The LACCD Board of Trustees’ Facilities Master Planning Oversight Committee discussed a Clean Energy and Sustainability Resolution at its April 22 meeting. It is expected to vote on the resolution later this month, with a final version likely to be submitted to the full Board in June. It’s an ambitious, multi-faceted resolution, including a goal to convert a large percentage of district energy use to renewables by 2030. Last May the CCC Board of Governors encouraged all local districts to develop climate change and sustainability resolutions, but LACCD’s would be more aggressive than the BOG's guideline proposals. We will report further on this in our next issue.
Under sustained pressure from activists and acutely aware of changing energy economics, two more major banks have announced they will no longer finance Arctic Refuge oil and gas exploration, development, and production. Citibank and Morgan Stanley join Chase, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs in pulling out of Arctic drilling, leaving only Bank of America. Activists claim the projects would cause harm to Indigenous communities, besides exacerbating global heating. They intend to renew their efforts to force Bank of America to withdraw.
Trump administration efforts to weaken the 1972 Clean Water Act were rejected by the Supreme Court. The April ruling focused on whether the Act applied to discharges that travel through groundwater before reaching protected waters. By a surprising 6-3 margin, the court ruled that they do. “This decision is a huge victoryfor clean water,” said David L. Henkin, the attorney who argued the case on behalf of environmental groups. “The Court has rejected the Trump administration’s effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act’s protections for rivers, lakes and oceans.” The vote may also be an encouraging sign for the future, as the Court has a number of other environmental cases in its docket.
