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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC. And joining me is EPIC's 30 by 30 coordinator, Josefina Barrantes. Hey Josefina!

JOSEFINA BARRANTES:

Hi, thanks for having me, Tom.

WHEELER:

And we're also joined by Kim Delfino, our Sacramento Insider. And we are talking about Prop 4, which is a large investment into things like clean water, wildfire resilience, tackling our climate crisis, good stuff. And it's something that's going to be before you on this November's ballot. So let's find out more about the proposition from some folks who have been studying it and who've been working on it.

So first off, let's, let's kind of set the stage as to why we are having a bond measure on the ballot in the first place. Kim, maybe you'd like to touch on this and then we can add other things. The state's, the state's relatively broke yet. We have all of these environmental obligations.

KIM DELFINO:

Well, this passing bonds is not unusual for California. We've actually done a lot of bonds over the years, particularly bonds that invest in the environment. And so it's a pretty normal way of generating money for all of the various needs that we have. This year in particular, it's important because like you noted, the state has had a downturn in the revenue that it normally gets tax revenue. And so therefore the investments that we thought we were making into climate resilience, into clean water, into fire, into parks, coastal protection, that funding has declined. And this would, this investment through the bond would keep us sort of on that important trajectory to achieve all the various goals that the state has set for itself in terms of climate, biodiversity, fire resilience, et cetera.

WHEELER:

And 30 by 30, Josefina, you work with the Power and Nature Coalition, you work at EPIC, but you also work in coalition with other groups across the state of California on trying to achieve California's goal of conserving 30% of our lands and waters by the year 2030. From your perspective, as someone who works within this movement, what does the bond measure, Prop 4, mean to the 30 by 30 goal?

BARRANTES:

To me as an organizer and somebody that people often come to when they're looking for grants to acquire lands that need protection and for restoration work, this could be the means of achieving 30 by 30. If we don't get this top four passed and if we don't successfully have these funds to do this important climate work and to acquire lands that need protection and restoring them, I don't think that we'd be able to make our 30 by 30 goal, which would be so, you know, among other things that we wouldn't achieve if we didn't pass Prop 4. It would be disastrous for our climate and I don't even want to think about it.

I'm pretty positive, although they say don't be too positive about a measure passing, like I know that we need this and I'm fairly hopeful that it will happen. Oftentimes groups will always be asking, oh is there money for acquisition work, especially in the Mendocino area there's been a lot of abandoned cannabis grows and like lands that were previously used for cannabis cultivation and that need a lot of restoration work and maybe there'll be like some niche funds for restoration but not for acquisition.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but the portal for the Wildlife Conservation Board, which is the funding pot for acquiring lands that need this restoration, has been closed and so that pot of money that people are like, oh like we can apply to acquire these lands, there's nothing there right now and people are very much, I guess you could say, feeling a little dire to see something like that just kind of disappear and they're like is it, when is it going to be open, what is the future for funding and acquisition and restoration look like, how are we going to meet 30 by 30 if we don't have those funds that have always been there. Yeah, yeah, I think that Prop 4 is our big hope for 30 by 30.

WHEELER:

Because 30 by 30, it's not just better environmental rules, it's actually increasing our conserved land base. And that's something that requires capital. So if the state is spending its taxes on other really important things like roads and schools and so on, it doesn't have money left over for doing lands conservation. So this is one of the things that this proposition will fund. So I've described bond measures before to some of my friends, and they've kind of looked at me blankly, Kim, what the heck is a bond? How does the state just like come up with this money to then go and do good things with? What is the financial structure of a bond and this bond in particular?

DELFINO:

So bonds are an ability for the state to borrow funds, they sell bonds, and then they repay the overtime, the bond that was sold at pretty low rates. And so it's a very durable, time-tested approach. We use bonds all the time. We use them for roads. We use them for schools. We use them for lots of infrastructure. And so in this case, the state will be selling bonds if Proposition 4 is passed over a long period of time, and usually the repayment is about 30 years. And it's a cost-effective way of front-loading money in now when we really need to be paying for things like climate resilience, flood plan projects, sea level rise projects, fire resilience projects. It's better to pay now than pay later, is the theory of why we would need a bond and what the bond is for.

WHEELER:

And so Prop 4 is, I will know, I will give the kind of major points here and then you can fill in on Dick Feiner. It's going to be for $10 billion. So within that $10 billion, what is it going to go towards?

DELFINO:

So it is $10 billion, $3.8 billion, the largest amount of money, will go towards clean water, safe drinking water, flood protection, investments on healthy rivers and streams, money that I think the North Coast will see great benefits. $1.5 billion will go towards fire resilience, and $1.2 billion will go to coastal protection. Again, I think these are all pots that are incredibly relevant to the listeners in your area. Extreme heat, which is we've seen the temperatures go up, maybe not as hot where you guys are, but certainly where I'm in Sacramento, it's been quite the summer of over 110 degrees for many days in a row.

