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Saad Asad

@realsaadasad.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.5K following 2.1K posts

Comms @cayimby.bsky.social. Previously, Advocacy at YIMBY Dems of SD & Product Marketing @ U.S. Digital Response. Tweets on housing, climate change, and San Diego/California politics

PostsRepliesMedia
Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
NEWS: The governor signed SB 344 and SB 958, paving the way to redevelop Midway into over 4,000 new homes in San Diego. San Diego City Council will vote on further details in early October. www.gov.ca.gov/2026/09/29/g...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Government subsidies alone can't close a shortage of millions of homes, so we must let builders add far more. Thomas LaCroix and I make the case in The Coast News: thecoastnews.com/op-ed-stop-d...
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Lawrence Vulis @lvulis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Update: Avantus, a clean energy developer who recently opened up shop here in San Diego, is also joining us!
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Will I see you on Oct 7? I'll be hosting a panel here in San Diego during San Diego Climate Week on how where we build, and what we build shapes climate change: luma.com/o348ec4l
luma.com
Housing Policy is Climate Policy · Luma
Where San Diegans live, how much they drive, and how much energy their homes use are largely shaped by how—and where—housing gets built. That makes those…
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Lawrence Vulis @lvulis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
San Diego: Interested in how we can get clean energy projects actually built? Join us for a lunchtime panel and discussion with E2, EDF Renewables, and Wright on Climate on October 7 @ 12 pm at Bivouac Adventure Lodge at Noon. luma.com/pdncs52l?utm_source=bsky
luma.com
The Path to Clean Energy Runs Through Communities · Luma
Join us for a lunch-time panel and discussion on how effective community engagement can help ensure clean energy projects are planned, developed, and deployed…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Delightful and true mailer!
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
More people whose work is based in SF live in LA County than in Marin County. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
.@RepScottPeters told a roundtable hosted by the U.S. and San Diego Chambers that 1970s environmental laws, meant to stop bad projects, now also slow grid upgrades, and he's introduced bills like the CERTAIN Act to speed permitting. www.uschamber.com/energy/u-s-c...
uschamber.com
U.S. Chamber, San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce Host Rep. Scott Peters and Local Business Leaders to Discuss Modernizing Outdated Permitting Process
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business organization. We advocate, connect, inform, and fight for business growth and America’s success.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
SANDAG admits it ignored state guidance and cut Solana Beach out of SB 79's housing rules. The city has permitted just a quarter of the homes the state says it needs. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/09/11/s...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Ending parking minimums and exclusionary zoning costs governments almost nothing, yet infill housing has never appeared on standard climate cost curves. It cuts driving and building emissions while reusing infrastructure already paid for. hub.wri.org/events/2026/...
hub.wri.org
Infill Development: Market-Based Climate Solution
In 2007, McKinsey popularized the global cost curve for climate abatement, ranking interventions from negative-cost efficiency gains to expensive new technologies. Land use has never appeared on that…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
San Diego charges a tennis nonprofit $50 a month for a dozen-plus acres of land — legal, the city agreed to it years ago. What isn't fine: San Diego has never enforced code or lease rules against that tenant, or any of its 900 others. Nobody checks. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/09/13/m...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Japan's renewable subsidies for wood-pellet biomass, marketed as carbon-neutral, made it one of the world's largest importers of Indonesian wood pellets. In Indonesia, that demand is now driving deforestation, floods, and land conflicts. forourclimate.org/insights/119
forourclimate.org
No Empty Space in the Forest
Reflections from the 2026 Japan-Indonesia Forest Conservation Symposium
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Lawrence Vulis @lvulis.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Join us on Oct 7 at noon (with free lunch!) to hear EDF Renewables and Wright on Climate talk about their experience engaging communities to successfully build clean energy infrastructure. Wright on Climate was instrumental in working on BESS policy here in San Diego. Moderated by Bob Keefe from E2!
