Paul Koretz on the Environment and Sustainability

By Paul Koretz

A discussion on legislative action within the last 3 1/2 years as Councilmember of the great Fifth District

My motion to ban plastic bags made Los Angeles the largest city in the country to do so, a move which will reduce the City's waste budget, clean our neighborhoods of blight, protect our waterways and oceans and the creatures which live within them, and introduce Angelenos to the first step in sustainable living, namely, reducing the use of single-use items in their daily lives. I look forward to the ban going into force in the next year.

In 2013, I will continue to work to find further opportunities to reduce marine debris and the City's urban runoff pollution, including supporting the important Los Angeles County "Clean Water, Clean Beaches" measure to increase local clean groundwater supplies, protect and increase wetlands, promote the use of bioretention (natural water filtration) including vegetated swales and permeable pavement, install filters and screen in gutters and storm drains, and, in the process, create thousands of local green jobs.

My Good Food Purchasing Procurement motion, approved by the City Council in October, will also go into effect in 2013. This motion, which the Los Angeles Food Policy Council spent a year drafting, calls for City departments to use their purchasing power to support the following values: Local Economies + to support local agricultural and food processing operations; Environmental Sustainability + to source from producers that employ sustainable production systems that reduce or eliminate synthetic pesticides and fertilizers; avoid the use of hormones, antibiotics, and genetic engineering; conserve soil and water; protect and enhance wildlife habitat and biodiversity; and reduce on-farm energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; Valued Workforce + to provide safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation to all food chain workers and producers, from production to consumption; Animal Welfare - to provide healthy and humane care for livestock; and, Nutrition - to promote health and well-being by offering generous portions of vegetables, fruit, and whole grains, reduce salt, added sugars, fats, and oils, and eliminate artificial additives.

I am pleased to say that (LAUSD) also recently adopted our Good Food guidelines for the School District. Because food production cuts across so very many environmental issues, including climate emissions, in 2013, I will continue to work with the Los Angeles Food Policy Council to promote Good Food values + including supporting the labeling GMO food products as I did with the Proposition 37 resolution I authored + and encourage local cities, school districts, organizations and universities to take the Good Food Purchasing Pledge.

In 2012, I successfully moved resolutions supporting strengthening both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act (and opposing Senator Rand Paul's bill which would have prevented the federal government from implementing Clean Water Act regulations), and I introduce a resolution calling for a statewide moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) until it is proven safe to the public and to the environment. I'm pleased to say that the EPA has since strengthened the Clean Air Act by adopting the full implementation and enforcement of the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards Rule and the Carbon Pollution Standard, and also strengthened soot standards by 20%, which I also supported, a move that will save lives, prevent loss of workdays and help prevent childhood asthma and other serious respiratory illnesses.

As per the request of another of my resolutions, the California state regulator of oil drilling, DOGGR, has recently introduced possible rules regarding fracking in California, a practice which is currently unregulated and occurring in the Los Angeles region. I will, as usual, be calling for even stronger regulations to protect our air, our water supply, and the public, including supporting stronger drinking water standards for chromium-6 and perchlorate. I will also be working to ensure that my resolution calling for a thorough and safe public review of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is heard by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board before Southern California Edison moves forward with any plan to restart the damaged plant. The City of Los Angeles speaks with a loud voice and, in 2013, I will continue to look for ways to use our voice to support and strengthen local, state and federal environmental air and water protections, which, at the end of the day, protect each resident of Los Angeles.

As climate change is the most pressing problem facing our planet, in addition to pushing for stronger state and federal action, I will continue to press the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to move as quickly as possible off of coal power and onto renewable energies and to not make long-term commitments to gas power. I was the first LA City Councilmember to support the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, calling to get the City off of coal power by 2020. I also seconded and strongly supported the City's new exclusive waste hauling franchise system, which will, among many other environmental benefits, move all waste-hauling trucks from dirty to clean fuel. I will not stop my advocacy until the City of Los Angeles is 100% committed to, and moving rapidly towards, a clean energy future. Towards that end, I recently introduced a motion calling for the installation of solar panels on City buildings and parking lots as part of LADWP's new Solar Feed in Tariff program, as there is a great opportunity to create revenue for the City and for taxpayers. I also introduced a resolution opposing the expansion onto public lands of the Alton Mine in Utah, a mine which supplies a percentage of LADWP's coal. If the City is indeed moving off of coal power, there is no need to expand any coal mines, particularly one so close in proximity to one of our national treasures: Bryce Canyon National Park.

On the neighborhood level, I am in talks with LADWP's new Director of Energy Efficiency about an innovative new grassroots outreach program I am sponsoring to spread energy efficiency and water conservation across our City to both commercial and residential users as quickly as possible. The cheapest, cleanest energy is the energy we don't use. I will be unveiling details about that program in the coming weeks. Part of that program will include: identifying and addressing greenhouse gas emission sources throughout the City (including industrial and transportation sources), identifying wasteful energy uses (including excessive nighttime commercial illumination and electronic billboards); promoting the use of our increasingly robust public transportation system (which will reduce and improve automobile traffic); and educating residents about LADWP's efficiency rebates and about how, by simply checking a box on their LADWP bill and paying a few extra dollars a month, residents can request that LADWP provide their residence with renewable energy only.

Since international and federal action is not moving fast enough to address the rapidly- escalating problem of climate change, it is up to cities at a local level to lead the way. Los Angeles, as a City, has one of the largest carbon footprints on the planet. It is my mission to dramatically change that fact and, in doing so, lead other cities across the country and around the world toward a safer, clean energy future.