In just the first few months of 2024, four California hospitals have closed or announced plans to close their maternity wards.

The closures are part of an accelerating trend unfolding across the state, creating maternity care deserts and decreasing access to prenatal care. In the past three years, 29 hospitals stopped delivering babies, according to a CalMatters investigation on maternity ward closures. Nearly 50 obstetrics departments have closed over the past decade.

Now, California lawmakers are trying to slow the trend.

Assemblymember Akilah Weber and Sen. Dave Cortese are pursuing legislation to increase transparency around planned maternity ward closures, potentially giving counties and the state time to intervene.

Weber, a Democrat from La Mesa, wants hospitals to notify the state a year in advance if labor and delivery services are at risk of ending. The measure would also require the state to conduct a community impact report when a hospital indicates that it may lose maternity care.

Cortese, a Democrat from Campbell, wants to increase the public notification requirement of an impending closure from 90 days to 120 days and require the hospital to conduct an analysis of how a closure could increase costs for the county health system, where the next closest maternity wards are located and who is most likely to be affected.

Cortese’s bill would also require increased notification for planned closures of inpatient psychiatric services.

“We cannot continue to just discuss these issues and not implement policies to prevent or mitigate the harms and the continued disparities,” Weber said during an Assembly Health Committee hearing Tuesday.

Groups representing doctors and reproductive health advocates support the measure. Cortese’s bill is supported by nurses and consumer health advocates.

Why are California maternity wards closing?

Ryan Spencer, a lobbyist for the regional chapter of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who testified in support of Weber’s measure, said there are often situations during birth where “every minute can be the difference between life and death.”

“What if you are a patient like this and literally had nowhere to go who had to drive hours upon hours to get care? We have to find a way to end this crisis,” Spencer said during his testimony.

Maternity wards are closing for a number of reasons, according to hospital administrators. They cite labor shortages, increasing costs, low reimbursements and declining birth rates.

The California Hospital Association opposes Cortese’s bill and has registered “concerns” about Weber’s. The group argues that neither bill will address the underlying reasons for maternity ward closures and may cause hospitals to terminate services sooner as employees leave and patients look elsewhere for care, said Kirsten Barlow, vice president of policy with the hospital association during a Senate hearing earlier this month.

Current law requires hospitals to notify the public 90 days before a proposed service cut, but doesn’t require additional notification to be given to the state. Weber said that 90 days is “clearly not sufficient for the state to be able to intervene.”

Maternity care deserts emerge

CalMatters found that 12 counties have no hospital delivering babies, including Madera County, where the sudden closure of the county’s only hospital in 2022 spurred a flurry of emergency legislation supporting distressed hospitals.

Madera Community Hospital now is on track to reopen, but without a maternity ward. The company reopening the hospital, American Advanced Management, has indicated that low insurance reimbursement rates factored into its decision to open without labor and delivery.

“Reopening maternity would be like reopening two hospitals at the same time,” Matthew Beehler, chief strategy officer at American Advanced Management, previously told CalMatters.

Still, the bill authors and advocates are adamant that access to maternity care is a necessity. National studies indicate that rates of preterm birth increase and women receive less prenatal care when labor and delivery units shut down, particularly in rural areas. CalMatters found that maternity closures in California disproportionately impact low-income and Latino communities.

“This is really a very simple bill. It doesn’t do much. It creates a public hearing opportunity at the local level to deal with issues that are…absolutely vital to the survival of our constituents,” Cortese said during a Senate Health Committee hearing on his measure.

###

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

For the second year in a row, Democrats yesterday voted down a bill that sought to ban homeless encampments near schools, transit stops and other areas throughout California.

Despite the fact that cities up and down the state are grappling with a proliferation of homeless camps, legislators said they oppose penalizing down-and-out residents who sleep on public property.

“Just because individuals that are unhoused make people uncomfortable does not mean that it should be criminalized. And this bill does that,” said Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Democrat from Fremont and chairperson of the Senate Public Safety Committee. “The penalties will just be added to their already difficult situation of paying for things.”

Senate Bill 1011 stumbled in its first committee hearing, stalling in the Public Safety Committee on a 1-3 vote. The measure by Senate GOP leader Brian Jones and Democratic Sen. Catherine Blakespear, both of the San Diego area, would have made camping within 500 feet of a school, open space or major transit stop a misdemeanor or infraction. It also would have banned camping on public sidewalks if beds were available in local homeless shelters.

After yesterday’s defeat, Jones will continue speaking with committee members to see if there is any way to negotiate a path forward for his bill, spokesperson Nina Krishel said in an email.

Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat from Oakland, said while she appreciates that Californians don’t want to see encampments, she couldn’t support the bill.

“It’s kind of like trying to make a problem invisible versus addressing the core of the problem,” said Skinner, who joined Wahab and Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, in voting “no.”

More than three dozen people voiced their opposition to the bill during today’s hearing, speaking on behalf of organizations such as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union California Action.

The bill’s supporters, who numbered far fewer, included the mayor of Vista and a representative from the city of Carlsbad.

The lone “yes” vote came from the committee’s only Republican, Sen. Kelly Seyarto of Murrieta.

“We had a slew of people that came forward to tell us about what we shouldn’t be doing,” he said. “But what the hell should we be doing? Because right now we’re not doing anything.”

Sen. Steven Bradford, a Democrat from Inglewood, abstained.

Wahab granted reconsideration, which means the committee could hear the bill again later this session. But last year, a nearly identical bill met the same fate. SB 31, also introduced by Jones, died in the Senate Public Safety Committee with one “yes” vote, one “no” vote and three abstentions. It also received reconsideration, but was never revived.

This year’s version of the encampment ban had more going for it. Jones found a Democratic co-author and narrowed the bill’s scope. Instead of banning people from camping within 1,000 feet of schools and other locations, the new bill would have banned people from camping within 500 feet.

Jones also was leaning heavily on a new camping ban in San Diego, upon which he said he modeled his bill. The San Diego ordinance, which took effect at the end of July 2023, bans camps near schools, shelters and transit hubs, in parks, and — if shelter beds are available — on public sidewalks. Jones called the ordinance a “success,” a sentiment echoed by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.

But a CalMatters investigation paints a more complicated picture. While encampments have drastically decreased in some areas, such as downtown and around certain schools, they are still just as prevalent — in some cases much more so — along the city’s freeways and the banks of its river. Opponents of the ordinance say it displaces people instead of housing them.

And Jones’ bill failed to copy a key piece of San Diego’s approach. When the city started enforcing its encampment ban, it also opened two massive “safe sleeping” sites where about 500 people camp on vacant lots in tents purchased by the city.

Jones’ bill would not have forced cities to set up accommodations for people displaced from encampments, because, he said, there’s no state funding for that.

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Drucilla Yvonne (Denham) Bussman passed away peacefully on April 10, 2024, with family by her bedside. Drucilla was born May 31, 1950, to Joe and Mary Denham. She was born and raised in Eureka. She graduated from Eureka High School in 1968 and shortly thereafter began her career working for the County of Humboldt — first at the public health department, and then transferring to the planning and building department, where she was a permit technician until her early retirement in 2004.

In 2004, Drucilla had a stroke which left her right side paralyzed and unable to walk. She resided at Timber Ridge in Eureka and then later at Timber Ridge in McKinleyville for the past 20 years. She always had a good spirit and accepted God’s plan for her life with grace and understanding.

Drucilla enjoyed worshiping the lord at Faith Center Four Square Church. She also had a love for shopping. At first catalogs and then moving to online shopping (thanks Stacy!) She also enjoyed watching her programs on TV. Mom loved Netflix.

Drucilla is survived by her two younger brothers Bruce and Brad Denham. The father of her children Charles Bussman, her loving daughters Megan Bussman (Armin Halston) and Mindy Sehon (Cory). She is also survived by the greatest joys in her life, her granddaughters Marina Louise Sehon and Maren Bussman Halston.

Drucilla is preceded in death by her mother, Mary Denham, and sister, Deborah Denham.

The family would like to extend our thanks to Hospice of Humboldt for the exceptional care Drucilla received during her final months.

No services are planned. In remembrance, donations can be made to Hospice of Humboldt or your religious institution of choice.

###

The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Drusilla Bussman’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help locating missing person Jennifer Johnson. Family members reported their last contact with Johnson in February 2024.

Johnson is reported to be dealing with drug addiction issues and couch surfing with friends. Johnson is a 37-year-old white female, 5’4’’ tall and weighs about 135 pounds. She has blue eyes and brown/red hair with shaved sides and is known to wear dark clothing and has a cross tattooed on one of her thumbs.

Johnson is known to frequent the Eureka, Fortuna, and Carlotta areas. She may have traveled to the Hoopa area as well.  Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251, or Investigator Mike Fridley at 707-441-3024.

A noteworthy wildlife encounter occurred on Eureka’s outskirts yesterday evening.

