“The law expands the state’s definition of invasion of privacy to include sending a drone over private property to make a recording or take photos,” as BBC News reported. It was passed as Assembly Bill 856 and introduced by Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier.

Wielding the veto

Just weeks ago, Brown had refused to sign yet another bill that would have extended trespassing law to include similar activity. The bill, Brown warned, “could expose the occasional hobbyist and the FAA-approved commercial user alike to burdensome litigation and new causes of action,” the Los Angeles Times noted.

Three other drone-curbing bills vetoed by Brown “would have prohibited civilians from flying aerial drones over wildfires, schools, prisons and jails,” the Times reported separately. “The governor rejected those and six other bills that would have created new crimes or penalties for misconduct including using bullhooks to handle elephants, allowing explosions in drug labs and removing GPS tracking devices from paroled sex offenders. Brown said in a veto message that there are already laws available to deal with any problems addressed by the bills.”

In his veto statement, Brown complained that the drone bills fell into the pattern of “finding a novel way to characterize and criminalize conduct that is already proscribed. This multiplication and particularization of criminal behavior creates increasing complexity without commensurate benefit.”

Legislative frustration

The author of the three bills, state Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, made his dissatisfaction plain in recent remarks to the press. “I think it’s dumb,” Gaines said, according to Southern California Public Radio. “Aren’t we supposed to be protecting the public? If I’m an elected official — he’s the governor, I’m a senator — isn’t one of our key roles that we play in public service to protect the public, and certainly Cal Fire employees?”

The discovery that hobbyists’ drones had interfered with firefighting this summer had fueled the push for criminalizing that activity. “The U.S. Forest Service has repeatedly posted reminders warning people that a collision between a hobbyist drone and the low-flying aircraft and helicopters used to fight wildfire could cause damage to the aircraft and injuries to the pilots and people below,” Ars Technica reported. “Despite the warnings, drone sightings keep happening over wildfires, causing the U.S. Forest Service thousands of dollars in aborted flyovers.”

But the private use of drones raised broader concerns including the safety of commercial aircraft. “A couple years ago, it was 200,000, so it is increasing geometrically, and I think it was a mistake for the governor not to see ahead into the future in terms of the chronic aspect of drone use, in the wrong way, in the state of California,” added Gaines. Along with Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, Gaines had hoped to increase the penalty for interfering with firefighting to $5,000 and up to six months in jail “if the drone interference was ruled reckless and intentional,” Ars noted.

Analysts sympathetic to the legislation suggested that lawmakers were justified in their impatience with the federal government’s pace in crafting drone regulations of its own. “In the state of California, it is already a misdemeanor to ‘engage in disorderly conduct that delays or prevents a fire from being timely extinguished’ or to prevent emergency responders from discharging their duties,” noted Justin Peters in Slate. “Legislators’ attempts to get specific are a function of frustration, both with drone operators whose actions too often defy common sense and with a federal government that is taking its sweet time to come up with comprehensive regulations for an industry that desperately needs them.”

An uneasy partnership

With the prospect of a big ballot initiative on recreational marijuana coming next year, attention in Sacramento has resulted in new regulations and designated regulators. “Amid the state’s prolonged drought, Gov. Jerry Brown last year approved $3 million in funding to dispatch oversight officers and environmental scientists to identify and inspect water-thirsty pot gardens in sensitive natural settings,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Officials from the State Water Resources Control Board and Department of Fish and Wildlife so far have visited 150 sites with growers’ approval. They have issued instructions on water conservation and filed 50 notices of environmental violations.”

The changes inaugurated a new compliance program that draws together officials from the state water board and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, according to the Bee. “Under pending legislation, the program stands to be expanded statewide,” although its reach is restricted to private farmers, not “outlaw growers surreptitiously using public lands[.]” Those illicit growers have come under fire in recent months for their very high rates of water consumption.

Trial by fire

Other drought-related circumstances have helped push the pot industry and state officials into closer company. Wildfires, for instance, have extended the threat of economic destruction to growers, who face their own particular problems as gray-market producers. “Marijuana farms suffer the same risks as other farmers in California — facing the potential loss of their crop, on top of the strain of the drought,” according to Alternet.

