Category Archives: Climate Reality Project

350 Bay Area, Air Quality, Climate Reality Project, EPA

Police oversight, clean energy & clean air in 3 clicks

Signing the petition, making the call or writing the email has never been and will never be pointless

By Nathalie Christian, May 8, 2023

Sometimes signing petitions and writing emails or calls like those suggested below can feel . . . pointless at best, and performative at worst.  But these actions – even as insignificant as they may feel – are neither.

Research, experience and most importantly results prove time and again that policymakers absolutely consider petitions, phone calls, emails and yet more petitions when making decisions. While your pebble may feel small, adding it to a pile and encouraging others in your networks to add their pebbles as well are the first steps in triggering a landslide.

In full disclosure, you may need a few more than three clicks to complete the three proposed actions laid out here today, but you can still make a big difference in the time it takes for your tea or coffee to brew. And the minutes you take today can influence years of decision-making and legislation, and ultimately the lifetimes of many.

[Note: I am ordering these by urgency, not importance. For example, while the EPA is accepting public comment on proposed regulations through July 5, there are important hearings May 9, 10 and 11 that you may want to know about.]

1. Call or Email: Tell your Assembly Members to OPPOSE Assembly Bill 538, which threatens California’s clean energy goals and autonomy

A picture of a power pole.
Major environmental organizations including 350 Bay Area Action, the Sierra Club and Indivisible advise that AB 538 could prevent California from meeting essential clean energy goals. | Uncredited image from 350 Bay Area Action.

Anyone can participate in this important action, but if you’re living Bay Area Assembly Districts 11 (Lori Wilson), 21 (Diane Papan) and 28 (Gail Pellerin), your voice is especially needed. (Find out which district you live in here. If you live in Solano County, Lori Wilson is your assembly representative.)

These three members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee are voting on a grid-related bill that 350 Bay Area Action, the Sierra Club and Indivisible will lump California in with a multistate regional transmission organization, potentially throwing a pretty big wrench in CA’s efforts to meet its clean energy goals. The phone numbers, email addresses and script below provide a quick way you can help oppose this bill.

If you’re a constituent of AD 11, 21 or 28:  Please use the following message for calling or emailing . . .

Suggested message: 

I am your constituent and a member of 350 Bay Area Action, a 20,000-member strong climate justice organization.  After long consideration, we have taken an OPPOSE position on AB 538.

AB 538 creates a new multi-Western state electricity market that would threaten California’s clean energy goals and autonomy without significantly improving access to regional energy markets.  Proposed amendments cannot fix this bill.

    • If the bill is on the Consent Calendar, please request that it be it taken off.
    • Once it’s off Consent, please don’t vote for it. Either vote against it, or don’t vote.

Thank you for your consideration!

Sincerely yours,

[Name / City]

Non-constituents:  Use the above message and simply start by saying you’re a member of 350 Bay Area Action.

2. Petition or public comment: Support the most ambitious vehicle emissions regulations ever proposed.

EPA logo

The EPA has just proposed what the Climate Reality Project is calling “the strongest regulations on vehicle emissions ever.” Despite improved regulations for heavy-duty vehicles, light- and medium-duty vehicles (like passenger cars and delivery trucks) still produce a tremendous amount of toxic tailpipe pollutants. According to Climate Reality, the regulations the EPA proposed could prevent nearly 10 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2055.

Naturally, the proposed regulations are under attack by the usual suspects. While the EPA is still taking public comments, they need to hear from us. It’s up to average citizens like you and me to balance the histrionics from the conservatives and corporations who desperately want to keep fossil fuels-guzzling cars on the road.

Here are three ways you can support this ambitious new set of regulations:

3. Petition: Boost Vallejo residents demanding independent police oversight

Police officers stand in a loose formation, holding firearms. In the center of the formation is a man in a red shirt with a badge but no firearm.
The Vallejo Police Department continues to resist reform despite historic levels of community distrust. This behavior is ultimately abetted by scant acknowledgment and nearly no action made by Vallejo leaders on behalf of their constituents, who are demanding change, transparency and accountability in this petition. | Uncredited image from petition.
Members of the Solano County ACLU Chapter started this petition to demand independent, external oversight over the very troubled Vallejo Police Department. The case the petition makes is clear, compelling and actionable. Anyone can sign (even if you don’t live in Vallejo), so please take a quick minute to do so and then to share it with your networks. 

