Waste products, not crops, key to boosting UK biofuels

The UK should focus on using waste products like chip fat if it wants to double production of biofuels according a new study.

The report from the Royal Academy of Engineering says that making fuel from crops like wheat should be restricted.

Incentives should be given to farmers to increase production of fuel crops like Miscanthus on marginal land.

Even with electric vehicles, biofuels will still be needed for aviation and heavy goods say the authors.

While the European Union has mandated that 10% of transport fuels should come from sustainable sources by 2020, these biofuels have been a slow burner in the UK.

Suppliers are already blending up to 4.75% of diesel and petrol with greener fuel, but doubling this amount will take up to 10 years say the authors of this new report, that was commissioned by the government.

To get to this point, the authors argue that several important changes will need to take place.

While in countries like the US and Brazil biofuels are mainly made from maize or sugar cane, the main sources in the UK are wheat and used cooking oil.

To boost production there will need to be restrictions on crops grown for fuel, say the authors.

Last year according to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), almost half the land in the UK used for biofuels was used to grow wheat.

When the authors of this study reviewed the global scientific literature, they found that if all the extra emissions involved in changing land use to grow wheat were added in, fuel based on this grain was worse for the environment than regular petrol or diesel.

"Generally, we know if land use change is involved, do not use wheat to make biofuels, it is higher than petrol in terms of carbon footprint," said Prof Adisa Azapagic from the University of Manchester who chaired the panel that produced the report.

"What we need to understand about agriculture, is that it is different from farm to farm. This is what we have found across the world, how people farm wheat in different ways and the emissions would be different depending on soil, previous carbon stocks and so on, it really is a very complex science."

The study recommends that the government set a cap for all crop-based biofuels to reduce the risk of indirect land use change.

"We would be concerned if we went up to 10% and allowed all of that 10% to come from food based crops, then we would say no, that's not what we're recommending," said Prof Nilay Shah from Imperial College London.

Instead, the report suggests that renewed emphasis be placed on developing waste. In the UK we produce 16 million tonnes every year, enough to double our current biofuel supplies. A third of that waste is called green waste, a quarter of it is agricultural straw.

The authors believe there is great scope for expansion in the use of unavoidable waste, such as used cooking oil, forest and sawmill residues, the dregs from whisky manufacture, even so-called "fatbergs" from sewers could play a role.

However the study warns that care must be taken to avoid giving people perverse incentives to create waste just to cash in on biofuels.

"There have been some examples where people have used virgin cooking oil as a source of biofuel because it was cheaper than used cooking oil so we need to make sure we avoid these market distortions that unfortunately do happen," said Prof Azapagic.

The government should also aim to remove any incentives for the use of materials in biofuels that involve deforestation or the drainage of peat land. Incentives should be put in place to encourage farmers to grow crops like Miscanthus and short rotation coppice wood on marginal land.

If we want to double the amount of biofuel we are using over the next decade, say the authors, the government will have to stump up some cash.

"If you've got a ready supply of used cooking oil it is not very challenging or expensive, if your alternative is to go clear some land and plant Miscanthus and all the processing that goes with that, then the prices are going to be different," said Prof Roger Kemp, a professorial fellow from Lancaster University.

"We wouldn't be getting up to anything like 10% if it was purely a market based thing."

Apple iPhone 8: 10 Features To Know

The Apple iPhone 8 is one of the highly awaited phones of 2017. Since it will be Apple’s 10th-anniversary phone, the device is expected to come loaded with premium features, which is why the rumor mills have continually buzzed about it.

While Apple has been keeping mum on its upcoming device, like it usually is, we can more or less develop a preview of the new phone until we get to see the real thing. For those who can’t sit straight in anticipation of the device, here are ten features of the iPhone 8 based on recent rumors:

Laser autofocus camera: According to a rumor which surfaced last week, the iPhone 8 will come with a rear camera equipped with a 3D laser system. The 3D laser system will assist the dual-camera in taking better photos using depth sensing. Its system will calculate the speed of light by measuring the time it takes for light from the laser to bounce back from the object the camera is aimed at.

