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California May Waive Environmental Rules For Tesla
cartechboy writes: We all know Tesla is working on its Gigafactory, and it has yet to announce officially where it will be. But the automaker did announce a shortlist of possible locations, and California wasn't on it. The state has quickly been trying to lure Tesla to get back into contention. Now the state may waive environmental rules which would normally make construction of such a large manufacturing facility more difficult. Apparently, Governor Jerry Brown's office is currently negotiating an incentive package for Tesla that would waive certain parts of the nearly half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act. Not only that, but state officials are reportedly considering letting Tesla begin construction and perform damage mitigation later, along with limiting lawsuits that could slow down the project. Let's not forget some massive tax breaks, to the tune of $500 million. Is California stepping out of bounds here?
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Californians are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this shit: they've got state regulations that do a better job (at least better than anywhere else in the US, with the possible exception of Hawaii) of limiting their exposure to nasty, carcinogenic shit, environmentally-devastating corporate irresponsibility, etc etc... but as long as there are cheaper places with less regulations to run a business (Texas, Mexico, China...), that's where industry's going to go. And California will continue it's steady slide down the economic toilet.
"Is California stepping out of bounds here?"
California is like breakfast cereal - what isn't fruits, or nuts, are flakes...
It's kind of funny ... these big money, massive development sorts of projects are probably the ones that most need to have the environmental review that the law was put in place for.
... lets get that money and those jobs into our state. But isn't it selling out a little, as well unfairly burdening the little guy?
So Joe Blow with his small business needs to go through all the red tape, but big ol' money making Elon Musk can avoid them. I can understand the impetus behind it
Yes, the rules are waived... for now.
However, how easily can that waiver be pulled? Is Tesla standing with a just flick of a governor's pen between them and having to shutter the entire factory, or is there some due process in place so they can't be shut down if they don't toe the politicians' line exactly?
It's just a battery factory. It's unlikely it will employ that many people. Tesla says 6500, but that's probably exaggerated, including the construction phase. The battery factory for the Chevy Volt has only 100 people. It's a big, highly automated plant.
is that they're talking about exceptions, and not simply getting rid of the massive regulations that have killed businesses for years.
We now have state inspectors go through out trash cans looking for light bulbs. We will not, ever, be in a position to negotiate an exemption.
It would be amusing to see someone file a lawsuit - at the federal level - for equal protection violations. A class action lawsuit, with the class being everyone who is not eligible for the exemption. Or maybe a RICO lawsuit, since this is certainly affecting interstate commerce.
It wouldn't be the first time a government agency in California has been sued for RICO violations. And certainly won't be the last.
There are rules. Either you have environmental protection laws or you don't. If you have them, don't start making exceptions to them because anyone who didn't get an exception and lost money as a result can (and should!) sue the everlasting shit out of you. If there's a problem with your laws, repeal them and replace them with more sensible ones.
Is California stepping out of bounds here?
Maybe, maybe not ... the devil is in the details.
California does go overboard on regulations. I'm saying this based on conversations with a friend who has an environmental remediation business cleaning up other people's industrial messes or preventing the messes in the first place. He's quite the environmentalist, an environmentalist of the scientific school of thought not the political school of thought. The State Legislature is more of the later. If it "sounds" pro-environment "pass it" is their approach. If its useless or counterproductive it doesn't matter, it just has to sound like a good thing.
If Tesla is only getting breaks on the sillier stuff it may be a good idea.
Now on the legal side, California is a nightmare. The State Legislature is bought and paid for by the trial lawyers.
We need to have environmental protections, but many of California's regulations are ridiculous. Every business owner has to post a notice that their customers might get cancer if they eat the toner in the fax machine, or drink the toilet cleaner. The requirements for contaminants in waste water from semiconductor plants is more stringent than for tap water. So the semiconductor plants have mostly left the state, and taken the jobs with them. For at least the last ten years, California has had an unemployment rate about two points above the national average.
It's strange how California's environmental protection law was put in place by the beloved icon of Republican party... the same party who now say it's the reason for companies to stay away from California.
"California's landmark environmental statute, widely known by its acronym CEQA, was signed into law by former Gov. Ronald Reagan. It requires state and local government agencies to review development projects to identify potential threats to the environment and recommend ways to reduce or eliminate any potential damage."
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
Businesses have repeated shown no concern for their workers or the surrounding populace when it comes to safety or pollution, and no remorse for the consequences of their actions. Rivers in the Appalachians, lead poisoning in Industry, plant explosions in Texas, worker deaths and oil spills from a rig explosion in the Gulf, the Ohio River literally on fire are all examples of this psychopathic behavior.
If a business cannot provide a safe workplace, and clean up its own waste, it should not be in business, because neither of those is all that hard.
California is by far the number one state for manufacturing jobs, firms and output â" accounting for 11.7 percent of the total output, and employing 9 percent of the workforce.
I'd love to see that in per-capita or per-acre terms.
