Archive for category: Luskin Center

Gas Bill Debt Disproportionately Burdens Low-Income Neighborhoods As California’s utility shutoff ban ends, UCLA research shows where unpaid gas utility bills proliferated amid the pandemic

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By Lauren Dunlap

Unpaid bills for heating and cooking gas are unevenly distributed among Californians, according to a new report from the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin in partnership with the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI) and the Luskin Center for Innovation.

Since Oct. 1, customers who are behind on utility bills are no longer protected from shutoffs by a statewide order enacted in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study reveals clear patterns of inequity: Neighborhoods with high gas bill debt rates also have higher poverty rates, lower incomes, more renters than homeowners and higher proportions of Black and Latinx residents than the average neighborhood served by Southern California Gas.

The research team analyzed data from the utility, which provides gas service to about 50% of California residents. The team found that, as of February 28, 2021, 1 in 5 customers were at least 30 days behind on their gas bill payments, and almost 1 in 10 were at least 90 days behind. 

The report provides several lessons for policymakers to equitably relieve the burden of utility debt on customers. The authors recommend improving the data available on utility debt and shutoffs to lead to better-informed decisions. They also note the importance of targeting relief aid at the most affected, lowest-income households. 

The co-authors also emphasize a connection between their findings and the growing movement toward building electrification. Transitioning residential buildings to run on electricity alone is significant to avoid greenhouse gas emissions — especially since natural gas is composed primarily of methane, a major contributor to climate change. But this transition may impose high costs on people who already face utility debt. 

“When higher-income households stop using gas, lower-income households may be saddled with higher and higher gas costs,” said Silvia González ’09, MURP ’13, UP PhD ’20, director of research at LPPI. “It is essential to make electrification equitable, which means households don’t get left behind or stuck with increasingly unmanageable energy costs.” 

Because lower-income households could be negatively impacted by the fixed costs of gas service — the costs that don’t go down when there are fewer customers — the researchers advise that more research is needed to understand and mitigate this impact. 

This study is the third and final in a series examining utility debt inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous policy briefs focused on unpaid utility bills among Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers. 

 

UCLA Scholars Aim to Help Shape President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative Report by Luskin Center for Innovation provides framework for environmental justice in disadvantaged communities

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One week after his inauguration, President Joe Biden ordered federal agencies to direct 40% of the government’s investments in climate and clean infrastructure to benefit people in disadvantaged communities. According to his executive order, the Justice40 Initiative is intended to “address the disproportionate health, environmental, economic and climate impacts on disadvantaged communities.”

Implementing the directive will not be simple, but a new report by scholars from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, advised by environmental justice leaders, provides a framework that federal officials could use to maximize Justice40’s impact.

“One initiative alone can’t erase systemic racial and environmental injustices, but setting a strong, equity-centered framework for Justice40 is a first step in the right direction,” said Colleen Callahan, deputy director of the Luskin Center and a co-author of the report.

The report analyzes state-level programs seeking to address environmental justice through investments in clean energy and climate change action — already underway in some cases, and in planning stages in others — and identifies shortcomings, ongoing challenges and successes that could help inform the implementation of Biden’s plan.

The authors set forth three primary areas of emphasis for the initiative:

  • Resources. Focus investments on the people who need it most. Provide funding to under-resourced communities for physical infrastructure projects, like clean water systems, as well as technical support to help local officials and community organizations apply for and manage funds they might receive through Justice40. The authors also recommend that the initiative’s 40% funding goal should be considered the minimum percentage of investments in disadvantaged communities, and that the figure should represent direct investments — rather than counting trickle-down benefits — for those communities.
  • Empowerment. The initiative should pursue a ground-up approach by enabling those who live in under-resourced communities to help set policy and determine what local investments are made.
  • Accountability. The initiative must include guardrails to ensure that all government agencies and contractors involved further the goals of environmental, racial, economic and health justice. The scholars write that Justice40 could be a catalyst for the federal government to help institutionalize equity including by pushing back on entrenched practices and rules that uphold inequities in government.

The authors list five types of disparities that Justice40 should seek to address: pollution burdens, climate risk, communities’ limited ability to apply for and manage federal funding, effects on labor and jobs, and environmental policy costs. They also identify numerous states that have plans or have already begun taking action to address those concerns, which disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income households:

  • New York is planning to address those communities’ elevated exposure to pollution and its related effects on their health.
  • Virginia is planning to address the uneven effects of storms, rising sea levels and other effects of climate change.
  • California is investing in helping local officials and community groups apply for funding for under-resourced communities.
  • Illinois and Maryland are planning to help provide job training for workers transitioning into clean energy jobs and financial support for those whose careers are being affected by the loss of jobs in the fossil fuel industry.
  • The state of Washington is allocating funds to increase access to clean technology and lowering utility costs for low-income households.

