Whoever claims that jobs and the environment don’t go hand in hand has never been to California. As our state, the eighth largest economy in the world, continues to face a tailspin of budget woes, reports continue to show that the largest job gains are in the clean energy field. This is a state that has transformed the national clean energy economy and is a historic leader in advancing energy efficiency, renewable energy development and manufacturing, yet lately whenever we find ourselves in a budget crunch, the very environmental protection laws that have contributed to our State’s success are among the first things Sacramento considers sacrificing.
It’s a false sacrifice usually masked by the promise of “shovel-ready” jobs. I made this same argument last year when the Governor proposed to exempt eight infrastructure projects from California’s Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in an effort to get people to work during the first months of the recession. It’s a false and ultimately fruitless choice to give any project immunity from our state’s bedrock environmental law and excuse any environmental fallout from the projects that ultimately aren’t job creators, at least certainly not for the long-haul.
Now there’s another budget proposal to exempt more projects from CEQA to solve the current budget battle and another separate effort is underway to “suspend” California’s landmark global warming law enacted in 2006 in a thinly veiled attempt by industry to derail the monumental progress California has made in adopting a path to clean energy. Both attempts characterize economic growth as distinct from environmental protection, which cannot be further from the truth.
State Senator Steinberg addressed that falsehood earlier this week: “the notion that we can revitalize our economy by making it easier to decimate our environment is simply false. I don’t know any Californian who wants to live, work, and raise their family in a state where we make it easier to pollute the air that we breathe and the water that we drink.”
Here are a few stats we should keep in mind from a recent Next 10 report on California’s clean energy job force. These are local, good-paying, real jobs that invest in American ingenuity and retain homegrown technology advances as we move our country beyond our addiction to oil.
While we all know that global economic conditions have taken a toll on our national and state economies, here in California, we have an unparalleled record of generating economic profit while controlling pollution because we have been doing both for the last 35 years. State energy policies have also saved California households $56 billion from 1972-2006.
California has much at stake when politics dictates our job growth, but we also have much to gain by sticking to solutions that have added to our economy over the years and created thousands of jobs in a sector that is expected to continue advancing across the country.
While California found religion in the clean tech industry decades ago, many states are just recently following our example. We continue to outpace other states in their investments in the clean energy industry as our state strives to attain a third of our power from renewable energy by 2020. No other state can match the scope of that goal and our determination and yet there are efforts to roll back our investments in the clean tech field in favor of subsidies for dirty industries that continue to drag their heels when it comes to supporting California’s pioneering clean energy standards.
We must tell our leaders not to sacrifice our environment, where we live and work, for short-sighted gains that will only delay California’s progress in becoming the world leader for the clean energy economy.
]]>A similar thinly veiled attempt to derail the most significant public health regulation to come through California in decades is also brewing at California’s Air Resources Board (CARB). Chaired by Mary Nichols, CARB has been a leader in battling harmful air pollution for decades. This agency is also charged with implementing California’s landmark climate change legislation, AB 32. Fearful of the progress in cleaning up some of dirtiest air in the nation in the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles region, trucking lobbyists have started to complain about a recently passed and long overdue regulation aimed at modernizing our decrepit fleet of large trucks traveling throughout the state.
CARB is holding a hearing in Sacramento tomorrow to provide updates on several issues, including the economic implications of diesel regulations planned to take effect over the upcoming years. The CARB regulations will require roughly one million existing diesel vehicles to be upgraded with exhaust retrofits or cleaner engines beginning in 2010 and phasing in through 2022 to reduce diesel soot and smog-forming gases. Most long distance trucks and trailers will also have to use EPA-approved efficient tires and aerodynamic fittings, both of which are expected to save billions of gallons of fuel. School buses are included in these regulations, but would generally be required only to add exhaust retrofits, for which there is ample public funding available. To be honest, this is an expensive rule, but the trucking industry has benefited for decades by not having programs in place to clean up its aging fleet of trucks. Thousands of respiratory illnesses and premature deaths were caused by this lack of progress.
The link between diesel pollution and an array of potentially lethal respiratory diseases is founded in a plethora of independent and peer-reviewed findings. However, opponents of clean air programs are spinning tales of corruption that are simply unfounded. Lacking real grounds to oppose this regulation, which is slated to save thousands of lives each year from premature death due to air pollution, the opponents of clean air progress have latched onto an episode where a person that worked for CARB lied about their credentials. Conveniently, these opponents of clean air have left out critical facts like the fact that the report on the impacts of the diesel pollution was peer reviewed and the science behind the impacts of diesel is long-standing and exceptionally compelling. Obviously, these clean air opponents prefer ignoring science.
Heavy-duty trucks in California are the largest single source of diesel pollution, leading to thousands of illnesses and deaths each year. Pollution from diesel trucks in California is responsible for roughly 4,500 premature deaths each year, which is more than the number of deaths from auto accidents. The cost of this loss of life in addition to disease, lost work days, and school absences adds up to $40 billion per year. However, diesel pollution could easily be prevented through upgrades to the existing truck fleet. While truck owners may be wary of the added costs of upgrades that will be required, $1 billion funding has been made available by the state to offset those costs.
Individuals calling for a suspension of the diesel rule until a reexamination of the science behind diesel and adverse public health problems are simply deluding themselves. They need to wake up to the reality that we need to clean up the decrepit trucks to clean California’s air, reduce global warming pollution, and protect the health of millions of California’s residents.
]]>Polluters used economy scare tactics to attack public health protections, environmental progress and existing laws this legislative session. For the first time in years bills that hurt the environment managed to pass the legislature and were signed by the Governor and too many of the bills that would have provided true environmental and public health protections for Californians were held over until next year.
Good news was hard to come by this session, as the Governor's veto pen fell hard on environmental bills this year - a notable departure from his previous record.
A package of bills (SB 14 and AB 64) that would set the most aggressive renewable energy targets in the country were vetoed by the Governor, as was a bill that would have ensured that the state's green building standard is rigorous and leads to buildings of superior environmental performance.
In signing AB 1318 (Perez) and SB 827 (Wright), the Governor allows the South Coast Air Quality Management District to dismantle landmark environmental court victories blocking the sale and distribution of unsubstantiated air emission credits to power plant developers in Southern California. These bills have nothing to do with job creation and everything to do with AQMD trying to make an end run around landmark environmental laws and the federal Clean Air Act.
More progress was made in implementing California's existing landmark environmental laws. California's Global Warming Solutions Act's (AB 32) scoping plan was adopted early in 2009 by the California Air Resources Board, California's climate and land use planning law's (SB 375) regional target reductions plan was developed and CARB is set to vote on the plan this month. The California Fish and Game Commission also adopted measures within the Marine Life Protection Act to create 24 marine protected areas and ban or restrict fishing in nearly 20 percent of coastal waters between the North and Central California Coast, a similar effort is underway in Southern California.
The package of water bills currently under consideration in a special session called by the Governor this week is still in flux, but initially represents a real breakthrough among environmental groups, major utilities, business and agricultural interests. The package consists of policies to require the State Water Board to develop public trust flow determinations to restore and sustain the Delta estuary and our salmon fisheries, a comprehensive and enforceable water conservation program that addresses industrial, agricultural and urban water use, and a Delta Stewardship Council, a groundwater monitoring program and enhanced enforcement capacity at the State Board to address the problem of illegal diversions and permit violations.
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