. >> tonight on kqed newsroom. california gas prices have hit record highs and they keep climbing. we speak with assemblymember james gallagher about calls to repeal kelvin's gas tax. governor newsom delivered a state of the state address but we will talk through the highlights with our panel reporters. in-depth look at kelvin's housing crisis with the cohost of kqed's hit podcast, sold out. rethinking housing in america. coming to you from kqed headquarters in san francisco friday, march 11, 2022.

hello, welcome to the show this is kqed newsroom and i priya david clemens. gas prices have lived driven by leaps and bounds is the start of the war. california usually only a ports a fraction of oil from russia but the instability in the global oil market has driven prices up everywhere. on friday, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded in california was $5.72 according to aaa. some economists predict the average cost could push into the 6-dollar even 7-dollar range in the week's ahead of russian aggression continues in ukraine. and his stated the state speech tuesday night governor newsom said he's working towards a gas tax rebate. >> look, no one is naive about the moment we are living in and high gas prices and the geopolitical uncertainty that is fueling them. in january, we proposed a pause to the gas tax. now, it is clear we have to go

farther. and that is why working legislative leadership i will be submitting a proposal to put money back in the pockets of californians to address rising gas prices. >> joining us to discuss the governor's proposal more as assemblymember james gallagher, just named republican leader in the assembly. mr. gallagher joins us by skype from chico. assemblymember, thank you for joining us tonight. >> good to be with you. >> tell us what you think of governor newsom's plan to propose a gas rebate of some sort, and to skip the next annual gas tax increase? >> well, i mean republicans have a proposal that would actually give immediate relief. we have proposed a gas tax suspension that would save every consumer 50 cents a gallon right now. we would really like to see that. we think that is the thing that would help people the most immediately. but, we are open to talking to the governor. the problem with the rebate is

how long will that take and how much would it be and how much will that really help consumers. we want to ensure this happens in a way that helps people get through these high cost times. >> does it seem unusual you in the governor perhaps walking in the same direction for a change? >> no, look, we are always open to ideas that we think will help improve the quality of life. the problem with the governor is a lot of his policies have made the quality of life force. we've seen skyrocketing inflation and costs, the homeless problem has gotten worse. crime is on the rise we think we have better policies that will help ensure every california can live in a safe and prosperous community. >> i know you both talked about where you would replace the source of funding for either a center of gas relief for gas tax repeal from this budget surplus. i want to turn to different topic from you and 20 of the lawmakers wrote a letter to the

governor monday, urging him to tap california's natural resources. in a state of the state address governor newsom stated he does not want to increase drilling for oil in california, saying that generally leads to increased pollution, contributes to climate change, drought, wildfire. what is your argument for why we should grow oil production here in the state? >> as somebody who represents paradise and has seen everything those folks have been through, that catastrophic wildfire was caused by pg&e and bad for street policy, 40 years worth of bad forestry policy. what we are talking about is making sure we are energy independent. we can have a variety of energy sources here that will also lead to cutting emissions overall. it is a balanced approach to our energy, and why not stop importing oil from places like venezuela, russia, the half a really bad human rights and

environmental record. we can do things here that we think will help keep us energy independent, also help create jobs. would good, blue-collar jobs californians need especially in these dire times. >> in the last few moments we have together, assembly member, a little later in the show we will be speaking in depth about the housing crunch in california. what is the number 1 reform you think should be put into place right away to provide more housing for people? >> reforming the california environmental quality act. we've all seeing that in uc berkeley here recently. 3000 students are being deprived of the ability to attend our premier state university because of a lawsuit abuse under california environmental quality act. we need to make that change and we need to do it across the board because there is housing projects across the state being we need reform so we can build more housing and ensure that

everyone can have access to affordable housing in the state. >> as a reminder that is the california environmental quality act, assemblymember james gallagher, thank you very much for your time and insight this evening. >> thank you. good to be with you. in his state of state address this week, governor gavin newsom acknowledge the ongoing crisis in ukraine, and expressed california's solidarity with the ukrainian people. he also touted california's leadership on clean technology, and recognize that while mask mandates and lockdowns during the pandemic were challenging, they also save lives. state budget analysts are present anticipating a larger budget surplus than previously predicted. joining me now marisa lagos and brian watt, thank you bold for being with us in studio. let's start by talking about the governor's state of the state this week. we just heard about the republican response to that. what stood out for you most

