VX News is the editorial voice of the annual VerdeXchange Conference, featuring in-depth interviews with industry leaders and policymakers driving innovation in clean energy, water, transportation, and climate policy.
VX2026 "Affordable Housing: Is the Model Broken?": Bob Hertzberg’s Ballot-Box Missing Middle Fix
In this excerpt from VX2026's plenary "Affordable Housing: Is the Model Broken?", Robert Hertzberg, the former California State Senate Majority Leader and Senior Advisor at Mission Possible Partnership, moves past the familiar catalog of what's broken toward what he's actually building: a November 2026 ballot measure aimed squarely at the "missing middle" – the working families priced out of both subsidized affordable housing and market-rate ownership (a Revenue Bond to be paid back by homebuyers’ mortgage payments). Read along as Hertzberg lays out the five categories of housing he sees and delivers a verdict on why California's existing housing dollars aren't reaching the people they're meant to. A recording of the entire plenary can be found here.
VXNews Excerpt: California High-Speed Rail Authority and High Desert Corridor JPA Advance Statewide High-Speed Rail Connectivity
VX News shares the California High-Speed Rail Authority's July 20 announcement of a new Memorandum of Understanding with the High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency. The signed MOU, a major step in advancing California’s vision for a fully connected, statewide electrified high-speed rail network, deepens coordination on environmental clearance, station integration, and design at Palmdale Station; and promises to fill a key gap in the statewide highspeed network. Beyond planning alignment, the agencies also commit to pursuing coordinated materials procurement and construction sequencing – a cost-containment posture that reflects the Authority's continued exposure to delivery economics.
VX Feature: The Solar Stupidity is Blinding
Formerly the LA Times' first climate columnist and now writing independently on Climate-Colored Goggles, Sammy Roth argues that California regulators passed up an easy win on electricity affordability when they blocked PG&E's exit from the Ivanpah solar plant. In this piece, appearing originally on Climate-Colored Goggles and republished by VX News with permission, Roth weighs the CPUC's reliability rationale against contracts priced near $135 per megawatt-hour in a market building new solar for $38. Find the original, here
VX Excerpt: National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Attributes Extreme Weather and Climate Events & Their Impacts to Human Caused Climate Change
As extreme weather grows more frequent and costly, the scientific ability to link a specific heat wave, flood, or drought to human-caused climate change has become central to how governments, insurers, and courts assess responsibility and risk. VX News here excerpts Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's 2026 consensus study, chaired by James W. Hurrell of Colorado State University, which updates the Academies' 2016 assessment of extreme event attribution (EEA) science and extends the analysis into the emerging field of extreme event impact attribution (EEIA) — evaluating how much climate change shapes not just an event's physical severity, but its human and economic toll.
Pete Rose on Delivering Hydro-Québec Power to New York City: VX 2026
In this excerpt from VX2026's plenary "Can We Still Build Big Things?" Pete Rose, Senior Director for Stakeholder Relations at the Champlain Hudson Power Express sets the table with a case study in what it actually takes to build big: a 375-mile buried high-voltage line from a substation outside Montreal into the heart of New York City. Read along as Rose recounts the fourteen years it took to bring the project to life. A recording of the entire plenary can be found here.
VX2026 Panel: What's Taking So Damn Long?
Moderator Jim Kelly of S&C Electric begins the "What's Taking So Damn Long? Fixing Energy Project Permitting" VX2026 panel by naming the stakes plainly: California is trying to build electrical infrastructure fast enough to meet record demand growth while the state already carries the highest electricity rates in the continental U.S. The panel brought together CEC Commissioner Noemí Gallardo, CPUC Commissioner Christine Harada, Stantec Senior Principal Brianna Pilkinton, and LADWP Interim COO Jason Rondou. To check out the full panel click here.
The Cost of Waiting: Larry Kosmont on PCH, Disaster Recovery Districts, and the Infrastructure Gap
Recovery does not begin with rebuilding structures. It begins with rebuilding the infrastructure that makes communities worth returning to – streets, sewers, water, power, and the systems that make a place livable and investable.
That is the argument Larry Kosmont, Chairman & CEO of Kosmont Companies, brings to VX2026. With the debris removal phase of the January 2025 Palisades and Eaton Fires now complete, and an estimated $76 to $131 billion in property and capital losses still looming over Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena, the question is no longer whether to rebuild…it is whether the financing infrastructure can move fast enough to make rebuilding possible.
Think Big, Act Boldly: What Los Angeles Must Do Now
VXNews Feature: By Climate Resolve and Resilient Cities Catalyst, Think Big, Act Boldly: Implementing Proven Solutions on Urban Fire synthesizes 14 post-fire studies and 465 recommendations into four high-impact strategies—each with clear philanthropic entry points, implementation timelines, and notional budgets. Not another diagnosis of what went wrong. A plan for what comes next.
Not Business as Usual: Esther Kim on Rebuilding Altadena’s Commercial Corridors
In conversation, Esther Kim, an architectural designer with nearly two decades of experience across residential and commercial projects, shares why she founded Altadena Village Partners, an emerging grassroots effort focused on rebuilding Altadena’s commercial corridors after the fire. She reflects on the group’s origins (mostly architects and planners), their self-funded recovery initiative, and the shift from traditional top-down visioning toward an owner-centered recovery model.
California Lawmakers Urge CARB to Reconsider Cap-and-Invest Amendments
As part of our conference conversations, VX News shares a letter dated April 27, 2026, from California lawmakers urging the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to reconsider proposed amendments to the Cap-and-Invest program. The letter warns the changes could weaken emissions targets, inject new allowances into the market, and undermine both price signals and long-term climate investment—raising broader concerns about affordability, accountability, and the pace of the energy transition.