Desert Star Weekly 'Friday" March 24, 2023 issue!

desert STAR

Stop Gas PriceGouging

on CA Gas Price-Gouging Bill

crude oil prices dropped and state taxes and fees remained unchanged.

By

Desert Star Staff California lawmakers held a hearing in Sacramento Wednesday on a bill to hold oil companies and gasoline refiners accountable for alleged price gouging.

According to the Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom, gas prices in California hit an average of $6.42 per gallon last fall, $2.61 more than the national average. And it happened even as

Farrah Khan, mayor of Irvine, said she supports Senate Bill 2, establishing an independent watchdog within the California Energy Commission.

“It’s going to establish

No One Is Alone – Melissa Errico Remembers Stephen Sondheim

By Desert Star Staff

CATHEDRAL CITY, CA –

Broadway star, Tony Award nominee, actress, singer, and author MELISSA ERRICO brings her immaculate vocal style to Coachella Valley Repertory performing NO ONE IS ALONE – MELISSA

ERRICO REMEMBERS

STEPHEN SONDHEIM, her tribute to the late, great genius of American musical theatre. Errico’s one-nightonly concert will be on May 4 at 7 p.m., opening CVRep’s 2023 Broadway Cabaret Series. She will sing all of the Sondheim standards, interspersed with stories and insights from her decades-

long relationship with him. It will be a fun and philosophical journey using Sondheim’s songs from shows such as Gypsy, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and others. One critic said that Errico singing Sondheim left him “Stunned into an amazing feeling of having witnessed something life-changing, life-enhancing and of incredible beauty.” The Wall Street Journal called her Sondheim Sublime album “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded.” Audiences will hear Errico’s immaculate vocal style that inspired Sondheim.

Pianist Tedd Firth will join her.

This May 7 performance replaces Errico’s previously scheduled show from 2022, which had to be canceled due to COVID. Patrons holding tickets to that performance should contact the CVRep box office at (760) 296-6229, ext. 201, to exchange or process tickets. Additional Cabaret Series artists will be announced shortly.

NO ONE IS ALONE – MELISSA ERICCO REMEMBERS STEPHEN SONDHEIM Tickets are $38.50 and are on sale now. They may be ordered online at www.cvrep.org, by calling

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a new division to provide independent oversight and analysis of the market,” Khan explained. “This new division would have the power to subpoena information deemed necessary to root out and address any of the abuses of market power.”

The Western States

Petroleum Association said, “This new windfall penalty in this proposal is worse than the original bill. The Legislature would be giving away all its authority to a group of unelected bureaucrats

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Hearing

Election Officials Call for Action to Protect Democracy

some local election boards have tried to require the hand count of ballots or refuse to certify election results.”

In December, Congress passed reforms to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 - a rare bipartisan move to make it harder to attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election, as former President Trump did in 2020.

Republicans have defeated Democratic proposals to reduce money’s political influence and expand access to voting.

experience, and use election materials to communicate facts about misinformation directly with voters.”

Michigan Secretary of State Jocyeln Benson said election denier groups are trying to infiltrate local elections offices.

By

Desert

Star Staff

American democracy is in mortal danger as the 2024 election approaches, according to experts at a Friday conference held at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Millions of Americans

still believe the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and the insurrection on January 6th of 2021 proves that some are willing to resort to violence.

UCLA Law Professor

Rick Hasen organized the conference and said some

groups are actively working against the will of the voters.

“Elections deniers won office in non-swing states, and many are in Congress,” said Hasen. “Local election officials have shared voting machine code with conspiracy theorists, and

Neal Kelley, who served as registrar of voters in Orange County for 20 years and now chairs the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, said citizens must combat efforts to undermine trust in the election system.

“We should continue to expand audits,” said Kelley, “partner with prosecutors on any violations of election law, improve the voter

“I found the effort to replace people of integrity in every potential position in democracy from poll workers to Secretaries of State,” said Benson, “with people who are not beholden to the law on the principles of democracy and are willing to skirt the law to advance political goals.”

Michigan Democrats are pursuing bills to increase the penalty for harassing election workers and to ban deceptive practices in elections, such as lying to voters when seeking petition signatures and knowingly sharing false information about elections and the ability to vote.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York provided support for this reporting.

Climate Groups Spotlight Destruction Linked to Wood Pellet Industry

By Desert Star Staff

Climate-change groups are calling attention to the environmental destruction linked to the wood pellet industry - even as California is considering a proposal to build two plants. The U.S. is the biggest wood pellet exporter in the world - mainly to Europe.

Laura Haight, U.S. policy director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity, wants the European Union and the U.K. to change their policies.

“In Europe, they treat burning wood as renewable energy and heavily subsidize it. And they’re importing massive quantities of wood pellets to fuel their power plants,” she said. “And a lot of that is coming from the United States. That’s where a lot of our forest destruction is happening. “

More than 100 groups recently wrote.

We are asking European Union leaders to prohibit subsidies for wood that comes

from living trees. Wood pellet companies claim they only use waste wood from logging or dead wood in the forest that fuels wildfire. But investigations have proved that companies have clear-cut forests in the southeastern U.S.

Haight added that burning wood for energy is terrible for the climate.

“There’s a large release of carbon dioxide emissions into the air when you burn it. And at the same time, you’re removing the tree that is helping us lock in our carbon, and so you’re increasing emissions and reducing our capacity to store carbon,” she said.

Two wood pellet plants -the first of their kind in California -- are proposed for Lassen and Tuolumne counties. The plants would be built by Golden State Natural Resources, a public benefit corporation whose board members are local county officials.

Elly Pepper, deputy director of international wildlife conservation for the Natural Resources Defense Council, opposes the projects.

“It would be bad for the air, the wildlife and lands, and the communities. And it would be California assenting

to bioenergy as a renewable energy source when it’s most definitely not,” Pepper said.

The company did not respond to a request for comment but says on its website that the plants would quote “procure and process sustainably sourced excess

forest vegetation into a pelletized renewable fuel source to replace the use of coal.”

Disclosure: Partnership for Policy Integrity contributes to our fund for reporting on Climate Change/Air Quality, Energy Policy, Environment, and Environmental Justice.

No One Is Alone – Melissa Errico Remembers Stephen Sondheim

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Stop Gas Price-Gouging

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who would have the power to set gasoline prices and impact fuels markets. [This] will likely lead to the same unintended consequences

as his initial proposal - less investment, less supply, and higher gasoline prices for Californians.”

Steven Hernandez, mayor of Coachella, said it is a matter of fairness

to the families who live paycheck to paycheck.

“People struggle to afford gas and rent and to pay medical expenses,” Hernandez pointed out.

“When we’re mindful of

performances. To better serve audiences, patrons requesting accessibility assistance are

encouraged to contact the box office at least 24 hours before their ticketed performance.

the working class, we’re better off as a society.”

The California Energy Commission watchdog would analyze data to look for misconduct or price manipulation patterns. The bill

would also start a rule-making process at the Commission to set a reasonable profit margin and impose a penalty for price-gouging above the margin. Any fines would be returned to taxpayers.