The report explains that initiatives like those demonstrate that residents, workers and businesses can benefit from clean energy and climate investments across a range of sectors —  including agriculture, health, housing, energy, transportation and water infrastructure.

“A theme across the states we studied is a history of grassroots strategy and organizing by communities of color,” said Silvia González, a co-author of the report and the director of research at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. “In states such as California, New York and Illinois, those communities have helped shape investment plans and programs to be more equitable.”

The researchers specifically examine California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that has directed billions of dollars to disadvantaged communities.

The research was funded in part by the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund and the Hewlett Foundation. The report’s other authors are Daniel Coffee, a UCLA associate project manager, and J.R. DeShazo, the former director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and current dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The study’s advisers included leaders of GreenLatinos, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth and other nonprofits.

High Temperatures Increase Workers’ Injury Risk, Whether They’re Outdoors or Inside The finding reflects another consequence of climate change, according to new study led by R. Jisung Park of UCLA Luskin Public Policy

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A UCLA study published today shows that hot weather significantly increases the risk of accidents and injuries on the job, regardless of whether the work takes place in an indoor or outdoor setting.

The report is based on data from California’s workers’ compensation system, the nation’s largest.

“The incidence of heat illnesses like heat exhaustion and heat stroke definitely go up on hotter days,” said the study’s lead researcher R. Jisung Park, an assistant professor of public policy at UCLA Luskin. “But what we found is that ostensibly unrelated incidents — like falling off a ladder or being hit by a moving truck or getting your hand caught in a machine — tend to occur more frequently on hotter days, too.”

By comparing records from more than 11 million California workers’ compensation claims from 2001 to 2018 to high-frequency local weather data, Park and his co-authors isolated the impact of hotter days on the number of injury claims.

The study shows that on days with high temperature above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, workers have a 6% to 9% higher risk of injuries than they do on days with high temperatures in the 50s or 60s. When the thermometer tops 100, the risk of injuries increases by 10% to 15%.

Those findings are particularly alarming in the context of climate change, which is expected to produce more high-temperature days each year. The researchers estimate that high temperatures already cause about 15,000 injuries per year in California.

“Heat is sometimes described as a silent killer,” said Nora Pankratz, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar. “But if you look into the data and do the statistical analysis, you find that heat has a significant impact on mortality and health outcomes.”

 

It’s not surprising that hot weather would lead to injuries and illness among workers in predominantly outdoor industries such as agriculture, utilities and construction. But the data consistently show that industries in which most people work indoors are affected as well. In manufacturing, for example, days with high temperatures above 95 degrees have an injury risk that is approximately 7% higher than days with high temperatures in the low 60s.

“A lot of manufacturing facilities are not air conditioned,” said Stanford University postdoctoral scholar A. Patrick Behrer, the study’s other co-author. “Because you’re inside, you don’t necessarily think about the temperature as being a major threat.”

The reality is that overheated workers face numerous risks, regardless of where the work occurs.

“Heat affects your physiology,” Park said. “It affects your cognition. It affects your body’s ability to cope. It seems possible that what we’re observing in the data for these workers is that they’re more likely to make mistakes or errors in judgment.”

The researchers found that heat-related workplace injuries are more likely to be suffered by men and lower-income workers. In addition, younger people suffer more heat-related injuries, possibly in part because they’re more likely to hold jobs with greater physical risks on construction sites, in manufacturing plants or at warehouses.

For an office worker at a computer desk, nodding off on a hot summer afternoon is unlikely to cause an injury. “But if you have a huge chainsaw in your hand, you’re not in a great situation,” Park said.

Among the paper’s other conclusions:

  • The number of heat-related injuries actually declined after 2005, when California became the first state to implement mandatory heat illness prevention measures for outdoor workplaces on days when temperatures exceed 95 degrees.
  • The financial costs of heat-related injuries may be between $750 million and $1.25 billion per year in California alone, considering health care expenditures, lost wages and productivity, and disability claims.
  • Inequalities in the labor market are exacerbated in part by the fact that low-income communities tend to be situated in hotter parts of the state. People in the state’s lowest household income tier are approximately five times more likely to be affected by heat-related illness or injury on the job than those in the top income tier, the study found.

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, where Park is associate director of economic research, provided funding for the study. It is available now through the Institute of Labor Economics, which disseminates working versions of potentially influential research prior to publication in academic journals. Park previewed the findings  July 15 during testimony at a Congressional hearing organized by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

The new study echoes the results of a 2019 study that focused on how extreme temperatures raise injury risk in Texas and in the U.S. mining industry. Park, whose prior research includes a finding that student learning is negatively impacted by warm temperatures, said there has been “an explosion of research just in the last five to 10 years that illustrates, using data, the serious consequences of climate change for health, productivity and economic growth. This likely adds to that urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions now.”

