A bill to ease Californians’ access to balcony solar, also called plug-in PV, just cleared the state Legislature and is now sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk. If he signs the bill, SB 868, California could become the tenth state to legalize this simple technology: a solar panel that plugs straight into a wall outlet and be fixed to a home’s balcony, no permits or rooftop installation required.

In today's episode, Ken sits down with EWG's own Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president for California. She's a longtime clean energy advocate who has spent decades fighting for consumer access to solar, from early rooftop solar policy battles to today's fight for balcony solar.

Their conversation traces how the idea made its way from Germany to Utah and now to California, why the state’s three major investor-owned utilities fought it every step of the way, and why this could be one of the biggest wins yet for everyday consumers in the fight for affordable, distributed clean energy.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

California Assembly utilities committee advances bill cutting red tape for ‘balcony solar’

California Legislature approves bill easing access to clean, affordable ‘balcony solar’

SB-868 Electricity: portable solar generation devices

CalMatters SB 868: Electricity: portable solar generation devices

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup

Tens of thousands of people got sick this summer from a foodborne illness outbreak that was preventable. In today’s episode, Ken speaks with Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, about the cyclospora outbreak sweeping the U.S.

The outbreak is a direct symptom of years of underinvestment and recent cuts to public health infrastructure by the Trump administration. From the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ shrinking FoodNet surveillance program to the thousands of Food and Drug Administration and Health and Human Services staff lost to layoffs and early retirements, Sarah lays out how the systems meant to catch contamination early have been dismantled.

It’s happening under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his unfulfilled Make America Healthy Again promises on food chemicals and a food safety loophole, synthetic dyes and defining "ultra-processed food. And it begs the question: Why are the people who promised to fix the food system are the ones gutting the agencies built to protect it?

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

CSPI's synthetic dyes commitments tracker

The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic memo on the FRESH Act

Politico’s: USDA cyclospora research projects shelved amid funding cuts and relocations

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup

"Ask where the landfill is, and you'll find where the Black people live." That's what Vernice Miller-Travis' grandmother told her. Vernice Miller-Travis helped write the report that first proved, with data, what Black communities had always known: Hazardous waste sites are not randomly distributed; they're concentrated in communities of color.

She has spent decades building the environmental justice movement, co-founding WE ACT for Environmental Justice, leading environmental justice grantmaking at the Ford Foundation, and founding the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Environmental Justice Initiative.

Miller-Travis, who is Ken’s guest today, now serves as executive vice president for environmental and social justice at Metropolitan Group, working with communities and institutions on the racial and economic conflicts that persist in our environment due to regulatory inaction.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

https://www.metgroup.com/

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup