Rep. Peters Explains Why He Doesn't Like The Green New Deal And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Thursday, August 20 seconds. I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. San Diego. Congressman Scott Peters tells us why he doesn't support the green new deal. And the military is spending millions to clean up water contamination from firefighting foam. Speaker 2: 00:18 There are 60,000 stories just like this and they're happening in the at the kitchen sink and every fountain and widefield and security home Speaker 1: 00:26 that and more coming up right after the break. Speaker 3: 00:31 Um, Speaker 1: 00:33 thank you for joining us for San Diego News Matters. I'm Deb Welsh, San Diego. Congressman Scott Peters unveiled a climate playbook this spring. It's a collection of more than 50 bills focusing on climate change from our climate change desk. KPBS environment reporter Eric Anderson talks with Peter's who says he's not supporting the green new deal. Speaker 4: 00:55 I don't think it's the, I don't think it's bold and I don't think its action. Look, I totally support the enthusiasm and it's brought, I, I'm really happy to see that. Um, voters appear to be interested in what I've been interested in for 20 years, which is climate action and they're taking votes based on that. Uh, but the green new deal m is not bold in that, um, it doesn't bring anybody else in it. Um, it is the easiest thing in the world to go talk to a bunch of people you agree with and give a fiery speech. The hard thing is to go to the middle of the room, find people maybe you don't agree with and get them to, to work with you on solutions and action means bringing Republicans to the table. The problem with a green new deal is, well two is, one is it's just basically there's no legislation in it. Speaker 4: 01:37 You have to follow up with legislation to actually implement it, but to, it contained some things in there that I just don't agree with, like guaranteed jobs in the federal government and a free college. We could talk about those separately, but it tends to push people away from the issue where we really need people to come together to get to, to, um, net zero by mid century. Okay. You've come together with your climate playbook. Right. Um, explain to me what that is and how that works. Rather than looking for something to divisive. We, we, we decided to look for all the solutions that are out there already. I mean, the, the, the big difference is not that this election brought awareness on climate. It brought Democrats into the majority and a lot of us have been working on these things, haven't been able to get them to the house floor because leadership wouldn't let us let us do that. Speaker 4: 02:19 Uh, so we're looking at what we can do. We've already agreed on bringing, uh, bringing the United States back into the Paris agreement. What can we do on car decarbonizing electricity industry, um, manufacturing or agriculture, uh, transportation. What, where can we agree on things like adaptation? What are we going to do about the effects we know will come from climate change already and many of these bills that are out there already are bi-partisan and we can get them past. I think one thing people need to realize is that, you know, the green new deal is, is not any of those actual steps. Um, if you pass the green new deal today, you'd have to take these actions tomorrow that I'm already on to that. A lot of the bills in climate playbook actually referenced the green new deal. We want, what we wanted to show was that if you wanted to implement the, the green new deal, uh, you wanted to achieve those goals. Speaker 4: 03:08 We all, we all agree we need to get to, um, uh, net zero carbon emissions by mid century. You need to take the steps we've outlined in the green new deal. Now we're going further and we're trying to prioritize those things. What would make the biggest difference? And we're continuing to work, uh, to find out what would really help us come together to save the planet. But the notion that we are able to snap our fingers and get through this, um, is really misguided. I think what had made progress so far in that climate playbook, we passed HR nine, which is an effort to get the United States back into the Paris agreement, which every other country in the world is part of, which is the notion of we're all gonna come together and solve the climate crisis together. We've asked in HR nine for president Trump to, um, to give us his plan if he doesn't like the plans that were out there before we passed nine of the bills and the climate playbook through my committee. Speaker 4: 03:55 The energy and Commerce Committee in the house are those who go to the House floor and we're working on bipartisan approaches, um, for new bills, whether it's on methane capture or, uh, treatment for tax treatment for, um, new baseload energies like hydropower or geothermal and for accounting better for extreme weather that comes from, uh, climate change. We've actually passed the bill on that through the house and into the Senate. Talk to me about your district. How is your district going to be affected as the climate changes? Uh, back in 2010 I was chair of the climate initiative for the San Diego Foundation. One of the things we did was we funded research on that very question. There's three main effects in San Diego County. One is sea level rise, one is more um, intense wildfires, which we've seen I think over over the past decade or so. And one is water supply issues throughout the state. California is going to be faced with water supply issues. Those are all effects of climate change that will be felt be felt here in San Diego. Congressman Peters, thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thanks very much. Speaker 1: 04:54 Assembly mentor. Gloria got a major boost in his campaign for San Diego mayor this week. KPBS metro reporter Andrew Boyd says his latest high-profile endorsement is from the county Democratic Party. Speaker 5: 05:06 The vote Tuesday night was not close. 