Coming up this week on Headline Humboldt, it's become a refrain.

The US Supreme Court issued a decision this week that will severely impact the federal government's ability to fight climate change.

We sit down with Jana Ganion from the Blue Lake Rancheria to discuss the issue.

Also, the second annual pride parade in Ferndale was a hit for hundreds as the community comes together to express solidarity in the face of public criticism.

Coming up now on Headline Humboldt.

So when the top of Humboldt Hill this is headline Humboldt.

I'm James Falk.

Thanks for joining us.

Part of what anchors a society over decades and even centuries are the norms and traditions we've all come to know and expect.

The rights and privileges were handed upon birth and the role we anticipate our government to play in preserving these from so much of our history.

There's been an unfolding where the relatively spare framework documents of our society gradually come to mean and project so much more than the simple text they bear.

Such an evolution of meaning allows our founding documents, our founding documents to shift under the strains of culture and history to become a living and relevant contract with every successive generation .

It's a good thing and allows for our society to shift in the winds, so to speak, and never constrain our future development based on overtired and burdensome standards from the past.

There is, however, a legal movement outside of what many consider to be the mainstream of jurisprudence that advocates for an extreme adherence to the precise letter of our Constitution.

In religious terms, these would be constitutional fundamentalists, and they've recently gained a majority on the US Supreme Court.

First of all was Roe versus Wade, which we've covered on the show since then.

A series of decisions have followed over the past several weeks that threatened to severely undermine the administrative organs of our government at a time when they're perhaps most needed.

For tonight's show, we're focusing on one of those recent decisions where the court limited the ability of the federal Environmental Protection Agency or EPA to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

The ruling comes at a time when the consequences from climate change are becoming more and more apparent, and governments across the world are struggling to enact reforms that will sensibly reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

The ruling will blunt perhaps the most substantive weapon in the federal arsenal at a time when our reaction to the climate crisis may well determine how livable our planet remains in 100 years, Congressman Jared Huffman said of the decision.

The court is now shielding the fossil fuel industry from direct federal regulation of planet killing, planet killing, carbon pollution, effectively hijacking and rewriting the Clean Air Act for corporate polluters.

Now the interview.

Jana Ganion, sustainability and governmental affairs director for the Blue Lake Rancheria.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

We've had you on the show before.

It may have been north coast perspectives back then, but you've been on the show.

And I appreciate you coming back.

You bet.

It's still delightful to be here.

I think there there are a lot of urgent issues right now.

The climate crisis is both underneath and over the top of all of them.

You know, that's an interesting point.

It's like up until this week when this decision came down and it's kind of gotten lost.

I mean, with Roe v Wade and with the January six hearings and everything else, people kind of that had fallen into the background.

And really it's something that should never fall into the background at this point.

Let's back up a little bit.

What do you think of the decision and how how will it impact the government's ability to regulate carbon emissions?

Sure.

Well, I think, first of all, I'm not an attorney, so I want to make that clear to the audience.

Right out of the gate and I've been doing some work over the last 24 hours or so to understand what this decision means.

Certainly it makes certain things more difficult for us on a carbon market scale.

But I think the news isn't completely terrible.

The EPA can still require greenhouse gas reductions and hazardous pollution emission reductions plant by plan, as it has for 50 plus years under the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act.

And this has some benefits in terms of being reiterated by the court in this way as it focuses the actions for climate improvement squarely on what is in people's backyards with the chronic problem.

Of course, that those backyards are typically in communities that are low income and severely marginalized in other ways tribal communities, communities of color.

So it's possible that this zoomed in focus plant by plant may help strengthen improvements that have been long needed with multiple co-benefits greenhouse gas reductions for climate mitigations and hazardous air and water pollution reductions directly within communities, removing those toxic hotspots that have been needed to be removed anyway all at the same time.

So is it fair to say that it's requiring that the EPA be more specific or that Congress will now have to be more specific with the rules that are coming down through the EPA?

How does that work exactly?

Yeah, I think that's what people are looking at in many of these Supreme Court decisions that the requirements to be very specific about each application of each law.

I think, again, my non-legal this is my personal opinion.