From the petition: “Vallejo Police Department (VPD) is the most troubled police department in northern California. This is clear to residents of Vallejo, potential VPD applicants, local and national media, and police professionals in the Bay Area. But this has never been directly acknowledged by our leaders, nor has there been a substantive attempt to make amends to the families who have lost loved ones, to those who have been subjected to police abuse, or to the community. Past attempts at reform have been completely ineffective.”

Read more and sign the petition at change.org . . . 

 

[P. S. I am sorry for shoving three important actions in a single post, possibly reducing the chances that you will complete any of them. The Benicia Independent has a backlog of articles and posts I want to publish and, in the interest of time and space, I am compromising. I encourage you to share these actions with your networks and really highlight the need and the urgency to ensure we have the best chance of being heard on these important topics. –N.C.]

Read more! While we’re talking about Air Quality,  check out these resources:
Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, Climate Reality Project, Greenbelt Alliance, Progressive Democrats of Benicia, Solano, Solano County Board of Supervisors, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee, Solano Open Space Citizens Advisory Group, Solano Sierra Club

Solano County urged to take action on regional park plan

Fairfield Daily Republic, by Todd R. Hansen, September 15, 2019
Rockville Trails Preserve is a 1,500-acre preserve and hiking area owned and operated by the Solano Land Trust. (Robinson Kuntz/Daily Republic)

Regional park supporters urge Solano supervisors to move forward

FAIRFIELD — The Solano County Board of Supervisors this week was pressed about when it will move forward on a proposed regional park and open space district.

Amy Hartman, Solano County representative for Greenbelt Alliance, wanted to know when the county expected to put the proposed countywide district on a ballot for voter consideration.

“We have a couple of asks. First, we want to know when the (administrative) and financial plan is going to be released to the public.” Hartman told the board on Tuesday. Supervisor Jim Spering was absent.

“We know the county has been working on it for quite a while and we would just love to see that document and be able to talk to folks around the county about what is going to be in the admin and finance plan,” Hartman said.

The concept is to integrate the county’s existing park system with other properties, such as those owned by the Solano Land Trust, to be able to increase public access to those areas.

In a letter to the board, Greenbelt Alliance and a number of other groups and individuals, including Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson and Michael Alvarez, a member of the Solano County Parks Commission, suggested the measures go before the voters next year.

“We ask that two separate ballot measures are placed on countywide ballots – one for the creation of the district and another for a funding measure of the district,” the letter states.

The letter was signed by two members of the Solano Open Space Citizens Advisory Group, the Progressive Democrats of Benicia, Solano Sierra Club, Solano County Orderly Growth Committee and the Solano County Policy Action Team of the Bay Area Chapter of the Climate Reality Project.

“Our ask is that these ballot measures are put to the ballot in separate elections – ideally, the formation of the district would be on the March 2020 ballot, and the district’s funding measure would be on the November 2020 ballot or a subsequent election,” the letter states. “. . . As groups with large membership and extensive outreach capabilities, we are ready and willing to support the campaign effort that will be required to successfully pass measures to create and fund the district.”

There were not a lot of specifics in board Chairwoman Erin Hannigan’s reply, but she noted that the board’s subcommittee working on the issue, which also includes Supervisor John Vasquez, is scheduled to meet Sept. 30.

Bill Emlen, director of the Department of Resource Management, said his staff could have the plans in front of the board in October.

“Even if we can get the park established, even without a finance plan, there is a lot of money (out there),” Hartman told the board, referring specifically to Proposition 68 bond funds.

State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, carried the special legislation that allows the county to introduce the park district by resolution for voter approval. It won Senate and Assembly support in May 2017.

There has been little discussion at the board level since, and even less about how the district would be funded.

Two funding ideas have been floated publicly. The first is to ask voters to support an ongoing funding mechanism for the park district. The other is to use existing county park funds to support the district in the early stages.

The supervisors, in January 2016, appropriated $75,000 for a consultant to assist county staff with various initiatives related to forming the district, including public outreach.

A 2015 consultant’s report stated that while the public supports the idea of a regional parks system, it does not support additional funding measures to pay for it.