tonight on kqed newsroom, an abortion pill move by walgreens leaves cafornia to cut ties with the pharmaceutical giant. we check in on the latest fight surrounding women's reproductive rights. the california environment a protection agency often leads policies that are ahead of the nation in the fight against climate change. we sit down with the newest cal epa secretary to discuss what she plans to accomplish. we take a trip to the chinese culture center of san francisco, and arts institution built on five decades of

activism. hello and welcome to the show. nearly 10 months after the supreme court decision that overturned roe v. wade, the fallout continues. this week, walgreens finds itself engulfed in a firestorm over its recent decision to stop providing a widely used abortion pl, method pressed on. they will stop providing it in states where republican officials have threatened legal action. in response on monday, california governor gavin newsom tweeted that california won't be doing business with walgreens or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk. the tweet was followed by an announcement that the state would not renew a $54 million contract with walgreens. abortion services are increasingly being criminalized

and we take an inside look this week at how bay area tech companies meta and google have helped police prosecute people who are seeking abortion services by sharing their digital data. joining me is a business insider reporter. thank you for joining us. you have done in-depth reporting recently on meta and google's practice of sharing private data with police and abortion related prosecution ses, would you share with us what you found at a high level? >> law enforcement can utilize digital data from social media companies in two different ways, the first being anything publicly posted or voluntarily surrendered so if you allow law enforcement to review your social media account during the course of investigation, that is fair game, anything you post publicly in a nonprivate setting is also fair game but what's been particularly troubling and concerning is the way law enforcement can make requests directly of social media and digital platform companies in order to access

backend user data like chat history, location history, search history and utilize those to build a case against someone especially in the event that they are investigating an abortion. >> there are a lot of these requests coming through. >> in meta as an example as a single company, last year received over 400,000 request for user data and responded to these requests which are accompanied by a warrant in about 70 percent of cases which is a wide swath and a large percentage of the request they receive. the problem with that is oftentimes according to the privacy experts i spoke to, these requests can be overbroad and in the course of an investigation into something, say practicing medicine without a license as in the case of one of these investigations, they might be able to pull additional information and add charges related to an abortion later even if that's not what they were originally searching for in the initial request.

>> you specifically describ a case in your recent reporting in which a mother and daughter in nebraska are set to stand trial, tell us about their story. >> in nebraska this is currently playing out, there was a mother and her teenage daughter, the teenage daughter was being investigated over the course of law-enforcement, having found improperly disposed of fetal remains, and as laenforcement was pursuing this investigation, they made a request of meta for chat logs between the teenage daughter and other people she had communicated with. what they found in communication with her mother, that the pair had discussed potentially procuring abortion pills online though the investigation had originated before the dobbs decision which overturned roe v. wade, the abortion charges were actually added after the overturning so this investigation was collecting information and additional charges related to

abortion were added after they found potential evidence of that in chat logs provided by meta. >> in response to this incident, meta issued a statement saying we received valid legal warrants from local law enforcement on june 7, before the supreme court's decision in dobbs versus jackson and they say the warrants did not mention abortion at all, are meta and google legally obligated to úpr >> that's where things get into this nebulous and problematic area of request. law enforcement does have to provide a legal warrant and in most cases unless the challenge directly in court, facebook or meta or google have to provide the information that is requested, however, these requests might not necessarily in the course of the investigation be specifically listing details regarding

abortion, for example in this case in nebraska the request was detailing information regarding the improper disposal of fetal remains, nothing regarding abortions was mentioned in the initial request and that said, google for example does have policy based on a california law that they will not provide information related to requests for information in abortion investigations because of a california law which events social media entities from doing so, but if the request doesn't even involve abortion, they will still have to respond and that information can get caught up there anyway regardless of what the original request said. >> i want to mention this is not just social media companies, some online pharmacies have also come under scrutiny for their practices of tracking user data which is then recoverable by police and i want to also turn back to walgreens, walgreens says it will not sell abortion pills in

