California’s clean air and water, pristine coastline, wild open spaces and public health protections don’t happen by accident. They happen because champions for the environment run for office, and once they’re elected, they work to pass laws that protect our natural resources and improve our quality of life.

Today the California League of Conservation Voters released our annual California Environmental Scorecard. The Scorecard is the behind-the-scenes look at the battle to protect the Golden State’s natural legacy and public health, and reveals how the governor and members of the state legislature voted on critical environmental proposals in the 2010 legislative session. Take action and let your legislators know what you think about their 2010 scores: Visit http://www.ecovote.org/

The story of the 2010 Scorecard is as much about how the environmental community stopped multiple attacks on the environment as it is about how we passed strong laws that protect our quality of life. But the story doesn’t end there, because we expect more attacks in 2011 that falsely claim we need to sacrifice the environment in order to improve the economy.

Emboldened by the tough economic climate, anti-environmental legislators introduced dozens of so-called “regulatory reform” bills in 2010 in an attempt to weaken environmental protections. The good news is that, with the help of environmental champions in the state Senate and Assembly, CLCV and our allies successfully defeated the bills that posed the most serious threats to the environment and public health. At the same time, environmental advocates were able to deliver several important proposed laws to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk, including bills dealing with energy storage, recycling, water conservation, pesticides, clean energy jobs, and oil spill prevention.

Schwarzenegger’s 2010 score of 56% factored into an average lifetime score of 53 percent over his seven years as governor. The governor received national recognition for leadership on environmental issues. However, he leaves office with a mixed legacy, having championed some issues-notably, bold solutions to climate change-and having proven less reliable on others, including protecting public health and state parks.

How did your legislator perform on the environmental community’s priority legislation to protect the environment and public health? Learn your legislators’ scores and then let them know what you think! (More after the jump).

2010 California Environmental Scorecard Highlights:

Governor Schwarzenegger 56% (leaves office with 53% average score)

Senate average: 59%

Senate Democrats: 91%

Senate Republicans: 6%

Senators with 100% score: 12

Highest Scoring Senate Republican: Blakeslee, 21%

Lowest Scoring Senate Democrat: Correa, 30%

Assembly average: 64%

Assembly Democrats: 94%

Assembly Republicans: 7%

Assemblymembers with 100% score: 30

Highest Scoring Assembly Republican: Fletcher, 19%

Lowest Scoring Assembly Democrat: Huber, 43%

Perfect 100%:

Senators: Alquist, Cedillo, Corbett, DeSaulnier, Hancock, Kehoe, Leno, Liu, A. Lowenthal, Pavley, Steinberg, Yee.

Assemblymembers: Ammiano, Bass, Beall, Blumenfield, Bradford, Brownley, Carter, Chesbro, Coto, de Leon, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Gatto, Hayashi, Hill, Huffman, Jones, Lieu, B. Lowenthal, Monning, Nava, J. Pérez, Ruskin, Salas, Saldaña, Skinner, Swanson, Torlakson, Yamada.

The California Environmental Scorecard is an important tool for environmental voters, who for nearly 40 years have helped CLCV deliver on our mission to hold elected officials accountable to their campaign promises to protect California’s families and natural heritage.

With the introduction this year of a new interactive, online Environmental Scorecard, CLCV is making it even easier for voters to communicate with their elected officials about their environmental performance.

Please know the score and take action today! Visit http://www.ecovote.org/

Programs that fund state parks, maintain wild open spaces, protect wild lands from forest fires, fund public transportation and more are all on the table in Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget.  

Make no mistake, there is a lot for environmental advocates (and everyone else) to hate about this proposed budget. But with a two-thirds majority in the state legislature required to pass new taxes and now (thanks to Prop 26) new fees, and with legislative Republicans refusing thus far to consider any new sources of revenue, Governor Brown must work with the hand he was dealt.

During his campaign for governor, Brown promised voters that he would put a halt to the gimmicks that served as short-term Band-Aids on budget shortfalls in the past. He promised a tough but fair budget that – in closing an estimated $25 billion budget shortfall – would spare few of the state’s programs and services. And he has mostly made good on that promise, with the most profound cuts in the areas where the state spends the most – health & social services and higher education. The total proposed spending cuts: a staggering $12.5 billion.

