emission truck rules after inaction by Biden's EPA

Published

3 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

California drops zero-emission truck rules after inaction by Biden's EPA

California government’s plan to phase out heavy-duty diesel trucks and diesel locomotives has been derailed.

The ambitious plan aimed at reducing local pollution and global greenhouse gases required special waivers from the federal government. The Biden administration hadn’t granted the waivers as of this week, and rather than face almost certain denial by the incoming Trump administration, the state withdrew its waiver request.

That means the far-reaching regulations issued by the California Air Resources Board in 2022 to ban new diesel truck sales by 2036 and force fleet owners to take them off the road by 2042 won’t be enforced. Known as the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, the idea was to replace those trucks with electric and hydrogen-powered versions, which dramatically reduce emissions but are currently two to three times more expensive.

“While we are disappointed that U.S. EPA was unable to act on all the requests in time, the withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said in a prepared statement.

Environmentalists reacted with deep disappointment.

“To meet basic standards for healthy air, California has to shift to zero-emissions trucks and trains in the coming years. Diesel is one of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution for human health,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a prepared statement. “We’ll be working tirelessly in the coming years — and calling on Gov. [Gavin] Newsom, state legislators, and our air quality regulators to join us — to clean up our freight system and fix the mess [U.S.] EPA’s inaction has created.”

The trucking industry is pleased at the result, but hopes to continue working with California on environmental issues.

“This rule was flawed, and was not reflective of reality,” said Matt Schrap, chief executive at the Harbor Trucking Assn. “Ideally this is an opportunity to take a step back and look at a program that would be more sustainable.”

Trucking representatives had filed a lawsuit to block the rules, arguing they would cause irreparable harm to the industry and the wider economy. Train operators said no zero-emission locomotives exist on the commercial market.

Schrap said “the most important thing is the EPA could have issued the waiver and they didn’t.”

The EPA said it acknowledges California’s withdrawal of the waiver requests “and as a result is taking no further action on CARB’s prior requests and considers these matters closed.”

President-elect Donald Trump is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, making it unlikely that his administration would have approved the California waivers. The state could, however, pursue waivers at some point in the future.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set its own air standards, and other states are allowed to follow California’s lead. But federal government waivers are required. Most of California’s waivers have been granted, including approval in December of a California ban on new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.

Business

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump’s Inauguration

Published

10 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump’s Inauguration

Bezos, Zuckerberg and Coke at the inauguration

Corporate America had already raced to donate big sums to Donald Trump’s record-breaking inaugural fund. Now some of its leaders appear eager to jockey for prominent positions at the inauguration next week.

It’s a new reminder that for some of the nation’s biggest businesses, forging close ties to a president-elect who is promising hard-hitting policies like tariffs is a priority this time around.

Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to be on the inauguration dais, according to NBC News, alongside Elon Musk and several cabinet picks.

The presence of Musk isn’t a surprise, given the Tesla chief’s significant support of and huge influence over Trump. But the other tech moguls have only more recently been seen as supporters of the administration. (Indeed, Bezos frequently sparred with Trump during his first presidential term.)

It’s the latest effort by Bezos and Zuckerberg to burnish their Trump credentials. At the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos — whose Amazon has faced scrutiny under the Biden administration and whose Blue Origin is hoping to win government rocket contracts — said that he was “very hopeful” about Trump’s efforts to reduce regulation.

And Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to Meta’s content moderation policy, including relaxing restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including L.G.B.T.Q. people that won praise from Trump and other conservatives. On the inauguration front, Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a reception alongside the longtime Trump backers Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta and Todd Ricketts.

Both tech moguls have visited Mar-a-Lago since the election, with Zuckerberg having done so more than once.

Coca-Cola took a different tack. The drinks giant’s C.E.O., James Quincey, gave Trump what an aide called the “first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”

More broadly, business leaders want a piece of the inauguration action. The Times previously reported that the Trump inaugural fund had surpassed $170 million, a record, and that even major donors have been wait-listed for events.

Others are throwing unofficial events around Washington, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg, with tickets starting at $5,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It’s a reminder that C.E.O.s are reading the room, and preparing their companies for a president who has proposed creating an “External Revenue Service” to oversee what he has promised will be wide-ranging tariffs.

David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who’s hosting a pre-inauguration event, told The Journal, “This is the world order, and if we’re going to succeed, we need to get with the world order.”

In other Trump news: The president-elect is expected to appear via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts on Inauguration Day, according to Semafor.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Investors brace for the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that inflation ticked up last month, most likely because of climbing food and fuel costs. Global bond markets have been rattled as slow progress on slowing inflation has prompted the Fed to slash its forecast for interest rate cuts.