10nm processor: The device will be equipped with a 10-nanometer based A11 processor which will be more power and performance-efficient in comparison to the iPhone 7’s A10 processor which is based on a 14-nanometer processor. The processor will reportedly be made by the chipmaker TSMC, which has made several processors for Apple in the past.

Game play-based features: The iOS11 Beta 3 recently revealed some gameplay centered features of the iPhone such as the screen record feature, which can be used to record and broadcast gameplay from the iPhone itself. This indicates that Apple could finally introduce gamer-related features.

Display-embedded fingerprint sensor: Apple is rumored to ditch the home button and the TouchID sensor embedded inside. Instead, the company is rumored to go for a display-embedded fingerprint sensor.

The placement of this sensor might be difficult. Samsung was earlier rumored to include a display embedded sensor in the Galaxy S8, but the company had to finally settle down for one placed at the back of the handset. Whether Apple succeeds in developing one in time for the iPhone 8 release still remains to be seen.

Glass form Factor: Apple is expected to opt for a glass form factor for the iPhone 8 which will support wireless charging.

Reflective mirror variant: According to a recent rumor, the iPhone 8 might come in four new colors including a reflective mirror variant.

Facial recognition: Bloomberg reported on July 3 that Apple has been testing a new facial recognition base payment system, which will scan the user’s face for verification during tasks such as making payments. The company may also integrate facial recognition with eye detection to ensure an added security layer.

USB-C: Apple is expected to ditch its lightning charging port in favor of USB-C, which is slowly becoming the universal standard. The iPhone 8 might come with a 10W power adapter with a USB-C connector.

Improved Siri: Apple’s native voice assistant is expected to be highly integrated inside iOS with iOS 11. It was opened up to developers for the first time to developers at the World Wide Developers Conference in May this year.

AR-based features: The iPhone 8 is expected to be an augmented reality centered phone. The company has provided developers with an ARkit to develop AR experiences and also recently acquired eye-tracking company SMI, which might help it create AR and VR-based apps.

The iPhone 8 is expected to be launched in fall this year, either in September or October with a price tag around $1,000.

Pharmacies in Uruguay to start selling pot next week

Uruguay will allow pharmacies to sell marijuana starting next Wednesday in the final phase of a law making the small South American country the first in the world to legalize and regulate pot from production to sale.

Under a law approved in 2013, Uruguayans have been allowed to grow their own pot and smoke it in clubs.

But working out a timetable for pharmacies to sell it -- the third and last conduit called for in the legislation -- proved more tricky. This has now been resolved, the state agency regulating marijuana said in a statement Friday.

To buy it in pharmacies people have to sign up on a registry, and so far 4,700 have done so. Uruguay's total population is 3.4 million.

Pot smokers can buy a maximum of 40 grams a month.

Under the first phase of the 2013 law, more than 6,600 growers have registered to produce the weed, and 51 smokers' clubs have been authorized.

Giant iceberg splits from Antarctic

One of the biggest icebergs ever recorded has just broken away from Antarctica.

The giant block is estimated to cover an area of roughly 6,000 sq km; that's about a quarter the size of Wales.

An US satellite observed the berg on Wednesday while passing over a region known as the Larsen C Ice Shelf.

Scientists were expecting it. They'd been following the development of a large crack in Larsen's ice for more than a decade.

The rift's propagation had accelerated since 2014, making an imminent calving ever more likely.

The more than 200m-thick tabular berg will not move very far, very fast in the short term. But it will need to be monitored. Currents and winds might eventually push it north of the Antarctic where it could become a hazard to shipping.

An infrared sensor on the American space agency's Aqua satellite spied clear water in the rift between the shelf and the berg on Wednesday. The water is warmer relative to the surrounding ice and air - both of which are sub-zero.

"The rift was barely visible in these data in recent weeks, but the signature is so clear now that it must have opened considerably along its whole length," explained Prof Adrian Luckman, whose Project Midas at Swansea University has followed the berg's evolution most closely.

The event was confirmed by other spacecraft such as Europe's Sentinel-1 satellite-radar system.

The new Larsen berg is probably in the top 10 biggest ever recorded.

The largest observed in the satellite era was an object called B-15. It came away from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and measured some 11,000 sq km. Six years later, fragments of this super-berg still persisted and passed by New Zealand.

