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Crazifornia: ‘Reform’ Over-Regulation
By LAER PEARCE California Gov. Jerry Brown may try to make political hay out of his recent signing of three “regulatory reform” bills into law. But the bills (AB 900, SB 292 and SB 226) really serve best to illustrate just how grossly over-regulated California has become. Take AB 900, for example. Please. It specifies certain types of projects that can qualify for expedited processing under the onerous, labyrinthine California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). But — no surprise — it’s really more complicated than that. It’s more like it designates projects that can attempt to get through CEQA easily, but the reforms themselves are complicated and, worse, they’re untested by California’s green-leaning courts. Among projects eligible for supposedly expedited processing under AB 900 are infill projects that are highly energy efficient. Never mind that vacant hulks of these sorts of projects clog the California cityscape, unrented and unloved. The California dream remains a suburban one of back yards and cars. And despite what urban planners and environmental activists preach, we’re not yet ready to emulate New Yorkers and Inside-the-Beltway folks and live in cramped high-rises by train stations. Does AB 900 make it easier to process suburban subdivisions? Oh, please. Do you have to ask? The bill also gives a special blessing to wind and solar energy projects that will pump intermittent blips of high-priced power into the grid, but turns a cold shoulder on any sort of energy facility that actually can be counted on to consistently provide affordable energy. Green manufacturing also gets a pass. But California is a state that needs jobs desperately. So why should the Solyndras get a break when old-school manufacturing, which actually turns out products that compete in the marketplace, does not?
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May 23, 2012
Sounds like MOONBEAM is channeling Barry-O and picking regulatory favorites for ‘special treatment’…I wonder how many of Barry-O’s and Pelosi’s Cronies will be direct beneficiaries of these new bills?
Notably absent from ‘special treatment’ is Renewable Biogas on Dairies and other Livestock operations in California, which is DEAD today because of unscrupulous, unscientific, unnecessary, expensive and burdensome regulations imposed by CEQA and the Waterboard today.
A Farmer or Dairy owner wanting to put a digester on his land basically has to completely rebuild his lagoons and line them 100% (like a wastewater plant), even if the only thing going in there is manure….same as before, just covered.
There is no negative change in risk to the environment when a dairy simply covers a lagoon to harvest methane, yet the Waterboard has DESTROYED the industry because they insist on using any change on a dairy to require a permit change and require MOUNTAINS of costly and useless regulations and infrastructure.
They deliberately PUNISH innovation and GREEN project development on Dairies, because the Waterboard is stuffed with people who are ANTI-Dairy, and Eco-Fanatics. Some have even joked that there are a number of ‘Vegans’ among the crowd there and in other California Regulatory bodies…but I digress.
The Waterboard REQUIRES any dairy adding a digester to reline the lagoons.
This makes pretty much all biogas development in the state on dairies financially impossible.
The Failure of the Green industry and bioenergy development on ALL Dairies in the state can be laid clearly at the feet of these unscientific Eco-bureaucrats.
The constant and unrelenting addition of regulation upon regulation to running a Dairy Farm in the State makes it uneconomic to compete against many out of state milk producers at small scale, driving small Family operators out of business, driving Farmers to scale larger, which then makes them targets for more costly regulations and legal targets of Waterboard Cronies in Extremist Eco-organizations like the Association of Irritated Residents and CREPE, who have made careers out of extorting settlements out of dairies on behalf of the ‘environment’ and the Waterboard. RICO is probably an appropriate term to use here, but few or any have the funds to fight it.
If the Governor wants to return the Central Valley to health Financially and employment-wise, every Waterboard ‘rule’ and ‘regulation’ made over the last 10 years should be rescinded.
No new regulation should be put in place without a thorough peer review by a board of professional engineers and representatives from the industry being regulated….not a bunch of Eco-Shills authoring poisoned research and reviewed by Eco-Cronies at left leaning Universities and Bay Area sustainability experts, with vested interests in making more work.
Lastly, the entire lot from top to bottom in the Waterboard should all be FIRED and replaced with people with NO CONNECTIONS to Extremist ECO organizations, as this has not resulted in a measured scientific approach or a financially sustainable outcome.
So unless the Governor has a vested interest in maintaining a ‘stuffed’ Eco-Jury to preside over CEQA affairs in the valley, significant changes MUST be made to the entities and individuals administering CEQA for prosperity to return to the most hard hit Counties in the state with the highest unemployment in the Nation.
Tesla,
California dairy farmers could always decide to reject modern industrial dairy practice and return to grass pasture fed as evolution has prepared cows to live.
No nasty lagoons to consider. No nasty pathogens running through unhealthy unsanitary living conditions. Proper omega 3 to 6 balance for better nutrition. Oh, an a market premium paid from health conscious consumers. You might consider selling the milk raw and receive an additional premium.
David,
Let’s just go back to the stone age as hunter-gatherers then.
No, wait..how bout you put down the Bong you’re smoking and read about what the US govt does to RAW Milk Dairies in the US….they are raided and treated just like Dope Growers.
As for pathogens?
Raw milk carries the very real risk of Brucellosis, and pathogens in regular milk are pasteurized…and either can be contaminated by e-coli after leaving the dairy if there are issues during transport or storage.
And lagoons are not nasty unless you bathe in them.
They ARE seasonal storage for Renewable Fertilizer though, which displaces VAST amounts of natural gas based ammonia fertilizer.
Small Farmers and Dairies are, like the larger ones, horribly over-regulated and only the larger ones can barely afford all the reports and engineering/filing fees that are charged…up to $80K a year whether you are a 500 cow dairy or a 4000 cow dairy, so the little Dude gets HAMMERED on the regulatory overhead costs as a percentage of his revenues just to exist.
Bad Moo-Jo Dave…and not cool for our low carbon local food supply…unless you want it trucked in form out of state or from Mexico that is…
David,
Did you think about what you are saying?
tesla_x complained that if a Dairy wanted to cover their lagoon to capture methane they would be required to take the completely unneeded step of lining their lagoons.
You replied that Dairy should change its business model.
Huh?
Why this deserves comment is because it is too common. Many times regulators try to force changes that having nothing to do with the goal of the regulation.
This behavior is evil.