Late last year, the California Public Utilities Commission adopted a new distributed rooftop solar pricing system, greatly reducing customer financial incentives. The new Net Billing Tariff (formerly Net Energy Metering) addressed the inequalities that benefited customers with solar at the expense of those who didn’t have it.

Now the regulator is considering other changes to NEM programs. Unfortunately, those changes are designed by self-serving utilities to make it impossible for apartment buildings, renters, schools, and farmers to continue adopting solar energy.

Customers are currently allowed to install one solar project which serves multiple tenants, buildings, or irrigation pumps on the same property. All of these customers have one thing in common — multiple loads and meters at the same location. The proposed changes pushed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and their Southern California monopoly brethren will eviscerate the ability of these customers to continue adopting on-site renewable energy.

Renewable energy systems being installed on the state’s farms are the cornerstone of the state’s climate smart agricultural practices championed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The systems not only help California achieve renewable energy goals, but also enable important farm water conservation efforts, such as the state’s highly successful State Water Efficiency Enhancement Program program.

Climate smart farming and more sustainable food systems can’t happen if farms are precluded from installing distributed renewable energy systems, especially as they seek to electrify more operations and equipment on their farms.

PG&E’s rates have already risen by 11.2% so far this year and will go far higher in the coming months as the CPUC ponders another multibillion-dollar rate increase over the next four years. Rates are also rising far faster than inflation in Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric territories. As utility rates increase, the investor-owned utilities are especially desperate to limit less expensive renewable options for their customers.

Both virtual net energy metering and net energy metering aggregation programs were legislatively created (SB 594, Wolk 2012) to provide multimetered customers with the same opportunities to install efficient renewable energy systems on their farms, schools, and other property. Until the NEM-A program was enacted, farms were largely unable to install solar systems. It simply made no sense to install and interconnect multiple small and inefficient systems behind every separately metered irrigation pump on the farm. Since NEM-A was created, rural agricultural renewable energy projects have flourished.

The CPUC addressed a major inequity issue when it cut payments for distributed net energy metering customers last December. Under the proposed decision, the agency would now create an even larger inequity, leaving millions of renters and thousands of farms out in the cold by precluding their ability to install renewable energy and fully utilize it on-site. That is why several dozen bipartisan legislators have weighed in with the CPUC in support of continuing the programs.

It makes zero sense. Maybe for once the CPUC can come down on the side of customers and the planet, not greedy self-serving monopoly utilities.

Roger Isom is the CEO of the Western Agricultural Processors Association, California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association, and president of the Agricultural Energy Consumers Association.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/article281901538.html#storylink=cpy

This past week Governor Gavin Newsom took action to accelerate the Sites Reservoir project, utilizing new tools from the infrastructure streamlining package to build more faster. This project, if ultimately approved, would capture water during wet seasons and store it for use during drier seasons – holding up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water.  The project has received a total of $46.75 million in early funding from the state. In all, Sites is eligible for $875.4 million of Proposition 1 funding. Total project cost is estimated at $4 billion.

HOW IT WORKS:

• SB 149 allows the Governor to certify qualifying infrastructure projects for judicial streamlining under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
• Courts must decide CEQA challenges to certified projects within 270 days to the extent feasible – saving months or even years of litigation delays after a project has already passed environmental review, while still allowing legal challenges to be heard.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:

• Just last week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Sites Project Authority finalized the Environmental Impact Review and Environmental Impact Statement for the project.
• The project will help California maintain a resilient water supply in the face of climate change, weather extremes, and water scarcity.
• Sites Reservoir is critical to California’s ​​Water Supply Strategy and meeting the state’s goal of expanding above and below ground water storage capacity by 4 million acre feet.

