• Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) took action to force a vote on a straightforward, bipartisan bill to keep guns out of the hands of terrorist suspects. Because House Republicans continue to block the House from debating H.R. 1076, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, Capps signed a discharge petition that would immediately bring this legislation up for debate and a vote in the House. Capps spoke on the House Floor Dec. 8 in favor of the bill, which would close a loophole that allows suspected terrorists on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist to legally buy firearms.
“As members of Congress, it is our responsibility to protect the American people and ensure their safety from those who hope to inflict harm and terror,” Capps said in a press release. “In the last 11 years, more than 90 percent of suspects on the FBI Terror Watchlist who attempted to purchase a firearm were able to do so. That is unacceptable. We need to close this glaring loophole.”
H.R. 1076 was introduced by Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) and currently has bipartisan support from 83 members of Congress, including Capps. According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, since 2004 more than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist have successfully purchased weapons in the United States. More than 90 percent of all suspected terrorists who attempted to purchase guns in the last 11 years walked away with the weapon they wanted, with just 190 rejected.
• The city of Santa Maria is currently accepting applications for the All-America City Committee, Landmark Committee, Planning Commission, and the Santa Maria Community Television Board until 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 4. Appointments will be made at the City Council meeting Jan. 19, according to the city’s public information officer, Mark van de Kamp.
Applications for the Block Grants Advisory Committee, Board of Appeals, Commission for Senior Citizens-Area Agency on Aging, and the Measure U2012 Citizens’ Oversight Committee are also being accepted until sufficient applications have been received and the vacancies can be filled.
Applications may completed and submitted online from the city’s webpage atcityofsantamaria.org/
city-government/departments/boards-commissions or in person at the office of the City Clerk, Santa Maria City Hall, 110 E. Cook St., room 3. For more information, please call the City Clerk’s office at 925-0951, Ext. 305.
• Gov. Jerry Brown issued the following statement on the global climate pact reached Dec. 12 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris:
“This is a historic turning point in the quest to combat one of the biggest threats facing humanity,” Brown said. “Activists, businesses and sub-national leaders now need to redouble their efforts and push for increasingly aggressive action.”
Brown spent five days at the conference in Paris meeting with a number of world leaders at events in Le Bourget and throughout Paris.
Over the course of the conference, the governor welcomed a total of 58 new signatories to the Under 2 MOU climate agreement—bringing the tally to 123 jurisdictions representing more than 720 million people and $19.9 trillion in combined GDP, equivalent to more than a quarter of the global economy.
The Under 2 MOU is an agreement to limit the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius, the warming threshold at which scientists say there will likely be catastrophic climate disruptions. Signatories commit to either reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels or limit per capita annual emissions to less than 2 metric tons by 2050.
This article appears in Dec 17-24, 2015.