For now, Governor Brown’s budget spares the state’s K-12 public education system, preferring to allow voters to decide in a special election to agree to a five-year extension of $12 billion in taxes that will otherwise expire this year (including vehicle licensing fees, state sales taxes and state income taxes) or allow even deeper cuts to California’s programs and services, including to the K-12 system.

Here’s a summary of how environmental programs fared in the governor’s first budget proposal:

Natural Resources

As expected, the agency will share in the sacrifice being asked of all levels of state government. On the one hand, we’re relieved that the cuts proposed to the agency were fairly minimal (at least as a percentage of the overall budget cuts). On the other, the worst of the cuts are to the already-struggling state parks budget (which totaled $406 million last year). The $11 million proposed cuts this year and $22 million more in ongoing cuts will result in some parks closing and/or more restricted park hours for the public. As the California State Parks Foundation points out, budget reductions over the past few years have already left the parks system operating with 150 partial closures and service reductions.

We’re waiting for a more specific list of proposed closures and service reductions before making a complete assessment-according to a state finance department spokesman, Brown asked State Parks Director Ruth Coleman to submit by February a list of the parks that will have reduced hours or will be closed completely. Cuts this deep will magnify the budget reductions already sustained by the state parks in recent years and they are sobering, to say the least.

California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird said it was necessary for his agency to share in the short-term sacrifice:

“This Governor is determined to upright California’s budget… Fixing the long-term problem requires sacrifice from each Californian–and certainly the Natural Resources Agency–in the short-term. If California is to achieve a long-term vision for natural resources management that plays a role in restoring the state’s economy, the governor’s plan is the right path.”

Delta Restoration

The Bay Delta Ecosystem Restoration Account was zeroed out in the budget. Questions remain about how to implement BDCP in light of this.

Open Space

The proposal also zeroes out all $10 million in state funding for The California Land Conservation Act-commonly referred to as the Williamson Act. For decades, the Act has helped keep large parcels of land in California as open space by enabling local governments to enter into contracts with private landowners for the purpose of restricting specific parcels of land to agricultural or related open space use. The incentive: lower-than-normal property tax assessments (based on farming and open space uses versus full market value).

The revenue for some rural counties under the Act has been significant. Eliminating funding may force some landowners to allow their lands to be developed for housing or retail, contributing to sprawl and allowing more of California’s precious open space to disappear.

Transportation

Surprisingly, transportation fared pretty well in this budget, with funding levels left unchanged from last year. According to the San Jose Mercury News:

Transportation officials say Brown’s plan would provide a stable source of funding for transit and highway planning across the state, and that could speed up work on some projects.”

Wildfires

Brown’s budget proposes changing the way the state battles wildfires, reducing the number of firefighters to pre-2003 staffing levels and shifting a significant amount of fire-fighting responsibility to cities and counties. (This is just one of many areas where Brown proposes a wholesale restructuring of the relationship between state and local governments.) Some experts on wildfires have already reacted warily to the proposal (read more in the Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/bre…



Environmental Protection

The $71 million reduction ($12 million from the general fund) is one of the biggest cuts to the environment in the proposed budget. As with much of the above, we await details on these cuts.

Click here for the full budget summary: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/

The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV, the non-partisan political arm of the environmental movement in California, today announced its endorsement of Jerry Brown for Governor of California. To watch CLCV’s endorsement video, visit http://www.ecovote.org/blog/clcv-endorses-jerry-brown-governor

“CLCV is proud to endorse Jerry Brown to become California’s next Governor,” said CLCV Chief Executive Officer Warner Chabot. “As Attorney General and as a former Governor of our great state, Jerry Brown has a stellar record of protecting the environment and public health through his leadership on and tough enforcement of our state’s environmental laws.”

“The November gubernatorial election offers clear choices for California voters,” said CLCV Board of Directors President Tom Adams. “Jerry Brown is the only candidate for governor with both an unwavering commitment to the environment, and a clear plan for California to lead the nation to a clean energy economy.”

“I am grateful to have the endorsement of the California League of Conservation Voters,” said Jerry Brown.  “Our coastline, farmland, mountains, deserts and urban environments all make up the great and unique landscape of California. I have always believed that environmental protection and California’s long-term economic prosperity go hand-in-hand and I will continue to promote both as Governor of California.”

