Media and Technology Stats and Studies – January 18, 2013

Stats & Studies — 1/18/13

STEM Degree Disparities Among First and Second Generation Immigrants

The National Center for Education Statistics reported an 11-point gap (25% versus 14%) of first generation Asian immigrants who pursue STEM degrees compared to their Latino immigrant counterparts. The report shows that most computer, math, statistics, and engineering degrees are going to foreign-born residents primarily from India and China. Further, 18% of Latino immigrants indicated English as the primary language spoken at home, compared to 26% of Asian immigrants. Latino immigrants who ever enrolled in at least one remedial college course was 52%, compared to 40% of their Asian counterparts.

A Third of Smartphone Users Use Their Device While Driving

One in three smartphone owners uses a device while driving, according to McKinsey and Company. Seventy percent of those users used their devices to check email or send instant messages. Last year, AT&T released the results of a teen driver survey revealing higher instances of texting while driving among Latino teens.

Minority and Female-Owned Radio Stations are Few Among Thousands

According to the FCC, there were 15,196 full-power radio stations licensed in the U.S. at the end of 2012. In November of 2012, the FCC reported 80% of all (including full power and low power) AM and FM radio stations were owned by Whites, with 70% owned by men.

Working Poor Have Negative Disposable Income to Spend on Broadband

The Working Poor Project reports that while unemployment numbers are down, nearly a third of working families struggle to meet basic needs because they take lower paying jobs. NTIA reported in 2010 that more than a third (34%) of Americans without broadband at home reported the primary reason for not having broadband was that the price of broadband is too high.

Nielsen: Live TV Viewing Continues to Exceed Time-Shifted Viewing

Nielsen reports that 5% of DVR viewing happens beyond 7 days of time shifting but that the highest viewership levels still occur on a live basis, at 87.2% of total tv viewing. Last year, Nielsen reported that African-Americans spend more time watching television than any other group, at 7 hours, 12 minutes per day.

NTIA Released a Quarterly Program Status Report of its BTOP Program Awardees

According to NTIA, award recipients deployed more than 6,500 network miles in the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing the total number of miles passed to 78,000 miles funded by BTOP. This exceeded the goal of 50,000 miles by the end of 2012. BTOP award recipients also connected and or/improved service to 1,200 community anchor institutions, up by 12% over the previous year. Further, BTOP awardees installed 38,600 new computer workstations through September, 2012. BTOP programs also added 134,000 new broadband subscribers in the 4^th quarter to the 510,000 new household and 12,000 new business broadband subscribers reported in September, 2012. The quarterly report does not report on the racial and ethnic characteristics of the communities served. This brings the total number of institutions connected by BTOP to 11,200 across the U.S.

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Channel Set toTurn Around with 30% Viewership Growth

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network boasted 325,000 viewers on a typical night in 2012, up 30% from the previous year. This is a turnaround for the channel.  Last May, OWN was reported to have lost nearly $300M following several programming miscues, including a live broadcast from India, which yielded widespread criticism for resorting to “stereotyping and clichés” of Indian culture. . Forbes has ranked Winfrey as the richest African-American of the 20^th century.

Other reports:

George Washington University reports internet users trust social media as a news source.  Seventy-one percent of users under 25 place greater or equal trust in social media news content compared to traditional news sources.

Nielsen reports that significant smartphone growth opportunties remain in Brazil, Russia, and India.

The Department of Commerce reported that while overall retail sales were up by .5% in December, retail sales of electronics and appliances were actually down by .6%.

EBay topped holiday ’12 sales forecasts by $10M fueled by growth in mobile shoppers. Another study by Cisco reported 65% of shoppers research products online before ultimately buying them in brick-and-mortar stores.

According to Comscore, 53 percent of the total U.S. population encountered a video ad online. Americans watched 11.2 billion online advertisements in December alone.

MoPub, one of the largest mobile ad exchanges, reported that advertisers charged a premium for ads to reach iPads. Ads placed on iOS systems garnered higher ad prices than ads placed on Android devices because iOS systems yield higher click-through rates of 1.7 versus 1.3 percent.

The smart energy IT industry is growing rapidly and predicted to grow by 20% in 2013, according to Pike Research.