Pankratz got involved in the study while working at UCLA Luskin as a postdoctoral scholar, having previously researched the impact of heat on businesses while working toward her Ph.D. in the Netherlands. 

Worldwide, she said, there is growing interest in the concept of adaptation — the pragmatic changes that can be made by governments and businesses to cope with the reality of climate change.

“For a long time, the focus has been on mitigation — what can we do to prevent climate change,” she said. “But as it becomes more and more obvious that there is policy inertia on mitigation, it’s important to think about what we can do to adapt and to work as well as possible in a warmer world.”

The study authors, all of whom have backgrounds in economics, realize that the desire to protect workers from heat may be complicated by economic reality. 

Behrer said policymakers could stipulate that workers not be exposed to the heat on days above 100 degrees, for example, without proscribing a specific strategy to be used by individual business owners.

“Then firms have the option either to use air conditioning or come up with some other method of climate control for their facilities,” he said, noting that some might change work hours or shorten the work day during heat waves. “It allows them to decide the most cost-effective way for them to meet the objective of reducing workplace injuries.”

 

Message From the Dean: JR DeShazo to Become Dean at University of Texas The UCLA Luskin professor, Center for Innovation director and former department chair has been selected to lead the LBJ School of Public Affairs

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My Friends:

It is with a mixture of incredible sadness and immense pride that I share the news that JR DeShazo will be leaving UCLA Luskin in the coming weeks.  JR has just been announced as the new dean at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. He assumes his new role on Sept. 10.

As all of you know, JR has been a central and transformative figure in the life of the Luskin School. He has served many roles —most recently as chair of UCLA Luskin Public Policy — but made his greatest impact in the further development, expansion and institutionalization of the Luskin Center for Innovation, which today is a premier think tank and research operation focusing on the environmental and technological challenges facing California and beyond. Much of UCLA Luskin’s environmental research effort on Californians and their environment is owed to JR’s effective and important leadership and creativity.

I want personally to extend to JR and his family my best wishes and those of the School as he embarks on his new challenge and the leadership of one of the nation’s leading public affairs schools. And I want to thank JR for his incredible work. JR—YOU WILL BE SORELY MISSED!

All the best,

Gary

Gary M. Segura
Professor and Dean

—

Read more about DeShazo and his new role at the University of Texas:

THE UT ANNOUNCEMENT

 

Decarbonizing California Transportation by 2045 Report to state outlines policy pathways to meet the zero-carbon time crunch

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Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. In order to achieve the state’s goals of carbon neutrality by 2045 and avoid the worst impacts of climate change, decarbonizing this sector is essential. But such a transition is unlikely to occur rapidly without key policy intervention, according to a new study that included research from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

A team of transportation and policy experts from the University of California released a report April 21 to the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) outlining policy options to significantly reduce transportation-related fossil fuel demand and emissions. Those policy options, when combined, could lead to a zero-carbon transportation system by 2045, while also improving equity, health and the economy. A second study, led by UC Santa Barbara, identifying strategies to reduce in-state petroleum production in parallel with reductions in demand, was released simultaneously.

The state funded the two studies through the 2019 Budget Act. The studies are designed to identify paths to slash transportation-related fossil fuel demand and emissions while also managing a strategic, responsible decline in transportation-related fossil fuel supply.

The University of California demand study was conducted by researchers from the UC Institute of Transportation Studies, a network with branches at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UCLA. The UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy coordinated the report’s policy management, and the UC Davis Center for Regional Change led the study’s equity and environmental justice research.

Bringing about a zero-carbon transportation future will be challenging but not impossible, the report states. Doing so requires urgent actions and a long-term perspective. Importantly, a major upfront investment in clean transportation through incentives and new charging and hydrogen infrastructure will soon pay off in net economic savings to the California economy, with net savings in the next decade growing to tens of billions of dollars per year by 2045.

The report recommends flexible policy approaches that can be adjusted over time as technologies evolve and more knowledge is gained.

“This report is the first to comprehensively evaluate a path to a carbon neutral transportation system for California by 2045,” said Dan Sperling, director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. “We find that such pathways are possible but will rely on extensive changes to existing policies as well as introduction of some new policies. The study also prioritizes equity, health and workforce impacts of the transition to zero-carbon transportation.”

Researchers from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation led the study’s workforce analysis. Achieving carbon neutrality in California’s transportation sector could create over 7.3 million job-years of employment over the next 25 years, according to the researchers. These jobs would result from “greening” many existing occupations and creating new occupations.

“This presents the state with a golden opportunity to create not only new, high-quality jobs, but also ensure that many existing industries and occupations transition to better practices,” said J.R. DeShazo, director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and professor of public policy.

