Ford, Other Automakers Ink Emissions Deal With California

Defying Trump, 5 Automakers Lock In a Deal on Greenhouse Gas Pollution

The five — Ford, Honda, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo — sealed a binding agreement with California to follow the state’s stricter tailpipe emissions rules.

Volkswagen, Ford, Honda and BMW blindsided the Trump administration last year when they announced a deal to comply with California’s emissions rules.
Volkswagen, Ford, Honda and BMW blindsided the Trump administration last year when they announced a deal to comply with California’s emissions rules.Credit…Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

By Coral Davenport, New York Times Aug. 17, 2020

WASHINGTON — California on Monday finalized a legal settlement with five of the world’s largest automakers that binds them to comply with its stringent state-level fuel efficiency standards that would cut down on climate-warming tailpipe emissions.

Monday’s agreement adds legal teeth to a deal that California and four of the companies outlined in principle last summer, and it comes as a rejection of President Trump’s new, looser federal rules on fuel economy, which would allow more pollution into the atmosphere.

Mr. Trump was blindsided last summer when the companies — Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen — announced that they had reached a secret deal with California to comply with that state’s standards, even as the Trump administration was working to roll back Obama-era rules on fuel economy. A fifth company, Volvo, said in March that it intended to join the agreement and is part of the legal settlement that was finalized on Monday.

After last summer’s announcement, Mr. Trump escalated his legal and rhetorical attacks on California. He accelerated the release of a rule to revoke California’s legal authority to set its own state-level standards, writing on Twitter that doing so would “produce far less expensive cars for the consumer, while at the same time making the cars substantially SAFER.” His administration dismissed the California deal as a meaningless “voluntary stunt.”

But with the publication of Monday’s legal agreement, the “stunt” is no longer voluntary.

“We went into this voluntarily, but it is now binding, it’s enforceable,” said Spencer Reeder, director of government affairs and sustainability at Audi of America, who helped to negotiate the agreement on behalf of Volkswagen, Audi’s parent company.

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City posts notices that Philly homeless encampments on the Parkway and Ridge Avenue must close today

City employees post a second notice sign at the encampment at 22nd and the Parkway, August 17, 2020, in Philadelphia.
JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
City employees post a second notice sign at the encampment at 22nd and the Parkway, August 17, 2020, in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia officials had been negotiating with encampment organizers to find a way to house those who were living there. But they appeared to be too far apart, leading Mayor Jim Kenney to say that continuing the talks would be “fruitless.” Officials ordered that the sites would be shuttered when signs were posted Monday morning.

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Death Valley records the hottest temperature on Earth

By Scottie Andrew, CNN Updated 10:38 AM ET, Mon August 17, 2020

(CNN) Death Valley was the hottest place on Earth on Sunday. If verified, it could be the hottest temperature recorded in the world since 1913.The hottest, driest and lowest national park in California and Nevada recorded a preliminary high temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The all-time high of 134 degrees, reported over 100 years ago, was also recorded in Death Valley.

FROM 2013: 100 years ago, Death Valley set a scorching record -- 134 degrees

FROM 2013: 100 years ago, Death Valley set a scorching record — 134 degrees

t’ll be just as hot on Monday in Death Valley with a predicted high of 129 degrees, per the NWS. The agency is warning people who live in eastern California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah to limit their time outside to between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.

Nearly 60 million people in the US, from Arizona up to the US-Canada border, are under a heat advisory, watch or warning this week, CNN meteorologist Tyler Mauldin said.

The heat is the result of high pressure that’s settled over much of the West Coast.

Usually, the West and southwestern US experience the North American monsoon during this time of year, said Daniel Berc, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Las Vegas. But the monsoon hasn’t developed as it typically does so instead of heavy rainfall Death Valley is getting hotter under high pressure, Berc told CNN.

It’s been a sweltering summer for much of the US — last month was the hottest July on record for seven states along the East Coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Not to be outdone, Death Valley reported a high of 128 degrees last month, too — its hottest temperature (until this month) since 2013, NOAA reported.

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Covid Killed New York’s Coastal Resilience Bill, and People of Color Could Bear Much of the Cost

The proposal would have provided $3 billion in funding to reduce flood risk linked to climate chang

BY KRISTOFFER TIGUE, Inside Climate News

A firefighter stands among the remains of homes burned down in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens during Hurricane Sandy on October 31, 2012

A firefighter stands among the remains of homes burned down in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens during Hurricane Sandy on October 31, 2012. Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Arlene Phipps’ string of bad luck started the night Hurricane Sandy crashed into New York’s coast.

Fierce winds pelted Phipps’ two-story home on New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula that day in 2012, and sea water flooded the first floor, where she ran her daycare center. The damage was so extensive, the city condemned the building, forcing Phipps and her family to live in a hotel for several years.

Then in 2017, Phipps’ husband died unexpectedly, leaving her with a more than $200,000 mortgage that drained her savings as she struggled to reestablish her livelihood.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do—I’m 66 years old, I have a heart condition,” Phipps said. “I’ve had one thing after another.”

Sandy killed 44 people and ultimately cost the city an estimated $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity, officials reported, with over 69,000 residences damaged and thousands of New Yorkers like Phipps forced to find new homes.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13082020/new-york-flooding-climate-change-hurricane-sandy-coastal-cuomo-mother-nature-bond-act

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Covid-19 creates opening for office market In New Jersey suburbs

By Bill Wichert Law360 (August 14, 2020, 9:24 PM EDT)

The dark clouds hovering over the economy have produced an unlikely glimmer of hope for New Jersey’s struggling suburban office market as the health risks posed by the coronavirus encourage businesses to look beyond crowded New York City, experts say.

With workers fearful of taking mass transit and either riding in packed elevators or enduring long waits to reach top floors because of social distancing, companies may explore setting up offices in the Garden State suburbs, potentially boosting a struggling market that has seen tremendous vacancies while employers have gravitated toward urban areas.

“That sort of plain vanilla box in the suburbs, where you can drive to it in your automobile cocoon, get out and then walk up the stairs … sounds a little bit more attractive today than it did just five months ago,” said Rutgers University professor James W. Hughes, former dean of Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

The impact on suburban office complexes amid the pandemic “all depends on how companies are going to be restructured, redefining themselves, how they’re going to set up their work templates and the like going forward,” Hughes said.

Jeffrey L. Heller, New Jersey managing director at commercial real estate services firm Avison Young, cautioned that the idea of the outbreak spurring businesses to head to the state’s suburbs is at this point only a “narrative.” There’s no trend or factual information that “would demonstrate this migration outward,” Heller said.

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Yet there are “building blocks out there which would lead into the narrative,” he said.

Among those factors, companies are considering the “hub and spoke” model, which would involve a hub office in New York City, a smaller office in the New Jersey suburbs and similar outposts in other parts of the region, Heller said. Employees would be able to work from home and drop into those small offices on an occasional basis.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. People are talking about the hub and spoke,” Heller said. “That wasn’t discussed previous to COVID. … It’s good to have at least the concept out there and people talking about it.”

Having smaller hubs also could save on time spent commuting between New York City and New Jersey, Hughes said.

“It may be optimal in terms of total productivity if you do have hubs, smaller hubs in New Jersey where people can cluster together once or twice a week on a staggered basis,” Hughes said.

Another positive sign for New Jersey’s suburban office market is the robust amount of residential sales in the suburbs during the pandemic.

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