So there's almost half a billion dollars invested in extreme heat. This is money that would go into communities to provide shelters and places, cooling centers for folks suffering from extreme heat. $1.2 billion was invested in biodiversity. This goes to what Josefina was talking about for 30 by 30 investments in land conservation, river and stream conservation. We have about $300 million in climate-smart agriculture, $700 million that would go into parks, particularly focused in providing parks and outdoor spaces for park-poor areas of California, like in LA and Central Valley, and then another $850 million in clean air investments.

WHEELER:

And do we do we have specific projects or are there specific things within each of these kind of earmarks that we know this money is going to go to, say clean water funding?

DELFINO:

Yeah, there's $610 million earmarked for clean water infrastructure investments for disadvantaged communities. This is an incredibly important amount of funding directed at an area where we are severely under-investing in community water safety. So there's that. There's money that would go into dam removal, which I think is another issue that folks know about. We've got all these aging dams that could be taken out to benefit an atremis fish and other communities. And so there's investments specifically in there. There's investments in fire projects, such as mountain meadows restoration and prescribed fire and cultural fire, which is something that we're trying to do more of as a cost-effective way of managing the extreme fire events that we've had. So there's a lot of money targeted in very specific ways to benefit the whole state, all over the state. So there's not one part of the state, I think, that is getting a greater advantage than others. And 40% of the bond is supposed to have direct benefits for disadvantaged communities in particular. So that was also a very important component of this bond.

WHEELER:

With the park fire burning and we have fires locally here in Humboldt County that are near communities and we have potential evacuations ongoing. I know a lot of people are thinking about fire and this this idea of needing to invest now for future potential benefits, I think really is is clear with fire. We have a fire crisis in California because of a history of mismanagement of our lands from fire exclusion by getting rid of traditional indigenous burning practices to the creation of plantations and other fire prone landscapes, we are in a hole and we need to get out of that hole. So investments like these make sense to me because there is so much that needs to be done. And it's work that will make us safer, make our forests safer, will make them more resilient into the future, help them better deal with climate change, but we aren't getting the appropriate amount of investment already from the state. We're not getting the appropriate amount of investment already from the feds and there is a drastic need. Do you want to touch on any more related to fire since it's a hot issue, ha ha ha.

DELFINO:

No, I mean, you make a really good point. I mean, when you think about the decades of mismanagement of our forests and suppressing fires and in how we've managed the forest land, so it's very dense, there needs to be a lot of restoration work done in the forest. We need to bring beneficial fire back onto the landscape. None of this is cheap. We have to invest in workforce development. We have to invest in workforce housing, the people that are doing the work. We have to invest in the collaborative partnerships. And all of this costs money, money that the state has invested some into it, but the need is so great. And with the downturn in the drop in ongoing revenue, it's just that we've seen a decline in the investment. And this is going to be an important extra component to sort of keep us in the, keep the momentum going. I think we've, I guess that's the point where I make is I'm not saying the state's not doing anything. The state's invested a lot of money, but the money is running out. And in order to keep the momentum going so that we don't lose ground on the, on all of the work that people have been investing in thus far, we need this bond to keep that going. Otherwise we will drop off. And then there's that cost of having to restart up again when funding is finally available. And I think that's a lost, it's a lost be for us.

WHEELER:

Something else that I think North Coast residents are excited about is ocean protection and ocean restoration. There's money in the bill to to do important work like kelp forest restoration. I think kelp forests are something in the last 10 years that feel like they've they've really increased in people's understanding of the ecological importance of kelp forests. And yet there's still so much work that needs to be done to restore kelp forests, right? They are, again, out of whack because we've messed up ecosystems. And now we have the hard and long and costly process of restoring ecosystem health. So we have money set explicitly for the restoration of kelp ecosystems. This is money that could benefit Mendocino, Humboldt County as well. So I think that part of the theme almost, it seems in this in this legislation, knowing that you're going to have to get voters to pass this, knowing that California is a big, diverse state and people have diverse interests in the environment across that state, is that there seems to be a little bit of of money for for everyone in some sense. Is that kind of a fair, a fair understanding of the bill?

DELFINO:

Yeah, when the legislature was putting the bill together, there were many, many interests out there with many needs. And yes, there is an effort here to provide investments across a broad spectrum of needs. But at funding levels, that will be meaningful. So I wouldn't say it's the peanut butter approach of a thin layer across everything. I think it's more meaningful and thoughtful than that. With respect to the coastal investments, like you noted, there's investments in kelp forests. There's investments in eelgrass meadows. There's investments in restoring oyster beds. There's investments in hatcheries for commercial fishermen, fishing communities that have been hit very hard by the downturn in the conditions in the Central Valley. And so there's investments in trying to bring back that resource. So there are meaningful investments all over. But like I said, it's not the peanut butter approach. I think people try very hard to not have that, so that we're not only doing a little bit and not helping a lot. But yeah, to answer your question, I think they did a pretty good job of being thoughtful.