KEY POLICY STRATEGIES

 Zero emission vehicles: Many of the report’s policy options are centered on a rapid transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), which is expected to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve local air pollution as the state’s electric grid is also decarbonized.

Light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles are responsible for 70% and 20% of the state’s transportation emissions, respectively. The report suggests a combination of enhanced mandates, incentives, and public charging and hydrogen infrastructure investments to speed the adoption of ZEVs. For medium and heavy-duty vehicles, key policy priorities include increasing the availability of charging stations for long-haul freights, electricity pricing reform to make depot charging more affordable, and priority lanes and curb access for zero-emission trucks, among other possibilities.

Vehicle miles traveled: Even with widespread ZEV use, reducing overall vehicle miles traveled is necessary to reduce traffic congestion and emissions from vehicle manufacturing, and to enhance quality-of-life and land-use benefits related to traffic. The report suggests policies that encourage active, shared and micromobility transportation, telecommuting, and land-use changes that reduce people’s reliance on automobiles and enhance community connectivity.

Fuels: About 86% of transportation fuel is petroleum. Shifting toward low-carbon clean energy requires major investments in electricity and hydrogen. Low-carbon liquid fuels compatible with internal combustion engines will be needed to reduce emissions while the transition to ZEVs progresses, as well as in some specialized applications, like aviation. California can support the needed investments in clean fuels with mandated blending levels, new incentives and credits to stimulate investment in very low-carbon liquid fuels for aviation, shipping and legacy combustion engine vehicles.

Getting to zero: Some residual emissions remain in every scenario examined. The report states that at least 4 million to 5 million metric tons per year of negative emissions capacity (equal to 2.5% of current transportation emissions) is needed by 2045 to counteract those residual emissions. These could come from carbon capture and sequestration projects that pull carbon from the air to store it underground, as well as so-called sequestration by natural or working lands.

BENEFITS

In addition to direct economic benefits beginning around 2030, the transportation decarbonization policies could also lead to health, equity and environmental justice, and workforce and labor benefits.

Health: Transportation is a major cause of local air pollution and contributes to climate change. Particulate matter harms lungs and hearts, while nitrogen oxide compounds contribute to ozone pollution and other health impacts. The report found that cleaner heavy-duty vehicles would significantly reduce pollution in many of the state’s most vulnerable communities. The health benefits of reducing local pollution will grow with the deployment of clean transportation technologies and could translate to more than $25 billion in savings in 2045.

Equity and environmental justice: Transportation in California carries a legacy of inequity and damage to disadvantaged communities. These communities often lack quality public transportation or viable transportation choices. Highways have been built with little consideration for displacement, and many communities of color have been divided by freeways, perpetuating historic segregation policies like redlining. The report identifies options that prioritize equity in transportation investments and policies.

For example:

  • Continue to support electric vehicle incentives targeted to lower-income buyers and underserved communities, including used vehicles.
  • Prioritize deploying electric heavy-duty vehicles in disadvantaged communities and magnet facilities such as commercial warehouses in those communities.
  • Support transit and zero-emission services and charging stations in disadvantaged communities. This can help reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase accessibility while avoiding displacement.
  • Avoid siting non-renewable fuel production facilities in disadvantaged communities, engage communities disproportionately affected by transportation sector emissions in decision-making concerning the siting of new infrastructure and investments associated with achieving carbon neutrality, and continue to carefully monitor and control local pollutants.

“We must confront the legacy of the lack of public and private investment where Black, indigenous and people of color live and work,” said Bernadette Austin, acting director of the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. “This report identifies ways to strategically invest in sustainable infrastructure while intentionally avoiding disruptive and damaging infrastructure in our most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.”

Workforce: The transition to a carbon-neutral transportation system will disrupt jobs in some sectors while creating new jobs in others, like clean vehicle manufacturing and electric and hydrogen fueling infrastructure. The report suggests that California prioritize the needs of impacted workers. In addition, wherever ZEV-related industry expansion creates quality jobs, state policy should focus on creating broadly accessible career pathways.

Economy: The transition to ZEVs is expected to generate savings for consumers and the economy well before 2045. Within the next decade, the cost of owning and operating ZEVs is projected to drop below that of a conventional gasoline or diesel vehicle. That is because battery, fuel cell and hydrogen costs will continue to decline; electricity costs will be much less than petroleum fuel costs; and maintenance costs of ZEVs will be less. These savings can be invested elsewhere by households and businesses.

For further information about this report, contact Samuel Chiu or Kat Kerlin at UC Davis.

Report Sets Path Toward Clean Drinking Water for all Californians Study co-authored by UCLA Luskin researchers finds hundreds of public water systems are out of compliance

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By Michelle Einstein

California was the first U.S. state to legally recognize access to safe, clean and affordable water as a human right. But substantial parts of the state lack access to drinking water that meets those criteria.