In 1956, it was reported that a US Navy icebreaker had encountered an object of roughly 32,000 sq km. That is bigger than Belgium. Unfortunately, there were no satellites at the time to follow up and verify the observation.

It has been known also for the Larsen C Ice Shelf itself to spawn bigger bergs. An object measuring some 9,000 sq km came away in 1986. Many of Larsen's progeny can get wound up in a gyre in the Weddell sea or can be despatched north on currents into the Southern Ocean, and even into the South Atlantic.

A good number of bergs from this sector can end up being caught on the shallow continental shelf around the British overseas territory of South Georgia where they gradually wither away.

In and of itself, probably very little. The Larsen C shelf is a mass of floating ice formed by glaciers that have flowed down off the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula into the ocean. On entering the water, their buoyant fronts lift up and join together to make a single protrusion.

The calving of bergs at the forward edge of the shelf is a very natural behaviour. The shelf likes to maintain an equilibrium and the ejection of bergs is one way it balances the accumulation of mass from snowfall and the input of more ice from the feeding glaciers on land.

That said, scientists think Larsen C is now at its smallest extent since the end of the last ice age some 11,700 years ago, and about 10 other shelves further to the north along the Peninsula have either collapsed or greatly retreated in recent decades.

The two nearby, smaller shelves, Larsen A and Larsen B, disintegrated around the turn of the century; and a warming climate very probably had a role in their demise.

But Larsen C today does not look like its siblings. Prof Helen Fricker, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told BBC News: "The signs we saw at Larsen A and B - we're not seeing yet. The thinning we saw for Larsen A and B - we're not seeing. And we're not seeing any evidence for large volumes of surface meltwater on the order of what you would need to hydro-fracture the ice shelf.

"Most glaciologists are not particularly alarmed by what's going on at Larsen C, yet. It's business as usual."

Researchers will be looking to see how the shelf responds in the coming years, to see how well it maintains a stable configuration, and if its calving rate changes.

There was some keen interest a while back when the crack, which spread across the shelf from a pinning point known as the Gipps Ice Rise, looked as though it might sweep around behind another such anchor called the Bawden Ice Rise. Had that happened, it could have prompted a significant speed-up in the shelf's seaward movement once the berg came off.

As it is, scientists are not now expecting a big change in the speed of the ice.

One fascinating focus for future study will be a strip of "warm", malleable ice that runs east-west through the shelf, reaching the ocean edge about 100km north from the Gipps Ice Rise. This strip is referred to as the Joerg suture zone. There is a large queue of cracks held behind it.

"Calving of the iceberg is not likely itself to make the existing cracks at the Joerg Peninsula suture zone more likely to jump across this boundary," observed Chris Borstad, from the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS).

"At this stage we really don't know whether there is some larger-scale process that might be weakening this zone, like ocean melting at the base of the shelf, or whether the current rift was just a random or episodic event that was bound to happen at some point.

"We know that rifts like this periodically propagate and cause large tabular icebergs to break from ice shelves, even in the absence of any climate-driven changes.

"I am working with a number of colleagues to design field experiments on Larsen C to answer this specific question (by measuring the properties of the Joerg suture zone directly). But until we get down there and take some more measurements we can only speculate."

Campaign Opposition Research Is Standard. But Not ‘Oppo’ From Hostile Nations.

Donald Trump Jr.’s 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who promised damaging information via the Russian government has again engulfed President Trump in questions about whether his campaign colluded with Moscow.

The younger Mr. Trump and his allies have argued that pursuing material that could prove useful against a political opponent is standard practice in campaigns. But while opposition research is part of modern presidential campaigns, it normally does not come from representatives of a hostile foreign power.

Here is how the peddling of opposition research — or oppo, as political professionals and reporters call it — typically works.

How did that get here?

One of President Bill Clinton’s favorite Arkansas political sayings was, “If you see a turtle on a fence post, it didn’t get there by accident.”

Many campaign accusations and revelatory news stories about a candidate or elected official are the fruits of what is euphemistically called the research division of campaigns and political parties, where low-profile aides search for dirt.

“The crackpots get routed to research,” said Tracy Sefl, a veteran Democratic practitioner of the dark arts of oppo.