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
A new mapping tool finds 2 in 3 Americans live in the same county as a major polluting industrial facility. The 10 most industrially dense counties are 75% Black, Indigenous, or people of color, nearly double the national average. industriouslabs.org/news/new-dat...
industriouslabs.org
https://industriouslabs.org/news/new-data-shows-how-industrial-pollution-takes-a-toll-on-health-workers-and-the-environment/
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
San Diego spent more than $96 million on 101 Ash St, a downtown tower it used for two weeks before evacuating due to asbestos. Now renamed 107 Ash St, it's finally becoming affordable housing: 252 apartments, most deeply affordable. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/09/13/t...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Florida's hurricane risk rose about 50% since 2006. Premiums rose over 200%. Climate explains only part of that gap, the rest is how insurers finance catastrophic risk. Price caps won't fix that. Diversified national insurers coming back might. www.brookings.edu/articles/pri...
brookings.edu
Pricing climate risk: Hurricane models and home insurance over the last two decades | Brookings
This paper examines the relationship between hurricane risk and homeowners insurance premiums in Florida over nearly two decades.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
NOAA says this fall's El Niño has a 75% chance of being the strongest on record. The bigger warning: a San Diego meteorologist says today's king tides could look like an ordinary day in 100 years. The city's sand berms buy time, not safety. timesofsandiego.com/weather/2026...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
91% of federal energy actions already get NEPA's lightest review, a categorical exclusion, per a new analysis of 120,000 documents. The bigger untapped fix isn't exempting more projects, it's tiered reviews, which are faster but rarely used. @cleanaircatf www.catf.us/wp-content/u...
catf.us
https://www.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/NEPA-insights-fact-sheet.pdf
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MTBorq @mtborq.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Hell yeah: If you don’t pay someone to be in politics *someone else will*. Paying people (and well) is a simple and effective corruption deterrent.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The DOE estimates 500+ gigawatts of grid capacity could come from low-cost upgrades like grid-enhancing tech and demand response. Utilities are slow to adopt them because regulations reward guaranteed returns only on large projects like power plants. clcouncil.org/publications...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
What has the Iran War accomplished?
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This makes sense. San Diego is the third largest county in the country. The Dem Party Chair should be paid so they can just focus on that as their job. voiceofsandiego.org/2026/09/15/s...
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Jake Gotta @jakegotta.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Not a centralized location” I don’t know, considering the east half of Solana Beach is like, literally a country club, I don’t know how much more “central” the station can get And oh no! Not housing near the beach! What a nightmare!
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Hegseth is creepy. Plans to measure waist to height ration of service members to attend his speech where he will make fun other service members.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
California flooding costs $8 billion a year on average — and a single catastrophic flood could top $1 trillion. A new Scripps/state report shows how insurance pricing could reward flood-proofing. today.ucsd.edu/story/report...
today.ucsd.edu
Report Identifies Path to Stronger State Flood Resilience and Insurance Protections
A new report for California policymakers assesses current flood modeling practices and offers eight recommendations to improve how mitigation infrastructure is reflected in the catastrophe models…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
SANDAG's SB 79 map undercounted trains at Oceanside and Solana Beach, right after local officials there publicly lobbied against the law's rules. The stations got little to no new housing capacity. timesofsandiego.com/housing/2026...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
At a private roundtable of mining and government officials, one point stood out: U.S. mineral permits take about 29 years on average, versus 5 in Canada and Australia. That delay discourages the investment needed to cut reliance on Chinese supply chains. c3solutions.org/policy-paper...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
SB913 pays home batteries and EVs to help stabilize California's grid instead of building costly peaker plants. pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/08/28/c...
pv-magazine-usa.com
California passes bill allowing customer-owned clean energy to compete with traditional power sources for grid reliability - pv magazine USA
State Senate Bill 913 directs utility regulators to update Resource Adequacy rules, expanding Virtual Power Plant access to residential batteries, bi-directional electric vehicle charging, and smart…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Since January 2025, U.S. electric bills are up 15%, and utility rate hikes have topped $100 billion. That's partly because Trump killed clean energy tax credits, canceled transmission corridors, and imposed new tariffs on grid equipment. www.evergreenaction.com/news/icymi-e...