A new study (PDF) published by the California State Water Board and supported by UCLA research identifies a risk for failure among a significant portion of the state’s small and medium-sized public water systems. The report is the first comprehensive analysis of how clean water is provided in California, and it estimates how much it would actually cost to deliver safe water to every resident.

The research was a collaboration between the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, the water board’s Needs Analysis Unit, Corona Environmental Consulting, Sacramento State University’s Office of Water Programs, the Pacific Institute and the University of North Carolina’s Environmental Finance Center.

Of the 2,779 public water systems evaluated in the study, nearly half are at some risk of failing to provide an adequate supply of safe drinking water. To measure the health of water systems, the researchers assessed each water system using 19 indicators for water quality, accessibility, affordability and operational capacity.

Based on those assessments, each system received an overall rating indicating how likely it would be to fail — from “not at risk” at the top end of the scale, to “potentially at risk” and “at risk” for the systems with the lowest scores. The researchers found 25% of water systems to be “at risk,” while an additional 23% are “potentially at risk.”

The study also identified locations where groundwater quality is out of compliance with the state’s safe water drinking standards. About one-third of domestic wells and one-half of state small water systems were found to be at a high risk for containing contaminants like nitrate and arsenic.

“Illuminating the extent of at-risk water systems is an important step,” said Gregory Pierce, the study’s principal investigator and an associate director at the Luskin Center for Innovation. “By more fully understanding the issues, we can move to more resilient and accessible water sources.”

The study noted that water quality and infrastructure issues vary substantially across the state. For instance, Kings County, in central California, has the highest proportion of at-risk public water systems (75%), while San Francisco County and Modoc County in the northern part of the state have zero at-risk systems.

The research incorporated a comprehensive evaluation of thousands of water systems and hundreds of thousands of wells, as well as input from water managers, environmental nonprofits and advocacy groups.

Among the other findings:

Holistic solutions can help.

  • In the short term, bottled water and home filtration systems can be used to help communities that need clean drinking water immediately. The researchers estimate that those short-term interventions would cost between $500 million and $1.6 billion over the next five to nine years.
  • Long-term solutions include enhancing water treatment; consolidating small, underperforming water systems; and providing experts to advise communities on how to improve those systems. The study estimates a wide range of total costs for those solutions, depending on which actions local systems adopt, but the midpoint estimate is about $5.7 billion.

More funding will be needed.

  • The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, which was established in 2019 to help bring adequate drinking water to disadvantaged communities, already provides critical financial support. But for all California communities to have reliably safe drinking water, more financial resources are likely needed.
  • Additional funding could come from a variety of sources, including the state legislature, the governor’s office and federal agencies.

The analysis suggests prioritizing funding for water systems that are currently most at risk and that are located in underserved communities. It also sets the stage for a deeper investigation of how the state can ensure safe, clean and affordable water for all — an especially salient issue as Congress is considering a federal infrastructure bill that would, in part, address the systems that deliver drinking water throughout the U.S.

“I’m optimistic that as a nation, we’re talking about upgrading our pipes and cleaning up our contaminated drinking water,” said Peter Roquemore, a co-author of the study and a researcher at the Luskin Center for Innovation. “Infrastructure might not always be glamorous, but the impacts of fixing our water systems would be huge.”

Study Analyzes Energy Conservation Tactics During Peak Periods Research by Luskin Center for Innovation focuses on 'demand response programs' that encourage users to save energy when the electrical grid is under stress

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By Colleen Callahan

New research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation has identified how effective certain incentives can be in motivating people to use less energy in their homes.

Electricity providers often need to encourage customers to reduce consumption in order to prevent blackouts or to avoid having to activate additional power plants — often natural gas-powered plants that pollute the environment.

The researchers found that promotional messages about how customers could save money on their electricity bills or earn other financial rewards were effective at motivating them to use less energy.

For the study (PDF), which was funded by a grant from the California Energy Commission, the UCLA researchers assessed data from energy bills for more than 20,000 California households in territories served by Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

The customers all participate in “demand response programs,” which encourage users to save energy at times of high stress on the electrical grid, like during heat waves; they all also used one of two smartphone apps — Chai Energy or OhmConnect — that help users manage their home energy consumption. Often, the apps offered cash incentives to participants for adjusting their thermostats during times when demand for energy was highest.

The study revealed that offering participants financial rewards, on top of the amount of money they’d save simply for using less energy, had a measurable effect on reducing their energy use — although the amount of the financial incentive made relatively little difference. Collectively, the 20,000 households in the study had received over $1 million in rewards over the previous two years through those incentive programs, in addition to the savings on their electricity bills from using the apps.

