EnviroPolitics Blog

The new cash crop in California is solar energy

In California’s water-stressed Central Valley, farmers are fallowing land and installing solar, providing financial stability and saving water.

By Matt Simon, Canary Media

Around the world, farmers are retooling their land to harvest the hottest new commodity: sunlight. As the price of renewable energy technology has plummeted and water has gotten more scarce, growers are fallowing acreage and installing solar panels. Some are even growing crops beneath them, which is great for plants stressed by too many rays. Still others are letting that shaded land go wild, providing habitat for pollinators and fodder for grazing livestock.

According to a new study, this practice of agrisolar has been quite lucrative for farmers in California’s Central Valley over the last 25 years — and for the environment. Researchers looked at producers who had idled land and installed solar, using the electricity to run equipment like water pumps and selling the excess power to utilities.

On average, that energy savings and revenue added up to $124,000 per hectare (about 2.5 acres) each year, 25 times the value of using the land to grow crops. Collectively, the juice generated in the Central Valley could power around 500,000 households while saving enough water to hydrate 27 million people annually. “If a farmer owns 10 acres of land, and they choose to convert 1 or 2 acres to a solar array, that could produce enough income for them to feel security for their whole operation,” said Jake Stid, a renewable energy landscape scientist at Michigan State University and lead author of the paper, published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Read the full story here

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Sequoia trees are sprouting in Detroit. Yes, Detroit

Vacant lots becoming home to majestic trees, which help air quality

**Gianna Holliday** planted a seedling for Giant Sequoia Filter Forest in Detroit, the pilot city

By Corey Williams, Associated Press

DETROIT — Arborists are turning vacant land on Detroit’s eastside into a small urban forest — not of elms, oaks and red maples indigenous to the city but giant sequoias, the world’s largest trees that can live for thousands of years.

The project on four lots could improve air quality and help preserve the trees that are native to California’s Sierra Nevada, where they are threatened by ever-hotter wildfires.

Detroit is the pilot city for the Giant Sequoia Filter Forest. The nonprofit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive donated dozens of sequoia saplings to be planted by staff and volunteers from Arboretum Detroit, another nonprofit, as a way to mark Earth Day on April 22.

Co-founder David Milarch says Archangel also plans to plant sequoias in Los Angeles; Oakland, Calif.; and London.

What are they?

The massive conifers can grow to more than 300 feet tall with a more than 30-foot circumference at the base. They can live for more than 3,000 years.

“Here’s a tree that is bigger than your house when it’s mature, taller than your buildings, and lives longer than you can comprehend,” said Andrew “Birch” Kemp, Arboretum Detroit’s executive director.

The sequoias will eventually provide a full canopy that protects everything beneath, he said.

“It may be sad to call these .5- and 1-acre treescapes forests,” Kemp said. “We are expanding on this and shading our neighborhood in the only way possible, planting lots of trees.”

Read the full story here

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NJ Assembly environmental panel taking up product packaging, scrap metal legislation, and more on May 8 in Trenton

The Assembly Environment, Natural Resources and Solid Waste Committee will meet at 1 p.m., May 8 , in Committee Room 9, Third Floor, State House Annex, to consider the following bills:

A5009 – “Packaging Product Stewardship Act.”

A5195 – Requires manufacturer of certain firefighting equipment containing perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances to provide written notice to purchaser; prohibits sale, manufacture, and distribution of certain firefighting equipment containing intentional

A5223 – Requires manufacturer of firefighting personal protective equipment containing perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances to provide written notice to purchaser.

A5265 – Authorizes enforcement of landscape irrigation law by local enforcing agency and increases penalties.

A5533 – Establishes requirements for receipt and purchase of scrap metals containing propulsion batteries.

A5534 – Requires business that violate State environmental laws to forfeit economic development subsidies under certain circumstances.

A5535 – Requires certain facilities that store or process automotive shredder residue to obtain DEP permit; defines “hazardous waste” to include automotive shredder residue.

S4126 – Prohibits certain uses of perchloroethylene and trichloroethylene.

The public may address comments and questions to Christina Denney, Committee Aide, or make bill status and scheduling inquiries to Melissa Berrios, Secretary, at 609-847-3855, fax 609-292-0561, or e-mail: OLSAideAEN@njleg.org. Written and electronic comments, questions and testimony submitted to the committee by the public, as well as recordings and transcripts, if any, of oral testimony, are government records and will be available to the public upon request.

