CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018 OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D.
ELIAS
“WHY DON’T STATE’S CONGRESS MEMBERS DO THIS MORE OFTEN?”
“WHY DON’T STATE’S CONGRESS MEMBERS DO THIS MORE OFTEN?”
It’s
remarkable what California’s 53 members of the U.S. House of Representatives
can do when they decide to work together.
This corps of politicians
together makes up almost one-eighth of the lower house of Congress, holding
many influential committee and subcommittee chairmanships regardless of which
party is in power.
But California’s potentially
immense clout as America’s most populous state is only rarely brought to bear
in the nation’s capital because of ideological differences. The state’s
impotence could best be seen this year on the House Intelligence Committee,
where Republican Chairman Devin Nunes of Hanford released a report attempting
to whitewash President Trump in the Russia election tampering scandal over the
strong opposition of the ranking Democrat on the panel, Adam Schiff, who represents
Pasadena, Burbank and almost everything in between.
Conversely, Trump also gave
Californians in Congress an opportunity this spring to demonstrate what they
can accomplish on the rare occasions that they opt to work together for the
good of the entire state.
When Trump tried to remove $10 million from
the federal budget that was earmarked to continue work on and perhaps complete
a West Coast earthquake early warning system, California Democrats and
Republicans alike reversed his action and then some.
Instead of $10 million for the
system, the budget bill Trump eventually signed actually contained $22.9
million. Of that, $10 million is goes to the physical buildout of the remaining
800 or so seismic watch stations (more than 800 had already been set up, but
Trump was willing to waste all that prior work). The other $12.9 million is for
continued development of the early warning system’s technical aspects, which
will likely be refined and improved continually for decades to come.
The
prime mover in this total turnaround of Trump’s choice was Republican Ken
Calvert of Corona, usually a quiet back-bencher, but the holder of one of those
influential chairmanships. Calvert heads an appropriations subcommittee
overseeing the United States Geological Survey, builder of the system and
essentially the country’s earthquake arbiter.
“I
will continue to be a champion for this life-saving technology that can have a
significant impact when big earthquakes hit,” he said in a statement. “Let’s
take the steps we can to save Americans from preventable injuries during
natural disasters.”
His
comment was echoed by Schiff, an early advocate of the warning system, known as
ShakeAlert. Schiff’s district sits just south of the San Andreas Fault where it
runs east-west near the San Gabriel Mountains. Schiff thanked Calvert for his
leadership, adding that “This system…will save lives across California, Oregon
and Washington.”
With
Californians nearly unanimous in supporting it, the vote for even more funding
than Trump had tried to eliminate was quiet and overwhelming.
Maybe
some of the nearly $13 million in development money can now be deployed to
convince jaded Californians who have seen plenty of unfulfilled disaster
warnings and evacuations notice to pay attention to warnings that may come 30
seconds to a minute before big shocks occur.
That
skeptical quality was seen in Santa Barbara County’s mudslide-plagued
Montecito, where many residents in slide-prone areas deliberately ignored
mandatory evacuation warnings during the spring season’s last large rainstorms.
There had been too many false alarms following the winter’s previous serious
barrage of earth movement.
The
USGS took note and is now trying to decide whether and how early to issue
warnings using information from the new system. Too early and a quake might
turn out to be very small, rendering warnings unneeded; too late and lives
could be lost.
The
difficult part is that when earthquakes begin, it’s impossible to know how
great their impact will be.
So
part of ShakeAlert’s mission will be to convince Californians to heed quake
warnings, even after some of them have fizzled.
But
that’s secondary to the ultimate good that this system will do as it saves
lives by getting people off bridges and away from buildings where they could be
hit by falling debris.
It’s
all very important, but the real meaning of the vote to reverse Trump was to
demonstrate for the first time in years what Californians in Congress can do
when they work together. Too bad they don’t do it more often.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.
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