Guest Commentary

Jeffrey Kightlinger, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California: The Metropolitan Water District opposed Senate Bill 1 because it would have unleashed state-federal litigation, and would have likely brought 13 years of effort to a halt. This was not about the sitting president or any action his administration may or may not take. It was about keeping intact a historic window of opportunity to make generational changes in California water.

Katie Valenzuela and Leila Salazar-Lopez, California Environmental Justice Alliance: The California Air Resources Board is considering the Tropical Forest Standard. It is a risky investment. This carbon offset program would send money from polluters in California to subnational governments in other parts of the world in hopes that such investment will be sufficient to counteract the economic drivers of deforestation. The cost: continued pollution in our communities and irreparable harm to forest-dwelling communities around the world.

Coley King, Venice Family Clinic, For those of us on the front lines delivering this care to people experiencing homelessness, we see that Los Angeles County and California are confronting more than just a homeless crisis. We are in the midst of a health care crisis.

Amee Raval and Sona Mohnot, Asian Pacific Environmental Network and Greenlining Institute: Simply put: climate change acts as a threat multiplier that magnifies differences in income, race, health, zip codes, immigration status, housing, and other factors that determine whether a community can access the resources needed to cope and recover from climate disasters.

Jennifer Pierre, State Water Contractors: California needs to reshape how it manages the rivers of the Sierra Nevada and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by providing more water for the environment, more restoration, more funding and more collaborative science. That can happen through voluntary partnerships, not Senate Bill 1, which seeks to tap into public sentiment against President Trump without solving California’s water war.

John McManus, Golden Gate Salmon Association: Gov. Gavin Newsom has a choice: side with the California environment or with the Trump administration on the question of water diversions. Trump is finalizing plans to rip up restrictions on diverting Northern California water to farmers in the dry western San Joaquin Valley, at the expense of salmon runs that feed families, coastal economies, and ports throughout the state.

Joie Acosta and Regina Shih, RAND Corporation: California utility companies are increasingly triggering power outages by their own accord to try to prevent wildfires. But the practice may endanger elderly people and individuals with power-dependent medical devices.

Maurice Hall, Environmental Defense Fund: This amazing natural underground storage is the critical foundation of our entire water system. Water from our rivers and streams leaks into the aquifer. If we don’t manage groundwater pumping, levels of groundwater as well as rivers and streams will decline, compromising the wildlife, farms and cities that depend on them.

Re: “In going after Trump, California is going too far with environmental legislation,” Sept. 9, 2019: Assemblyman Adam Gray insists on clinging to the past, a past of broken water policy, where Central Valley power brokers dictate policy for the rest of the state.   What Senate Bill 1 aims to do is to provide a […]

Assemblyman Adam Gray, Democrat from Merced: The implications of Senate Bill 1 are profoundly disturbing, forcing the state to ignore evolving science. We’ve got until Sept. 13 to either kill or fix this wrongheaded bill. If we don’t, it very well could set back progress on our rivers for decades.