71% of the party's central committee members picked Gloria over his main rival in the race city council woman Barbara Bree. Bree receives just 14% of the vote. The endorsement allows the party to spend money to help get Gloria elected party chair will Rodriguez Kennedy says Gloria has worked hard to build support and goodwill among democratic activists and elected officials. Speaker 6: 05:31 Todd Gloria represents a very unique and diverse background and for young people of color who also happened to be LGBT. He's a role model. Speaker 5: 05:39 Gloria has multiracial heritage and he's openly gay. He's also received endorsements from Governor Gavin Newsome and many state lawmakers, the prime areas on March 3rd Andrew Bowen KPBS News, Speaker 1: 05:51 the California Department of Insurance has the 10 California counties with the highest fire risk. Also the highest percentage of homeowners policies that were dropped last year. Bob Moffitt with capital public radio reports from Sacramento. Speaker 7: 06:05 The county is most prone to wildfire, saw a 10% increase in dropped policies last year. Michael Soller with the California Department of Insurance says it would like to work with insurance companies to provide coverage for all homes in exchange for statewide fire protection standards. Speaker 8: 06:20 There is no one recognized statewide standard for a hardened home for accessibility to a fire station and roads. It's a patchwork of different policies around the state and insurers don't recognize those home hardening measures that do exist. Speaker 7: 06:39 Mark [inaudible] with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association says the industry would need to see proof of the effectiveness of such standards before insurers would agree to cover everyone. Speaker 9: 06:49 We need to understand that this is beyond just an individual property. While everybody should do it because you want to protect your most important asset, which is your house. We also need to understand the seems to be done on a community basis. Speaker 7: 07:01 While insurance companies canceled nearly 168,000 policies last year, more than four times as many people left their insurance companies, the Department of Insurance did not say how many of those people found a new company to cover them, but there were more new policies written last year. Then policies canceled. Cal Fire says there were more than 16,000 homes that were destroyed by fire last year. I'm Bob Moffitt in Sacramento. Speaker 1: 07:25 The Trump administration unveiled a rule change Wednesday that would allow the federal government to indefinitely detain immigrant families who attempt to enter the country illegally. KPBS reporter Max Rulon Adler explains how this could violate a longstanding agreement that limits the time migrant children can be kept in custody. Speaker 5: 07:45 It's known as the Flores settlement agreement, a 1997 decree that dictates how long the federal government is allowed to hold migrant children and the care they are entitled to receive. The settlement requires children and their guardians to be released to family or a sponsor. After no more than 20 days in custody, the new rule would get rid of the 20 day limit and make families remain in detention for the duration of their immigration case, which could take months or possibly years. Holly Cooper or UC Irvine professor and a lawyer in the Flores case says this will radically change the government's policy towards migrant families. Speaker 10: 08:21 It's architecting a system where children could be detained and sort of prison like conditions for indefinite periods of time. So what we're probably going to see is sort of the, the resurgence of internment style family detention centers. Speaker 5: 08:38 The new rule is set to be published in the Federal Register at some point this week. If it's not put on hold by a court, it will go into effect. 60 days after that, Max Swivel and Adler k PBS news, Speaker 1: 08:50 health officials now say there's a third potential exposure location related to San Diego County's second confirmed measles case of the year. KPBS has Annika. Colbert has details. The counties health and Human Services Agency believes in members of the public may have been exposed to the virus at the men sock. Chan Korean restaurant on convoy street, August 15th from 6:30 PM to 2:00 AM the other potential exposure locations are the 85 degree bakery cafe on Rosecrans Street, August 15th through the 18th from 6:00 AM to 4:30 PM as well as the Ralph's supermarket on Alta view drive August 16th from roughly 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM if you are at any of those locations on those dates, and at those times you should watch for symptoms of measles and call your doctor. If you show any signs of developing what is a highly contagious disease and a covert KPBS news radio silence is making some noise with his new feature film ready or not. Speaker 1: 09:51 KPBS film critic Beth like Amando as a review of this new horror comedy, any wedding is stressful, but Grace's requires extreme stress. Five O skills. She's marrying into the ridiculously rich love Domus family and since they built their empire on games, they have a tradition of making new family members play one on their wedding night a game. What game? Hide and seek. Are you really going to play that? Wow, the rules are simple. You can hide anywhere. We then tried to find you so there's no way for me to win, right? Let me stay hidden. Told on no thank you. Good luck. But the family's not entirely upfront about the rules, which include that they're trying to kill her. Ready or not is a horror comedy held by the creative collective known as radio silence. The trio of Chad Velella, Matt Batonelli open and Tyler Gillette nailed the tone to deliver a film that builds tension and delivers laughs. The script by Guy Busak and Ryan Murphy is also smart. On a certain level, the film would still work without the horror narrative because the family members are all distinct characters. Who would be a nightmare to meet even