WHEELER:

The Econews report, we're talking about Prop. Four, which is a large investment into things like clean water, wildfire resilience, tackling our climate crisis.

DELFINO:

Remember, Wood has been a strong supporter of the bond as well, again.

WHEELER:

This was brought to us by the legislature, so the legislature passed a bill and that's what put it on the ballot. Now it's in voters' hands, or will soon be in voters' hands, come November, November 5th. If you're not registered, register to vote. It's really important that we go out and vote in this election. I can't tell you who to vote for, nor would you want to listen to me. I have terrible opinions all the time for routine listeners of this show. No. But go out, get registered to vote. So, Kim, what percentage of the vote will this need to garner to pass?

DELFINO:

Just over 50 percent. 50 plus one. 50 plus one.

WHEELER:

All right. I understand that there is routine polling done on issues like this. Are Californians prepared to make an investment like this? Is this in line with what California voters want to see?

DELFINO:

The most recent polling that's come out has shown strong support for this. When people are, when the pollsters go out and they talk to people across the spectrum, what comes back is that they do support investments in clean water, in fire, in coastal protection. So these are all things that I think people value. California, protecting the environment polls very high. This protects communities as well. So I think our hope is that yes, that California will do what it has done in the past, which is vote for these important investments in what I would consider our green infrastructure for the state of California. So yeah, the polling that's come back has looked good. Now we have less than a hundred days before the election, things can happen. I'm not going to predict either. I mean, it's been a wild ride thus far, but definitely people are going to work very, very hard to educate people about the importance of this bond all over the state of California. The campaign is working hard at launching that right now. So people will hear more, but yeah, the hope is that based on the polling we have thus far, this will get over the finish line.

WHEELER:

So Josefina, again, let's talk about its connection to 30 by 30. So there's money in here, not just for acquisition, but also for restoration. And I think that these things often go together hand in hand. Right. So lands that are available for for conservation often need some kind of reset to to enable them to serve their ecological purpose, to be the great public lands that we Californians use as our backyards, that we need for clean water, for clean air. Can you talk about the Power Nature Coalition's participation in this and the driving values behind the Power Nature's support for Prop 4?

BARRANTES:

Yeah, so we are encouraging our members, which is we have over 100 different non-profits, tribal organizations, land trusts, and community organizations that are a part of Power Nature, and we're encouraging them to join the Climate Bond Now Coalition and to endorse Proposition 4 so that we may all together get this over the finish line in November. Obviously, the organizations that are a part of Power Nature all have important restoration and acquisition projects that either have been funded or are waiting for funding and are eagerly waiting to see Proposition 4 get passed so that they may get their projects over the finish line. Some of them are involved in such as like Eel River dam removal, and as Kim said, there's going to be money for dam removal in Proposition 4, which is very exciting.

As we've seen the Klamath Dams come down this past year, it has been wonderful to see how the landscape has bounced back and how drain reservoirs have blossomed, and we hope to see that on the Eel River, and money from this measure will go to Eel River dam removal, hopefully, as we see that it will pass in November. But yeah, I see this as being something just all around very positive, and everybody's just kind of eagerly waiting to help to get this across the finish line.

WHEELER:

So there's also an environmental justice component of this bill where money is specifically earmarked for economically disadvantaged communities or underinvested communities. Kim, can you talk about why that's important that California invests in these disinvested communities?

DELFINO:

Well, because these communities, one, have already been historically underinvested in. So these are communities that are struggling with access to nature, with access to clean water, with pollution issues, poor air quality. So they already have many, many issues that they're trying to grapple with. And so we will be making up for the critical underinvestment. It becomes even more important when you think about these are the communities that are on the front line of feeling the impacts of climate change. So they're the ones where they don't have proper cooling.

They don't have air conditioners, or the schools don't have air conditioners, or they don't have green space or trees. So they're feeling the extreme heat. They're experiencing flooding. So these communities already have been impacted, but they are literally on the front line of the impacts of climate change. And so it's critical for us to be investing in these communities in order to be able to ensure that California is equitably responding to the climate crisis. And so Proposition 4 is very much geared towards trying to direct funding into those areas.

