With this year's legislative session in its final days, lawmakers Monday unveiled a bill mandating new fees from electricity ratepayers to fund a University of California-run global warming research center.

If the word "compost" conjures up images of decaying food, bugs and the smell of rotting vegetables, keep reading. I used to be the same way, but I have come to embrace my green bin because not only is compost cool, it’s big business. A couple weeks ago I got the chance to visit the Jepson Prairie Organics facility in Vacaville, CA. Jepson is a wholly owned subsidiary of Norcal Waste Systems, the company that contracts with the city of San Francisco and many other Bay Area communities to manage waste, recycling and compost pick-up programs. The facility processes all the food and green waste collected in San Francisco’s green bins. On the day I visited the processing facility, it was over 100 degrees and the air smelled faintly of peat.