More Trump cabinet picks will appear before the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the choice for secretary of state, is expected to field questions about his views on the Middle East, Ukraine and China, but is expected to be confirmed. Russell Vought, the pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will most likely be asked about his advocacy for drastically shrinking the federal government, a key Trump objective. And Sean Duffy, the Fox Business host chosen to lead the Transportation Department, will probably face questions on how he would oversee matters including aviation safety and autonomous vehicles, the latter of which is a priority for Elon Musk.

Meta plans to lay off another 5 percent of its employees. Mark Zuckerberg, the tech giant’s C.E.O., told staff members to prepare for “extensive performance-based cuts” as the company braces for “an intense year.” The social media giant faces intense competition in the race to commercialize artificial intelligence.

A new bill would give TikTok a reprieve from a ban in the United States. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he planned to introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would give the video platform 270 additional days to be divested from its Chinese parent, ByteDance before being blacklisted. It’s the latest effort to buy TikTok time, as the app faces a Jan. 19 deadline set by a law; President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the potential ban as well.

A question of succession

JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, the giant money manager, just reported earnings. (In short: Both handily beat analyst expectations.)

But the Wall Street giants are likely to face questioning on a particular issue on Wednesday: Which top lieutenants are in line to replace their larger-than-life C.E.O.s, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink.

Who’s out:

Daniel Pinto, who had long been Dimon’s right-hand man, said he would officially drop his responsibilities as JPMorgan’s C.O.O. in June and retire at the end of 2026. Jenn Piepszak, the co-C.E.O. of the company’s core commercial and investment bank, has become C.O.O.
And Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business and a top contender to succeed Fink, is planning to leave, according to news reports.

What Wall Street is gossiping about JPMorgan: Even in taking the C.O.O. role, JPMorgan said that Piepszak wasn’t interested in succeeding Dimon “at this time.” DealBook hears that while she genuinely appears not to want to pursue the top job, the phrasing covers her in case she changes her mind.

For now, that means the most likely candidates for the top spot are Marianne Lake, the company’s head of consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, the other co-head of the commercial and investment bank; and Doug Petno, a co-head of global banking.

The buzz around BlackRock: Wiedman reportedly didn’t want to keep waiting to succeed Fink and is expected to seek a C.E.O. position elsewhere. (So sudden was his departure that he’s forfeiting about $8 million worth of stock options and, according to The Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have another job lined up yet.)

Fink said on CNBC on Wednesday that Wiedman’s departure had been in the works for some time, with the executive having expressed a desire to leave about six months ago.

Other candidates to take over for Fink include Martin Small, BlackRock’s C.F.O.; Rob Goldstein, the firm’s C.O.O.; and Rachel Lord, the head of international.

But Dimon and Fink aren’t going anywhere just yet. Dimon, 68, said only last year that he might not be in the role in five years. And Fink, 72, said in July that he was working on succession planning: “When I do believe the next generation is ready, I’m out.”

The S.E.C. gets in a final shot at Musk

Another battle between Elon Musk and the S.E.C. erupted on Tuesday, with the agency suing the tech mogul over his 2022 purchase of Twitter.

It’s unclear what happens to the lawsuit once President-elect Donald Trump, who counts Musk as a close ally, takes office. But the agency’s reputation as an independent watchdog may be at stake.

A recap: The S.E.C. accused Musk of violating securities laws in his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

The agency said that Musk had failed to disclose his Twitter ownership stake for a pivotal 11-day stretch before revealing his intentions to purchase the company. That breach allowed him to buy up at least $150 million worth of Twitter shares at a lower price — to the detriment of existing shareholders, the agency argues.

The S.E.C. isn’t just seeking to fine Musk. It wants him to pay back the windfall. “That’s unusual,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane Law School, told DealBook.

Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, called the latest action a “sham” and accused the agency of waging a “multiyear campaign of harassment” against him.

The showdown sets up a tough question for the S.E.C. Will Paul Atkins, the president-elect’s widely respected pick to lead the agency, drop the case? Such a move could call the bedrock principle of S.E.C. independence into question.

Jay Clayton, who led the agency during Trump’s first term, earned the respect of the business community for running it in a largely drama-free manner. It was under Clayton that the S.E.C. sued Musk over his statements about taking Tesla private.

Musk, who is set to become Trump’s cost-cutting czar and is expected to have office space in the White House complex, has called for the “comprehensive overhaul” of agencies like the S.E.C. The billionaire said he would also like to see “punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”

In related news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of cheating its depositors out of $2 billion in interest payments.

THE SPEED READ

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The Justice Department sued KKR, accusing the investment giant of withholding information during government reviews for several of its deals. KKR filed a countersuit. (Bloomberg)
OpenAI added Adebayo Ogunlesi, the billionaire co-founder of the infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners, to its board. (FT)

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