David Seaborg, a Clinton alternate delegate from Walnut Creek and the son of the late Glenn Seaborg, a Nobel Prize winner who discovered plutonium, was told his three submissions to the Democratic Party’s national platform made it into the document.

“I have great news!” said Seaborg Tuesday afternoon when I caught up with him at a reception for Californians at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The party is scheduled to adopt the 94-page platform this week.

Seaborg has been lobbying for more than a month for three platform planks: (1) strong greenhouse gas emission reduction language; (2) protection of the world’s most biodiverse habitats and (3) nuclear nonproliferation agreements with the international community.

“I have to examine the document to check out the precise wording but I’m very optimistic,” Seaborg said.

Seaborg, who runs a nonprofit for rainforest protection, hopes to use the platform language as leverage in his ongoing lobbying of Congress for federal environmental legislation.

Go Green Initiative founder Jill Buck of Pleasanton has launched her own Internet radio show called “Go Green Radio” on Voice America.

Tune in Friday mornings here from 9-10 a.m. to listen to Buck conduct interviews — usually from her kitchen — on a variety of environmental issues. (The shows are also archived on-line.) This morning, she interviewed director of sustainable development for Time Inc. and a  Shanghai company about their efforts to make their industries more environmentally friendly.

Buck ran unsuccessfully in 2006 for the California Assembly but the former Naval officer and mother of three has become very active in state Republican politics. She will be a delegate for presumed GOP nominee John McCain at the national Republican Convention in St. Paul in September and is a member of the executive board for the California Republican Party.

Buck argues that smart environmental policies and conservative politics are not mutually exclusive and in fact, Republicans should embrace the wise use of natural resources.

(She was photographed at the Contra Costa Times offices in Walnut Creek, Calif. August 8, 2008, by Karl Mondon/Contra Costa Times)

We can rest easy and forget about the horrors awaiting us from the impacts of global warming. Captain Kirk is declaring war on the geo-disaster-in-the-making and as we all know, he has defeated far worse out there in the universe.

The Sierra Club announces this morning it will team up with actor William Shatner, of the famed Star Trek series (one of my favorite shows of all time, I confess), to fight global warming.

I feel better already. Really.

Read more for the full press release. Read the rest of this entry »

The environmental community is paying out some bucks to help Rep. Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton win re-election in November.

The Sierra Club will run radio ads today through Friday in six congressional districts nationwide where Democrats are running in competitive races against Republican challengers, including that of McNerney.

Environmental PACs spent millions in 2006 but they were chiefly motivated by an intense loathing of the incumbent, Republican Richard Pombo of Tracy. Some folks wondered whether the greenies would bother to come back.

Titled “Rolling In It,” the 60-second ad encourages members of Congress to fight subsidies to “Big Oil” and comes just before major oil companies announce their profits starting with BP on Tuesday.

McNerney is running against Republican challenger Dean Andal of Stockton, pictured on the right, a former Assemblyman and member of the state Board of Equalization.

Read more for the full Sierra Club press release. Read the rest of this entry »

Five Northern California members of Congress issued a joint statement opposing talk of building a peripheral canal as a means to solve the crisis in the Delta.

The comments come after a Public Policy Institute study released last week suggested that such a canal is worth serious consideration.

Here’s what the legislators had to say, including East Bay reps. Jerry McNerney, Ellen Tauscher and George Miller:

BAY-DELTA DEMOCRATS RESPOND TO NEW REPORTS, EMPHASIZE NEED FOR PROTECTIONS

WASHINGTON, DC - A spate of reports on the Bay-Delta prompted five Democratic members of Congress to reiterate their calls for prompt and aggressive steps to protect the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystem, restore the state’s salmon fisheries, and avoid being sidetracked by the politically divisive peripheral canal proposal advocated in one recent report.

Last week, a controversial report released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reignited the peripheral canal debate, while two other reports and a federal judicial ruling made clear that immediate steps must be taken to restore Bay-Delta health and the state’s salmon fisheries.