The Association led a coalition joined by 12 other agricultural organizations from California opposing and submitting comments to Federal OSHA on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the Worker Walkaround Representative Designation Process. This proposal would allow union representatives to accompany OSHA inspectors on a “walkaround inspection” of non-unionized property. OSHA suggests these union representatives must be allowed access to the farm or ranch when they are reasonably necessary to aid in the inspection process. The same access would be available for any other employee’s designee such as trial lawyers or other activists. The coalition expressed serious concerns on allowing people with no expertise or knowledge of safety or industrial hygiene to participate in such an inspection. Current regulations allow for outside representation but specify that the representative must have specific safety knowledge such as a safety engineer or industrial hygienist. The coalition stated the current regulations and process already provide for an adequate and appropriate protection of worker safety.

In a year that may go down as the worst insect year across the board, Assembly Agriculture Committee Chair Esmeralda Soria toured cotton fields ravaged by lygus and visited a cotton gin and almond huller to see the impacts of having less commodity to run through the plants and consequently a substantial hit on employment here in her District and throughout the Valley.  She first visited Pacific Ginning Company and toured the cotton gin.  She met with Manager Matt Toste, current Chairman of the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association, and discussed the impacts to this year’s crop.  As a result of the heavy rains, there was a heavy lygus presence early in the season. Due to inaction by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR), the crop has been devastated by season long presence and destruction of the pest. This resulted in some fields being completely disced under or limited to one or one and a half bales of cotton production compared to the normal 3 bales to acre yields that California growers are accustomed to.  CDPR refused to register Transform, a very effective insecticide to control lygus, which is registered and used in every other cotton growing state.

Following the gin tour, the Assemblywoman walked in a cotton field she thought had been picked due to the substantial lack of cotton bolls, but had not yet been harvested.

Then the group headed to Superior Almond Hulling to tour the almond huller. There, after meeting with Manager Mayra Sanchez and Superintendent Richard Espinosa, she learned that their season will be more than a month shorter than normal due to the substantial navel orangeworm damage. This means their 100 plus employees will lose more than a month’s wages due to the shorter season. In a year where the state is experiencing major infestations of fruit flies, a new almond beetle, cottonseed bug, and many other invasive pests, it was important that the Assembly Ag Committee Chairwoman see firsthand the effect these state policies can have, especially as our tool box to combat these pests gets lighter and lighter.

Last week the Association was honored and recognized by JCS Marketing with the Industry’s Titan Award, recognizing the Association for its many achievements in the past several years as the Association came into existence.  Accepting the award on behalf of the Association was President/CEO Roger Isom, who commented “I accept this award on behalf of the Association, its staff, its Board Members and every one of our members who have contributed to helping us achieve these many objectives.”  The award was delivered at the “My Ag Nite” event featuring Fox News Host Jesse Watters and put on by JCS Marketing, publisher of the West Coast Nut Grower Guide and many other publications.  “My Ag Nite” was the brainchild of JCS Marketing Owner, Jason Scott.  Joining Isom at this prestigious event was Assistant Vice President Priscilla Rodriguez and Safety and Food Safety Specialists Rita Ruiz and Esmeralda Miranda.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB 616, which expands California’s existing paid sick leave law – the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014. The new law’s modifications have widespread implications because they will apply to virtually all employees who work in California for 30 days or more in a year.  Specifically, the new law will modify existing paid sick leave law by:

• Increasing the annual amount of PSL an employee is entitled to under either the frontload or accrual method from 24 hours or three days to 40 hours or five days;
• For employers who utilize an accrual model other than one hour of leave for every 30 hours worked, increasing the number of PSL hours accrued to 40 hours by their 200^thday of employment, in addition to accruing at least 24 hours of PSL by their 120^thday of employment;
• Increasing the number of days of carried over PSL an employee can use each year from 24 hours or three days to 40 hours or five days;
• For employers who offer paid leave, increasing the number of days of paid leave an employee is eligible to receive from 24 hours or three days within nine months of employment to 40 hours or five days within six months;
• Increasing the cap on an employee’s accrual of PSL from 48 hours or six days to 80 hours or 10 days;
• Extending certain procedural and anti-retaliation provisions of existing law to employees who are covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement that provides for different paid sick leave obligations; and
• Preempting any local cities’ PSL ordinances with less generous leave requirements to establish the state-wide minimums described above.

