A bill that would have made it harder for the phone companies to dump those mountains of unwanted phone books on our collective doorsteps has died in the California state senate. Sen. Leland Yee of S.F. was sponsoring the bill, and in a statement he blames AT&T for killing the bill, saying that they "put their own financial interests before the interests of their customers," and that this "will result in further degradation of our environment, a loss in much-needed local resources, and millions of consumers forced to accept unneeded and unwanted phone books."

An existing law makes it possible to opt out of phone book delivery, but, uh, tell that to the 70 odd hipsters in our building who ignore the phone book mountain that appears in our lobby once a year. [Oakland Tribune]