The five lawmakers — Democratic Reps. Ellen Tauscher, George Miller, Doris Matsui, Mike Thompson, and Jerry McNerney — represent areas of California from as far north as the Trinity River to the Sacramento River watershed and many Delta communities. They issued the following comments.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Alamo): “The solution to the Delta’s problems will not come from new plumbing alone - we must reduce the amount of water we divert from the Delta, invest in alternative water supplies, and reform the management of our water supply systems. We need a careful analysis of the project proposed by this new PPIC report before moving forward. Congress and the federal government must do their part to ensure that the Central Valley Project is managed to restore the state’s fisheries and reduce unsustainable water allocations. This new report from the PPIC should not be used as a reason to short-circuit the planning processes already underway.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Contra Costa Times colleague Mike Taugher has just posted a story about a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California where experts conclude that the highly prickly proposed Peripheral Canal offers the best option for the failing Delta environment:

A team of experts says the best way to fix California’s troubled water system is to build a controversial peripheral canal that would deliver water around the Delta rather than through it.

Their report concludes a canal would be the cheapest economic alternative and the best choice for the environment short of cutting off altogether Delta water shipments to the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

“Ultimately, there are two choices here: no exports or a peripheral canal. If there are no exports, the biggest losers are the Bay Area (residents),” said Jay Lund, a UC Davis engineering professor and one of the report’s co-authors.

Click here to read the full report.

Historically, Contra Costa County politicians have vehemently opposed such a canal on the grounds that it would allow saltwater intrusion into the water its residents drink.

Also, as Taugher writes, voters rejected a canal in 1982 because of overwhelming opposition in the Bay Area and the rest of Northern California, where there was deep concern the canal would allow Southern California to greatly increase the amount of water it imports from the north.

But California is grappling with a drought, a Delta in crisis and an ever-expanding population, all factors that could alter the politics around state water policy.

Gasoline doesn’t come in red or blue and with folks of all political stripes paying high prices at the pump, Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, (pictured on the right) and his GOP challenger Dean Andal of Stockton (pictured on far right) are both talking this week about how to ease the pain.

McNerney repeated this week his call for President George Bush to open up the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve and dump more oil on the market in an effort to drop prices.

The reserve was created after the gas crisis of the 1970s and is intended to help the U.S. survive a major interruption in the supply of oil. It holds roughly 700 million barrels of oil.

“President Bush is sitting on over 700 million barrels of oil, purchased with tax dollars, in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” McNerney said. “Releasing oil from the reserve will help bring down the cost of gasoline and aid families who are struggling with the cost of filling up their tanks.”

Andal also called on the president to release some of the reserves and immediately embark on an increase in domestic drilling and exploration. Bush recently lifted a moratorium on offshore oil drilling although it was a symbolic gesture as Congress has maintained laws barring the practice.

Andal does not, however, support drilling off the California coastline where it is highly unpopular but said the nation should focus on areas where public support is attainable.

McNerney opposes any expansion of domestic drilling, arguing that oil companies already hold leases on 68 million acres that contain 81 percent of untapped U.S. oil supplies in the ground.

Unfortunately for the campaigns of McNerney and Andal and everyone who buys gasoline, neither of these options, more drilling or opening the spigot at the reserve, will lower prices at the pump, says UC Berkeley Energy Institute Director Severin Borenstein.

Oil prices are determined on the global market, and the Petroleum Reserve holds about a relative pittance, or about eight days worth of the world’s oil consumption.

“You might drive prices down a bit, probably less than $10 a barrel, but you would begin to deplete the supply rather rapidly,” Borenstein said. “The reserve wasn’t designed to control high prices.”

Expanded domestic drilling won’t add a single drop of oil to the supply for at five to 10 five years and probably far longer if expected lawsuits hold up projects, Borenstein said.

“Everyone wants to appear to be doing something,” Borenstein said.

Reps. George Miller of Martinez and Pete Stark of Fremont have co-authored, among others, a bill that would merge the San Francisco Bay’s seven national wildlife refuges including the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge .

Lawmakers believe a single, large refuge could better compete for federal dollars.

Read more for the press release. Read the rest of this entry »

Passage of state Propositions 98 or 99, both on the June 3 primary ballot, would generate a rash of lawsuits, predicts a new 60-page study of the measures by the Berkeley Law Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

Prop. 98 would bar the government’s use of eminent domain to transfer the land to a private entity and end rent controls. It’s supported by taxpayers groups and apartment owners. Prop. 99 is less restrictive prohibition on the use of eminent domain, which bans its use to seize homeowner-occupied residences. It’s supported by county and city associations.

Read more for the press release on the study.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Bay Area water recycling bill authored by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, has passed in the U.S. Senate.

It would create a partnership between the federal government and local communities to implement a regional water recycling program in the Bay Area. In addition to Pittsburg, the bill helps Antioch, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Pacifica, South Santa Clara County, Redwood City and San Jose.

Read more for Miller’s press release on the bill.
Read the rest of this entry »