If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month

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GOP blocks state rules to stimulate clean car sales

Move would keep NJ and others from following California regulations

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House this week moved to block California from carrying out state requirements to sell more electric trucks, limit a type of pollution that generates smog and ban the sale of gasoline-fueled automobiles by 2035.

The resolutions to thwart these three policies from California, the biggest automobile market in the country, passed the House with support from the fossil fuel industry, the trucking lobby and business groups.

New Jersey, like other states in the Northeast, follows many of California’s air pollution and transportation standards that govern cars, trucks and heavy-duty trucks, and the resolutions this week will have massive environmental ripple effects if President Donald Trump signs them into law.

The resolutions now go to the Senate, where a parliamentary snag could deny passage.

EV advocates warn NJ likely to miss 2025 goal

New Jersey’s congressional delegation split almost entirely on party lines, with Republicans voting for the resolutions and Democrats against.

Democrats Donald Norcross (D-1st) and Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) did not vote. Norcross is recovering from a medical emergency that concerned his gallbladder and has not been in Washington for weeks, though his office said Thursday he was discharged from the hospital.

A Gottheimer spokesman said the congressman would have voted “no” on the three resolutions.

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Bernie Sanders’ anti-Trump rally comes to Philadelphia today

Protesters will take to the streets in Philadelphia and elsewhere across the country on May Day to highlight the fight against President Donald Trump and his policies.

Senator Bernie Sanders draws massive crowd in Los Angeles two weeks ago

By Rob Tornoe, Philadelphia Inquirer

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will headline a May Day rally in Philadelphia Thursday, May 1, as he brings his nationwide fight against President Donald Trump’s agenda to Pennsylvania.

Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, is expected to speak at a “For the Workers, Not the Billionaires” event being hosted by Philadelphia’s AFL-CIO chapter, which is scheduled to get underway around 4 p.m. Thursday outside the north side of City Hall.

“This rally is really to show when labor, immigration groups, and the community stand together, we’re a force that can’t be divided. Even Bernie Sanders is joining us,” said Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO spokesperson Maggie Mullooly. “We’re fighting for a future that works for the workers and not the billionaires.”

Thursday’s rally and march comes amid economic uncertainty created by Trump’s on-again, off-again approach to tariffs — taxes on imported goods — which has rattled world markets and sapped economic confidence.

On Wednesday, the Commerce Department released data that showed the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3% rate in the first quarter of 2025, a dramatic reversal of the 2.4% increase in the fourth quarter of 2024, when President Joe Biden was still in office.

Sanders, often joined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), has drawn large crowds in Republican strongholds as he criticizes Trump’s agenda and a system he claims benefits the wealthy at the expense of the working class.

Read the full story and rally details here

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New dual certification program for recycled content

Joint program provides streamlined Recycled Content and APR certification for plastic chips, pellets, flakes and resins

Wash., April 30, 2025 –Today at the SPC Impact Conference for sustainable packaging, SCS Global Services (SCS), an international leader in third-party environmental and sustainability certification and an approved certification body for the Association of Plastics Recyclers (APR), announced a new streamlined SCS Recycled Content and APR certification.

Now, under this latest program partnership with APR, SCS further expands its certification portfolio by offering a streamlined two-for-one audit for its recycled content certification clients that are producers of plastic chips, pellets, flakes and resins—allowing them to also meet APR’s additional certification requirements. In addition to widely recognized SCS Recycled Content certification, having APR certification expands global recognition and market access for companies, especially for those with business interests in China.

The Association of Plastics Recyclers is an international non-profit and the only organization in North America focused exclusively on improving recycling for plastics. APR helps companies across the plastics recycling value chain with design guidance and recognition, recycled content certification and specifications, policy education and advocacy and much more.

“As a recognized certifier for APR since 2020, we are excited to streamline the process to provide our clients a one-stop-shop pathway to achieving international marketplace recognition for their sustainability efforts” says Youssra Elkhatib, SCS’ Program Manager for Circular Materials. “This initiative will provide ease of certification for plastic pellet, chip, resin and flake manufacturers as well as an opportunity to showcase their achievements on the global stage as an APR certified organization.”

“This is a significant step forward, aligning efforts to help our clients and the recycling industry increase PCR certifications, allowing more availability and confidence in the supply chain,” said Rita Phillip, Program Director, PCR Certification for the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR). “Our two organizations are leading the way demonstrating that collaboration between certification bodies and scheme owners is possible and moves initiatives forward.”

SCS is globally recognized for recycled content certification in products and packaging for over 35 years. The standard, now in Version 8.0, has been continually updated over the years and has now been expanded to cover consumer electronics products.

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