[CPEO-BIF] Greetings from the Island of California

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

(Please excuse the duplicate postings.)



Many conclusions will be drawn from last night's (November 2, 2010) 
election, but the one most directly relevant to CPEO's work is that 
California has decided that environmental protection, particularly 
aggressive policies to combat climate change, is not a threat to our 
economy. Instead, "green" technology is the road to economic recovery.

In our most important races - governor and U.S. Senate - Californians 
returned to office two veteran Democrats with strong environmental 
credentials, Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. They soundly defeated Meg 
Whitman and Carly Fiorina, two well-funded, mainstream Republicans. Both 
Whitman and Fiorina hail from here in Silicon Valley, but in our county 
they lost by 26% and 30%, respectively.

Democrats swept statewide offices, with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom 
- who has led the implementation of numerous sustainability initiatives 
in his city - easily winning the Lt. Governor's race. As of this 
morning, it appears that Democrats gave up only one House seat in the 
state, by a small margin.

Meanwhile, less than 39% of the electorate supported the statewide 
ballot proposition (#23) that would have essentially overturned 
California's AB 32 law, which requires major producers of greenhouse 
gases to report on and reduce emissions. This proposition was opposed by 
outgoing Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who castigated the 
Texas oil companies that funded the "yes" campaign. Opposition campaign 
coffers were boosted by major contributions from high-tech entrepreneurs.

The consensus in Silicon Valley these days - despite the campaigns of 
Whitman and Fiorina - is that the next innovative wave in the state's 
(the world's?) center of industrial innovation will be green 
technologies ranging from renewable energy generation to electric 
vehicles to other forms of energy conservation. That is, 
environmentalists and key elements of the state's business community are 
on the same page.

Meanwhile, in a little publicized statewide ballot measure, 55% of the 
voters passed Proposition 25, which would require a only a simple 
majority of the state's legislative houses to enact a state budget, as 
opposed to the current 2/3 requirement. Two thirds is still required to 
raise taxes. While balancing the budget will remain challenging in these 
difficult economic times, this measure will likely eliminate the annual 
legislative gridlock that grips Sacramento. The Democratic Assembly and 
Senate, working with Governor Brown, will be able to pursue their 
"green" agendas.

As I watched election returns last night, I saw, for the first time on 
TV, Nissan's "polar bear" ads, promoting the LEAF all-electric vehicle. 
I earlier saw the same ad last Saturday in a temporary building in San 
Jose, where I joined hundreds (thousands?) of other Silicon Valley 
residents waiting for hours to test drive the LEAF. While initial LEAF 
assembly will take place in Japan, the growth of plug-in cars such as 
the locally designed-and-produced Tesla and Chevy's Volt present 
enormous opportunities for domestic production and infrastructure 
development.

I suspect that most other Americans, even in "Red" states, are also 
worried about climate change and want to change our economy to address 
it, but in California the political winds and economic sunshine have 
clearly endorsed such a strategy.



--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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