A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.
Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.
TUBERCULOSIS HAS OVERTAKEN COVID AS WORLD’S DEADLIEST INFECTIOUS DISEASE
While policymakers in Texas banned health departments from promoting COVID vaccines and Florida’s surgeon general bucked medical consensus to recommend against the vaccine, governmental bodies across the country haven’t blocked the vaccines outright.
“I’m not aware of anything else like this,” said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. She said health departments have stopped offering the vaccine because of cost or low demand, but not based on “a judgment of the medical product itself.”
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The six-county district along the Idaho-Oregon border includes three counties in the Boise metropolitan area. Demand for COVID vaccines in the health district has declined — with 1,601 given in 2021 to 64 so far in 2024. The same is true for other vaccines: Idaho has the highest childhood vaccination exemption rate in the nation, and last year, the Southwest District Health Department rushed to contain a rare measles outbreak that sickened 10.
On Oct. 22, the health department’s board voted 4-3 in favor of the ban — despite Southwest’s medical director testifying to the vaccine’s necessity.
A syringe lies next to vials of COVID-19 booster vaccines at an inoculation station in Jackson, Miss., Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
“Our request of the board is that we would be able to carry and offer those (vaccines), recognizing that we always have these discussions of risks and benefits,” Dr. Perry Jansen said at the meeting. “This is not a blind, everybody-gets-a-shot approach. This is a thoughtful approach.”
Opposite Jansen’s plea were more than 290 public comments, many of which called for an end to vaccine mandates or taxpayer funding of the vaccines, neither of which are happening in the district. At the meeting, many people who spoke are nationally known for making the rounds to testify against COVID vaccines, including Dr. Peter McCullough, a Texas cardiologist who sells “contagion emergency kits” that include ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine — drugs that have not been approved to treat COVID-19 and can have dangerous side effects.
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Board Chairman Kelly Aberasturi was familiar with many of the voices who wanted the ban, especially from earlier local protests of pandemic measures.
Aberasturi, who told The Associated Press that he’s skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines and national public health leaders, said in the meeting and in an interview with the AP that he was supportive of but “disappointed” in the board’s decision.
He said the board had overstepped the relationship between patients and their doctors — and possibly opened a door to blocking other vaccines or treatments.
Board members in favor of the decision argued people can get vaccinated elsewhere, and that providing the shots was equivalent to signing off on their safety. (Some people may be reluctant to get vaccinated or boosted because of misinformation about the shots despite evidence that they’re safe and have saved millions of lives.)
The people getting vaccinated at the health department — including people without housing, people who are homebound and those in long-term care facilities or in the immigration process — had no other options, Jansen and Aberasturi said.
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“I’ve been homeless in my lifetime, so I understand how difficult it can be when you’re … trying to get by and get ahead,” Aberasturi said. “This is where we should be stepping in and helping.
“But we have some board members who have never been there, so they don’t understand what it’s like.”
State health officials have said that they “recommend that people consider the COVID-19 vaccine.” Idaho health department spokesperson AJ McWhorter declined to comment on “public health district business,” but noted that COVID-19 vaccines are still available at community health centers for people who are uninsured.
Aberasturi said he plans to ask at the next board meeting if the health department can at least be allowed to vaccinate older patients and residents of long-term care facilities, adding that the board is supposed to be caring for the “health and well-being” of the district’s residents. “But I believe the way we went about this thing is we didn’t do that due diligence.”
The Interior Department on Friday kick-started the process to streamline permitting for oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Interior said it had received a petition for rulemaking from the Alaska Oil and Gas Association earlier this month. In response, the department plans to launch a 45-day public scoping period as the first step toward permitting oil projects in the reserve more quickly.
The AOGA petition argues that the environmental impacts of oil developments in the NPR-A, such as ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, have been “exhaustively analyzed” and similar new proposals shouldn’t have to undergo the same review.
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“The rulemaking will establish pre-defined criteria for defined and repeatable common activities with similar environmental effects that, when met by an applicant, will result in streamlined permitting for qualifying production sites,” Interior wrote in a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement.
Paradise Valley 16-year-old Gadin Arun is one of three American boys who helped lead Team USA to victory at Junior Davis Cup Qualifying in Canada. The Junior Davis Cup, tennis’s premier international team event, will be held later this year, at a time and location yet to be announced. Arun, who is homeschooled, is the 26th ranked American in his age group, and second in the Southwest, according to the USTA.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
The Chevron refinery in Richmond is located behind a nearby neighborhood on Feb. 21, 2024. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California is considering handing oil refineries and other major polluters billions of dollars in free emission allowances just as the state says carbon reductions need to come faster than ever.
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In the last six months, two refineries have closed and gas prices have topped an average of $6 a gallon as the Iran-Israel war sent oil markets into turmoil. The oil and gas sector spent $10.3 million lobbying Sacramento in the first three months of the year, according to lobbying filings, with the Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron accounting for the bulk of it.
The result is a new proposal before the California Air Resources Board that would provide as much as $4 billion in new free emission permits to companies with half slated for the fossil fuel industry in exchange for commitments to invest in clean energy.
Environmentalists warn the proposal is a giveaway to Big Oil that would weaken California’s “cap-and-invest” program just as the state is relying on it to cut emissions and fund climate, housing and other programs. Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the changes are necessary to keep the state’s carbon market “durable” and “affordable” amid mounting refinery closures.