WHEELER:

And for the North Coast, there's a couple of different ways that we could potentially stand to benefit from this. There's money specifically directed for for tribes or for tribally led operations. That's exciting because so much of our great work here on the North Coast is being accomplished by our tribal nations. Right. The Kurt and Yurok and Hupa tribes have been leading the way on on dam removal. Looking at Round Valley and the Wiyot tribe and other tribal nations on the Eel River for Eel River dam removal as well. We have important marine protected area work being done by the Tolowa Daini and Resighini, although they're no longer Resighini. Pulikla, I believe, is the new name.

So there's money potentially available through those streams. But then also many of our North Coast communities are going to qualify as those economically disadvantaged communities as well. So I'm thinking about my friends up in Orleans who have issues with their grid reliability because of historic underinvestment or who lack. Humboldt County, usually the coast is cool, but Orleans is hot. So if we can get additional cooling centers in areas for tribal communities up there to beat the heat on these hot summer days, that's going to be really important for those communities. So there's a lot potentially for us specifically in this call out for investment in historically underinvested communities. So that that's exciting

. So. We are going to the polls in a little less than 90 days, right, which is which is crazy. This has been a long, long journey to get to this point. Kim or Josefina, are there any appropriate shout outs for for folks who have been allies and who have been leaders to get this prop for this bond measure on the ballot? Who who deserve some thanks from us?

DELFINO:

Well, on the North Coast, I would give kudos to Senator McGuire, who is the Senate pro tem for the state of California. He is the leader in the Senate. He was instrumental in getting this Proposition 4 put on the ballot. He really, really went to the mat to make sure this got through the legislature. So I just have to give him a big thank you for his leadership and his staff. They were heroic in this. And I think it was rather fitting that he was the one who was able to sign the Senate Bill 867 as the acting governor that day. So that was kind of a lovely way of sort of coming full circle, given that the governor and the lieutenant governor were out of state. Assemblymember Wood has been a strong supporter of the bond as well. Again, he's going to be retiring this year, but I would support her.

There's I mean, it was really a team effort. There were there was strong support in both the Assembly and the Senate on this. There were leaders in the Senate, Senator Lamone from Southern California. She was great Senator Gonzalez, also from Southern California. And then of course, Senator Allen, who carried Senate Bill 867. And I can't forget Eduardo Garcia, who was also retiring this year, but he carried the Assembly version of the bond, which is ultimately got morphed into the Senate bill. So there were many leaders on this front in the community. I mean, Power Nature Coalition worked very, very hard.

I think Josefina mentioned there was a Climate Bond Coalition. There were hundreds of organizations that came together around the state working to get this enacted. Clean Energy, Clean Air, Clean Water, Biodiversity Conservation, Parks, Tribes, it was many hands make light work kind of exercise. It took multiple years to get this over the finish line this year. So I'm sure I'm forgetting people. But it was like I said, it was very much a team effort. And there's many groups Trust for Public Land, Nature Conservancy. I mean, there were a lot of groups, Sierra Club, I mean, you name it. And that group was working hard to try to get this over the finish line. Josefina, am I forgetting anyone?

BARRANTES:

No, I was just going to say that all the small environmental groups did action alerts and on top of everything else we have to do, and here I am emailing them, can you do an action alert? And they're right on it, so quick to support this cause. And yeah, we truly cannot do it without our partners who work overtime with such small staff.

DELFINO:

Well, and actually, I totally forgot, epic.

WHEELER:

Oh yeah, well, whatever.

DELFINO:

I forget, you guys were instrumental. Thank you for having Josefina be part of our Powering Nature Coalition. EPIC is always a leader on the North Coast. I've known about, worked with you guys for many years, so I got to give kudos to you and all the other North Coast groups that have been part of the coalition. Like I said, there are literally hundreds of organizations, big and small and in between, that worked on this for multiple years.

WHEELER:

Well, I, I deeply appreciate you. I'll give you kudos because we have some great friends in Sacramento and you're one of our best friends. And so whenever we need understanding of how things work in Sacramento, how to, how to engage on a bill, how to reach a legislator, Kim Delfino is always one of our most important contacts. So thank you so much, Kim. Well, we are unfortunately out of time. I'm sure we're going to be bothering you about Prop 4 in the weeks and months, few months that we have before this gets on the ballot.

So I I'm sorry, I will just apologize in advance for it for this, but this is really important. This is really important for EPIC, really important for the North Coast. I forgot to say there's hundreds of millions of dollars in here for green port development. We are one of the two port sites for offshore wind energy development on the West coast at present. So there there's a lot of money almost specifically earmarked for us. Not, not technically, but there there's a lot of investment that is going to be driven to the North coast through this. So I hope again, you go out, register to vote. If you're not already, make sure that your voter registration is updated, check your address and let's get out in November and vote for the environment.

So Kim, Josefina, thank you so much for joining the Econews Report.

DELFINO:

Thanks, Tom. Thank you for having me.

WHEELER:

And join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.