these 20 gop led states even where it's still legal, how are they going to be impacted by california cutting ties with the company? >> an investigation found there are in so online pharmacies, tracking links that store user data which then makes it be recoverable with law enforcement request. similarly, with the walgreens situation, the data regarding people's prescriptions, when and how they pick up, may be potentially recoverable depending on the circumstances and what governor newsom has chosen to do is to cut ties with walgreens entirely for making the decision not to sell these kinds of medications across states where litigation is pending regarding legislation of abortion. >> how likely is it that other pharmacies will follow walgreens move? >> that's the big question that remains to be seen at this point. walgreens was one of several pharmacies who last month

received a letter from 20 republican attorneys general threatening legal action if they continue to sell these kinds of medications in states where abortion rights are being legislated. walgreens denies that the decision to stop selling these medications was related to that letter but the timing is notable and we haven't yet seen any announced decisions by other pharmacies who received the letter such as cvs, rite aid, target, walmart, right now, this is giving up to be a likely battle over the next month while these pharmacies determine the course of action. >> thank you for your time. the cafornia environmental protection agency shapes how the state addresses some of the biggest issues facing the planet number from clean air to climate change, to environment of justice.

cal epa enforces environmental laws and the choices agency makes has a ripple effect around the country. i'm joined now by the cal epa secretary who has been leading the agency since august, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> you been in the position for a few months now and there are so many departments that cal epa oversees and i want to let our audience know, you oversee the california air resources board, the state water resources control board, the department of pesticide regulation, the office of environmental health hazard assessment and the department of toxic substances control. >> that is a lot and it's hard to figure out your priorities, i'm sure, so i would love to ask you, what is the number one thing that you want to accomplish during your tenure as leader? i'm sure it's hard effect. >> it is hard to pick. i guess the number one thing i want to accomplish as a leader is to continue our focus on not

only creating policy that works for the masses, for the entire diverse state that we have, but also really works for the most honorable californians and that focuses on driving down pollution in areas hardest hit i the climate crisis and health impacts and economic impacts. that's what's most important to me and beyond that we are looking at real challenges in our water supply and our water system so really making some strides in improving how we deliver water across our state and how we ensure water quality for communities and species as well as for rivers and streams and oceans that we are so known for in california and i really want to achieve some steps toward getting to a better circular economy, a place where we are handling our waste within our state in a manner

that ensures environmental and community protections an opportunity, job opportunities for folks and transitioning away from some of the harsher chemicals that are used, notably in pesticide products but also across our consumption. >> let's see how much we can get to, as we are talking today, let's start with the first one. talking about reducing pollution in low-income communities and there's a bill aimed at doing that meant to clear the air for 15 low-income communities around the state including richmond and oakland, how hard is it to hold cities accountable to the source of regulations and policies when they are put into place? >> much of our environmental work requires really thoughtful coordination across all levels of government so we interact very closely with our federal colleagues and necessarily with a lot of our regional and local colleagues as well. the air districts have a direct relationship with the air

resources board and complement one another, so their resources board focuses on mobile sources, vehicles, trucks, etc., and the air districts focus on stationary sources, big emitters, industrial facilities, so this was so novel because it took the focal point away from achieving federal standards which of course we still achieve, those are set by a statute and we achieve those. >> but we want to surpass them, don't we? >> we do, we just have progress and needs to be made in some regions in our state where we need to attain but we also want to focus on the more granular level so what is affecting neighborhoods, what are the sources that communities are most concerned about that are causing mothers or families to stay home, to not feel like they want to go out, are

causing asthma, may be causing other impacts that we really need to drill down and address, not only from an air quality standpoint but from a land-use standpoi as well. >> would you share with us a little bit about your own background, your upbringing and how that has maybe led into your work with environmental justice and your interest and passion in that area? he grew up in mexico and oakland. >> i did. i often share the story that i became aware of the need for people to have access to the basics in life, clean air, clean water, and land, to be able to sustain themselves, at a pretty young age. i was 10 living in mexico for a period of time and became acutely aware of the fact that when you don't have that, you have forces that are driving you to seek it elsewhere and to seek that type of sustenance elsewhere and i think we see