evergreenaction.com
ICYMI: Evergreen’s Pete Wyckoff Calls Out Real Culprit Behind Rising Energy Bills in GOP Congressional Hearing - Evergreen Action
Today, Pete Wyckoff, Evergreen Action’s Vice President of Policy, testified before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs, a hearing convened by…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Del Mar's affordable housing plan relies on two sites: fairgrounds & bluffs. The fairgrounds deal collapsed The bluffs project sits in court because the city rejected the developer's applications. Both are self-inflicted. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/08/30/d...
sandiegouniontribune.com
Del Mar City Council asks fairgrounds to reconsider affordable housing deal
Del Mar City Council members have been urging the Del Mar Fairgrounds Board of Directors to reconsider its decision to end negotiations on a 61-unit affordable housing project on fairgrounds…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
What redemption arc? Brown, Zverev, and so many others get passes for their domestic abuse. And Congresswoman Crockett’s award for Browj is awful.
motherjones.com
Stop trying to sell us Chris Brown's redemption arc
Rep. Jasmine Crockett defended victims of Epstein and Trump. Why is she kissing up to another abuser?
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Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 14/09/2026
I agree. For US building codes, “heightened scrutiny is long overdue.” Nicholas Erickson, Executive Director of Housing Affordability Institute, writes, “Regardless of the level, broadly speaking, there isn’t sufficient scrutiny of code changes.“
housingwire.com
Building Code Reform Needs Longer Cycles and More Scrutiny
The author urges evidence and cost analysis for model code changes, plus longer timelines so cities can evaluate how provisions work in practice.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The Defense Department suspended case-by-case review of new wind farms near bases, freezing projects nationwide. A group's brief says Congress required individualized review, not a blanket pause, and warns unpredictable permitting scares off investors. conservativeenergynetwork.org/amicus-brief/
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Solar and wind are cheaper and faster to build than gas plants, yet data centers often pick fossil fuel or nuclear anyway. The reason isn't cost: land limits and permitting delays keep them from connecting fast enough for AI-scale sites. www.wri.org/insights/ren...
wri.org
The Truth About Renewable Electricity: Your Questions, Answered
Information — and misinformation — is swirling about renewables and their costs, benefits and reliability. Here, we set the record straight.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The Trump administration dropped climate as a stated priority, yet keeps funding batteries and nuclear exports to counter China's dominance. Because the rationale is security, not climate, that funding could shrink once China's threat fades. clcouncil.org/publications...
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Rebecca Saltzman @rebeccaforec.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
My wife and I lived in a gorgeous and ridiculously spacious subdivided Victorian in Oakland for 8 years. While we loved it, we had to move when we were expecting because we couldn’t bring a baby into a home w/ faulty electricity, no insulation, and where appliances were sometimes broken for months.
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Jane Natoli 🥑🚲🍍 @wafoli.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I live in a 120+ year old building. It’s missing basic amenities many folks take for granted that have come along since then. The “charm” of extremely old housing stock comes with a lot of costs! www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
Furthermore, in San Francisco, having tons of pre-World War II buildings isn't much of a rarity. Citywide, a whopping 45% of homes have been standing since then — by far the highest share of any California city with at least 500,000 people. It's also on par with Boston's 47%, the highest of large cities in the U.S., the Chronicle found.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Opposition to new housing isn't an informed disagreement about supply and demand. People just don't believe supply lowers prices, and that belief is weak. A video on the housing chain moved opinions 3x more than typical messaging. www.niskanencenter.org/can-housing-...
niskanencenter.org
Can housing policy overcome lousy folk economic thinking? - Niskanen Center
Christopher Elmendorf finds that housing opinions aren’t just a problem of people wanting fewer renters in their backyard.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
San Diego County approved $1.8 million to design a Tijuana sewage plant and $4 million for an immediate fix at Saturn Boulevard. Full plant construction could cost nearly $1 billion, which a November sales-tax measure would only partly cover. calmatters.org/environment/...
calmatters.org
The Tijuana River sweeps raw sewage into the U.S. Local officials want to stop it at the border.