These new requirements go into effect on January 1, 2024.

This past week the Association testified before the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to oppose ongoing fee increases for water quality regulations.  Water Quality Fees went up across the board, including the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program (ILRP) and Waste Discharge Requirement (WDR) fees.  Association President/CEO Roger A. Isom testified at the hearing and focused on the WDR fees, which had one of the largest increases at 8.5%, which follows a 65% increase in the previous 5 years.  Isom stated “this is not sustainable.  It must stop now!  While we recognize that regulating water quality is expensive and necessary, it does not justify these fee increases.  The WDR fees are so out of line, they are 10 to 15 times all other regulatory fees combined!  How do you explain that?”  The SWRCB has admitted their fees are high, but put the blame on the State legislature, stating the legislature made the agency 100% fee based.  At the hearing the SWRCB admitted 40% of the fee went to programs that were not ag discharge related.  Isom responded “the problems are twofold.  Yes, the State’s General Fund should pick up the statewide portion of the costs and not put those on ag stakeholders, but the Board needs to review the staff and the efficiencies of their work.  We are going to pursue every  angle we can on this issue and have already initiated discussions with the legislature.“  Other commenters echoed Isom’s comments including Bruce Houdesheldt, from the Sacramento Valley Water Quality Coalition. 

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) resolved longstanding litigation covering over 1,000 pesticide products, allowing EPA to fulfill its obligations to protect endangered species while conducting reviews and approvals of pesticides in a safe and protective manner.  In 2011, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network (Plaintiffs) filed a complaint in Federal Court in California against EPA alleging that it was violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) when it registered or reevaluated the registration of 382 pesticide active ingredients, which was ultimately reduced to 35 active ingredients covering over 1,000 pesticide products containing one or more of these active ingredients. This became known as the “megasuit” because of the number of pesticides it covered. The settlement entered by the Court this week resolves all outstanding claims.

“This agreement is a win-win-win to protect endangered species, ensure the availability of pesticides needed to grow food across America, and save considerable time and taxpayer expenses required to further litigate this case,” said Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff.

In 2022, EPA issued its ESA Workplan, Balancing Wildlife Protection and Responsible Pesticide Use: How EPA’s Pesticide Program Will Meet its Endangered Species Act Obligations, which describes how EPA will address the challenge of protecting ESA-listed species from pesticides. This settlement is consistent with EPA’s ongoing efforts to develop a multichemical, multispecies approach to meeting its ESA obligations under the workplan. EPA’s traditional chemical-by-chemical, species-by-species approach to meeting these obligations has been slow and costly, with ESA work on each pesticide typically taking many years to complete. As a result, EPA has completed its ESA obligations for less than 5% of its actions, creating legal vulnerabilities, the potential for adverse impacts to listed species, and uncertainty for farmers and other pesticide users that use many pesticides. Resolving the remaining claims in this lawsuit and establishing a path forward under the settlement is a significant step to overcoming these challenges.

This agreement and the prior partial settlement include obligations for EPA as follows:

• Development of mitigation measures for listed species that are particularly vulnerable to exposures from pesticides and determine how to apply these mitigations to future pesticide actions, as well as whether this Vulnerable Species Pilot should be expanded to more species.
• Development and implementation of an Herbicide Strategy (draft released for public comment), a Rodenticide Strategy, Insecticide Strategy, and Fungicide strategy (the latter three are still under development) which will identify mitigation measures for entire classes of pesticides to address their potential impacts to hundreds of ESA-listed species
• Completion of the ESA work for eight organophosphates and four rodenticides;
• Hosting of a workshop for stakeholders to explore how to offset pesticide impacts on ESA-listed species in situations where eliminating or modifying pesticide use may not be feasible, and how EPA could incorporate those offsets into its process for registering or reregistering pesticides. Offsets could include restoring wetland habitat or funding breeding programs for affected species.