Much of the job is fielding too-good-to-be-true (or simply unverifiable) charges via furtive phone calls, manila envelopes and untraceable email accounts. Working in the Democratic National Committee’s research department in the 2004 campaign, Ms. Sefl recalled meeting a woman with a story to tell about President George W. Bush.

“She said she worked as a dancer and accused President Bush of doing very specific drug-related activities on her,” Ms. Sefl said. The accuser offered no proof and the Democrats could do little but share the tale with one another.

Where does it come from?

As any term-paper writer knows, material is drawn from two sources: primary and secondary. The first of these include government documents, such as legal filings and financial disclosures. Remember accounts of the car elevator that Mitt Romney was building inside his oceanside home in California? Those came from renovation plans submitted to the city of San Diego, which were dug up by President Barack Obama’s campaign.

Or how about the $400 John Edwards spent on a haircut? That too was exhumed by the Obama campaign from a campaign finance report.

And that story five days before the 2000 election on George W. Bush driving under the influence in Maine back in 1976? Chris Lehane, a former aide for Al Gore and a native of Maine, does not admit to the paternity of that leak, but he does not deny it, either.

“I told people when asking about the issue only that I was responsible for the popular vote and left the Electoral College for others,” he cheekily said in 2010 after Bush strategist Karl Rove published a memoir that accused him of being the man behind the story.

And those unflattering stories about the Clinton Foundation in this past campaign? Yes, some of them originated with Republican researchers.

In some cases, the provenance of the leaks remains murky. Mr. Obama, for example, may never have been elected to the Senate in 2004 were it not for damaging revelations about his rivals and their divorces.

Secondary source opposition research largely consists of so-called votes-and-quotes — a political figure’s policy positions and past comments that have appeared in the news media. The material may lack the shock effect of original material, but it can be just as memorable.

Which brings us back to Mr. Romney — and his Irish setter, Seamus. The Romney family, as many readers of a certain columnist at this paper will recall, stowed Seamus on the roof of their car during a family vacation. This anecdote was but one element in a biographical series that The Boston Globe ran on Mr. Romney in 2007, when he first sought the White House. But it found new life when Mr. Romney became the Republican nominee in 2012.

It was the sort of story that, by the standards of an earlier political era, counted as peculiar behavior.

O.K., so how does it work?

The back-and-forth between news source and reporter over opposition research can recall adolescent flirtation: initial awkwardness, then apprehension over whether there is mutual interest — and neither party wants the world to find out the details of the courtship.

A reporter would rather not be identified as being spoon-fed information. Most sources do not want their dirty work to splash back on their candidate or party. So both parties have an interest in keeping a story’s genesis under wraps.

Typically, a campaign or government official approaches the journalist. This often begins with a request for anonymity, or in the parlance of the business, “No fingerprints.” The more sensitive the information, the more likely the pitch is made in person or on the telephone. Most political actors — not, apparently, Donald Trump Jr. — fear creating an email trail, at least before guarantees of anonymity have been offered.

After a reporter agrees not to reveal the identity of the source, the reporter and his or her editors or producers will confer about whether they are interested in pursuing a story about the material on offer.

If the news organization is interested, there is one last issue: how to identify the source. References can be made to “a rival candidate’s campaign” or more obliquely “a source familiar with the dirt” or even the bare-bones “sources say.”

But has anything like THIS happened before?

There is only one known historical parallel to the Trump campaign’s contacts with the Russians, and it involves Richard M. Nixon. Running for president in 1968, Nixon told H. R. Haldeman, his eventual White House chief of staff, to “monkey wrench” peace talks in Vietnam in order to scuttle any deal that would have handed Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee, a political victory in the closing days of the election.

Nixon, a former senator and vice president, had a relationship with the South Vietnamese government. Earlier in the year, he had met with the country’s ambassador and brought along Anna Chennault, a prominent Chinese-American Republican. As the author John A. Farrell writes in his new book, “Richard Nixon: The Life,” which reports the “monkey wrench” instructions, the call between Nixon and Haldeman took place on Oct. 22, 1968, and Haldeman dutifully jotted down what he was told.

