• California’s population increased at the fastest clip since before the economic downturn in the year ending July 1, new state figures show, even as the state’s birth rate declined to levels not seen since the Great Depression, according to the Sacramento Bee. The state Department of Finance recently reported that California’s population grew by nearly 0.9 percent, the highest since 2003 to 2004. The Bee added that experts said the economic recovery reduced the number of California residents leaving for other parts of the United States and helped boost the state’s population by 335,000. The birthrate stood at 12.9 per 1,000 residents in July, which is the lowest since 1934. Experts said this could be lingering post-recession unease but a more conrete cause is a sharp drop in the rate of teen pregnancies. The number of births from teens aged 15 to 19 dropped from around 31 in 1,000 in 2010 to about 22 per 1,000 in 2013, the Bee reported.
• More than 200,000 tons of biomass was removed from federal lands this year through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which was authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made the announcement on Dec. 16. Biomass is another word for material from plants and animals. Different forms of biomass can be used to produce electricity and heat.The Farm Bill provides incentives for the removal of dead or diseased trees from national forests and Bureau of Land Mangement lands for renewable energy. “This initiative helps to retrieve forest residues that are a fire risk but otherwise are costly to remove,” Vilsack said in the release. Over the summer, 19 energy facilities in 10 states participated in the program. Eligible farmers, rachers, or foresters paricipating in the program receive a payment to partially offset the cost of harvesting and delivering forest or agricultural residues to a qualified energy facility. Up to $12.5 million is available each year for biomass removal. One of the key accomplishments outlined in a press release was in California’s Rim Fire area in Tuolumne County, where nearly 100 percent of the U.S. Forest Service’s targeted 40,000 tons of forest residue was approved for removal and transport to energy facilities. Visit fsa.usda.gov/bcap to find out more about the program.
• The California Board of Equalization conducted a public hearing and moved forward with regulation amendments clarifying that hydroponic farmers may qualify for the sales and use tax exemptions for fertilizer, according to a press release sent out on Dec. 18. The changes add carbon dioxide to the definition of fertilizer and emphasize that fertilizer doesn’t need to be applied to land to qualify for the sales and use tax expemptions. This would mean that farmers who purchase carbon dioxide for use as a fertilizer in hydroponic farming don’t have to pay sales or use tax on the carbon dioxide. The amendments will be submitted to the Office of Administrative Law. If approved, the changes will go into effect on April 1, 2015.
• On Dec. 17, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response announced it was offering Response Equipment Grants to local governments. The grants have an average value of $30,000 and include the cost of oil spill response equipment, a mobile trailer, and equipment deployment training, but not maintenance or replacement. “With growing concerns about increased movement of oil in California’s inland areas, we felt the need to make these grants available as quickly as possible,” said Thomas Cullen Jr. adminstrator of Spill Prevention and Response. The department has an initial $250,000 to award in the first part of 2015. It has offered local grants targeting equipment for the marine environment since 2008 and provided more than $850,000 to 34 government agencies over that time. The press release said that with Gov. Jerry Brown’s expansion of the state’s oil spill preparedness and response program, the grant program was expanded and helped to provde support for inland counties. The Office of Spill Prevention and Response now covers all state surface waters at risk of oil spills.
This article appears in Dec 25, 2014 – Jan 1, 2015.