Humboldt Hill resident Ian Filce writes into LoCO in the hopes of further alerting the community to the presence of a mountain lion in the area. He says he encountered the impressive feline in the yard of his home on Skyline Drive Monday evening at around 6:30 p.m.

“It was just sitting in our yard watching us for a while,” Filce told us. 

After failing to reach anyone at the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office non-emergency number, Filce says he got through to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife this morning. They directed him to submit a report online.

He also made a report to LoCO. Here it is.  Be safe out there, Humboldt Hill.

In western Kern County, where rolling hills are punctuated by bobbing rigs, the state’s largest oil and gas producer is betting that a novel technology will stave off the extinction of California’s fossil fuel industry.

The proposal has split this region, known as California’s oil country: Some want a future for oil and gas with less carbon emissions, while others insist that the polluting industries must go altogether.

In a project that would be California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon, California Resources Corp. plans to collect emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change.

Around the world, the race to build these carbon capture and storage projects is part of a broader bid by the oil and gas industry to remain viable in a world struggling to decarbonize.

In California alone, federal officials are reviewing 13 proposals to build projects — most in the Central Valley — that would capture carbon dioxide spewed by oil operations, power plants and other facilities or remove it from the atmosphere, then inject it underground into wells.

Although California aims to phase out nearly all fossil fuels, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said they must rely on carbon capture to eliminate millions of tons of greenhouse gases a year to meet its mandate of carbon-neutrality by 2045. The state may become even more reliant on this new technology than originally envisioned to stay on track in cutting planet-warming emissions.

“We have a very unique market in California, where you have a state government that’s pushing really in favor of an energy transition,” Francisco Leon, California Resources Corp.’s chief executive officer, said during a recent earnings call. “But we also have a state that has relied on oil and gas revenues to support the communities and to pave the roads, to pay for libraries and fire stations.”

At its massive oilfield in Kern County, a few miles from the mostly Latino, low-income community of Buttonwillow, California Resources Corp. is seeking approval to inject 1.46 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year over a 26-year period into an underground reservoir. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of several hundred thousand gas-powered cars. The company hopes to expand to a second nearby reservoir once operations are underway.

The company needs permission from both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Kern County Board of Supervisors. Both are expected to make their decisions this year, and the company hopes to start its first carbon injections next year.

Many residents and environmental justice groups oppose these projects because they allow oilfields, power plants and other industrial operations to keep emitting dangerous air pollutants in their communities. At the Kern County project, emissions of fine particles and gases that form smog would be “significant and unavoidable,” according to the county’s environmental impact report.

“You’re locking in pollution infrastructure that should be phased out,” said Daniel Ress, an attorney with the Delano-based Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. “This was designed by fossil fuel companies so that they can continue to profit off the climate crisis. They set this trap.”

Taft Mayor Dave Noerr, who is standing next to a monument for oil workers, supports the carbon capture project. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Dave Noerr, mayor of the foothills town of Taft, about 8 miles from the project site, sees the technology as a gamechanger for Kern County: a way of hanging on to well-paying, middle class oil and gas jobs as California tackles climate change. The industry employs about 14,000 people in Kern County, which provides three-quarters of California’s oil.

Signs of oil country are visible throughout Taft, a town of 7,000 people southwest of Bakersfield surrounded by thousands of sentinel-like oil rigs pumping day and night. A bronze monument depicting early 20th century work in the oilfields rises in a town square. Noerr’s office is located on the appropriately named Black Gold Court.

Noerr said California should lead the way with capture and storage technology so that developing countries can eventually adopt it at their high-polluting coal plants. “If we can learn how to do it, and do it right, on a commercial scale, right here, then we can help those people,” Noerr said.

Sonia Sanchez, who lives a half hour drive to the north, in Buttonwillow, on the other side of the company’s oilfields, is more worried about the health of her son than the plight of coal plants overseas. Sanchez owns a notary business that offers document services to farm-laboring Latinos.

California Resources Corp.’s pipelines and injection wells would be built just four miles from the closest home in Buttonwillow, and within 2.5 miles of the closest elementary school, according to the environmental impact report. Researchers have found connections between people living near oilfields and health effects, including respiratory problems, low birthweight babies and premature babies.

Sonia Sanchez of Buttonwillow helps organize local opposition to the proposed carbon capture project in the Elk Hills oilfield near her community. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

At a recent government hearing for the project held in Buttonwillow, Sanchez and others sported lime green T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Stop the Carbon Capture Scam.”

Capturing carbon to extend the life of oilfields would keep endangering children, who “are still developing, they’re young,” Sanchez said. “We have to protect them.”

