PG&E Corp. bondholders and wildfire victims teamed up to offer a competing bankruptcy recovery plan for the California utility that would all but wipe out its stockholders. If a judge lets the coalition’s plan go forward, PG&E could lose control of the bankruptcy and its own reorganization plan, which envisions letting stockholders keep a significant […]
Our job is to make money for the University of California, and we’re betting we can do that without fossil fuels investments. We are investors and fiduciaries for what is widely considered the best public research university in the world. That makes us fiscally conservative by nature and by policy — “Risk rules” is one […]
When Eric Garcetti ran for mayor six years ago, he rode a wave of anger over the political power wielded by the union that represents workers at the Department of Water and Power — and later vowed to reform the agency that Los Angeles residents love to hate. That effort has since been eclipsed by […]
An abandoned iron mine on the doorstep of Joshua Tree National Park could be repurposed as a massive hydroelectric power plant under a bill with bipartisan support in the state Legislature. Senate Bill 772, which was approved by a panel of lawmakers last week with no dissenting votes, would require California to build energy projects […]
The worst fire in California history took off at a spot notorious for its intense winds. The gusts — some topping 100 mph — blow down the Feather River Canyon each fall. They push into the town of Paradise with force, powered by high-pressure air parked over the Great Basin that moves through this narrow […]
It was one of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s most dramatic pledges in his sweeping “Green New Deal” for Los Angeles: “We will have zero days of unhealthy air quality by 2025.” The goal, it turns out, was not as ambitious as it sounded. Rather than using current federal health standards, the mayor’s plan relied on an outdated measure […]
Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled a sweeping plan for a more sustainable Los Angeles on Monday, calling for dramatic changes to the car culture, buildings and air quality of America’s second-largest city. The mayor’s sustainability plan imagines a city where, by the mid-2030s, 80% of the cars run on electricity or zero-emission fuel, 80% of the […]
To the untrained eye, the shipping containers clustered on the outskirts of Borrego Springs, Calif., don’t look like an innovative clean-energy technology that could help California cope with wildfires. But these containers, in the remote desert of eastern San Diego County, are packed with lithium-ion batteries — and they’re part of one of the world’s […]
California lawmakers’ grand ambitions to fight climate change are running into a familiar obstacle: the parochial concerns of local governments and property owners. The latest battle over state needs vs. local control is being fought in San Bernardino County, where the Board of Supervisors voted last month to ban solar and wind farms across vast stretches of […]
On Feb. 12, one day after the city of Los Angeles abandoned its plan to rebuild three coastal power plants, environmentalist Dan Brotman urged Glendale city officials at the end of a five-hour council meeting to take heed. “We all understand this is going to be very challenging for Los Angeles, and no doubt there are risks, […]