Encouraging flexibility in our energy system is especially important as the nation’s infrastructure continues to shift to clean energy. For instance, weather can be unpredictable and impact the amount of electricity generated by solar panels or wind turbines. Demand response programs can be effective at reducing energy use during these times to avoid blackouts.

“In more good news for the environment, our study found that demand response programs result in overall reduction in energy use — not merely a shift of consumption to other hours or days,” said JR DeShazo, the study’s principal investigator and the director of the Luskin Center for Innovation.

That finding is particularly significant because some observers had suspected that demand response programs merely encouraged energy customers to shift their electricity use to other times of day — for example, by waiting to run their dishwashers or clothes dryers during overnight hours, when overall energy demand was lower — but without actually reducing the amount of energy they consumed. But the UCLA report concluded that customers’ energy consumption did not increase in the hours or days surrounding a demand response event, suggesting that the approach resulted in actual reductions in consumption.

The households with the greatest reduction in consumption during demand response events were those with solar panels, plug-in electric vehicles and automation devices — gadgets like smart thermostats that can automatically alter energy usage but can be overridden by the owner. For example, automation devices can delay charging an electric vehicle or turn down an air conditioner until an off-peak time.

“Automation devices make participating in demand response programs effortless, and ultimately rewarding,” said Kelly Trumbull, a co-author of the study and a Luskin Center for Innovation researcher. “They also help secure predictable and reliable energy savings.”

Demand response providers typically reward users based on their energy conservation relative to an energy consumption goal assigned by the utility. Researchers found that households reduce their energy use more when that consumption goal is more ambitious, assuming all other factors are constant.

“This finding underscores the importance of setting baselines and communicating them to customers,” DeShazo said. “If we are asked to do more, we often will.”

The study recommends actions utilities and third-party demand response providers — like the ones that market the energy management apps — can take to maximize both the environmental and economic benefits of residential demand response programs, including:

  • Offering financial incentives and emphasizing the economic benefits to participants.
  • Supporting the adoption of automation devices like smart thermostats.
  • Inducing greater energy savings by setting ambitious conservation targets for customers.

Most Californians, depending on their electricity providers, are eligible to participate in existing demand response services.

Local Demand Is Helping California Surpass Renewable Energy Targets UCLA study shows 30% of residents now can choose cleaner power from community choice aggregators

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By Michelle Einstein

In California, local demand for renewable energy is helping the state exceed its clean energy goals, according to a new UCLA study.

Research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation shows the growing impact of community choice aggregators, or CCAs, on energy procurement and illustrates the effects cleaner energy providers are having on the state’s power supply.

Community choice aggregators buy clean energy on behalf of their residents and businesses, offering an alternative to investor-owned utilities and enabling localities to take control of their energy procurement. The CCA serving much of the Los Angeles region is Clean Power Alliance, which provides energy to customers in 31 cities and counties, including Alhambra, Culver City, Downey and Santa Monica.

“Community choice in energy has largely fallen under the radar, but it is rapidly reshaping the energy sector in California,” said Kelly Trumbull, a researcher at the Center for Innovation and lead author of the report (PDF).

According to the report, the use of community choice energy has grown quickly in the state. More than 30% of California households and businesses — more than 10 million customers — now have the option to choose a CCA as their electricity provider, up from less than 1% in 2010.

The vast majority of these energy providers offer more energy that derives from renewable sources. In all, the energy delivered by CCAs comes from renewable sources by an average of 25 percentage points more than energy from investor-owned utilities in the same regions. CCAs purchased twice as much renewable energy as required by the state from 2011 to 2019, researchers found.

That has helped the state achieve a cumulatively larger reduction in greenhouse gas emissions each year. The clean energy goals, established by the state’s Renewables Portfolio Standard, stipulate that 100% of the state’s energy be carbon-free by 2045. An interim target was set at 25% renewable energy until 2019. According to the report, a weighted average of 50% of the CCAs’ energy came from renewable sources that year.

The trend toward cleaner energy providers has also benefited residents by providing cheaper electricity: 73% of communities that offer community choice do so at a lower default rate than their investor-owned counterparts, the study found. And the CCAs often provide additional environmental and economic benefits, including financial assistance programs for low-income residents and incentives for electric transportation.

The authors write that the community choice aggregator model could be replicated in a variety of communities across the nation.

“We found that in California, CCAs successfully serve a wide variety of communities with ranging sizes, median incomes and political affiliations,” Trumbull said. “This suggests that CCAs could be implemented throughout the country.”

Nine states currently allow for a community choice approach, and interest is growing. Among the study’s takeaways from the California model:

  •  CCAs are most effective in communities where the demand for carbon-free energy exceeds what is currently provided.
  •  Partnerships among multiple cities and counties give CCAs an economy-of-scale advantage by keeping operating costs low.
  •  State policy and regulation play a critical role in the success of the community choice approach, starting with the fact that California needed to enact legislation to allow for CCAs to exist.

The research, which was supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, adds to the Luskin Center for Innovation’s large body of research on community choice electricity and renewable energy.

EPA Used Dubious Methodology to Justify Weakening the Clean Water Act Agency wrongly assumed that states will step in to protect waterways when over half of U.S. wetlands and 35% of streams in the West lose federal protection, researchers say

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The Trump administration’s decision to remove federal Clean Water Act protections from millions of acres of wetlands and millions of miles of streams is based on dubious methodology and flawed logic, according to a new report by environmental economists from leading research institutions across the United States.

“The EPA’s decision to make major changes to the rules protecting the nation’s waterways relies on economic analysis that may underestimate the benefits of streams and wetlands, especially as they affect waters downstream,” said David Keiser of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a co-author of the report. “The EPA also failed to adhere to its own guidelines. The new rule includes many contradictions that are inconsistent with the best available science.”

The study is titled “Report on the Repeal of the Clean Water Rule and Its Replacement With the Navigable Waters Protection Rule to Define Waters of the United States.” It was prepared by the External Environmental Economics Advisory Committee, which is partially funded by the Luskin Center for Innovation at UCLA and co-chaired by JR DeShazo, a professor of public policy, urban planning, and civil and environmental engineering at UCLA.

Last January, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers removed the Obama-era Clean Water Rule, which clarified which bodies of water fell under federal protection from pollution under the 1972 Clean Water Act. Earlier this year, the agencies replaced that rule with the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which removes isolated wetlands, and ephemeral and intermittent streams from federal pollution protection.

The rule change makes it much easier for developers, agricultural operations, oil and gas companies, and mining companies to dredge, fill, divert, and dump pollution into ephemeral streams and isolated wetlands. Ripple effects could include worsening water pollution; loss of habitat for birds, fish and other species; diminished recreational waterways; more frequent algal blooms; and increased flood damage to communities as wetlands disappear, according to the report.

A 2017 staff analysis by the EPA and the Army Corps found that the new rule would leave over half of U.S. wetlands and 18% of U.S. streams unprotected, including 35% of streams in the arid West.

While developing the rule, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers considered water quality as only a “local public good.” This ignores extensive scientific research that shows that even ephemeral streams and isolated wetlands are connected to larger watersheds, so what happens upstream affects waterways downstream, increasing the risk of flooding, diminishing water quality and causing other problems that don’t stop at state borders. The report finds that this artificially narrow view skewed benefit-cost analyses in a way that favored removal of regulations.

The agencies also relied on some questionable assumptions. For example, EPA projections of nationwide benefits assumed that every state — including arid places like Nevada or Arizona and wetland-rich states like Florida — has the same baseline number of wetland acres.

The agencies based the benefit-cost analyses on the assumption that leaving streams and wetlands unprotected won’t cause any harm to water quality in many states, the report says, because those states will rush in to protect waterways as needed.

“Experience shows that’s just not credible,” said Sheila Olmstead of the University of Texas at Austin, a report co-author. “We have a real-world apples-to-apples comparison to look at: When the Supreme Court removed federal protection from many U.S. wetlands by overturning the Migratory Bird Rule in 2001, only a few states moved to expand their own jurisdiction over some of the affected waters over the next 20 years. Given this prior behavior, EPA’s prediction that dozens of states will move to protect wetlands and streams this time around seems highly unlikely. In addition, assuming that many states will enact new legislation that doesn’t currently exist violates EPA’s own Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analysis.”

Environmental federalism — the idea that states do a better job at environmental regulation than the national government — can work in some situations, but it is not supported in this case, the report says. In addition to Keiser and Olmstead, co-authors include Kevin Boyle, Virginia Tech; Victor Flatt, University of Houston; Bonnie Keeler, University of Minnesota; Daniel Phaneuf, University of Wisconsin; Joseph S. Shapiro, University of California, Berkeley; and Jay Shimshack, University of Virginia.

President-elect Joe Biden has said his administration will review the Trump administration’s decision to remove Clean Water Act protection from wetlands and intermittent streams. But reversing that decision could be messy: At least a dozen court cases have been filed so far, and defining the protected waters of the United States has been the subject of debate for decades.

In the meantime, businesses are not waiting to take advantage of the weaker rules. For example, Twin Pines Minerals says it no longer needs a federal permit and so will start work on a controversial titanium dioxide mine near the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, which is home to the largest National Wildlife Refuge east of the Mississippi.

“The Biden Administration will attempt to respond to a number of EPA rule rollbacks undertaken by the Trump administration. This report points to how a Biden administration can correct structural weaknesses in this rule as well as other important EPA policies,” said DeShazo, director of the Luskin Center of Innovation.