about this beach? >> any time a democrat is talking about tax rebates is worth noting, this is the only news of the speech, the governor saying he would like to take what is going to be probably a record surplus and put some of that back into the pockets of california driver's. as you noted he is also saying we are not giving up on climate change, this is not, we are not moving backward but obviously the people hurting most from this kind of order the least that's a big thing the governor and democrats at large are trying to kind of head off as we head into the midterm election year. otrwise, priya, it was a very much focus on the parties yard he had including homelessness, including early education, and like you said, not a lot of news. we will know more in me when the revised budget comes out in the details of the tax rebate are actually enrolled. >> we also get a clear picture of what that surplus looks like at that point known as we mentioned the gas price is really pacting anybody who's driving a gas powered vehicle

right now. california which is most of us we know how it is affecting people at the pump in general that i'm about what's happening for rideshare drivers, taxi drivers. brian coming off and take a ride sharing to work for that early morning you start for the morning anchoring of ed's newscast but what are you seeing cody hearing? are those prices going up? >> the price of a rideshare has stabilized really in the last few weeks. i have not seen it go up at all. what is interesting is i will get in a lyft early in the morning and the first thing we will see our signs at gas stations where the gas prices have gone up from the day before. and it is the first thing that the driver will mention, and they say they are getting really no help from the companies. we actually spoke to a driver for lyft and door dash that said we are not getting help

from the company of this driver actually proposes raising the base fare of the driver. taxi drivers are going through the same thing. they think the meter rates should be raised in this case, to help with rising gas prices, but this is not something you can just do. this actually has to be approved by san francisco's municipal transportation agency come in the case of san francisco taxi drivers, and so they are really hoping for something. >> interesting to see how delivery prices may change as well, as time goes on. turning a little bit to the war itself in ukraine, we are seeing so many horrific tragic images come out of the country. one that really took many of our breaths away this week was the photo of a mother and her two children who had been killed by mortar shells in ukraine. we found out the woman was actually an employee of a palo

alto startup tech company here. so many of us want to help. we want to find ways to be involved. can you tellus a little more about what california has put forward in the last week or so in terms of structured assistance to the ukrainian people? >> the governor did lay out an executive order ere he essentially asked state agencies are ordered to ensure their contractors are complying with all of those economic sanctions that the u.s. is placed on russia. so the state is not doing business with these countries but they want to make sure and when they contract with is doing that the tear point this is something that is touched so many people and average citizens are trying to get involved. i know for example refugee agencies and nonprofits that work with that population are gearing up for the possibility of an influx but i also know people are doing little things. one of our colleagues, bruise on the california report magazine held a bake cell to help fund food for ukrainian refugees going to other

countries. a lot of people are just trying to donate money or raise money or reach out to groups that are assisting them. i would encourage people to do that because it will take a global effort to help this sad refugee crisis and war that's unfolding. >> let's turn to covid news which has dropped from the very top headline to a little further down. over the last few weeks we are seeing an opening up of our society. this is the end this week of masking for students in schools. changing as of next week. i know my kids are saying i get to take it off? brian, what are you hearing about how parents and teachers are responding? >> i think you have a lot of excitement and relief. masks are a tedious thing. it's really nice to not have to be worried about them. i think a lot of students are looking forward to seeing the faces and smiles of their classmates.

friends, maybe crushes, that's a really positive thing for a lot of students especially some older students. younger students who might have factored masks into their regular school life for more of their education, than older ones, are probably feeling some anxiety. we actually heard from a clinical psychologist this week who suggested that this anxiety is normal, perhaps resistant to taking a mask up would be normal. this is a moment what we should all be checking in with kids a lot about how they are processing this transition. >> one last question here, baseball. 9090 lockout we are back, baby. tell us all about. happening. >> it is happening. happening a good 7-8 days later than expected. this is really,