A key difference between Brown and his Republican opponent Meg Whitman is their position on Proposition 23, the oil industry-backed repeal of California’s landmark clean energy and climate law (AB 32) on the November ballot. Brown joins business and military leaders in opposing Prop 23. He recognizes that California’s policies resulted in venture capitalists investing billions of dollars in California’s clean tech sector, and vigorously defends the climate law from attacks by out-of-state oil companies.  

In contrast, Whitman, relying on the same widely discredited studies as the oil industry, calls AB 32 a “job-killer.” While she hasn’t taken a position on Prop 23, Whitman says she would call for a year-long moratorium on the clean energy law, which would damage the one bright spot in California’s economy while bringing a halt to environmental progress.

“Jerry Brown shares the environmental and clean tech community’s vision of California becoming the national, if not the global, leader in developing clean energy, which complements his goals of improving California’s air quality, creating jobs, and fighting climate change,” said Chabot.

As Governor from 1975-1982, Brown established California as a leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency and conservation, adopted the toughest anti-smog laws in the country, expanded state parks, started the California Conservation Corps, banned the sale of dangerous chemicals, successfully fought offshore oil drilling plans, and signed into law the California Coastal Commission and Coastal Conservancy Acts, among numerous other accomplishments. Brown earned a lifetime score of 86% on CLCV’s California Environmental Scorecard for his votes on environmental legislation as Governor.

More recently as Attorney General, Brown defended California’s auto emission standards against the Bush Administration, leading to the historic agreement between the Obama Administration and the auto industry that requires cars nationwide to adopt California’s standards.  Brown joined other Attorneys General in suing the Bush Administration for failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, resulting in a Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases are air pollutants subject to the Act.

Brown also worked with cities and counties to develop long-term growth plans to reduce pollution and traffic and halted the Bush Administration’s efforts to gut the federal Endangered Species Act, just to name a few key environmental actions as Attorney General.

Brown has proven he will be a champion for the environment, which is why CLCV urges voters to elect him governor on November 2nd.

I’m heading down to Orange County for Labor Day weekend, and once I arrive at the old homestead in Tustin one of the first things I might just do is turn on the tap and have a drink of water. Seems like a totally unremarkable thing to do, right? Not in OC. As Elizabeth Royte’s article in the NYT Magazine explains, OC has become a world leader in wastewater recycling – or as it’s called by its critics, “toilet to tap”:

I gazed balefully at my hotel toilet in Santa Ana, Calif., and contemplated an entirely new cycle. When you flush in Santa Ana, the waste makes its way to the sewage-treatment plant nearby in Fountain Valley, then sluices not to the ocean but to a plant that superfilters the liquid until it is cleaner than rainwater. The “new” water is then pumped 13 miles north and discharged into a small lake, where it percolates into the earth. Local utilities pump water from this aquifer and deliver it to the sinks and showers of 2.3 million customers. It is now drinking water. If you like the idea, you call it indirect potable reuse. If the idea revolts you, you call it toilet to tap.

The article is a fascinating tour of the Orange County water infrastructure, including the Santa Ana River, the Prado Dam wetlands, and the Fountain Valley treatment plant where all the “magic” happens. Many cities in the Orange County plain, including the city of Tustin’s water department, will draw upon the water produced by the treatment plant – which is first put into the ground to “recharge” the aquifer.

Royte makes several important points along the way. ALL water we use is recycled, and it’s often not through purely natural processes – the millions of residents along the Mississippi River, for example, drink water that’s been taken out of and then put back into the river (after treatment, of course). Moreover, the “natural” flows of water are not particularly clean, as anyone who has had the misfortune of going into the ocean near the mouth of the Santa Ana River in Huntington Beach knows (the water has a funk to it that almost always gives me a rash). The water produced at the Fountain Valley treatment plant may be among the cleanest in the world.

But the real importance of the wastewater treatment project in Orange County is what it suggests about how we in California manage our dwindling water resources. Global warming is already impacting our water supplies and a drier state may well be our future. That means we have to expand conservation and recycling programs, instead of building dams to catch rain that isn’t falling or building desal plants that are more costly than they’re worth.

Here in Monterey we’re facing a much more severe water crisis than OC, and wastewater recycling may well be part of our solution. Other parts of the state are going to have to consider this – especially if people don’t start getting serious about water conservation. If I had a dollar for every idiot hosing down his driveway in Orange County…

Recycling and conservation are the best, most cost-effective and sustainable solutions to our water crisis. For once Orange County seems to have done the right thing, and it will be interesting to see how this experiment works out.