if they weren't trying to kill you, ready or not, knows the game that wants to play and plays it perfectly. Beth like Amando k PBS news, California could become the first date with rules requiring the transition of heavy duty trucks to electric vehicles, but Capitol Public Radio, Scott Rod reports some health and environmental groups say their proposal falls short. Speaker 7: 11:22 Heavy duty truck fleets are essential for supporting California's economy, but there are also notorious polluters. Andrea v Delray with the center for community action and environmental justice says low income communities are most at risk Speaker 11: 11:35 right now. We currently have community members and family members that can't go outside on a really bad air day. Communities are restricted to their homes on these types of days. They're not allowed to go outside. It's too dangerous for them. Speaker 7: 11:47 The rule would require manufacturers to produce more electric trucks in the coming decades. Delray says it to step Speaker 12: 11:54 in the right direction, but she wants the board to set a hard deadline for transitioning all heavy truck fleets to zero emission vehicles. The Air Resources Board says the proposal is one of several rule changes for truck fleets that will help California reach its emission reduction goals in Sacramento. I'm Scott Rod, Speaker 1: 12:10 the military spending millions of dollars to clean up water contamination around bases throughout the country. The pollution came from firefighting foam that was widely used in training exercises, but some people living with the effects of the contamination say the money has not gone far enough from Colorado Springs. Dan Boys reports for the American homefront project. Speaker 12: 12:33 Venetucci farm lies near the Southern Colorado town of Fountain that used to grow organic vegetables and give away free Pumpkin's on Halloween. Sam Clark works with the foundation that owns the farm. He says that all changed a few years ago. Speaker 2: 12:46 This kind of blindsided us. You know, nobody really understood what the firefighting foam was, what PFS and p FOA were. Speaker 12: 12:53 Those are toxic chemicals used in all kinds of things. Nonstick cookware, stain resistant fabrics, and a firefighting foam used regularly at nearby Peterson air force base. That foam ran off polluting the soil, groundwater and vegetables. Now the farm grows low priced feedstock for horses. Clark says it's merely one example of the financial burden Speaker 2: 13:17 of PFS. There are 60,000 stories just like this and they're happening and the at the kitchen sink and every fountain and widefield and security home, Speaker 12: 13:25 the foundation and the nearby security water district are suing the air force over the chemicals water district general manager Roy heeled says they've had to find a new source of water for their customers. Speaker 2: 13:37 It was actually a a pretty complicated process Speaker 12: 13:40 that involved first building a mile long pipeline to buy water from Colorado Springs and now constructing a whole new treatment facility with a price tag in the millions. Speaker 2: 13:51 There was no blue light special on those costs. Speaker 12: 13:54 The district is suing to recover the costs of the pipeline and other expenses, but the air force is paying for the new treatment facility, one of many projects to address the contamination. They have authorized at 22 installations nationwide. The Air Force has spent $357 million on this as of June. A lot of money that many living near the sites say still is barely touching the full [inaudible] Speaker 2: 14:18 problem. So our water that we have delivered to drink is about 67 to $75 a month. Speaker 12: 14:27 Liz Rosenbaum lives about 30 miles from Peterson air force base. She does not drink from her tap. The PFS levels found in her water district are just under what the EPA says are hazardous so the air force isn't doing anything here. However, there's disagreement even between government agencies about what concentration of PFS is safe. The Centers for Disease Control and prevention found the levels should be set seven to 10 times lower. Rosenbaum is not taking any chances. I don't want to die of kidney cancer. You know Jennifer Reed is the lead fast researcher for the Union of concerned scientists, which wants the EPA to consider the CDCs lower safety level. Read also is critical of the military because she says they limit which chemicals they test for in groundwater and only released results above the EPA threshold, which again she says may be too high. Speaker 13: 15:20 The Department of Defense has, has misrepresented the scope of this issue in order to avoid having to pay. Speaker 12: 15:30 The air force would not grant an interview for this story, but on their PFS website says protecting human health is our priority. Read is skeptical. Speaker 13: 15:40 Community members who have been exposed to this chemical and who were not told if it's released are being the ones left with the burden of paying for this contamination and paying to find out more about how much is in their water and also to find out how much is in their blood. Speaker 12: 15:58 Those tests can cost upwards of $700 Rosenbalm the woman who won't drink her tap water, she's organized a coalition that goes after grants to pay for residents tests Speaker 1: 16:09 absolutely no reason for our community to go into debt over another water contamination that we didn't cause, Speaker 12: 16:17 even if they didn't cause it. These residents will be dealing with the effects of this contamination. As long as these chemicals remain in the soil, which as science says, will be essentially forever in El Paso County, Colorado on Dan Boys, Speaker 1: 16:32 the story was produced by the American homefront project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. Thanks for listening to San Diego News matters. If you're not already a subscriber, take a minute to become one. You can find San Diego news matters on apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.