As I continue to chair the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and co-chair the California Environmental Legislative Caucus, advancing California’s environmental stewardship policies remains a top priority for me.
California made significant strides this year in teeing up important investments for climate infrastructure, reducing waste, protecting communities for toxins, and establishing greater corporate accountability.
Climate Bond: My SB 867
Over the summer, Governor Newsom signed my SB 867 to put a $10 billion climate bond on the ballot this November that will invest in water infrastructure, wildfire prevention, clean energy and more to provide a climate resilient future in California.
This multi-year effort is the result of rigorous stakeholder engagement and adjustments to the everchanging needs of our communities and the California climate. After the constrained budget year led the Governor to pull back funding previously committed to various environmental projects, passing this bond became a priority for the Legislature in order to provide reliable funding for these projects well into the future.
Saying no to wasteful plastic bags: SB 1053 (Blakespear)
Senator Catherine Blakespear, along with Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, led an effort to close a loophole that corporations have been taking advantage of to side-step Proposition 67 – a ballot measure that was passed by voters in 2016 to ban single-use carry out plastic bags.
The Governor signed SB 1053 on September 22 to officially ban single-use carryout plastic bags in California. Five trillion plastic bags are used every year across the planet, and only have an average lifespan of just 12 minutes. They can last for centuries – clogging our water streams and sewage lines – before breaking down into microplastics and further invading every form of life on land and in sea.
Reducing Hazardous Paint Dumping: My SB 1143
The Governor signed my SB 1143 on September 29 to expand California’s flagship paint stewardship program, PaintCare. Operated by manufacturers and producers of paint, the nonprofit was established in California in 2012 to help recycle, reuse, and manage the end-of-life of consumers’ excess paint. This in turn helps prevent hazardous dumping and relieve local governments of the costs associated with managing toxic materials at their end of life.
SB 1143 expanded PaintCare so the program can now accept all paint products available to consumers.
You can read the full press release here.
Holding Polluters Accountable
The Attorney General recently announced a precedent-setting lawsuit against ExxonMobil for “engaging in a decades-long campaign of deception that caused and exacerbated the global plastics pollution crisis.”
The AG alleges that ExxonMobil led a false advertising campaign to make their plastic products appear to be more recyclable than they have been over the years. You can read my full statement here.
Federal Support for Toxic Waste Cleanup
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed adding the Vernon Exide Technologies site to the Superfund National Priorities List.
This designation would unlock federal funding to help the State’s burdensome cleanup efforts that Exide Technologies left us with, and will help expedite the resolution to this tremendous environmental injustices that have been imposed upon the Vernon community.
You can read my full statement here.