Babson Research reported 6.7 million—a third—of post-secondary students have taken an online course.

Network Management software provider Ariseo reported that smartphones consume more data than tablets.

Reality Check 2012

by David Bositis, Ph.D.

When the 2012 Republican presidential candidates speak, there is a constant refrain about President Obama’s “failed presidency.”  Maybe that is the case by their standards.  On the other hand, by more objective standards, not so much.  The President took office when the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression was already well underway, and while the economy remains weak in many respects–especially in job creation–it is most certainly improving due to his efforts.  In the fourth quarter of 2011, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8 percent, and unemployment has fallen for four straight months.  Black unemployment in January declined sharply from December–from 15.8 percent to 13.6 percent.  Mr. Obama has been somewhat reluctant to boast about his accomplishments, but they are substantial, ranging from the stimulus bill in 2009 to Health Care Reform, a payroll tax cut for ordinary Americans, and the elimination of Osama Bin Laden.

While the Republican candidates haven’t recognized the President’s accomplishments, the public has.  President Obama’s job approval numbers are now in positive territory, and he leads all the GOP contenders in national surveys by a statistically significant amount.  Further, Mr Obama leads his would-be opponents in most of the important 2012 swing states including Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.  Mr. Obama’s average favorable ratings are 49.2 percent favorable and 45.5 percent unfavorable.  Mr. Romney’s average favorable ratings are 31.9 percent favorable and 46.9 percent unfavorable.  Time for a reality check?

David A. Bositis, Ph.D., who has been at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies since 1990, is a voting rights and redistricting expert.

Mayor Emanuel Must Shed Old Paradigms for True Transparency Reform

by Nicol Turner Lee, Ph.D.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is under fire for his office’s denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, with critics in the local and national press and blogs taking the mayor to task for shielding public records from public view. Underscoring this lapse in transparency is Emanuel’s vow to foster “the most open, accountable and transparent government that the City of Chicago has ever seen.” Cities like Boston, Phoenix, and Seattle all routinely release such information, according to reporting by the Chicago Tribune’s David Kidwell, implying that they do transparency better.

This is not to suggest there has been no progress on transparency under Mayor Emanuel. Indeed, he has backed the release of large amounts of government data, including the June release of salary information for all city employees. The city’s September release of city-wide crime statistics for the past decade not only helps crime-fighting agencies, but also journalists, advocates and businesses create more targeted programs to address local concerns.

Chicago, like its big city peers, just needs to decide if government transparency is a core attribute of its government. For the Emanuel Administration, releasing some data and not others does little to shed the old paradigms of closed door politics where waste, government fraud and abuse were the norm.

State and local governments lag severely behind federal government due to fragmented policies and technical systems. Consequently, citizens are deprived of opportunities to participate in the processes and deliberations of local government. This is ironic since our democracy has always been grounded in localism.

Releasing government data is only one way of ensuring effective open government. The White House and federal agencies regularly solicit citizen feedback on pending policy matters and use the Internet to embrace the public’s expertise by encouraging citizens to turn government data into useful online tools and applications. The Recovery.gov website allows residents to track Recovery Act spending and report abuse or fraud. The Data.gov website is regularly updated with data sets provided by federal agencies and showcases citizen-developed apps by winners of contests and other challenges.

As the former architect of President Obama’s open government plans, Mayor Emanuel can go even further by consulting the following recommendations on how to put government content to creative use, as other American cities are doing.

Create opportunities for developing public good applications. New York is a prime example of a city developing public good applications. Mayor Bloomberg recently announced New York’s third application development competition, NYC BigApps 3.0, with over 750 datasets for developers to create web or mobile applications using official city data. The NYC Open Data site includes datasets as varied as maps of city parks and parking facilities, restaurant inspection reports and school attendance and enrollment statistics by district. Public-private-citizen partnerships can generate ideas for meaningful public purpose apps that can improve the quality of life within communities, but that can’t happen if cities don’t open up information to the public in the first place and make data available in standardized formats.