A group of aides to Ronald Reagan did meet in the fall of 1980 with an individual claiming to be an emissary from the Iranian government, but that person’s legitimacy was never determined.

Moscow has, however, tried to meddle in previous American elections. The historian Michael R. Beschloss recounts in “The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963,” an account of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Kennedy presidency, that the Soviet ambassador in Washington secretly reached out to both John F. Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson, another Democratic presidential hopeful, during the 1960 campaign. The ambassador was rebuffed by both candidates.

EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon sails destroyer near disputed island in South China Sea, officials say

For the second time since President Trump took office, the Pentagon dispatched a U.S. Navy warship to sail near a disputed island claimed by China in the South China Sea, two U.S. defense officials told Fox News.

The USS Stethem, a guided-missile destroyer based in Japan, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, which is part of the Paracel Islands located in the South China Sea between China and Vietnam.

The destroyer was trailed by a Chinese warship during its Sunday voyage.

While occupied by China, Vietnam and Taiwan also lay claim to the island. A defense official said the operation challenged Vietnam and Taiwan's claims to Triton Island in addition to China. 

Twelve nautical miles is the territorial boundary that extends beyond the shores of all nations, sailing inside that distance sends a signal the United States does not recognize the claim.

The move comes as the Trump administration appears to be losing patience with Beijing over its continued military build-up in the South China Sea. The U.S. has been frustrated with Beijing’s failure to reign in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

Triton Island is not one of China's seven artificial islands in the region. It has been constructed in the past few years. The U.S. Navy last sailed a warship off the coast of Triton Island in October. The Obama administration conducted similar operations.

The Pentagon wants to conduct what it calls "freedom of navigation" operations, or FONOPS, to challenge China's claims with enough frequency in the hopes they become more routine and not as newsworthy, according to an official with knowledge of the discussions.  

Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific, would not confirm the operation but said in a statement to Fox News, "We conduct routine and regular FONOPs, as we have done in the past and will continue to do in the future."

In late May, another guided-missile destroyer, USS Dewey, sailed approximately six miles from one of China's man-made islands in the South China Sea, a first for the Pentagon since Trump assumed office.  The American warship conducted a "man-overboard" drill off the coast of Mischief Reef sending a signal to Beijing that the United States does not honor its claim to the reef--one of seven former reefs China has turned into artificial islands.  Three contain runways and other military fortifications.

"Fake islands should not be believed by real people," said the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, in a speech Wednesday in Brisbane, where the United States is participating in the largest ever joint military exercise with Australia, aimed in part to send a message to Beijing. 

"China is using its military and economic power to erode the rules-based international order," Harris added. 

Friday, new satellite imagery published by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank showed new military facilities including radar systems being installed on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi Reefs in the Spratly Islands located south of the Parcel Islands in the South China Sea. 

While U.S. officials had seen the build-up for months, they are more concerned about the potential for China to place advanced surface-to-air missiles on the artificial islands, which could challenge U.S. military flights in the region.   Fox News first reported in December that China moved SA-21 missile batteries with a 250-mile range to the island province of Hainan for training, which could be sent to the artificial islands at a later date.  For the time being, they remain inside China. 

The last time the U.S. Navy challenged China's claims in the South China Sea, the Trump administration pushed back on accusations it was turning a blind eye to China's military build-up on its artificial islands, while looking for Beijing to help with negotiations to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs.

"While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out.  At least I know China tried!" Trump said in a tweet last month.

On Friday, the Trump administration unveiled new sanctions against a Chinese bank linked to North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs, a day after announcing a new $1.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan. 

Announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Steve Munchin said the move was not in retribution for Beijing failing to rein in North Korea.  "This is not directed at China, this is directed at a bank, as well as individuals and entities in China," he said.

China is sending messages of its own.

As Beijing marked the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from British rule this weekend, President Xi Jinping presided over the largest military parade ever held in the territory.  Standing in the back of a jeep, Xi was driven past more than 3,000 assembled troops in formation in a show of strength.  

On Wednesday, China launched the first of its newest class of destroyer called the Type 055, which many analysts say resembles the size and capability of the U.S. Navy's Arleigh-Burke class of guided-missile destroyers, like the one which conducted the operation near the contested Chinese island this weekend. 