“The profitable Napa wine industry, too, is threatened by wildfires, with winemakers concerned that smoke-infused grape skins will alter the flavor of the wines. But some of those impacts are exacerbated for marijuana growers, who won’t get subsidies from the state if their crop is lost, and whose value per plant is much higher than that of many other plants.”

In from the shadows

At the same time, some California officials have set about trying to incorporate marijuana farms into a system of standardized water regulations. “California’s four-year drought has prompted authorities to broaden their approach to regulating cannabis cultivation with the aim of protecting sensitive watersheds,” the Bee noted. “In addition to the environmental compliance program, the state has begun issuing marijuana water permits and ramped up efforts to target environmental offenders through civil lawsuits.”

This month, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board overwhelmingly voted in fresh rules requiring farms in excess of 2,000 square feet either to register with itself or approved third-party agency or organization, the Guardian reported. “A number of issues including erosion control, water and wetlands buffers, irrigation runoff, chemical contamination and waste will be regulated under the new rules.”

Although the rules announced another substantial regulatory advance into marijuana farming, which has long operated under the radar, they also reflected the state’s increasingly accommodating attitude toward the once-illegal crop. “Those who don’t register but are discovered to qualify will be notified with 30 days to enroll before enforcement actions, including financial penalties, are pursued, board personnel said,” according to The Press Democrat.

Although some growers welcomed the opportunity to come out from the regulatory shadows at the state level, others cautioned that the apparent liberalization could have more dangerous consequences. “A major concern is that due to marijuana being illegal on the federal level, those farms prepared to comply and register could expose their activities to criminal charges on a federal level,” added the Guardian.

Notably, the regulations do not distinguish medical from recreational marijuana. Expectations have already arisen that the North Coast pilot program will “serve as a model for other regions, beginning with the neighboring Central Valley, whose board takes the matter up next month,” The Press Democrat noted.

Heated rhetoric

Pressing ahead with the environmental emphasis characterizing his final term in office, Brown asked the presidential hopefuls to outline their own policies. “Longer fire seasons, extreme weather and severe droughts aren’t on the horizon, they’re […] here to stay,” he wrote, as the Sacramento Bee reported. “Given the challenge and the stakes, my question for you is simple: What are you going to do about it? What is your plan to deal with the threat of climate change?”

Brown’s office told the Bee he submitted his question via the Facebook page of Fox News, which solicited questions from viewers of the debates, which it hosted and televised.

This month, as the San Gabriel Valley Tribute noted, Brown hit out against the field again, using a fresh report on July temperatures to lambaste “Republicans, foot-dragging corporations and other deniers.” Surveying the damage to the fire-stricken Clear Lake area, Brown “repeated his challenge to Republican presidential candidates,” the Los Angeles Times reported, warning that “California is burning” and asking, bluntly, “What the hell are you going to do about it?”

Republican responses

So far, at least three Republican candidates have touched on environmental issues in the wake of Brown’s challenges.

Not all their remarks have been directly responsive, however. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently took the opportunity to critique “radical environmental policies that stop things like dams from going in so that water … can be used effectively,” according to the Bee.

But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, who had challenged Sen. Barbara Boxer’s re-election, both addressed Brown head on, the Bee added. While Cruz dismissed “alarmists” as power-hungry schemers, Fiorina took a more nuanced approach; although she first conceded it “may well be true” that California’s drought was worsened by climate change, she also criticized policymakers for failing to prepare for the kind of droughts the state has had “for millennia.”

Shifting opinions

Republicans on the campaign trail have broadly reflected opinions among constituents nationwide. Even in California, Republicans have demonstrated consistent skepticism toward claims that human activity has fostered dangerous alterations in temperatures and weather. In a new poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, a majority of Golden State Republicans said “they don’t believe that climate change is happening and that they don’t think it will be a serious problem in the future,” as the San Jose Mercury News reported. “They also support expanding fossil fuel production — from increasing offshore oil drilling along California’s coast to expanding fracking.”

Yet the poll evinced some wiggle room on environmental policy issues. Fully 43 percent of California Republican respondents supported stricter in-state climate rules than what the federal government has passed into law. “Californians of all parties said they support increasing tax credits for electric vehicles and solar power,” the Mercury News added.

