💥 The explosive reason CA may ban single-use vapes

Seasoned Californians by now should be used to various bans on single-use plastics, like grocery bags, straws and food packaging, in an attempt by the state to curb environmental waste.

But one proposal to ban single-use nicotine vapes ranks waste as a secondary concern. Instead, bill proponents argue that banning disposable electronic cigarettes — better known as vapes — would help prevent fires that erupt from improperly-disposed lithium batteries.

The bill would prohibit the sale of disposable vapes by 2028 and would fine people as much as $500 per violation. 

Garbage companies are among the groups rallying behind the measure, citing the dangers and high costs of disposing the lithium batteries contained in e-cigarettes. Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, the bill’s author, said her proposal aims to push consumers toward reusable vape cartridges.

• Irwin, a Thousand Oaks Democrat, at a Wednesday committee hearing: “We do not throw away our phones or our laptop after one week of use and we should not treat any other lithium devices differently.”

Nick Lapis of Californians Against Waste, a co-sponsor of the bill, said disposable vapes are “a ticking time bomb that can be easily prevented.” In 2016, a lithium battery ignited a fire in a San Mateo County recycling facility, costing it $8.5 million and driving up its annual insurance cost by almost $3 million. Residents end up absorbing these costs through higher garbage rates and taxpayer-funded cleanups, said Lapis.

Law enforcement groups and an industry group for convenience stores and gas stations oppose the bill, arguing that most of the litter and fires the bill attempts to curb come from disposable vapes that are already illegal. To ban the limited number of legal disposable devices, they say, would drive consumers to buy illicit vape products. 

• Alessandra Brichetto, California Fuels & Convenience Alliance: “That’s the fundamental flaw on this bill. It assumes eliminating the legal market eliminates the problem. It doesn’t.”

Nevertheless, Democratic Senators on the revenue and tax committee advanced the bill this week, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy, sending it to appropriations.

The billionaire tax is headed to the ballot after all.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats could not make a deal with the healthcare union that gathered signatures to place a one-time wealth tax on a couple hundred of the state’s wealthiest people on the ballot this fall, setting up a showdown between voters who are ready to soak the rich and people who are worried about disrupting the economy. 

It’s one of 14 propositions that will go to voters in November. The deadline to make the ballot passed Thursday night, and saw a couple 11th hour deals that persuaded interest groups to pull initiatives from the election.

In one case, the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association withdrew its proposal that would have capped real estate taxes and make it harder for local governments to raise other revenues. 

In exchange, Democratic lawmakers agreed to pull a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that would have made certain tax-limiting measures harder to pass. They will also move to put a different amendment on the ballot that would raise the share of votes needed to pass certain local taxes.

Read more about the anti-tax proposal from CalMatters’ Ben Christopher. And check out Yue Stella Yu and Kristen Hwang’s story for more on the initiatives that you will see in the fall.

Earlier this month California prisons began limiting access to classes and rehabilitative programs for incarcerated people because the corrections system ran out of money to pay overtime for its staff, writes CalMatters’ Cayla Mihalovich.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation described the restrictions as a “cost-saving measure.” For the past four years, the department’s budget has remained relatively the same at $18 billion a year, despite recent cuts, prison closures and lawmakers pressing the department to tighten its spending.

The rollback is expected to lift June 30, but its effect has been notable among some incarcerated people.

Tony Tafoya, who has been incarcerated since 2012 and is enrolled in San Quentin’s Mount Tamalpais College, said his math class missed 12 days of instruction.

• Tafoya: “There’s a lot of healing that comes from going to school. It provides humanity. It makes me feel like I’m actually seen as a person. I feel like that’s what’s being missed out on.”

Read more.

More than 100 California police officers faced little consequence after they were found using racist, sexist and homophobic slurs, according to an investigation by The California Newsroom and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program. Most of the reviewed interactions were between fellow officers, as well as other members of the criminal justice system, such as court clerks and judges. Read more.