We will have to see how this plays out, because “the devil is in the details.”   What are the mitigation measures and how are the pilot projects impacting farming operations are couple of questions that immediately rise to the top when reviewing EPA’s announcement. 

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has awarded $187 million to 32 groundwater subbasins through the Sustainable Groundwater Management (SGM) Grant Program. The funding will support 103 individual projects that enhance groundwater monitoring, water use efficiency, groundwater recharge, recycled water and water quality.  “This water year has proved the importance of managing our groundwater to capture and store as much water as possible in our local communities to prepare for future weather extremes, while supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,” said DWR Sustainable Groundwater Management Deputy Director Paul Gosselin. “We look forward to working with our local partners to make the necessary investments to better manage, capture and store groundwater for future generations.”  California is home to 515 groundwater basins, a critical component of the state’s water supply, and is heavily relied upon by communities, agriculture and the environment, especially during dry and drought years.  During the 2023 Water Year, DWR has determined an estimated 3.8 million acre-feet of water has been recharged; a clearer picture of the 2023 water year’s groundwater conditions will emerge after April 1, 2024, when annual reports are due from the local groundwater sustainability agencies to the State.  The grant awards are distributed throughout the State, but some regions that will benefit from this funding include:

• In Merced County, the Merced Irrigation-Urban Groundwater Sustainability Agency will receive $3.4 million to execute two multi-benefit projects that fallow more than 1,300 acres of cropland, resulting in increased groundwater recharge, habitat enhancement and reduced flood risk for nearby underrepresented communities.
• In San Benito County, San Benito County Water District will receive $11.5 million to expand and update the water treatment plant and construct five aquifer storage and recovery wells, as well as a conveyance pipeline for water. The project will help provide a resilient water supply for nearby underrepresented communities.
• In Stanislaus County, Oakdale Irrigation District will receive $14.3 million to expand an existing recharge facility and increase storage by 600 percent. The project will benefit underrepresented communities in the area.
• In Sutter County, Sutter County Development Services will receive $8.5 million for improved data collection and reporting while also financing a pilot program to support farmers with irrigation system upgrades and underrepresented communities.

These awards mark the second solicitation offered through the SGM Grant Program. In 2022, the program awarded $150 million during the first solicitation to 20 agencies responsible for managing critically over drafted groundwater basins throughout the state. Demand for groundwater project funding has been high with the SGM Grant Program receiving nearly $800 million in requests.

In a special unprecedented presentation, Association President/CEO Roger Isom testified before the CalOSHA Standards Board on their proposed new standard “Heat Illness Prevention in Indoor Places of Employment.” The presentation occurred last week during the CalOSHA Standards Board regular Board Meeting, but the presentation by the Association was the only item on the agenda and the Board allowed Isom 15 minutes to present the topic. As a reminder the proposed standard is triggered when indoor paces of employment hit 82 °F, and requires engineering controls to bring indoor temperatures to below 87 °F. This would apply to any cotton gin, nut huller or processor and any farm warehouse or shop building. The requirement to cool the buildings to below 87 °F is the primary issue and presents the biggest and most expensive challenge to meeting such a low target temperature.  Isom provided cost estimates from $1 million for a single building to $9.5 million for multiple buildings to install air conditioning, but also stated it would present operational issues with cotton gins and almond hullers as those operations require large volumes of air to either move products from point A to point B, or is used to pull hulls, shells, and dust from the conveyance of products. The proposed regulation states this is only required unless it is not feasible, but “feasible” is not defined.  The lack of a definition is what causes the most concern as it leaves it up to enforcement discretion and subjectivity. The Association emphasized the need to define “feasible” in the context of this regulation. No other presentation was provided and we will now have to wait and see what CalOSHA does with the proposed regulation in response.