California Dreaming

I don't know...
if we do things in name only
if we protect our future mistakes
if we aren't ready to tackle the meat of the issue...

It's new years day in the Jewish tradition.
In the Jewish tradition we celebrate and then we repent...

I dropped a whole big glass container of honey at Whole Foods yesterday. Seemed somehow a sign of the year passing and yet to come.


Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoes oil spill bills, signs others
By Edwin Garcia and Paul Rogers

Mercury News Sacramento Bureau

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Schwarzenegger signed seven bills Monday in response to the November mishap when a Chinese cargo ship, the Cosco Busan, struck a support of the Bay Bridge and dumped more than 50,000 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay.

Those measures will expand training for emergency responders, strengthen enforcement penalties and quickly assess public health hazards. Volunteering to help clean birds and shorelines after the next oil spill also will be easier.

But the governor disappointed environmentalists by killing of the three most far-reaching measures.

"He gave us the gravy but not the meat," said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean
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Conservancy, an environmental group in San Francisco. "Sadly the governor vetoed the stronger bills."

Specifically, Schwarzenegger rejected SB 1056, by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, which would have required cleanup crews hired by shipping companies to respond to spills in San Francisco Bay within two hours, instead of six, as the law now requires. In his veto message, Schwarzenegger said the faster time was a "meritorious goal," but one that could present safety risks during bad weather.

He also vetoed AB 2032, by Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-El Cerrito, which would have allowed the state to increase the fee it charges oil companies from 5 cents a barrel to 8 cents a barrel on oil brought into California ports, raising $19 million in new funding for state oil spill response. In the veto message, Schwarzenegger said the fee was increased in 2002 and that the state "is currently using those increased funds to implement a number of strategies to improve preparedness and operations that will not result in costs above what is included in the 2008 Budget Bill."

Finally, he vetoed AB 2547, by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, which would have provided $1 million a year in new money from the state in grants to companies that develop more effective oil spill cleanup technology. Schwarzenegger called the program "unnecessary" because the state already works with the Coast Guard and other agencies to identify new technologies.


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I wonder if he's preparing for off-shore drilling.