Establish flexible procurement procedures that allow for more off-the-shelf purchasing and easier contracting and promote innovative application solutions. Easing the burden of excessive paperwork and lengthy bureaucratic approvals associated with the purchase of information technology and data management software can strengthen innovation in local governments interested in improving their transparency. In Washington, D.C., the Apps for Democracy program funded the development of apps outside of normal procurement process. Structured as a contest, the innovative program was aimed at developers where mash-up data and software existed alongside traditional procurement processes.

By following just these two recommendations, government services and operations can become more efficient. For example, the city could lower transaction costs for procedures such as business license renewals and property tax payments by using updated, open data tools. Innovative applications geared toward the transit, health care and employment sectors can also minimize harms produced by over-congested roadways, busy emergency waiting rooms and busy job centers.

Tackling open government also helps cities address a more critical issue impacting local economies and quality of life- low broadband adoption rates among our nation’s citizens. Nationwide, two-thirds of households currently subscribe to broadband service. However, only about half of minority and low-income households have adopted this increasingly vital technology. Many non-adopters do not see the Internet’s value. Increasing the availability of resident-focused government content and services at the local level could offer non-users a clear, tangible value proposition for adopting broadband.

Having run for and won office as a reformer, Mayor Emanuel has a broad mandate for making Chicago’s government more transparent and accountable by making a commitment to digital openness that furthers the interests of this great city. Making civic and social data available in standardized formats that lead to the productive public use of public information is something that everyone can agree is a public benefit.

If Mayor Emanuel wishes to foster a more transparent Chicago, he must not only continue the release of city data, but ensure that it is put to creative uses that serve the public.

Nicol Turner-Lee is Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. More information on Nicol Turner-Lee and her work can be found at the Joint Center website.

This is Inner City…

by Joseph Miller, Esq.

“Don’t take away the music.  It’s the only thing I’ve got.  It’s my piece of the rock.” 

-        From the lyrics of Don’t Take Away the Music by Tavares.

“[T]he market shapes programming to a tremendous extent. Members of minority groups who own licenses might be thought, like other owners, to seek to broadcast programs that will attract and retain audiences, rather than programs that reflect the owner’s tastes and preferences.”

-        From Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s Dissenting Opinion in Metro Broadcasting Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547 (1990)

When the walls started shaking at the Joint Center’s offices during last week’s earthquake, I was faced with one question: leave the building or stay inside?  Similarly, the seismic transformation of the broadcasting industry brought on by mobile devices, personal computers, and digital video recorders has presented new problems for broadcasters.  But Black-owned radio stations targeting African-American audiences are faced with their own fight or flight question:  Can they stay profitable by offering black-only programming?  What is the tipping point at which diversifying their programming will begin to alienate their listener base?

Earlier this week, Inner City Media Corporation’s creditors filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against it. Inner City Media Corporation is the holding company of Inner City Broadcasting, one of the nation’s leading black-owned broadcasters and owner of WBLS-FM/WLIB-AM in New York City.  Inner City’s creditors claim that it owes some $254 million.

Inner City Broadcasting is rooted in the civil rights movement.  The late Percy Sutton, former attorney to Malcolm X and a former Manhattan Borough President; and Clarence Jones, former publisher of The New York Amsterdam News, one of the oldest black-owned newspapers in the United States, founded the company in 1970.  WBLS has been home to legendary black radio personalities like Hal Jackson, Frankie Crocker, Wendy Williams and DJ Red Alert.  WLIB has changed formats many times over the years, but it too has featured notable personalities including Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X’s widow; and Rev. Al Sharpton.  Inner City owns 15 other stations in San Francisco, CA, Columbia, SC, and Jackson, MS.

Inner City’s failure to repay its debt could be attributed to any number of causes, such as poor financial management.   But saying that poor financial management is the sole culprit, and leaving it there, does little to address the issue of why Inner City’s stations have failed to generate enough revenue to pay the bills.

Let’s take WBLS as an example.

WBLS’ Glass Ceiling

WBLS has hit a glass ceiling.  Barring a complete revamping of its format to include more mainstream content, it appears that WBLS has attained the highest ranking possible with an urban adult contemporary (Urban AC) format in New York.  According to Arbitron, the Urban AC format is the most popular format among African-Americans.  It features music by artists such as Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly, Earth, Wind & Fire Marvin Gaye, R. Kelly, Alicia Keys, Eric Benet, Ne-Yo and Usher.  The “average quarter hour” (AQH) rating of a radio station is the average percentage of a population being measured listening to a radio station for at least five minutes during a 15-minute period.  With a 3.6% AQH overall rating, WBLS is the number one station in New York targeting a predominantly black audience.  It also ranks #8 among all radio stations in the New York metro area.  WLIB, WBLS’ sister station, ranks 34^th, with a .4 AQH rating.