Tijuana River pollution has caused asthma, stomach illness and other ailments for decades. Now officials are floating a billion dollar plan to clean it up.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Large and small nuclear reactors need opposite support: large ones need repeated orders to avoid eternal beginner syndrome; small ones need high-volume licensing and factory builds. nuclearinnovationalliance.org/one-size-doe...
nuclearinnovationalliance.org
One Size Doesn’t Fit All: The Portfolio of Policies Needed for Large and Small Reactors | NIA
In January, NIA published the report, Right-Sizing Reactors, to explore the economic trade-offs between large-scale reactors, small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors.  We concluded that both…
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
China's leverage over critical minerals comes less from mining than processing: it refines about 90% of global manganese sulfate, though it's mined in South Africa and Australia. Diversifying extraction won't cut U.S. exposure unless refining moves too. clcouncil.org/publications...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Cleveland-Cliffs won $500 million in federal funds to replace a coal blast furnace with hydrogen-ready ironmaking. It's now spending that on gas cogeneration instead, keeping pollution linked to an estimated 37 to 67 deaths a year. industriouslabs.org/news/clevela...
industriouslabs.org
https://industriouslabs.org/news/cleveland-cliffs-redirects-half-a-billion-dollars-in-clean-steel-funding-to-coal-at-middletown-works/
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
The EU's carbon border tax charges importers by estimated emissions. Until verified data arrives in 2027, it defaults to assuming U.S. steel and fertilizer use the highest-emissions process, overstating their pollution and costing them sales. clcouncil.org/focus-areas/...
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OB Cycler @obcycler.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
cancel del mar
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Del Mar keeps blaming the fairgrounds board for killing its housing deal. But the city wrote the contract that let the board walk away for free, and separately rejected its own backup housing plan's paperwork. This mess is on Del Mar, not the board. www.cbs8.com/article/news...
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
DOE estimates next-gen geothermal could supply up to 300 gigawatts nationally by 2050. Yet every developer CATF interviewed across 14 western states named one barrier above all: getting a transmission connection, not the technology itself. www.catf.us/resource/nex...
catf.us
Next-Generation Geothermal at Scale: A State Action Framework
Next-generation geothermal has the potential to generate vast amounts of clean firm energy across the western U.S.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Geothermal researchers and investors have lacked a shared directory of who has which lab equipment or ongoing projects worldwide. A new free platform maps that capacity by institution and country to speed collaboration on next-gen geothermal. @cleanaircatf www.catf.us/2026/08/geot...
catf.us
Geothermal Frontier: A new tool to accelerate collaboration and close research gaps in next-generation geothermal energy
The Geothermal Frontier Knowledge Sharing Platform is a free tool that maps institutional research capacity and country-level geothermal profiles in one place.
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This will be an exceptional level of humid heat for coastal Southern CA, even relative to very humid periods earlier this summer. While high-quality long-term humidity records are hard to come by, this will likely bring some of the most miserably humid air on record to SoCal.
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Dennis Cheung @dtc.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
tldr: any attempt to prevent sand from eroding away from the beach via seawalls or artificial breakers means that you'll end up forever refilling the beach with sand ($$$), which if done wrong will only make waves pound the beach harder.
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Saad Asad @realsaadasad.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Every city in this story fights erosion with rocks and sandbags, short-term fixes for a crisis that could erase up to 75% of California's beaches by 2100. www.latimes.com/california/s...
latimes.com
California’s beaches are being eaten away. El Niño could redraw the coast as we know it
From Carlsbad to Malibu to Santa Cruz, erosion is already remaking the maps of popular beaches in dramatic ways.
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