I don't I don't think that that's feasible.

So I believe that the Supreme Court is acting in ways that go against precedent, that go against really the the the values and the wishes of of the majority of the American people.

But we'll set that aside for a moment.

The the EPA still has authority to regulate, and this will include greenhouse gas reductions and other hazardous pollutants.

And I think that but but it does renew the focus on Congress.

Congress is important.

If people are serious about their states and their federal government taking action on climate, they have to elect representatives that will that will act in that way.

And right now, things are pretty dysfunctional.

However, the Supreme Court decisions, I think, have have increased attention to the fact that nothing is is is taken for granted in these in these areas.

And in order to engender the policies that we want to fight the climate crisis and forestall the worst impacts of it that are going to mean suffering and death for for millions and billions of people.

We need to act.

And and that is that that sense of urgency is never a bad thing.

And so I can talk a little bit about some points of optimism that I think we're seeing in other sectors as well.

But, yeah, the the the focus is directly on Congress to act and make it make the the will of the majority of the American people an act.

In policy.

Yeah.

So, I mean, we've heard a lot about climate change over the last ten or 15 years.

And we all know that it's, you know, becoming or if it's not already an existential crisis.

But can you sort of give us a demonstration?

You know, basically how far away from me are we from where we need to be and our urgency?

Well, there's been a lot of information that has come out of the latest international climate meetings.

Mm hmm.

That the goals are ambitious.

The actual emission reductions are falling far short of those goals.

By some estimates, hundreds of billions of metric tons of carbon emissions.

So.

We need every tool we can throw at this.

We know on the north coast that's going to help with our sea level rise issue is going to help with reducing extreme heat and the wildfire risk.

All of these benefits to us social, economic and environmental that result from clear action on climate and a sense of resiliency and self-sufficiency, that that is really also designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is possible.

We're seeing this in the clean energy sector.

We're seeing this with the ambitious goals that the tribal governments and the state of California and many countries across the globe are setting and keeping.

And I think the other things that we're seeing on the industry side is entities like the Securities Exchange Commission or SCC have forwarded new regulations, and I'm going to quote as investor demand for climate and other environmental, social and governance information soars.

The SEC is responding with an all agency approach, which means climate risks and climate actions must be disclosed by publicly traded companies.

All of these all of these policy, these tightening regulations, these tightening disclosure and transparency frameworks, those are all working in in favor of clear climate action.

It's going to be messy.

It's it's messy now, but there are clear points of progress.

So, I mean, basically, it's happening, even though it may not be to the scale that we need yet or that in some ways it may not be clear to the average Joe, but the change is occurring.

Is that fair to say?

That's right.

Yeah, go ahead.

Go ahead.

You know, you, I, I, I would just say that there are carrots for industry to act in a in a climate resilient way.

Voluntary action by industry is, of course, a marketing and customer loyalty tool, but only if it's accurate.

So the local action is important.

It's going to become increasingly more so.

Voting with wallets, voting with actions is going to be really important.

I think some examples here in the region are the the new initiative that's incubated at the Humboldt Area Foundation that I've also been involved with as part of my work called the Redwood Region Climate and Community Resilience Hub or core hub for short.

Yeah.

It's socializing.

An ambitious goal for this region in organizing climate goals, becoming the first carbon sequestering region in the Unite communities by 2030, and proving it with accurate carbon lifecycle analysis.

And and that proving it is important.

So when we talk about the gaps between the goals and what's actually being accomplished, we need real carbon math.

And lots of people are working on that and we need even more.

And which gets us back to this Supreme Court decision.

So if the idea is that we're focusing on a plant by plant basis, we've needed to do that for a long time.

We've needed to make sure that the that the carbon footprint or the carbon calculation from our energy sector is accurate.

This Supreme Court decision gives the whole international community and the and the climate community, particularly within the United States, impetus to refocus on a plant by plant carbon lifecycle analysis.

And and I think that's one of the points of optimism here.

You know, if we're going to take action, we're going to look for ways to make progress.

And we need to accelerate all of that.

And there are there are, as others have said, silver linings to this decision.

Yeah.