WBLS’ closest competitor, Emmis Communications’ WRKS-FM (98.7 Kiss FM)—the only other Urban AC station in the market—is ranked at a distant #16 overall.  But Kiss is half of Emmis’ combo which includes WQHT-FM (Hot 97), an urban station that skews toward the 18-34 demographic with hip-hop and r&b artists.  Hot 97 posted a 3.3% AQH share in July, placing it at #12 in the overall rankings.  But with the ratings of Kiss and Hot 97 combined, Emmis is actually pulling a 6.2% AQH overall rating, compared to a 4.0 combined rating for Inner City’s WBLS/WLIB combo.

Further, Inner City has been hauled into bankruptcy, while its publically traded counterpart is carrying a similar long-term debt load without repercussions.  The $254 million that Inner City owes to Yucaipa Cos. and others does not appear to be that unusual.  Not taking into account other liabilities, Inner City’s debt-per-station based on the $254 million alone is $14.9 million. At the end of 2Q’11, Emmis held long term debt obligations of $327.2 million.  Spread across Emmis’ 22-station portfolio, its debt-per-station is $14.8 million, just $100, 000 shy of Inner City’s obligation.

Should WBLS Change Formats to Increase Inner City’s Revenue?

Radio stations change formats all the time.  If a particular format is not working, most station owners are generally not averse to abruptly switching formats.  For example, the radio station at 101.9 FM in the New York Metro area, also owned by Emmis, has changed formats four times over the past seven years.  In 2004, the station switched from Smooth Jazz (Kenny G, Sade, Yellowjackets, Anita Baker) to an electronic/ambient music format (Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation).  It switched back to Smooth Jazz in 2005 and, in 2008, flipped to Rock (Kings of Leon, Pearl Jam, Black Crowes, Blink 182).  Finally, on August 12^th of this year, the station changed formats (and owners) yet again, switching to an all-News format.

Inner City is no stranger to programming formats targeting non-African-American audiences.  Among Inner City’s 15 other stations, only 6 target African-Americans specifically.  Inner City’s station portfolio also includes progressive talk, rock, classic rock (Allman Brothers, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, the Yardbirds), oldies (Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, The Four Seasons, and Sam Cooke), Chinese-language, Vietnamese-language, and two sports talk, ESPN Radio affiliates.

But what is often a business-as-usual decision to change formats carries an additional layer of complexity for black-oriented stations.  As in the case of WBLS, radio stations targeting a predominantly African-American audience are often intimately tied to the very heritage of the communities they serve.  In our communities, having the ability to listen to black music, on radio stations owned by people who look like us, with credible air personalities we can relate to, is often about much more than entertainment.  In an era of high unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, disproportionate incarceration rates, and widening achievement gaps in education, listening to black-oriented radio has a cathartic effect.

WBLS could change formats, but why should it?  Arbitron reports a .5 percent increase in the number of African-Americans who listen to Adult Contemporary radio stations (Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston, Chicago, and Christopher Cross) since Fall of 2009.  It also reports an increase in the number of Blacks who listen to Pop Contemporary Hits (Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Pink, Black Eyed Peas).  But this is far from a death-knell for black radio.  Radio stations targeting mainstream audiences have diversified their playlists, but black-oriented radio stations have not.

Those African-Americans that listen to both black-oriented stations and mainstream stations are signaling a desire for more diverse content.  Their behavior indicates an impulse to seek out contexts that communicate—as Pepper Miller of the Hunter-Miller group describes it—“a universal situation … living parallel to mainstream” rather than isolated in a silo with no mass appeal relevance.  This does not require black-oriented stations to change formats completely.  But what it does require is learning a lot more about black listeners who are less loyal to Urban AC formats, and addressing some of their programming needs.  If Inner City doesn’t do it, someone else will, and it is starting to look more and more like that may very well be the scenario.