Burying carbon more than a mile underground

One of the most productive oilfields in America, the Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field sits amid the winding, hilly terrain between Buttonwillow and Taft, some 30 miles west of Bakersfield. On a recent afternoon, trucks bustled in and out of the gated Elk Hills power plant. The plant dominates the remote, industrial landscape, with igloo-like structures rising in the distance.

It’s in this oilfield in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley that California Resources Corp. plans to launch the state’s first experiment with storing carbon underground.

Carbon capture technology has been in use since the 1970s in other states and countries, often on coal-fired power plants, ventures that have been criticized as costly and complicated. In the United States, much of the carbon injected underground has been by energy companies to extract oil out wells, a practice banned by California in 2022.

In many projects, a smokestack is equipped with a filtration system to capture greenhouse gases, which are then extracted and compressed, and then transported and stored, often underground.

Illustration by John Osborn D’Agostino, CalMatters

The Kern County project would remove carbon dioxide from natural gas produced at the company’s oilfields before it is burned at the company’s medium-sized power plant, which provides energy for Pacific Gas & Electric. Carbon also would be captured from a proposed hydrogen plant and a direct air capture project that would use fans and filters to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Richard Venn, a spokesman for California Resources Corp., declined to answer questions from CalMatters or allow company representatives to be interviewed about their project. Information came from EPA and Kern County documents as well as company materials.

The company will build underground pipelines from the plants to the injection wells, spanning about six miles during the initial phase and about eight miles during a second phase, according to county documents.

The project has received draft permits from the EPA for four injection wells. They are the first in the nation to be issued for a depleted oil and natural gas field, the company said in a press release. According to the draft permits, the carbon would be buried 6,000 feet below ground — more than a mile deep into the Monterey Formation, a massive geological structure that is a major source of California’s oil.

California Resources Corp. has said the gas will be trapped, in part, by a 1,000-foot-thick rock layer called the Reef Ridge Shale, according to the documents.

The EPA will require the company to monitor the wells for the rest of the century to guarantee that no groundwater is polluted. Initial examinations suggest there are no drinking water sources threatened by injecting carbon into the reservoir. But the project would use significant amounts of groundwater in a basin that already is overpumped, according to the environmental impact report.

Oil wells pump next to the Elk Hills Power Station. The proposed carbon capture project at the site would collect carbon emissions from the oilfield and power plant and then inject them underground. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

The company must take out a $33 million insurance policy and enact a number of other measures, including plugging 157 oil wells to ensure the carbon dioxide remains underground.

Carbon capture and storage could be big business for California Resources Corp., which has the most acres of privately held mineral rights in California. In 2022 the company, which earned revenues of $2.8 billion last year, announced a $500 million investment from Brookfield Asset Management to pursue carbon storage projects. It has several other proposed capture projects in California and earlier this year it merged with Aera Energy, which had been lobbying for policies promoting carbon capture in California and pursuing its own project.

California Resources Corp. said it plans to offset some of its costs with tax credits provided in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and could qualify for some state subsidies.

Capturing carbon remains expensive and so far is used only on a small scale. Worldwide last year 41 facilities were operating and 351 were under development, according to an annual report by the think-tank Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

Pavel Molchanov, an analyst with investment bank Raymond James, recently called carbon capture “niche” and said it only reduced greenhouse gases by a “rounding error,” with 0.1% of global emissions captured and stored last year. He said it’s quicker and easier to shut down fossil fuel facilities and shift to cleaner electricity.

Climate experts say the technology can play an important role in reducing emissions. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said carbon capture can be part of the net-zero energy transition along with significant reductions in fossil fuel use.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, through a spokesman, declined to comment on the California Resources Corp. proposal but he has actively supported carbon capture and storage as a means of lowering the state’s carbon footprint.

California plans to eliminate 94% of oil and gas, mostly by switching to electric vehicles and producing electricity from solar and wind energy. To make up the shortfall, the state will rely on carbon capture to cut 13 million metric tons of carbon from industrial and energy plants annually by 2030 and 25 million by 2045, and remove another 75 million metric tons from the atmosphere through other projects.

These technologies amount to 15% of all of California’s planned greenhouse gas cuts. That portion could grow if the state struggles to start up offshore wind and build more rooftop solar. California isn’t on track to meet its climate targets — and isn’t even close, according to a recent analysis.

When state officials deliberated their 2022 climate plan, they characterized carbon capture as reserved for tough-to-decarbonize industries, such as cement manufacturing. But now the state will need a “broader application” of the technology, including for natural gas plants, or California will fail to meet its 2045 emissions targets, Air Resources Board spokesman David Clegern said in an email.