The fight over California’s carbon market has exposed the political tensions at the heart of Newsom’s energy transition agenda. California is trying to preserve its climate ambitions while keeping gasoline affordable for drivers already facing the highest prices in the country. Critics say the air board’s proposal accomplishes neither goal.
“We are really concerned that this would significantly kneecap the program,” said Chloe Ames, a policy adviser with NextGen Policy.
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Weakening the backstop
Through California’s 13-year-old carbon market, major polluting companies must buy permits for every ton of greenhouse gases they emit, with the state capping total emissions year by year. Each permit is worth real money and companies can sell the ones they don’t use. The program is considered California’s climate backstop — the only state policy that sets a firm limit on greenhouse gas emissions.
At the heart of the dispute with environmentalists is a proposed subsidy program carved out of that carbon market. The air board, if it approves the proposal on May 28, would create a new pool of free pollution permits for refineries, cement plants and other big companies that pledge to invest in clean energy and efficiency projects.
The pool would be capped at 118.3 million permits — the same number the air board has said must come off the market for California to hit its 2030 climate target. Environmentalists say the proposal risks wiping out those reductions.
Berkeley energy economist Meredith Fowlie, who chairs an independent committee that oversees the carbon market, wrote in a recent analysis that the design would give qualifying refineries more free permits than they need to cover their emissions.
“One could use the word generous,” Fowlie said.
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Rajinder Sahota, the air board official overseeing the program, said the proposal would ensure emissions reductions. The new permits, she said, would only go to companies undertaking clean energy and efficiency projects and would be limited, temporary and rescinded if companies misuse them. The plan is meant to help keep refineries operating in California at a time of uncertainty, she added.
“We want to make sure that there’s reliable, affordable fuel for California consumers while the demand persists,” Sahota said.
But environmentalists say the air board has built in almost no accountability for how companies invest in those projects. Katelyn Roedner Sutter, state director for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the proposal “is based on proposed investment, not any guaranteed reduction.”
“That’s a red flag,” she said.
A climate money crunch
Quarterly auction revenue for state programs could drop from roughly $4 billion a year to about $2 billion under the proposal, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
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Sen. John Laird, the state Senate budget chair and a co-author of California’s original 2006 climate law, warned at a May 6 hearing that the proposal “flies against many things we negotiated just last fall” with the governor and could put the carbon market deal “back on the table.”
Not all lawmakers are critical. Assemblymembers Jacqui Irwin and Cottie Petrie-Norris, who respectively chair climate and energy committees, said the proposal “reflects the Legislature’s focus on affordability,” and urged the board to proceed “without delay.”
They pointed to an increase in the Climate Credit, the twice-yearly rebate that the carbon market funds on Californians’ utility bills; a UC Santa Barbara analysis, however, found the new subsidy could shrink the credit by as much as $1.7 billion under the proposal.
A separate, bipartisan group including Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat, and Senator Suzette Valladares, a Republican, argues the purpose of the carbon market is to cut emissions, not raise money for programs.
Newsom struck an eleventh-hour deal with lawmakers last year that extended the state’s carbon market through 2045 and set the order of which state programs get auction money first.
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Under that plan, California’s high-speed rail project receives $1 billion a year before many other programs. Lawmakers also carved out a $1 billion annual pool for priorities they control themselves, but Newsom in January proposed committing that money to wildfire spending and other programs.
Last in line are programs lawmakers have spent years building into California’s climate agenda: affordable housing and transit-oriented development meant to reduce driving and climate pollution, rail and bus service, wildfire resilience, clean drinking water in poor communities and neighborhood pollution monitoring.
Newsom unveiled a revised state budget on May 14 that did not reflect the potential drop in carbon market revenue. Laird, in an interview, said the administration told him the revenue drop wouldn’t show up in the coming fiscal year.
Laird said he planned to “ground truth” that assessment in the weeks ahead. The hit “would still be a big hit the year after this budget year,” he added.
Big Oil’s biggest target
California’s carbon market became a central focus of the oil industry’s lobbying efforts after the air board released a January proposal sharply reducing free pollution permits for industry.
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Seven of the 10 highest-spending oil and gas lobbying groups in California pushed state officials on the proposal, state filings show. The petroleum association and Chevron mounted some of the industry’s most aggressive lobbying, pressing lawmakers, the governor’s office, the air board and the California Energy Commission on the plan.
The April plan raised free permits for most industries through 2030 above the January version, but deferred decisions on permits after 2030 to a future rulemaking.
Jim Stanley, a spokesman for the petroleum association, said the group has been pressing lawmakers, regulators and the governor’s office about “the potential consequences of a poorly structured cap-and-invest program.”
Chevron spokesman Ross Allen declined to comment beyond letters Chevron filed with the air board. Chevron initially warned the proposal threatened refinery survival in California. After last month’s revisions, the company is continuing to push for additional protections.
Zach Leary, a lobbyist for the petroleum association, said California needs to go further than even its latest proposal. He wants California to lock in a higher level of free permits permanently.
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“The state is acknowledging that affordability and ambition are not getting along very well right now,” Leary said.
Eddie Ahn, executive director of Brightline Defense, oversees community air sensors in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, Mission and South of Market neighborhoods funded through the state’s community air protection program. That program is among those that could lose state money if carbon market auctions decline under the proposal.
“If the funding is cut off, then convening groups of people on a monthly basis — that goes away,” Ahn said. “It means frontline communities get disconnected from environmental policy.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