According to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), China has 183 cruisers, destroyers, coastal ships and submarines compared wth 188 for the U.S. Navy.   CNAS projected in a March report that China will surpass the United States Navy in these types of warships by the end of the next decade, one of the reasons the U.S. Navy has requested a buildup to a 350-ship fleet, a view shared by many in Congress.  

China claims most of the South China Sea where more than $5 trillion of commerce passes through each year.  

Last week, the U.S. State Department called out China for being one of the worst human trafficking offenders--dropping Beijing to its lowest designation joining Iran, North Korea and Russia.   The report said China had done little to stop what has amounted to modern slavery and sex trafficking affecting millions. 

Battle breaks out in California over single-payer healthcare

A $400 billion proposal to create a universal healthcare plan for all Californians is pitting state Democratic leaders against each other in an acrimonious fight that has even spurred death threats.

California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon last week shelved the plan, which the state Senate passed earlier this year. Rendon said the lack of a funding mechanism in the bill meant the package amounted to a shell, without the ability to actually deliver the care and coverage it promises.

"There was really no there, there. It was a statement of principles, a list of values, a lot of values that I share, but it certainly wasn't a bill," Rendon told The Hill. "There was absolutely no funding attached to a $400 billion proposal, no service delivery mechanism."

The bill is not technically dead: California legislators work in two-year sessions, meaning the measure could come back to life when legislators meet in January.

But some supporters of the universal health care measure, led by the California Nurses Association, said Rendon was bowing to big industry groups that contribute to state Democrats' political action committees.

"It looked to us like the Speaker was carrying the water for the insurance industry and some Democrats who didn't want to take the vote," said Michael Lighty, the union's director of public policy. "I think his intention is to kill it and he's pretending like it's not dead."

Supporters of the bill have organized protests of Rendon's decision. A social media campaign sought to put pressure on Rendon in San Diego, where he is hosting a community meeting on Friday.

But some of those supporters have crossed the line. Rendon said he had received death threats, and most columnists and political observers in Sacramento - even those on the left - have come down on the Speaker's side.

"California badly needs political heroes, and we just got one: Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon," Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton wrote Thursday. "He personally sent packing a so-called single-payer universal health care bill that was virtually all fluff with little substance. Then he was viciously attacked by the nurses union that pushed the bill, playing bully politics."

Rendon's move will protect the moderate Democrats in his caucus, who feared a politically sensitive vote. Those Democrats have already passed a gas tax hike, and they face the prospect of raising revenue even more through a cap and trade deal Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is working to strike.

But the dispute highlights what appears to be a growing schism between liberal activists, largely fans of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and more moderate Democrats who are part of the political establishment. Democrats have super-majorities in both the Assembly and the Senate, and with no real threat from Republicans, the two wings of the party have turned on each other.

That schism was evident in May, when the state Democratic Party's convention erupted in protest after a Sanders-backed candidate for party chair lost a narrow race amid what she called a fraud-plagued election. The nurses union, which backed both Sanders and the losing state chair candidate, has threatened political retribution against centrist and moderate Democrats.

The "only ones pissed are Berniecrats who are no electoral threat," said one longtime Sacramento Democratic operative who backs Rendon.

Rendon called Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D), one of the most powerful Democrats in Sacramento, to tell him he would shelve the bill. But Rendon, who supports single-payer health care in concept, said he had not heard from the Senate after asking the upper chamber to include a funding mechanism.

"If a real bill had come to me from the state Senate, I definitely would have looked at it," Rendon said.

Senate Democrats reacted angrily to Rendon's decision. Sources close to de Leon said the Senate president was furious that Rendon did not at least allow the measure a hearing.

"None of the bills are ever cooked fully when the bills go to the other side," one Senate Democrat told The Hill, asking for anonymity to describe internal debates. "Rendon just didn't want to deal with the difficulty of policy-making."

Rendon said the decision to delay the bill "was mine, and mine alone."

The debate has upended a usually harmonious relationship between state Democratic leaders, one that has led to perhaps the most liberally ambitious agenda in the country. De Leon and Rendon are more accustomed to battling with Brown, the more fiscally conservative governor, over budget figures than with each other over policy matters.