In a recent nonpartisan poll commissioned by a water policy foundation, Californians seemed to confirm that the drought had become a leading issue of worry across the ideological spectrum. According to the Los Angeles Times, “62 percent of poll subjects said they would be very willing or somewhat willing to pay $4 more a month for water if the funds were used to improve water supply reliability. Such an increase, if applied to the entire state, would generate about a billion dollars, according to poll sponsors.”

Environmentalists divided

Brown’s environmentalist policies haven’t satisfied all critics. His administration’s emphasis on reducing emissions, for instance, has led some to wonder why he hasn’t pushed harder for cheaper electricity rates, which would benefit owners of many zero-emissions vehicles. One objection, recently voiced in the San Diego Daily Transcript, warned that Brown’s policies “will systematically shift profits into a few private hands instead of building, managing and maintaining a solid and reliable electric-charging infrastructure comparable to our utility grid.”

In an all-too-real conflict between man and machine, a string of high-profile clashes between drones and public servants has helped spur an effort to crack down on the airborne bots in California.

But at the same time, civil libertarian concerns have prompted a parallel controversy over law enforcement’s desire to use more drones to fight crime.

Crossing the line

Along with Golden State legislators, members of California’s Congressional delegation have grown concerned that so-called recreational drones, flown by private citizens, have become a serious threat to the state’s ability to safely operate in its own airspace. “Without common sense rules, I believe it’s only a matter of time before there’s a tragic accident,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in an emailed statement reported by Emergency Management:

“Feinstein and other lawmakers are demanding that regulators revise existing law to plug a loophole sparing recreational drones from the regulations. They are also are seeking the use of software that would prevent drones from flying in prohibited areas.”

In Sacramento, meanwhile, lawmakers faced a battery of drone bills. One group focused on invasions of privacy; as the Orange County Register reported, state Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, offered bills aimed at clearing the skies over public schools, prisons and jails — measures that have already passed the state Senate and await a vote in the Assembly appropriations committee. Other bills would extend trespassing and other privacy laws to cover the use of drones over private property and in otherwise private areas. 

Gaines has also partnered up with Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Glendale, to target drones flown over wildfires. As CalWatchdog reported previously, drones disrupted aerial firefighting in California four times over the course of the month of July alone. The Gaines-Gatto bills would make that kind of interference a misdemeanor and exempt firefighters from liability for neutralizing offending drones.

A spreading problem

In addition to complicating California’s efforts to fight fires, dismaying drone-related incidents have begun to spread across the country. As the Washington Post noted, “drones have smuggled drugs into an Ohio prison, smashed against a Cincinnati skyscraper […] and nearly collided with three airliners over New York City.”

“Earlier this summer, a runaway two-pound drone struck a woman at a gay pride parade in Seattle, knocking her unconscious. In Albuquerque, a drone buzzed into a crowd at an outdoor festival, injuring a bystander. In Tampa, a drone reportedly stalked a woman outside a downtown bar before crashing into her car.”

But California has remained a drone hotspot a cut above the rest. Drug runners have begun testing out the use of drones to ferry payloads across the border. “Drones as a drug-smuggling tool made news in January when one hauling meth crashed in the parking lot of a Tijuana shopping center, two miles from the U.S. border,” according to U-T San Diego. “It was loaded with about seven pounds of drugs and was likely being ferried from neighborhood to neighborhood, Mexican law enforcement said.”

Just this month, U-T added, two men pleaded guilty to picking up 28 pounds of heroin delivered by drone near Calexico, “a pickup that was captured on Border Patrol cameras on April 28, according to court records.”

Also this month, a helicopter air ambulance taking a patient to the hospital “had to take evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision with a drone aircraft Wednesday afternoon north of Fresno Yosemite International Airport,” according to the Fresno Bee. 

Police interest

The sense of uncertainty pervading the airspace has been compounded by Sacramento’s inability to deal with the prospect of expanded law enforcement drone usage. One bill underscoring the problem, AB56, set out to strike a balance by requiring warrants for drone surveillance over private property and new police standards for privacy, including the storage and deletion of video footage recorded by drone, as the Associated Press noted. 

But the bill hit against opposition from both sides, with the ACLU and law enforcement organizations both expressing displeasure over the attempted compromise. The bill’s author, Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, expressed his frustration to the AP. “There’s a middle ground that nobody likes,” he sighed.