Environmentalists are skeptical about the technology’s climate benefits, noting that methane, a potent greenhouse gas, can still leak out of natural gas plants. They also worry about carbon dioxide leaking from pipelines.

“Carbon capture has no vital role to play in generating electricity…We don’t need it to decarbonize the electricity system,” said David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, an environmental group.

Passionate views in local communities

In Kern County, the Elk Hills project has pitted oil and gas companies against residents and activists who want to see these industries closed. While the oil industry is a big employer, the company’s carbon project won’t generate many new jobs: about 80 positions for construction and then only five full-time employees to operate the facility.

Kern County is charging California Resources Corp. $250,000 a year for public safety and between $200 to $400 annually on each acreage of the project’s land.

The company must also compensate for fine particles and other pollution that the project would emit into the air by reducing it elsewhere in Kern County, paying for measures such as electric school buses.

The Elk Hills oilfield is among the nation’s largest oil producers. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

On a late weekday evening in February, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting hues of pink and red into the sky above Buttonwillow, about two dozen people entered Sanchez’ storefront. Taking seats, they listened to organizers talk about their opposition to the project. Then they made their way to the community center, where the EPA was conducting a public hearing for the project.

For three hours, people spoke passionately both in favor and in opposition, with about 50 people stepping up to the microphone. The speakers included workers in orange union shirts, farmers in plaid, politicians, oil industry employees and community residents. Attendees filled folding chairs and the rafters.

Both Sanchez, the Buttonwillow business owner, and Noerr, the Taft mayor, were among those who took their turns at the microphone.

Noerr spoke of his more than 40 years working in the oil industry in Kern County and praised its “emphasis on safety, on quality and efficiency and environmental stewardship.” He said he would never support a project that would put his community at risk.

Earlier in the hearing, with her teenage son and two other local boys at her side, Sanchez told the crowd about her fears that if the project goes through, it would leave polluting oilfields in her community for many more generations to come.

“We cannot afford to compromise the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we rely on for the sake of experimental solutions,” she said. “I refuse to expose my family in any way to unnecessary risks…Our town’s wellbeing and the health of its residents are nonnegotiable.”

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

More generous-than-expected raises for California state workers are nudging up the cost of public employee pensions, according to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

But, for one year, Gov. Gavin Newsom has a plan to save some money that otherwise would have to be spent on those retirement plans.

He wants to take money set aside 10 months ago to pay down CalPERS’ debt and instead use it for part of next year’s state worker pension costs.

That’ll save the state general fund $1.7 billion, making it a small but important part of Newsom’s plan to manage California’s yawning budget deficit.

There’s one catch: the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote that Newsom’s pension plan “appears unconstitutional” because of the way it relies on a previously scheduled debt payment.

Newsom’s accounting shift is possible because California has been paying down debt to comply with Proposition 2, the 2014 ballot measure meant to put the state’s fiscal house in order. It requires the state to make supplemental debt payments until 2030, even in years when it runs a deficit. Recently, Newsom has been using the Prop. 2 payments to chip away at the state’s substantial pension liabilities, including the $1.7 billion chunk earmarked for CalPERS’ debts in the current budget.

The analyst’s office contends the governor’s new proposal runs afoul of Prop. 2 by using a planned debt payment to “supplant, not supplement, what the state would otherwise have to provide CalPERS in 2024-25.”

The Newsom administration has a different view. “Put simply: it’s the Administration’s position that this proposal complies with Proposition 2,” said Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer.

The details on how much California will spend on state government pensions next year — regardless of whether lawmakers go along with Newsom’s proposal — are laid out for the CalPERS Board of Administration this week.

Altogether, the annual bill is expected to hit $8.7 billion. That accounts for raises that drove up the state payroll by about 4.7% last year, almost 2% greater than CalPERS anticipated. The wage increases will add about $124 million to the state’s pension tab.

CalPERS calculates that sum each year based on employees’ wages, how much workers contribute toward their pensions, how much the state chips in, how much it expects to earn over time and how much extra it needs to pay down its past investment losses.

CalPERS owes more money in benefits over time than it has on hand today. As of June 30, it had 72% of the assets it would need to pay out all of the benefits it owes.

Public employees don’t have to kick in money from their paychecks for the fund’s past misses. California Highway Patrol officers, for instance, put 13.5% of their paychecks toward their retirement. The state, meanwhile, is expected to pay a sum equivalent to 71% of a CHP officer’s wages next year both to fund that officer’s pension and to make up for past losses.

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.