really good news a lot of big things came into the steal. universal designated hitter for baseball nerds. there is going to be an international draft, something major league baseball has always wanted. they are going to expand the playoffs to 12 teams. this could mean something huge when you think about the giants/dodgers rivalry. >> we will have to follow on twitter for the rest of the details and catch up on the school board recall race. mayor reed has appointed three new people, i am sure you will tweet and sure that as well. in addition, next week mareese is interviewing governor gavin wsom on wednesday so everyone should keep an eye out and ear out for that. teresa lagos and brian watt both with kqed, thank you for coming in. we turn now to you as my special topic this evening, one that continues to be at the top of californian's list of concerns. the state needs millions of

housing units to catch up with decades of increasing demand, but construction is moving forward slowly. meanwhile, the california association of realtors projects the median home price to rise 5% to $834,000 in 2022. kqed has taken an in-depth look at the housing prices with a podcast series called sold out for a rethinking housing in america. currently come the show is in its second season. the show is reported and written by our housing affordability reporters molly solomon coming out join us via skype from portland, oregon where she is currently traveling, and erin baldassari joining us in studio. thank you both for joining us. >> thank you. >> we are going to start with you, on top of housing be an incredibly expensive, there just isn't enough of it. back in 2019 governor newsom called for another 3.5 million housing units to be built by

2025. that is fast approaching. how is the state doing, moving towards that goal? >> the short answer, priya, is not very well. we haven't gone far enough. since the governor was elected in 2019 there's been about 300,000 homes and apartments permitted across the state. in order to reach that goal of 3.5 million, it would need about five times that amount. that is just the number of homes being permitted. just last year for example, only half the number of homes were permitted were actually constructed. it is no surprise that just last week, the state came out with a new goal, pushing that back quite a bit by reducing the number of units and extending the time to get there. >> not three and have million anymore? >> now we at 2.5 million by 2030. even that is going to be a stretch. the state can't do it on its own. unis local cities and counties to get on board. planning for all of these new

homes and apartments and there has been a lot of resistance. forth by the state does seem like it's pretty serious about getting local governments and holding them accountable. threatening lawsuits and hefty fines if they don't follow through. >> let's continue here. at last count there were about 150,000 people experiencing homelessness in california. in the first season of your podcast, sold out you report on project roomkey which housed many of these individuals and families and empty hotel rooms. what ultimately happene with that program and with those people? >> the program, project roomkey is still running although at reduced capacity. currently there is about 9000 hotel rooms being used to house homeless individuals and give them a place to self isolate away from the streets and out of shelters. that was really the goal of room key. the response to the pandemic

and more of a temporary program so we could reduce the spread of coronavirus at a time there was great fear it would spread like wildfire through the shelters and encampments and harm the homeless population. >> we saw some of the happen. >> exactly. now the shift has really been towards turning so of those hotels and other sites into permanent homeless housing of the state is calling that program home key. that is where they've really invested a lot of dollars for building new homeless housing and converting hotels, as well as a device tiny home villages, apartment complexes part of this program, single-family homes they've converted an office building into housing. the state said that has resulted in 7700 new units of homeless housing through this program and they continue to put more money into it, about $2 billion to expand that. >> seems like it is taking root

in growing. >>xactly. >> what about the cost of housing? is there any progress being made in terms of making housing more affordable for people? >> there are a lot of factors that go into cost, building materials for example. during the pandemic the inflation we've been seeing certainly is in helping. one of the other big factors is supply. for that, there is little bit of help. two laws passed last year sb nine and sb ten, looking to increase the supply of housing across the state. sp-10 would allow for streamlined approvals of small apartment building's near transit and jobs, fewer than ten units. far more controversial has been sb nine come that would allow for up to two duplexes on properties in cities or suburbs where only one home is allowed right now. >>f.p.: got duplexes meeting going from one property to four? >> exactly. we have seen a trickle of

applications, permits trickle in around the state but there's also been a lot of pushback from cities who don't want to implement this new law. woodside, california for example made headlines recently saying they were going to definitely delay implementation because they declared their entire town mountain lion habitat. >> we did talk about this on a recent episode and they back down eventually? >> i am sure we will see other ways for cities to delay implementation but without the renaissance we see from cities experts of talk to save his strategy of small, infill developments is just going to take years if not decades to meaningfully add to the supply of housing in california. i for one won't hold my breath for prices to come down anytime soon. >> this season in sold out, your second season you decided to rely focus on evictions. why was that? why did you target evictions

