Essential California May 7, 2020 Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, May 7, and I’m writing from Los Angeles. For the last six years, my colleague Sammy Roth has been on the energy and climate beat, first for the Desert Sun and USA Today — where he focused on renewable energy, climate change and public lands — and now at The Times, where he’s focused specifically on energy since late 2018. If you care about California’s role as a climate leader, clean energy investments or how the state’s largest power companies have dealt with bankruptcy, firesand blackouts, you’ve probably already encountered Sammy’s work. And if you know anything about the city of Los Angeles’ contested plan to wean itself off the last of its coal-generated electricity by replacing that fuel with a climate-polluting natural gas plant in Utah, it’s almost definitely because of Sammy’s reporting. As drought, wildfires and rising seas continue to batter the state, climate and energy is far from a niche beat. If you live in California, these topics will affect your life. Period. Which is why Boiling Point, Sammy’s new weekly newsletter about climate change, energy and the environment in the American West, is so important. It’s about the air you breathe, the water you drink and the energy that powers the device you’re reading these words on right now. Why start an environment-focused newsletter in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic? That’s a fair question, and one Sammy addresses right off the bat. Climate change hasn’t stopped just because so many of us are sheltering in place, but the virus will add new challenges to ongoing problems. 2020 is already shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record. With millions of people potentially self-isolating in homes and apartments they can’t keep cool, public health experts are warning that the pandemic could make intense heat waves deadlier. And drought conditions in Northern California may prompt an early start to this year’s wildfire season, forcing local authorities to rethink the typical logistics for how fire crews are housed and how residents are evacuated. And now, here’s what’s happening across California: California will make it easier for essential workers who contract COVID-19 to obtain workers’ compensation benefits. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that streamlines claims and establishes a rebuttable presumption that any essential workers infected with COVID-19 contracted the virus on the job. Los Angeles Times L.A. County officials have laid out the first steps toward easing stay-at-home orders imposed almost two months ago. Florists, car dealers and various types of bricks-and-mortar stores — including those that sell toys, music, books, clothing and sporting goods — will be allowed to open for curbside pickup only starting Friday. In-store shopping will not be permitted. County recreational amenities including golf courses and trails will also reopen Friday. City golf courses and trails will reopen Saturday, with the exception of Hollywood’s perennially crowded Runyon Canyon trail, which will remain closed. Los Angeles Times Wait, you might be thinking, didn’t Gov. Newsom already outline all of this a few days ago? Yes, Newsom laid out the framework, but the county and city of L.A. could still have chosen to wait longer before easing their restrictions. That’s what’s happening in the Bay Area. Citing rising coronavirus cases, San Francisco city officials reiterated Wednesday that the region’s stay-at-home orders will continue to be enforced — and those orders don’t currently permit curbside pickup from nonessential retailers. Los Angeles Times