Be sure to vote on Tuesday, November 2, Election Day, too much is at stake not to. If you live in California, the results of races for Governor (vote for Jerry), the U.S. Senate (Boxer), and the U.S. House of Representatives, plus several state propositions, will have a collectively enormous impact on California’s environment, economy, quality of life, and future prospects.
In California, it’s critically important that you vote No on Proposition 23.
Prop 23 is an attempt by Texas oil refinery companies Valero and Tesoro, as well as the extremist right-wing Koch brothers, to change the State of California's future by undoing our seminal Global Warming Solutions Act, better known as AB 32. This legislation, approved in 2006 and signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will have a profoundly positive impact by significantly reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s) and other air pollutants, creating new jobs and spurring innovation in clean technology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, and improving residents’ quality of life through better air quality and more sensible transportation and housing policies. Prop 23 would unravel these advances.
California’s AB 32 also is extremely important in the national debate over what to do about global climate change, especially given that reactionary conservatives to date have successfully stifled action on the climate change crisis primarily at the behest of oil, coal and electric utility companies. AB 32 will help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce the nation’s irresponsible emissions of GHG’s, and provide invaluable impetus to the urgent economic and environmental necessity of shifting this nation’s energy dependence to clean technologies and renewable energy.
Everywhere across the country, elected officials and numerous other stakeholders are looking to California and AB 32 as an indicator of where the nation is going. Unless, of course, somehow AB 32 was made to go away. Proposition 23 would effectively kill AB 32, although its dishonest purveyors claim that the proposition would merely “suspend” the global warming law. Indeed, the language in the proposition does say “suspend,” but the conditions attached to this so-called suspension in reality would make it permanent.
See the list at the end of this article for who opposes Prop 23.
As reported by the coalition web site, www.StopDirtyEnergyProp.com, Valero and Tesoro each have oil refineries in California that are among the state’s top ten biggest polluters. AB 32 would force these refineries to reduce their emissions and to pay the costs of doing so, a completely fair and balanced principle known as “polluter pays.” Valero and Tesoro don’t want the hassle and expense of meeting this legal requirement to clean up their refineries. They’ve chosen instead to spend millions of dollars to try to kill AB 32 via their carpet-bagging initiative, Prop 23.
Prop 23 would roll back the clean energy standards put in place by AB 32, with the likely repercussions including a loss of tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investments. According to California’s State Legislative Analyst’s Office, the effect of Prop 23 could “…dampen additional investments in clean energy technologies or in so-called green jobs by private firms, thereby resulting in less economic activity.” Thanks in great part to AB 32, “green jobs” in California have grown some 10 times faster than the statewide average since 2005, and today there are more than 12,000 clean tech companies in the state.
If it passes, Prop 23 will suck the air out of this vital growth sector, thus weakening economic prospects for California and its residents and furthering our dependence on fossil fuel. And just as right-wing conservatives desire, Prop 23 would force not just Californians but the entire nation to retreat from our future and to hide from the climate change crisis.
In short, Proposition 23 is an outrage. Its passage would represent an enormous setback to California and to the urgent global imperative to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Vote No on Prop 23.
Who Opposes Proposition 23?
An enormous cross-section of California businesses, religious and health organizations, consumer groups, local chambers of commerce, mayors and municipalities, environmental organizations, academicians, community leaders and elected officials, in spite of their differences on many other matters, stand united in opposition to Prop 23.
Here is a small sampling of opponents of Prop 23:
▪ Former Reagan Administration Secretary of State George Schultz
▪ CA Governor Schwarzenegger
▪ AARP
▪ American Lung Association
▪ Blue Shield of CA
▪ Kaiser Permanente
▪ CA Nurses Association
▪ CA Teachers Association
▪ The Bay Area Council
▪ Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network
▪ Cisco
▪ Gap, Inc.
▪ Google
▪ PG&E
▪ Patagonia
▪ Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD)
▪ Virgin America
▪ League of Women Voters of California
▪ California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO
▪ New Voice of Business
▪ National Venture Capital Association
▪ The Solar Alliance
▪ Solar Energy Council
▪ Silicon Valley Leadership Group
▪ Sustainable Business Alliance
▪ Business Council on Climate Change
▪ U.S. Green Building Council
▪ California Public Utilities Commission
▪ Metropolitan Transportation Commission
▪ (name most any newspaper in CA, they're opposed to Prop 23)
▪ American Farmland Trust
▪ Good Earth Natural Foods
▪ Global Exchange
▪ California Interfaith Power and Light
▪ Commonweal Institute
▪ 1Sky
▪ 350.org
▪ California League of Conservation Voters
▪ Climate Protection Campaign
▪ EarthJustice
▪ Environmental Defense Fund
▪ Greenpeace USA
▪ The Nature Conservancy
▪ Rainforest Alliance
▪ Sierra Club California
▪ Union of Concerned Scientists
For a more complete list, go to www.StopDirtyEnergyProp.com
Are all these individuals and organizations mistaken? No. But Valero and Tesoro are. Vote No on Proposition 23.
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