As Executive Officer of the California Air Resource Board since 2007, James Goldstene oversees the development and implementation of the Board’s clean air policies and represents the ARB before the legislature and other state, regional, national, and international forums. 2012 was a landmark year for the ARB, with the successful launching of the first of 32 cap-and-trade auctions planned four times annually through the year 2020. In the following interview with VerdeXchange News, James Goldstene elaborates on the plans and partnerships CARB aims to realize in 2013 and beyond. 

Newly relected President Barack Obama and California Governor Jerry Brown both began 2013 - the former in his Inaugural Address and the latter in his State of the State speech - by emphasizing the need for lawmakers to address the issue of climate change. And both also cite the need for critical infrastructure investment and mitigation efforts to act as part of a solution to control the symptoms of climate change. Project funding, ranging from high-speed rail to flood control, they assert, are key to reducing the amount of energy consumed from non-renewable sources of energy, limiting carbon footprints, and protecting posterity from future disasters; thereby creating newer, innovative green jobs and protecting jobs that already exist from being threatened by climate change.

Last Fall, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s request for a $267-million budget for the next two fiscal years. Supported by an 11 percent rate increase, the expanded budget will go towards LADWP’s goal of 10-15 percent energy efficiency by 2020. Long-time energy executive David Jacot, formerly of Southern California Edison, joined the LADWP as Director of Energy Efficiency last summer, tasked with the development and management of the utility’s new, energy-saving programs. VerdeXchange News was pleased to discuss the specifics of these programs in a December 2012 interview with Mr. Jacot.

Today’s Highway Trust Fund faces a steady decline in revenue as inflation and fuel-efficient vehicles render the Federal Gas Tax increasingly ineffectual. Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Oregon’s 3rd, is a career-long spokesperson for livable communities and multi-modal transit. Last session of Congress, he introduced a bill (HR6662) to direct the Department of the Treasury to study alternatives to the existing gas tax for raising federal highway funds. He advocates retiring the gas tax in favor of a new, cents-per-mile initiative. In the below interview with VerdeXchagne News, Congressman Blumenauer addresses the problems facing the gas tax, the politics surrounding it, and the advantages discovered by a distance-based pilot program in his home state. 

VerdeXchange News is pleased to share the following remarks by former Santa Monica City Councilman, Mayor, and Move LA founder Denny Zane at the latter’s event, “Making the Most of MAP-21 in Los Angeles,”  in which he recasts disappointment with the failure of Measure J to pass last November as a call for more creative and collaborative thinking among transit advocates. Zane’s own suggestions include population-specific promotion of transit ridership, construction acceleration via a combination of federal loans and local investments, and reforming the 2/3rds voter threshold.

One Year Ago: at the fifth VerdeXchange Conference in January, 2012, Ron Nichols, General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, delivered remarks in the opening plenary, ‘Given an Uncertain Landscape, Is Renewable Energy and Sustainability Beyond the Tipping Point?’ Joining Nichols was Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western State Petroleum Association, Robert Hertzberg, Speaker Emeritus of the California Asembly. With Mr. Nichols on the agenda once again at VerdeXchange’s 6th Annual Conference, his comments last year provide a benchmark re the challenges the LADWP faces in meeting renewable energy mandates while struggling to keep rates even for customers.

Is everything about the smart grid - smart? James Kelly, former Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Environmental Policy for Southern California Edison, and current strategic advisor to GRIDiant Corporation, ARES, and many other start-ups,  may be one of the most experienced experts to ask. In this VerdeXchange interview, Kelly calls upon his own utility and entrepreneurial background to chart the fast-evolving changes and innovations of today’s smart grid sector. The success of the smart grid, he notes, depends as much on regulation, collaboration, and proper implementation as it does on burgeoning technology. 

 Tom Rand is a well-known investor and entrepreneur and is the Cleantech Practice, Lead Advisor at theMaRS Discovery District in Toronto, Canada. Ahead of an LAEDC trade mission to Toronto, TPR asks Rand how markets are beginning to reflect the realities of climate change and what parallels exist between cleantech investment in California and Canada. Rand notes that as the pressures of climate change emerge, industries across all sectors, from mining to forestry to manufacture, will have to plan carefully to reduce carbon emissions as part of staying flexible with a changing economy. <See: http://vxcanada.ca/> 

As LA looks to expand its economic base through its own CleanTech Incubator (LACI), how can we learn from other efforts to grow businesses in Toronto and Berlin?

Michael Allman, President and CEO of Southern California Gas Co., writes on the important role natural gas should hold alongside solar and wind as the Golden State steps into a clean energy future.