So it's not something that we should be fatalistic about.

I mean, there are ways to make this work for the ultimate goal, would you say?

I do.

You know, back when the Clean Power Plan, which was.

Very tangentially, the impetus for all of this was promulgated under the Obama administration.

It really it really did a couple of things.

One was one positive outcome of it was that it got a lot of people's attention to focus in on on carbon markets.

And that is a tool that doesn't matter, but that does not need to be managed by the EPA.

Yeah, in this case, I think that there was in the Clean Power Plan, there was some structures that that anticipated the EPA would manage the market for these carbon emission reductions.

But that doesn't that's that that's not.

That's just one of many, many options for structuring these markets.

We already have a cap and trade market in California.

And so I would just say that that, yeah, there's room for optimism.

And there's also action, innovative legal action, judicial action that's being conducted by entities like our Children's Trust.

And you can find more information at our children's trust dot org.

And basically in their case, Juliana versus the United States, they're working on youth legal rights to a safe climate.

So I'm going to I'm going to quote again that their their lawsuit asserts that through quote, through the government's affirmative actions that caused climate change, it has violated the youngest generation's constitutional rights to life, liberty and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.

And quote so about out of time.

Sorry to cut you off like that but so that will be used as a way to challenge the legal framework, basically.

Yeah.

And there's I think today there's a lot more people focused on this than there was yesterday.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's going to be lots of innovation, lots of legal focus on this and policy focus on this issue.

Awesome.

Jenna, thank you so much for sharing your expertize and making us feel better about the decision.

Right.

All right.

Have a good afternoon.

Thank you.

We'll be right back after this short break.

All right.

Now, my name is Baratunde Thurston.

I'm a writer sometimes comedian, Pacific Ocean.

That's my booth right there.

And I'm all about exploring.

How does our relationship with the outdoors define us?

Is adventure racing the thing where you make life much harder than it needs to be?

Always, yeah.

As individuals.

Real cowboy stuff.

Real cowboy stuff.

And as a nation.

This past weekend, LGBTQ folks and their friends and allies paraded across Ferndale for the town's second annual Pride Parade.

Reporters Linda Stansberry and Skyler Gavin filed the following report.

I know.

Yeah.

Why?

Right.

There's no guarantee.

More than 100 people gathered in Ferndale on Sunday, June 26th, for the town's second annual Pride March.

Many carried rainbow flags and signs supporting the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender, queer, intersex to spirit and questioning people.

They included the residents of Ferndale and people from around the county.

Today we're here to celebrate LGBT community.

A huge thing that I think doesn't get recognized enough and we're just here to support.

As the noon whistle sounded, the crowd gathered at the gazebo in front of City Hall to listen to Kaylin Rivera, the march's organizer, welcome them and give instructions.

Rivera, a transgender man, has been a resident of Ferndale for two years.

All right, I'm coming to.

So we'll have you all here.

Thank you.

A march, a protest for those people who put bad signs up, who think that any kind of lifestyle other than just head Christian is abnormal.

Right.

So I'm asking for our viewers to be concerned when we're marching.

First things first.

Anybody who cannot walk, anybody who is not ambulatory, go to the very broad markets, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, that kind of thing.

One where people have disability, not seen hardly ever in a parade.

They are going in the front.

My name is, and you need to pop a key.

Rivera I just took my last name, so I'm getting used to that.

But right now we're having our second Ferndale Pride March in protest of, you know, unfavorable religious signs, things that are going on.

This is a march, not a pride parade.

It's just a marching protest.

Our festivities are end at Fireman's Park, where we have booths, ice cream.

We have sellers, we have artists.

We have all sorts of information.

So this is really just kind of like our last minute, amazingly enough, last minute thing I put together.

So because I got asked to it together and the word has spread and I am absolutely bored right now and they're still pouring in.

The march was galvanized by anti LGBTQ rhetoric from St Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church and its pastor, Reverend Tyrell Bramwell, who chose June to release a series of recorded sermons on his website titled Rescued from Sins Rainbow First Corinthians 692 11 speaks for the deceived, for the deceived and against the Devil's Deceivers.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, he says.

Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy nor drunkard, nor revealer, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God.

Last year, a similar sign inspired the town's first ever Pride march, which culminated in a confrontation between the pastor and several attendees.

Reverend Bramwell has said he is trying to inform people of how they can be saved from the sin and he feels duty bound to denounce what he calls LGBTQ sins.

But this year, no such confrontation took place.

Instead, attendees paraded peacefully from City Hall down Main Street and back.

Ferndale residents voiced their support and the Ferndale Police Department helped protect the march from traffic.

Right?

Yeah.

Renee Crandall attended with her children, mothers and extended family.

Supporting myself and I am supporting my people and I'm supporting my moms and I am supporting women and men and all genders all around the world who can't be here.

And there's all the reasons why they can't be, because they have to be hidden or they can't express themselves because of what their family might say to you.

My father disowned me because I'm a lesbian.

There's nothing I can do about it.

But all I can do is love my father.

And that's all you can do is with your family who decides to support you, a loving father where you are.

I think people just need to look past people's genders and who they have on their butts and just love them for who they are.

Kindness spreads everywhere, and the more you spread it, the more cheer you get, the more smile you get, the less hate you have.

So this would be a beautiful place to start, right?

To have the love, to have the chair, to have the care, everything that Ferndale is great for.

It's a beautiful place and it has history.

And I think it's great to teach old dogs new tricks.

In a statement on the queer Humboldt Facebook page, the march was described as joyful, peaceful and festive.

It was one of many pride events held across the county, including the second annual Hoopa Valley Rainbow extravaganza held in Hoopa on June 25th.

And right.

For KTVT.

This is Linda Stansbury with Skyler Gavin.

An official with the Humboldt County Superior Court was placed on administrative leave and ultimately arrested for alleged inappropriate behavior.

Brian Hudson has the story.

According to the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office.

Family Court mediator Joseph Heil was arrested by the Humboldt County District Attorney's Office and charged with California Penal Code.

647j2a misdemeanor charge for invasion of privacy using a recording device involving the viewing of another person's undergarments or genitalia.

Hills job in Humboldt County is of critical importance to the Family Law Court.

Once involved in a custody dispute, a family is required by law to attempt to mediate an agreement for terms of custody and visitation.

This frequently involves families who are coping with domestic violence issues or other co-parenting disputes.

Local family law attorney Kelley Burke offered insight from the family law advocates view, saying, quote, It is very unfortunate that we now don't even have one mediator when we need at least two or three.

Referring to courthouse functions, Burke added I think this is just another reason why the county court system needs to be actively hiring a second or third mediator, said attorney Kelly Burke out of Fortuna.

According to a job posting at the Humboldt County Superior Court website, the mediator salary is listed as 72000 to 88000 per year for 32 hours a week and offers a benefit package from the county.

As of the filing of this report, it's unclear what the Family Law Court is going to do without a mediator, and it's possible that an outside mediator from a different county court system could be brought in temporarily to fill the void.

Needless to say, the Family Law Court system is at a disadvantage without a court mediator and now must grapple with the challenge of working with the Family Law Department in absence of Humboldt's child custody and visitation.

Recommending counselor Ryan Hudson for headline Humboldt.

Senior leaders from the Department of Interior finished finished a two day visit to the climate basin this week to meet with tribes, state and county officials, interagency partners and water users to discuss the ongoing drought.

The department's visit was meant to highlight how investments from President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law will help protect and conserve species and their habitats in the region.

Over the past 20 years, the Klamath Basin has met unprecedented challenges due to ongoing drought conditions, limited water supply and diverse needs.

The Bureau of Reclamation and US Fish and Wildlife Service have diligently sought collaborative solutions for water availability with partners and those intimately connected to land and water conditions.

Leadership representing the Office of the Secretary, Bureau of Reclamation and US Fish and Wildlife Service toured the area Monday and Tuesday and met with the Yurok Hoopa and Kauru tribes, among others.

Now, in the third year of the drought, the department is tasked with allocating water among the tribes, among water users up and down the river, even as supplies have grown severely limited.

That's all our time for this evening.

Thanks for watching and stay tuned.

Stay informed.