Tag: Gov.

California Gov. Newsom announces plan to sign climate bill requiring large companies to disclose gas emissions

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that he plans to sign into law a pair of climate-focused bills intended to force major corporations to be more transparent about greenhouse gas emissions and the financial risks stemming from global warming.

Newsom’s announcement came during an out-of-state trip to New York’s Climate Week, where world leaders in business, politics and the arts are gathered to seek solutions for climate change.

California lawmakers last week passed legislation requiring large businesses from oil and gas companies to retail giants to disclose their direct greenhouse gas emissions as well as those that come from activities like employee business travel.

CA INTRODUCES CLIMATE BILL THAT WOULD MAKE COMPANIES DISCLOSE THEIR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

Such disclosures are a “simple but intensely powerful driver of decarbonization,” said the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat.

“This legislation will support those companies doing their part to tackle the climate crisis and create accountability for those that aren’t,” Wiener said in a statement Sunday applauding Newsom’s decision.

Under the law, thousands of public and private businesses that operate in California and make more than $1 billion annually will have to make the emissions disclosures. The goal is to increase transparency and nudge companies to evaluate how they can cut their carbon emissions.

The second bill approved last week by the state Assembly requires companies making more than $500 million annually to disclose what financial risks climate change poses to their businesses and how they plan to address those risks.

CALIFORNIA’S GRID FACES COLLAPSE AS LEADERS PUSH RENEWABLES, ELECTRIC VEHICLES, EXPERTS SAY

State Sen. Henry Stern, a Democrat from Los Angeles who introduced the legislation, said the information would be useful for individuals and lawmakers when making public and private investment decisions. The bill was changed recently to require companies to begin reporting the information in 2026, instead of 2024, and mandate that they report every other year, instead of annually.

Newsom, a Democrat, said he wants California to lead the nation in addressing the climate crisis. “We need to exercise not just our formal authority, but we need to share our moral authority more abundantly,” he said.

Newsom’s office announced Saturday that California has filed a lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, claiming they deceived the public about the risks of fossil fuels now faulted for climate change-related storms and wildfires that caused billions of dollars in damage.

The civil lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in San Francisco also seeks the creation of a fund — financed by the companies — to pay for recovery efforts following devastating storms and fires.

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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will announce a plan to give children access to mental health treatment

A mental health crisis among children in Illinois will be fought by streamlining and easing access to necessary treatment and coordinating between six separate state agencies, Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans to announce Friday.

A report examining the capacity and condition of Illinois’ response to behavioral health in young people has been in the works for nearly a year. It sketches avenues to help families understand mental illness, then make it easier for them to get required care without wrangling among disparate state agencies. A copy of the report was obtained in advance by The Associated Press.

“It’s all really geared toward creating an experience for families, where the boundaries between those different state agencies that are there to serve them are less visible,” said Dana Weiner, whom Pritzker tabbed for the initiative. She is on loan from the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, where she is senior policy fellow.

“What families (should) experience is a simplified, centralized, clear way to get access to services to understand what their children are struggling with and to identify the things that might help address those challenges,” Weiner.

ILLINOIS WORKER DIES AFTER BECOMING TRAPPED IN FLOODED UNDERGROUND VAULT

The deterioration of mental health among children predates the COVID-19 pandemic. But with the spread of the coronavirus the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021 found 44% of American children had depressive episodes lasting at least two weeks and nearly half had thought about suicide, according to the report.

Friday’s announcement marks the beginning of work to ready the plan for implementation, a report on which Pritzker expects by October. There’s $22.8 million in the governor’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal to complete the planning.

The report identifies technological, practical, legislative and other means for marshaling the expertise among the Departments of Human Services, Children and Family Services, Juvenile Justice, Healthcare and Family Services, Public Health and the State Board of Education.

ILLINOIS MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN RACING CRASH THAT KILLED 2 COLLEGE STUDENTS

The program must be agile for responding to changing needs, given the volatility of mental illness, the report says. It suggests widespread screening of children which might telegraph future suffering and emphasizes the necessity of early intervention.

Recognizing problems quickly is critical, Weiner said. The U.S. Surgeon General discovered in a 2021 study that on average, there is an 11-year gap between recognizing a child’s potential mental health issue and that child getting treatment.

“I’m optimistic because in all of the cases that I’ve listened to and worked on over the last year, there are opportunities to intervene earlier when problems aren’t as severe,” Weiner said. “We can reduce the number of false starts or missed opportunities.”

At the same time, the report recognizes the need to provide incentives to draw people to the field, both by making education more attainable but also drawing upon paraprofessionals or aides to conduct critical work which doesn’t need extensive formal education. With worker shortages hampering many sectors, finding qualified people to fill crucial roles might be one of the effort’s bigger challenges.

But help is available in existing “touch points” in children’s lives — teachers and pediatricians, for example, as well as parents, Weiner said. It doesn’t mean the teacher is the health care provider, but is the recipient of the necessary information to be able to refer a child who needs help.

Asked for her message to parents of troubled children, Weiner said, “We are going to make this easier for you to care for your children and to obtain needed services as well as important information to help you understand how to keep your kids healthy and strong.”

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Senate candidate, supported cutting prison population in half

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Democrat running against incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, has repeatedly advocated for cutting the state’s prison population in half, eliminating cash bail and other progressive criminal justice reforms.

Before entering public office, Barnes previously worked as an organizer for Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope, a Milwaukee-based social justice group, when he teamed up with another organization, Wisdom, to launch a 2012 initiative aimed at cutting Wisconsin’s prison population in half.

The 11×15 campaign sought to reduce the state’s prison population to 11,000 inmates by 2015, Barnes told local media at the time.

Barnes later served two terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly before he was chosen as the running mate to now-Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

MANDELA BARNES’ TIES TO LINGERIE PARTY BARRING ‘RATCHETS’ COULD HAUNT HIS WISCONSIN SENATE BID

During their campaign in 2018, Evers signed onto Barnes’ idea of halving the state’s prison population. Evers, who at the time was the state schools superintendent, said he wanted to do that by allowing inmates to be released for good behavior, creating or expanding court diversion programs and treating 17-year-old offenders as juveniles instead of adults, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported at the time.

Evers did not put a time frame on halving the prison population, but he called it a “goal” and said he would not release violent offenders. 

Months before the election in July 2018, Barnes celebrated Evers and other Democratic gubernatorial candidates for supporting his initiative.

“6 years ago when we kicked off the 11×15 campaign to cut the prison population in half, we could hardly find elected leaders or candidates to get onboard,” Barnes tweeted. “To see it embraced at a gubernatorial candidate forum makes me proud to have worked with such visionary organizers/activists.”

After Evers and Barnes won the election in November 2018, narrowly defeating incumbent Republicans Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch, Barnes continued supporting the prison initiative, tweeting in October 2019, “Cool, let’s cut our prison population in half.”

Since Evers and Barnes entered office, Wisconsin’s prison population has been reduced by about 15%. In 2019, the population was 23,777, compared to 20,123 today, according to 2022 statistics from the state Department of Corrections.

The vast majority of those currently incarcerated – 68% – are classified as “violent” offenders, meaning it would be impossible to cut the population in “half” without releasing at least some of those violent offenders.

WISCONSIN DEM SENATE CANDIDATE SPENT NEARLY $600K ON POLICE DETAIL WHILE COZYING UP TO DEFUND POLICE MOVEMENT

In 2016, when he was still a state legislator, Barnes sponsored a bill to end cash bail in Wisconsin. The measure, which did not make it out of committee, would have required a defendant to be released unless there was “clear and convincing evidence” that he or she was a flight risk or a danger to society, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

During a September 2018 podcast, Barnes also said he supported allowing inmates to vote.

“I’ve long championed restoration of voting rights immediately once someone has served their sentence, and I mean, honestly, even when someone is locked up,” he said.

Barnes has also made statements online with a soft tone on the defund the police movement, and his campaign has received funding from five groups that advocate for defunding cops.

“Defunding the police only dreams of being as radical as a Donald Trump pardon,” Barnes tweeted in July 2020.

On Sept. 3, 2020, Barnes blasted the criminal justice system after the police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor did not face charges.

“You can feel how you want about to calls to reform, defund, or abolish but the question is, how can a system that allows this to happen continue to be upheld?” he wrote.

The lieutenant governor also spoke at a major meeting for the Center for Popular Democracy — a far-left group that supports defunding the police and claims Israel targets Palestinians with “violent attacks.”

“Defund police. Defund police states,” the group tweeted in May of last year. “Defund militarized occupation. Defund state-sanctioned violence.”

Barnes has stated in the press that he does not support the defund the police movement, despite his past statements. 

Johnson’s campaign slammed Barnes as “dangerous” in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“Lt. Gov. Barnes is a socialist liberal who cares more about catering to his ‘woke’ base than keeping Wisconsin families safe,” Johnson campaign spokesman Alec Zimmerman said.

“Crime is out-of-control in Wisconsin, and we can’t afford to elect a radical who cares more about criminals than their victims. Mandela Barnes is dangerous for Wisconsin,” he said.

Barnes’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.