that a lot in our migration and immigration patterns, that we don't often talk about climate as a reason for people leaving their homes. >> we are now starting to hear about climate refugees. >> absolutely. that was my context at the time and something that left a big impact on me. >> there sadly thousand people in california who don't have access to clean drinking water, what is cal epa doing about that situation? >> the state water resources control board is tasked with delivering drinking water to many communities across our state and one thing i want to note about our infrastructure patterns, we often think of the southern states in our nation as areas where there were discriminatory land-use patterns and where communities of color there in particular, black communities were left out of the benefit of

infrastructure and unfortunately that reality is also part of our history here in california and we have many communities across our state who were left out of the infrastructure that was provided to municipalities and towns as they grew into cities and this is an issue that is most pervasive probably in the central valley, but not exclusive to the central valley so one of the things that the water board has really focused on is acquiring municipalities, municipal entities to bring in excluded water systems where we have some pretty significant water challenges, drinking water challenges, high levels of contaminants and inadequate access to monetary resources to make the necessary improvements that we need so the water board requires those to be what's called consolidated with larger mixable systems and that's one of the best tools that we have to bring in some of e

drinking water challenges and be able to address them. we also have been providing a significant amount of interim bottled water to communities while they are getting their consolidation underway and that is not a permanent solution or an ideal solution. mostly we want to make sure that communities have access to whole systems to the economic resources and are able to manage the water systems in certain instances themselves, this is a good area where we see job growth and opportunity in training opportunities for so many californians and i'm looking forward to continuing this wk and it's been a high priority of the governor since he began his tenure and is a high priority of mine. >> as we are talking about water, let's stay there for a little bit, it's on everyone's mind that we are getting so much water right now which is a relief and governor newsom has said often that in the future the wets will be wetter in the drives will be dryer and hots

will be hotter and i'm assuming you subscribe to that same philosophy, so while we do have a lot of water coming in right now we have issues with water storage and being able to hold onto a lot of that water and i'm curious what the state is doing under your leadership, what you are proactively paying attention to in order to help us through these periods of drought in the future. >> the governor is exactly right. one thing i want to note is that well the storm events, the heavy rains and often the snowmelt can help surface water quite immediately, we still have groundwater depletion levels that are significant and in many ways we have a drought underground although we may have water on top and that is something that many folks who depend on groundwater know very well, but for many of us that are in urban areas, we don't see that we don't depend on that in quite the same way. one of the ings that we are

heavily focused on now is ensuring that we can leverage the storms, be able to benefit from this for flows that are beneficial to fish, for flows that can help deliver water to some growers sometimes, or agricultural communities and also to communities where their immediate water access may also be impacted by the droughts that we've seen in the past few years. recharge of groundwater levels is a high priority, making sure we are able to move water to where it needs to go is a high priority as well and ensuring safety. the snowmelt right now and with the storms is a cause for concern. we have many residents who are concerned th their own safety and their own well-being. we had too many people who are impacted by floods and are still recovering from that including in areas across the valley, the salinas valley was

hit very hard and these are not only areas where people are struggling with the impact of the storms but where people are socioeconomically in a position where it's difficult to recover. they need our attention and our help and support to be able to recover from the storms so i would say first and foremost we are concerned with the protection of life and property and the ability for californians to recover from some of these heavy wet weather events, we are constantly planning for these kinds of emergencies at the state level and in contact with our local counterparts and federal colleagues as well in cond, leveraging the ability to charge our groundwater aquifers to the extent we are able to and divert water to where it needs to go when we have the wet weather events. >> are the plans to build more water storage facilities? >> there are. water storage is something that is always a need and our focus is ensuring that our environmental standards and water quality standards are not

