Over the last couple of weeks we’ve published several blog posts and sent out a bunch of emails about Governor Brown’s actions on CLCV and Green California priority bills. But with the flurry of bill signings and vetoes, it’s difficult to keep track of what happened to every bill.
Overall, CLCV’s priority bills fared well on the governor’s desk. Ten of our pro-environment priority bills were signed by Brown and two bills were vetoed. The bills he signed that will protect the environment and public health include a ban on Bisphenol-A in baby bottles and sippy cups, a landmark renewable energy bill, a ban on the sale and possession of shark fins, and a package of bills aimed at securing access to clean drinking water for all Californians.
Here’s our CEO Warner Chabot’s perspective, from a press release CLCV sent out early this week:
“Dozens of environment, public health and environmental justice organizations worked with legislators, rallied their grassroots members and joined forces to help these and other bills become law,” said CLCV Chief Executive Officer Warner Chabot. “The question: ‘What do sharks, parks, and babies have in common?’ may sound like the start of a bad joke. But environmental advocates are smiling because while the governor has almost singularly focused on the state budget, he recognizes that a healthy, clean environment and a strong California economy go hand-in-hand—signing bills that will help protect babies, sharks and parks, establish a human right to clean water, transition our state to more use of clean, renewable energy, and much, much more.”
Here is the full list of signed and vetoed CLCV priority bills:
Signed
- AB 14X (Skinner): Home Energy/Water Efficiency Funding
- AB 341 (Chesbro): Solid Waste: Diversion
- AB 359 (Huffman): Groundwater Management Plans
- AB 376 (Fong, Huffman): Shark Fins
- AB 1112 (Huffman): Oil Spill Prevention and Administration Fee
- AB 1150 (V. Manuel Pérez) Self-Generation Incentive Program
- AB 1319 (Butler): Product Safety: Bisphenol A
- SB 2X (Simitian): Renewable energy
- SB 244 (Wolk): Land use: general plan: disadvantaged unincorporated communities (part of the Human Right to Water package)
- SB 454 (Pavley): Energy Efficiency Standards Enforcement
Vetoed
- AB 650 (Blumenfield): Blue Ribbon Task Force on Public Transportation
- SB 582 (Yee): Commuter benefit policies
We’ll keep working next year…
Several of the bills we worked on this year never made it to the governor’s desk. Some of these bills were held in committee and some failed in votes on the Assembly or Senate floor. Since legislative sessions last two years, we’ll keep working next year to pass these important bills, or for the bills that failed, to advance the issues these bills address:
- AB 380 (Chesbro): Resources Watersheds
- AB 591 (Wieckowski): Oil and Gas Production: Hydraulic Fracturing
- AB 685 (Eng): State Water Policy
- AB 710 (Skinner): Infill Development & Sustainable Community Act of 2011
- AB 724 (Bradford, Williams): Clean Energy Jobs and Investment Act and Energy Efficiency Retrofit Program (one of two Public Goods Charge reauthorization bills)
- AB 796 (Blumenfield): Clean Energy Financing
- SB 535 (De Leon): California Communities Healthy Air Revitalization Trust
- SB 568 (Lowenthal): The Sustainable Take-Out Food Packaging Bill
- SB 580 (Wolk): State Park Protection
- SB 791 (Steinberg): Regional Congestion Reduction Charge
- SB 870 (Steinberg, Padilla): Clean Energy Innovation Program (one of two Public Goods Charge reauthorization bills)
How did your legislators score?
Pro-environment bills pass or fail because of the votes of individual legislators, and it is important to hold each legislator accountable for each of his/her votes. That is why CLCV releases an annual California Environmental Scorecard. We’re crunching the numbers for this years scores and will be releasing the Scorecard at the end of this month. If you want to be among the first to see your legislators’ scores, make sure to sign up for CLCV’s email action alert list.