It's also the largest state in population, with 11.91% as of the 2010 census. That's half again as many as Texas, a pinch under twice as many as New York or Florida, almost three times that of Illinois or Pennsylvania, and by then you've used up more than a third of them.
11.7% of the output jobs vs. 11.91% of the population says the AVERAGE of the rest of the states has it beat. Some of the others are REALLY depressed, so the best of them beat it into the ground.
Similarly, it's the third largest state in area - with the largest amount of COMFY area.
It has resources, the best ports for trade with Asia, decent roads and railroads to the rest of the continent, etc. And it's got some capital-intensive industries and lots of access TO capital. It SHOULD be a nova to the rest of the country's furnaces. So why isn't it?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That particular regulation (prop 65) was voter initiated, not legislature initiated. All it requires is: the state must publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm (defined as having a 1 in 100,000 chance of causing cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm); businesses must label products and areas, like workplaces or apartments, that contain or release *significant amounts* of those poisons; and businesses are prohibited from knowingly releasing listed chemicals into drinking water sources. Many businesses have taken the position that they're better off posting warnings when any amount of a carcinogenic substance is present.
Given that semiconductor manufacturing is one of the more hazardous and polluting industries out there, I'm not surprised fab plants have a difficult time meeting environmental regulations in CA and have been willing to deal with the costs associated with moving to states or coutries who don't care as much about the health of workers or the cost of environmental cleanup. The solution to lost jobs isn't to drop regulation so employers can go back to putting employee health at risk, it's to improve the standards of the rest of the world so there isn't an unregulated bolt-hole for fab plant owners to run off to.
Oops: Got output and jobs merged:
11.91% of the population vs 11.7% of the total output. A bit behind in value added. (Horrible, since the value added in, say, computers is hysterically high.)
11.91% of the population vs. 9% of the workforce. That says 32% fewer jobs per capita in the manufacturing sector. Doesn't sound like the "number one state for manufacturing jobs" to me.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It doesn't mean it's irrelevant, it means impacts won't be prevented (which isn't the purpose of an impact study anyway) but they can still be mitigated later. You might not understand this difference but it's significant. We have a serious problem with environmental groups abusing the process not to prevent environmental damage, but to prevent development at all. Even when developers or state agencies go out of their way to protect sensitive sites/species groups like Greenpeace will still sue, not to get additional protections or to protect anything but simply to raise the costs in the hope the agency/company will abandon the project because in Greenpeace's view all new development is bad. They aren't alone, there are dozens of groups who are abusing the courts and our environmental laws as some campaign to end all new development.
This is not the purpose these environmental rules were created to satisfy. The laws are being heavily abused and if it's not reigned in it's going to get so bad people will support abolishing the protections all together, which is a far worse outcome.
Apparently he's learned his lesson, given that Spacex is building it's new spaceport in Texas.
SpaceX is mostly sending satellites to geosynchronous orbits. That means launching due east. East of Brownsville, TX, is the Gulf of Mexico. In California, anywhere east is land, much of it populated. In addition, the closer to the equator you launch the rocket from, the more of a boost you get from earth's rotation. This lets you put more payload into space or use a smaller rocket.
I don't think that Elon is abandoning California. I think the lesson Elon has learned is some basic rocket science.
It's more that just jobs though. If this factory reduces the cost of the batteries to the point where lots more people can afford to purchase Teslas this could significantly impact air pollution in cities. While you'd need data to really know the answer this might actually be a case where the laws to protect the environment are not actually doing so.
1) Make rules that prevent anyone from doing anything.
2) Waive rules for people and companies you favor.
Now you effectively control who gets to do anything, and all in the name of the environment, or puppies, or whatever your original rule purported to protect.
A perpetually drought-stricken state is not the place for a water intensive industry like semiconductors.
Growing rice in the Central Valley uses a thousand times as much water as the semiconductor industry ever did. But the semiconductor industry employed a hundred times as many people. If making semiconductors was dumb, then growing rice in the desert is 100,000 times dumber.
"Why would the rest of the world care? If Californians eliminate themselves as a competitor through insane regulation, other countries benefit."
Well, another way to look at it is Californians have calculated the real cost. Sure, you get a couple of hundred FAB plant jobs, and a dribble of corporate and payroll tax out of it, but FABs are notoriously hard on worker health and on the surrounding environment. So the state ends up paying big dollars down the track to clean up the toxic mess left behind (and remember the only thing prop 65 bans is businesses dumping known carcinogens *into the drinking water supply* - under this law you can still dump carcinogenic waste wherever else you want), and pays again for healthcare costs for workers and their families (or we all pay it through increased insurance premiums if the state doesn't end up paying for it with our taxes).
About the only reason you'd want a FAB plant in your state that wasn't willing or able to comply with California's environmental laws is if you want to be able to boast about how you 'created more jobs' in the leadup to the next election, and didn't give a shit what the real cost to the state would be over the next 30 years.