compromised in that process, our colleagues at the natural resources agency are tasked with ensuring that water supply is maintained and we work very closely in that and have a careful balance that we have to strike. let's turn to another issue in the state which is housing and there are a couple of ways in which i would love to hear your thoughts on this, wildfires in the state seem to be impacting the ability to build housing in some of these urban wildlife interface area as, so i'm curious about what's happening there but also regulations within the state have been a problem for developers who say i can't build because we have very restrictive policies. could you share your work at cal epa and how you are addressing these issues? >> first and foremost i want to say when it comes to the california environmental quality act, this is a landmark, unique law that we

have in california that has acted as a necessary tool to protect the environment and communities over several decades and is really important in that regard, it provides for quired mitigation that can really protect people and save lives so i want to make clear that it's a very important in that respect and i think what we see now in terms of building the future that we want to see is that we have to say, yes, to some things and a tool like this act is designed to pause or insure procedural and substantive protections for the environment for species and people but it's not designed necessarily to facilitate easy development.

i think now what we are seeing not only in housing but also with zero emission vehicle infrastructure, charging infrastructure, what we are seeing with wind energy production and solar energy production is that we have to get to a point where we are saying yes to development and the housing stock that we need to build is an extraordinary extraordinarily important priority not only from a human standpoint but from a climate standpoint, we have to be able to ensure that people can afford to live for they work, that they are not living so far away that they are contributing to the climate crisis inadvertently by just trying to get to work. i think we are at a place where more big picture with respect to the types of development that we want to see, that we have to agree on sets of principles, mitigation measures if you will that we are clear on and we want to make sure are implemented but we are also saying yes, we want this development, we want good jobs and benefits that come from this development and here are the mitigation measures that we land on.

>> you are a mom as well, a working mother and this is international women's month so i'm curious, talk to about the place that women fill in terms of fighting for environment in the next generation? how do you feel that? >> the most direct thing that i think of that comes up often for so many people is that women because we often are mothers are sort of these keepers of our future, we think of the environment as parents and those who are interested in leaving our children with something better than what we've seen and i think increasingly that's becoming challenging. it's all over the media at times and i know that many people in my generation sometimes can be nervous to have children. the future looks uncertain in many ways but i think the most

clear example of how mothers contribute to the environmental movement is in that stewardship of environmental resources, providing that hope, that vision for the future as moms and i think that is a big part, but that's not the only part. you don't have to be a mom to be in the space of carrying about stewarding the environment, women provide such a critical seat at the table and a critical perspective to creating good solutions, good policy and refining our approach where it's needed, we are our own powerful entities and so anyways and we provide such diversity and in particular, women of color who have often been not as represented in these positions, offer a perspective that is critical to the states. we are over 50 percent of the

population women and as a latina, we are is a significant part of the population and i think state leadership should reflect the population of who they serve. >> and you are the first latina to ever be in this office. we are looking forward to seeing what you accomplish over the coming years and we wish you the best of luck. >> thank you so much, it was great to be here. >> thank you so much for joining us. one year after the passage of the civil rights act in 1965, the chinese culture center of san francisco was founded to combat racism and inequity. 50 years later, the center is still elevating underserved communities and it's this week's look at something beautiful.

what beautiful representations. that's the end of our show for tonight and we will see right back here next week when we sit down with oakland's mayor. if you would like to share your

comments or questions, you can email us or also find kqed newsroom online or on twitter . thank you for joining us and have a great weekend.

♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend," with battles in congress looming, we talk with senator john tester on the debt, immigration, and america's political divisions. sen. tester: we have an incredible system of free speech and free religion and second amendment rights. and we've got folks out there that want to destroy that. and i don't think they really think they're destroying it, but in fact, they are. john: then, as russia's crackdown on independent media within its borders continues, our conversation with a journalist living and reporting in exile. and a look back at the life of hollywood screenwrit frances marion, who helped pave the way for women in the industry. ♪