Joseph Miller, Esq. is Deputy Director and Senior Policy Director for the Media and Technology Institute for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Health Benefits Anticipated from EPA’s Proposed “Utility Air Toxics Rule”

by Gina E. Wood and Leslie L. Simmons

Coal and oil-fired power plants release mercury, arsenic, other metals, acid gases, and particulates – all of which can harm people’s health. These pollutants are linked to cancer, IQ loss, heart disease, lung disease and premature death.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken steps to dramatically improve public health, the climate, and even the economy by proposing the Mercury and Utility Air Toxics Standards (Utility Air Toxics Rule). The proposed standards will reduce emissions of mercury, other toxic metals, hydrogen chloride and other acid gases, and organic air toxins like dioxin and furans – known human carcinogens. These standards are long overdue, and represent the first time that the EPA is requiring coal and oil-fired power plants to control their emissions of toxic air pollutants.

Recently, some opponents of the rule have gone so far as to claim that African Americans will be disproportionately impacted by its costs.  These claims are unsubstantiated and fly in the face of what we know:  that African Americans and other people of color are disproportionately harmed by air pollution where they live. None of the studies used to support claim of adverse economic impacts on African Americans actually evaluate the impacts of EPA’s regulations or policies, much less this specific regulation. Moreover, the statements of the groups opposing the EPA regulations fail to acknowledge the well-documented disproportionate impacts of dirty air and greenhouse gases on people of color.  EPA has conducted analyses for all of the greenhouse gas and clean air regulations it has promulgated, and its analyses demonstrate that the economic impacts are minimal.

The New Rule Will Reduce Toxic Air Pollution and Save Lives

Per the EPA’s Regulatory Impact Analysis, the proposed “Utility Air Toxics Rule” will dramatically reduce toxic air pollution from our nation’s power plants and deliver significant benefits that will:

• Reduce the risk of mercury damage to children’s developing brains, which results in IQ loss and diminished ability to learn.
• Protect Americans from cancer and other health risks caused by other toxic air pollutants.
• Save thousands of lives each year by reducing the amount of dangerous particulates across the country.  This includes neighborhoods near power plants and neighborhoods hundreds of miles away from the nearest power plant.
• Protect thousands of lakes and streams – and the fish that live there and the mammals and birds that eat them – from mercury and acid rain pollution.
• Provide employment for tens of thousands of American workers building, installing, and operating the equipment to reduce emissions of mercury, acid gases, and other toxic air pollutants.

Each year, the proposed rule would prevent serious health effects including 6,800-17,000 premature deaths, 11,000 heart attacks, 120,000 asthma attacks, and 850,000 missed work or “sick” days. Avoiding “sick days” saves companies and families money. It is particularly important for the millions of Americans whose jobs do not provide paid sick leave and who risk losing their jobs if they miss work too often. The proposed rule would also prevent 12,200 hospital admissions and emergency room visits, and 4,500 cases of chronic bronchitis each year.

While some in industry focus on the costs of this rule, any costs are far outweighed by the benefits. The value of the improvements to health alone total $59 billion to $140 billion each year.  This means that for every dollar spent to reduce this pollution, society would get $5-$13 in health benefits.

Be Heard!

The EPA will accept comments on the proposal until August 4, 2011. To learn how to submit a comment, see
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/getinvolved.html
. For more information about the Utility Air Toxics Rule, see
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/utility/utilitypg.html
.

Source: EPA, “Reducing Toxic Pollution from Power Plants” Mar. 16, 2011.

Gina E. Wood is the Director of Policy and Planning and Deputy Director of the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. She also works closely with the Joint Center’s Climate Change Initiative. More information on Ms. Wood and her work can be found at the Joint Center website.

No Locks in Unstable Times

by David A. Bositis, Ph.D.
originally published in the National Journal’s Expert Blogs

Despite the Republicans’ clear and substantial advantage in the state legislatures and among Governors, they most certainly will not emerge from the 2010 round of redistricting with a lock on the U.S. House. While David Wasserman may be correct and there will be 50 U.S. House districts where Republicans benefit from redistricting (as opposed to only 15 for the Democrats), that doesn’t really mean much. It’s not just that 85 percent of U.S. population growth between 2000-2010 came from minority group members, it’s more that at the present time, we are living through an extremely unstable political period. In the last three federal election cycles, more than 120 U.S. House districts have shifted from one party to the other; that’s an average of 40 per election. Some marginal gains for the GOP in the redistricting process is not going to translate into stable control.

