Call to Action: Transit Advocates Rally at State Capitol
To the chant of “fund transit now,” hundreds of Californian advocates and legislative partners gathered at the State Capitol Monday. They are calling on members to take action to reverse changes made to California’s cap-and-trade program that could take roughly $2 billion each year from public transit, affordable housing, clean drinking water, community air-quality improvements and other essential programs.
This past spring, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved a major restructuring of cap-and-trade, California’s signature program requiring polluting industries to obtain allowances for their greenhouse-gas emissions. Over the course of the last decade, revenue from the sale of those allowances has funded programs that reduce pollution, lower household costs, and improve Californians’ quality of life.
The changes approved are anticipated to reduce annual revenue available for those investments from approximately $4 billion to approximately $2 billion, jeopardizing key transit and affordable housing projects, as well as tens of thousands of jobs statewide. Meanwhile, the action by the CARB board provides an additional $4 billion in subsidies and free emissions allowances to refineries and other polluting industries.
To advocates, that’s just unacceptable. That’s why they’re fighting to get the legislature to override the decision.
“It just needs to be done,” said San Jose State Senator David Cortese at the rally about reversing the CARB cuts. “I personally pledge myself to this cause.”
“California made a promise when it reauthorized Cap-and-Invest: pollution revenue would go toward the housing, transit, and clean air that communities need,” said Colleen Corrigan, Sustainability and Resilience Policy Manager at SPUR. “Instead, wildfires keep raging, transit agencies are on the verge of cutting service, and rents are climbing again. Year after year, these communities and priorities are left fighting over scraps instead of getting the transformative investment they were promised. We cannot build an affordable, resilient California on broken promises.”
If you couldn’t make the rally, it’s not too late to contact your lawmakers. Advocates suggest taking two minutes to call your Assemblymember:
“It’s critical that we stand up and fight for the environment and transit in California,” said Berkeley State Senator Jesse Arreguín. “We need to keep our commitments to public transportation,” said San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener.
The following groups joined the Transbay Coalition to push against the CARB cuts:
Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.
