Rachel Becker, CalMatters
Rachel Becker is a journalist reporting on California’s complex water challenges and water policy issues for CalMatters. Rachel has a background in biology, with master's degrees in both immunology and science journalism. Before joining CalMatters, Rachel was a staff science reporter at The Verge, and her byline has also appeared in outlets including National Geographic News, Smithsonian, Slate, and Nature. In 2021 she won first place for Outstanding Beat Reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists, and in 2022 Rachel was the inaugural recipient of the Water Education Foundation’s Rita Schmidt Sudman Award for Excellence in Water Journalism.
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The State Water Resources Control Board is overseeing the phase-out of natural gas plants in Southern California — but it just extended operations at power plants in Oxnard, Huntington Beach, and Long Beach for another three years and the Scattergood Generating Station in Playa Del Rey for another five years.
A discrimination complaint filed by Native American tribes and environmental justice groups alleges that California State Water Resources Control Board has failed to protect water quality in the Bay-Delta. The EPA is investigating.
California water officials have proposed a plan to increase the amount of drinking water available by recycling wastewater from the sewage system.
California and major truck manufacturers have struck a deal with the California Air Resources Board to avoid lawsuits over the mandate to phase out diesel big rigs and other trucks, in exchange for relaxed near-term requirements to reduce emissions to align with EPA regulations.
Two new California Senate bills are poised to remove protections from certain endangered species of wildlife in favor of developing infrastructure projects that would supposedly help address the climate crisis.
The California Coastal Commission voted 8-to-2 to approve a new desalination plant, despite the ecological risks to the Monterey Bay coast, high costs of the water and a divide between affluent and lower-income communities.
After rejecting a controversial proposal for a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, the state Coastal Commission has just greenlit another in Dana Point at Doheny State Beach. While environmentalists raised concerns, the commission calls it a well-planned project.
If enacted this summer, California’s mandate — the first in the world — would increase sales of electric or other zero-emission cars to 35% in 2026, and prohibit new gasoline or diesel cars by 2035.
California’s environmental justice law is supposed to clean the air for 15 hot spot communities, home to almost 4 million people. But after more than four years and one billion dollars, it’s still impossible to say whether it’s worked.
Nations addressing climate change took on gasoline and diesel vehicles in pledges that mirror California’s mandates and plans — and in some cases, go even further.