Comings and goings: Hurley goes Greenwire, Iafolla back to DJ*

Today is Lawrence Hurley's final day as U.S. Supreme Court reporter for the Los Angeles Daily Journal. Hurley starts Monday as a legal affairs writer for the online trade publication Greenwire, which focuses on energy and the environment.

Robert Iafolla, who previously covered Congress for the Daily Journal, until the position was eliminated, will take over the Supreme Court beat. In between DJ gigs, Iafolla wrote a column for the online journal True/Slant, which got gobbled up by Forbes a few months ago.

For those who wonder, Greenwire is is operated by Environment and Energy Publishing. EEP bought the trade pub from the National Journal in 2000 and has continued to expand original reporting on the site.

*Update: Hurley's goodbye email to the DJ troops:

Today is my last day at the Daily Journal after five years in the Washington bureau. They say a week is a long time in politics, so five years is a Washington lifetime. I've been in D.C. so long, I can remember when Republicans were to blame for everything. I am grateful to the DJ for giving me the opportunity to cover important issues in a serious way. Highlights include five Supreme Court nominations (don't forget Harriet Miers!), the U.S. attorney firing scandal and, in my Supreme Court years, the Citizens United case and its aftermath.

Although I'm leaving the DJ, I'm not leaving legal journalism. On Monday, I start a new legal beat at Greenwire here in Washington, focusing on energy & environment issues. I'll still be covering some Supreme Court cases, but will also be dipping into other courts. I'm looking forward to it.

Has it come to this? Yes.

Grist's Jennifer Prediger (a former colleague at the Claremont Courier) donned a fox mask and asked for donations to keep the nonprofit website's environmental journalists on the payroll. Cutesy or not, direct appeals will have to become more the norm than the exception if important - but often neglected - forms of journalism are to continue to thrive.

Here's the video:

Texas oil looks to influence California law

California environmental laws are some of the toughest in the nation, and are often copied by other states, much to the consternation of energy and automobile companies.

Former LA Times reporter Robert Salladay reports that two Texas oil firms appear to be funneling money into California for an initiative that would undo the state's landmark greenhouse gas legislation, known as AB 32.

From California Watch:

Two Texas oil companies have been evasive about whether they are backing a California ballot initiative that would suspend the state's landmark global warming law, signed with fanfare by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

But it wouldn't be surprising if Tesoro Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. were behind the initiative to delay AB 32.

The Texas companies – which operate refineries in Benicia and Wilmington, Martinez and Los Angeles, and hundreds of gas stations throughout California – have been well-known players in the fight to weaken global warming legislation at the federal level, and they are major donors to state politicians working for the same goals.

Read the rest of the story here.

Four in the morning*

1. New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin is one of the 70 or so news staffers who took a recent buyout, but he plans to continue his Dot Earth blog at the paper. CJR

2. Former Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Hymon says working for the government (he writes for the MTA) isn't any worse, and may be better, than working for a newspaper. Neon Tommy via LA Observed

3. David Carr at the New York Times writes that the Wall Street Journal's news coverage is taking a conservative turn under Rupert Murdoch's management, and the Wall Street Journal's editor in chief says the New York Times is just jealous. NYT and Poynter (*Update: Carr responds to the uproar via Twitter: Did not intend WSJ col. as purpose punch. Love WSJ, noticed political drift. Wrote what I saw. Not trying to pick fight or carry water.)

4. The new mantra for journalism is cooperation and, to that end, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has teamed up with ProPublica and Frontline to investigate questionable police shootings in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ProPublica

A California pick me up

For the last year, California has been portrayed as a broken state. Fast-growing debt, high unemployment, irreconcilable demands for more services and lower taxes, an intractable budget, and an impotent state government. Waterless, traffic jammed and on fire. Time magazine's Michael Grunwald suggests that only those who have it so good could whine so loudly:

Ignore the California whinery. It's still a dream state. In fact, the pioneering megastate that gave us microchips, freeways, blue jeans, tax revolts, extreme sports, energy efficiency, health clubs, Google searches, Craigslist, iPhones and the Hollywood vision of success is still the cutting edge of the American future — economically, environmentally, demographically, culturally and maybe politically. It's the greenest and most diverse state, the most globalized in general and most Asia-oriented in particular at a time when the world is heading in all those directions. It's also an unparalleled engine of innovation, the mecca of high tech, biotech and now clean tech. In 2008, California's wipeout economy attracted more venture capital than the rest of the nation combined. Somehow its supposedly hostile business climate has nurtured Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Facebook, Twitter, Disney, Cisco, Intel, eBay, YouTube, MySpace, the Gap and countless other companies that drive the way we live. ...

"In the depths of the breakdown, you can see the next narrative," says Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution's metropolitan-policy program. "It's California. The next economy is already in place there, and it's amazing."

The complete article is here.

Superfund settlment in San Gabriel Valley

Northrop Grumman has agreed to pay $21 million to clean volatile organics from groundwater under the Southern California cities of Industry, La Puente and Walnut, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced. The settlement was brokered by the EPA as part of a larger Superfund project.

From the press release:

Northrop Grumman, representing all of the settling defendants, will spend an estimated $21 million to build a groundwater cleanup system that uses wells to pump out contaminated groundwater, preventing it from further migration. Northrop Grumman will also install water conveyance pipelines and construct a treatment plant to remove Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) contaminants from the groundwater. The treated water will be used for drinking water supply, water reclamation projects, or discharged to surface water.

Waxman wins chairmanship

California Congressman Henry Waxman has won his fight to become chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, ousting Michigan Rep. John Dingell. From the NYT:

By a vote of 137 to 122, House Democrats ended Mr. Dingell’s nearly 28-year reign as his party’s top member on the committee. Besides installing a committed environmentalist as head of the energy committee, the outcome also removes one of the auto industry’s best friends from a key leadership post.