It’s worth remembering that the Republicans had the partisan edge following the 2000 Census, especially if you include the Tom DeLay engineered Texas remap, and the Bush DOJ Civil Rights Division lawyers who thought the Voting Rights Act was all about protecting white voters’ rights. Despite those advantages, the Democrats took back the U.S. House in 2006–only a few years after Delay had secured a GOP lock with the new Texas map.

Of course, a slightly longer perspective yields a more favorable view for the Democrats–assuming the GOP continues to alienate everyone who is not a southern white conservative. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic and Asian-American populations increased by 43 percent, the African American population by 12 percent, and the nonHispanic white population by only one percent. Looking at 2010 Census figures for a few key states shows the significance of those national numbers. Texas is now a majority-minority state, and between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population there increased by 42 percent and the African American population by 24 percent. Florida’s Hispanic population increased by 57 percent and its African American population by 28 percent. For me, a real eye-opener was Georgia. Georgia’s small Hispanic population almost doubled, but more important, it’s large African American population increased by about 26 percent. NonHispanic whites are now a smaller proportion of Georgia’s population than is the case in Florida.

There demographic shifts are not going to cause a dramatic political shift in the short term, largely due to the youth of the minority population. But in the intermediate term, if I were going to take a short position in the futures’ market, I’d be shorting the GOP.

David A. Bositis, Ph.D., who has been at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies since 1990, is a voting rights and redistricting expert.

Politico’s “Green Divide” focuses on energy policy debate

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) discusses energy policy on Politico's "Green Divide" series.

News organization Politico recently produced a multi-media series of in-depth video interviews with key players in the energy policy debate. “The Green Divide” includes interviews with Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy; Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC); Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK); Sen. John Kerry (D-MA); AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka; and Executive Vice President of Government Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bruce Josten.

Read the stories and watch video of the interviews here:
http://www.politico.com/thegreendivide/

Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage

The Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage will hold a public meeting on May 6, 2010 in Washington, DC. The meeting will provide information about the Task Force and feature experts on capture and storage systems.

The Interagency Task Force, co-chaired by representatives from the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, was created last February with the goal of developing strategies to speed green commercial development and deployment of clean coal technologies.

U.S. green jobs are more assembly, less production

Successful development of green technology manufacturing can mean a resurgence of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.. But in its earliest phases, green jobs policy has created more assembly jobs, as most products are still largely produced abroad, according to a recent New York Times article.

“Rather than ‘made in America,’ much of the green manufacturing to date is ‘assembled in America’ from parts made overseas,” wrote economics reporter Louis Uchitelle. Green manufacturing—including solar panels, wind technology and high-speed rail production—is still largely a product of Asia and Europe. In fact, according to Uchitell, “fewer than 200 factories in the United States are devoted to green production, employing no more than 15,000 workers.”

The motivation to develop green manufacturing is not solely based in job creation. Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew Environment Group’s Global Warming Campaign, an advocacy organization said, “We don’t want to swap our dependence on foreign oil for dependence on clean energy.”

Read the full article here.

Report: California climate law may help poor, minority areas

New climate policy in California can offer positive benefits to vulnerable communities if policy makers consider their needs while drafting the law, according to a report issued by faculty at three California universities recently.

The report, funded by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and written by professors at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Southern California and Occidental College in Los Angeles, suggests the state could cut harmful pollutants along with greenhouse gas emissions by doing some of the following:

- Require the plants that release the most greenhouse gases and other pollutants to cut their carbon emissions at that location.

- Limit trading of so-called carbon credits within certain dirty-air zones and neighborhoods.

- Impose a higher price for carbon credits in highly polluted neighborhoods so industries located there have more incentive to cut emissions.

- Give neighborhoods with the dirtiest air or significant socio-economic problems a share of the money generated from carbon fees. In turn, that money could be used to reduce air pollution even further, the report says.

Read the full article here.