The External Environmental Economics Advisory Committee was established after the EPA dissolved its own internal Environmental Economics Advisory Committee in 2018. That committee had contributed to policy analysis for 25 years as part of the EPA’s science advisory board system, and the new group is continuing this work from outside the agency.

UCLA Supports Launch of California’s Transformative Climate Communities Program New Luskin Center for Innovation resource page tracks state's innovative effort to fight climate change

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By Colleen Callahan

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI) has supported the launch of California’s innovative Transformative Climate Communities Program (TCC), one of the world’s most comprehensive sets of investments in local climate action. This includes developing the evaluation plan to track progress and evaluate outcomes from investments that could serve as a global model for community-scale climate action.

Now, inaugural progress reports for the first communities awarded TCC grants — Fresno, Ontario and Watts in Los Angeles — are authored by LCI researchers. These reports, and other resources related to LCI’s tracking of the groundbreaking efforts in local climate action, are centralized on a new TCC resource page. Policymakers, community stakeholders, researchers and others interested in local strategies to combat climate change can use this page to monitor progress, best practices and lessons learned over the five-year TCC grant implementation period that began in the spring of 2019.

The program to fund the development and implementation of neighborhood-level transformative plans that include multiple projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was authorized by Assembly Bill 2722 in 2016. In addition to fighting climate change, the program empowers disadvantaged communities impacted by poverty and pollution to support projects that advance their local economic, environmental and health goals.

“TCC may be the most holistic investment in neighborhood-scale and community-driven climate action anywhere on the planet,” said Jason Karpman MURP ’16, project manager of UCLA’s TCC evaluation. “Lessons learned from this new program could have potentially broad implications for climate action elsewhere.”

The California Strategic Growth Council serves as the lead administrator of TCC and awarded the first round of grants to Fresno ($66.5 million), Ontario ($33.25 million) and the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles ($33.25 million).

Communities are empowered to customize their projects and plans based on their priorities and partnerships. The program includes mechanisms for accountability, including oversight from community members as well as third-party evaluation from academic researchers.

The team at the Luskin Center for Innovation and a similar group from the UC Berkeley Center for Resource Efficient Communities comprised the evaluation team for round 1 of TCC grants. UCLA researchers will take on a fourth TCC site for evaluation, Northeast Valley Los Angeles, during round 2 of TCC implementation.

The evaluation team worked with Fresno, Ontario and Watts stakeholders to create the Transformative Climate Communities Evaluation Plan, which UCLA published in late 2018. This research roadmap is being used to track and assess progress and results over a five-year period in those communities.

Now, UCLA has released the first annual report spanning the initial months of grant implementation.These reports highlight a wealth of data, including community conditions that could change during the five years of TCC implementation. Baseline trends relate to demographic, economic, energy, environmental, health, housing and transportation conditions.

“This first set of reports also documents progress on TCC implementation to date, including project milestones and personal stories of how TCC investments are affecting the lives of people who live and work in the pilot communities,” Karpman said. “This includes the voices of resident leaders in Ontario working to implement the site’s community engagement plan, a job trainee in Fresno learning how to install solar panels, and a high school student in Watts helping to expand a community garden.”

The first set of annual reports focuses on the period following the initial announcement of the TCC awards in 2018 through June 2019, which includes the first few months of project implementation. Common milestones across the three sites include laying the foundation for grant success, establishing partnerships and a governance structure, and launching new local initiatives around health, economic development and the environment.

UCLA’s page includes a number of other resources. Photos of residents and project staff show them working to bring their communities’ vision to reality. Supplemental methodological documentation such as open source code is available for those seeking to replicate findings. And staff bios show the evaluators involved with the project.

TCC is part of a suite of efforts, known as California Climate Investments, funded by the state’s cap-and-trade program. It unifies many of the California Climate Investments project types into a single, place-based initiative. Specifically, TCC funds the following project types:

  • construction of affordable housing near transit;
  • installation of rooftop solar and energy efficiency improvements for homes;
  • purchase of electric vehicles, including buses, that can run on clean energy instead of fossil fuels;
  • expansion of bus service coverage or frequency;
  • improvement and expansion of bike lanes and sidewalks;
  • planting of trees along bike and pedestrian routes and near buildings;
  • implementation of waste diversion programs, such as the collection and reuse of food waste and neighborhood-scale composting.

To maximize the benefits of these types of projects, grantees also must develop and implement the following transformative plans:

  • a community engagement plan to ensure TCC investments reflect the vision and goals of community members;
  • a workforce development plan to bring economic opportunities to disadvantaged and low-income communities;
  • a displacement avoidance plan to minimize the risk of gentrification and displacement of residents and businesses following neighborhood improvements.