specifically? >> thank you. i think the pandemic really exposed how vulnerable people are losing their homes. when the economy shut down and people lost their jobs, the government did step in and band evictions for nonpayment of rent if there is a reason covid related hardship and we saw those protections really helped. a study of ucla looks at states with a lifted eviction moratoriums early and they show that related to increased death and infections due to covid. here in california, we were hearing from our sources that despite all these protections people were still getting kicked out of their homes and we wanted to understand that better in terms of where that's happening and what was happening need to them. >> would you like to chime in here? >> i think with eviction data in particular there is a lot we don't know and we didn't have a clear picture of how big the problem was or even where was happening the worst. so we started out by requesting

sheriff lockout data essentially anytime a sheriff's called out to enforce an eviction. what we found is evictions weren't happening in the most expensive and biggest cities in the bay area like san francisco, they are actually happening in alpine areas like santa rosa or suburbs like antioch, where we actually saw a rate 22 times higher than antioch than oakland. >> one of the things you found, perhaps no surprise at this point, the people who are impacted being evicted tend to be people of color at much higher rates than white renters. and you tell us more about those findings? >> we saw the an eviction data we are collecting in the bay area and it is really a reflection of what you see nationally, too. black renters in particular are much more likely to be evicted than white households. arguably sometimes 2- 3 times

more likely. a national report a steal you that worked with eviction labs and they shall black women in particular were e highest risk of an eviction and they were more likely to be evicted at two times the rate than white renters. some of this is economic, block councils are more likely to rent rather than own their homes and when they do rent they are mostly more likely to pay a higher percentage of their income to that rent and often don't have as much of a financial cushion to lean back on. we dive into with our episode is that this is all part of a long list the see of discrimination rooted in our nation's housing picies. goes back to the new deal and who we were allowing to get these favorable loans from the federal government, goes back to redlining. really about who we have allowed in this country to assimilate generational wealth and build equity when it comes to housing and who we have left

out of that system and how that is really still lingering today and who is reflected in that. >> what i want to go back to the point you're making earlier about the protections put in place for renters during the pandemic. many have already expired. are there any still in place at this point? >> there are. the last, the eviction moratorium expired at the end of september but there was a clause in there that allowed for tenants to remain protected if still waiting on rent relief. but we have seen his rent relief has been really slow to roll out, leaving many renters vulnerable because those protections are expiring in a few weeks at the end of this month. >> coming up, quickly. from your vantage point as experts on this topic what are the most important changes the state can make in order to solve the housing crisis? >> certainly this is not going

to be a silver bullet type of solution. is not an easy problem to solve in the thing we really looked at and highlighted in both seasons one and seasons to are the people trying to make that change happen. we can do a lot to strengthen protections moving forward. not just when it comes to evictions, but when it comes to rent control and how high the rent can be. we are seeing a lot of that as conversations have been more the local city council level which is really where a lot of this needs to happen in this conversation. >> final thoughts as we finish up this interview? >> we need more housing that is affordable to folks that will go a long way to ensuring people can stay stably housed. we can't just have more supply without also protecting tenants who are already here. building a bunch without predicting existing tenants is a recipe for displacement especially in

the short term. we also have programs in place already like rent relief. has been a perfect program, hasn't rolled out smoothly for sure, but we have the structure in place we can make it better and that would go a long way to ensuring that one emergency, one job, one unexpected expenses and clearly homeless and what we can do to reduce the number of people coming homeless in california is a good thing. >> thank you so much for being on the show, erin baldassari and molly solomon kqed's housing affordability reporters, also the cohosts of the podcast sold out. if you would like to ask them in your own questions please join us for follow-up conversation on twitter, wednesday, march 16 from 1230- 1:00 p.m. please join us. we turn to something beautiful. around the world, people rallied in support of ukraine. tonight, we share a look at protests against the war, from

here in san francisco. the music accompanying these images is by oakland-based full group singing ukrainian song. ♪♪♪♪♪♪♪

. >> that is the end of our show for tonight. thank you for joining us. kqed newsroom on twitter and facebook. also email us and reach me on twitter. we will see you back here next friday night. have a good weekend.

captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, march 13: the war in ukraine widens with a deadly strike on a military training base in the western part of the country. and the challenges of tracking drug smuggling at a key entry point into europe. >> sreenivasan: next, on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith.