Oops. A scheduling snafu for the facility Sierra Club California will use for its summit has resulted in a new date for the summit. Mark your calendars again, but this time for the weekend of October 27-29th. The main summit will be on Saturday, October 28th. The location remains the Rancho El Chorro camp in San Luis Obispo County. Watch this newsletter for details in the future.
Assembly Approves of Buying Clean
The Call You Make: It’s Having an Impact
New Staff Member and a New Project
Assembly Approves of Buying Clean
By Kathryn Phillips
California has taken a step closer to using its purchasing power to further cut climate pollution.
Assembly Bill 262, the Buy Clean California Act, cleared the assembly on May 31 with a remarkable 68 to 3 vote. Nine members of the legislature abstained or were absent.
You can find the official vote count here and see how your assembly member voted.
The bill establishes a method for agencies of the State of California, the University of California system, and the California State University system to take climate pollution into account when certain materials are purchased for infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges.
Since the bill was introduced in January, Sierra Club members have made calls to their assembly members and, in some cases, visits to district offices to encourage support for AB 262.
Within the next two weeks, the Senate rules committee will determine which committees will hear the bill in the senate, and then the bill’s travel through that house will begin.
Watch for alerts in the future asking for action to help the bill pass in the senate.
If you are interested in lobbying your senator in district, be in touch with Meg Gunderson at meg.gunderson@sierraclub.org.
Also, if you want to know how other Sierra Club California priority bills fared in the race to get out of the house of origin, see our priority bill list here.
And if there are other bills whose status you’re wondering about, you can get that information at leginfo.legislature.cal.gov.
The Call You Make: It’s Having an Impact
By Meg Gunderson
You are the strength of Sierra Club California.
We say it often. And we mean it.
Here’s a good example of why:
Last week, Asm Monique Limón was just one vote shy of getting her bill, AB 1328, passed through the assembly to require oil companies to publicly post the chemicals used in their processes that may pollute water. That bill won the next day when it got a second chance, in part because enough of the 30,500 of you who opened our email request called your assembly member to help.
Sierra Club California doesn’t have the money that the oil lobbyists do but we have you -- constituents who let your representatives know you’re paying attention and how you want them to vote.
Our policy advocates often hear thank yous in the Capitol halls when we have asked you to support or oppose a bill. That’s a power that industry lobbyists do not have.
In the week leading up to the June 2nd deadline to get bills out of their originating house, we produced seven action alerts asking many of you to call your state representatives. From a total of 630,000 emails, over 80,000 of you opened your emails, and we estimate that your state legislators likely heard from approximately 6,300 constituents that you want safe and clean air, plentiful water, or land that has not been fouled.
None of the bills to which we alerted you failed. Two bills were delayed on the senate floor but the rest will all move on to their second house.
If you’d like to exercise your power and you haven’t been getting action alerts from us, you can sign up by clicking here.
New Staff Member and a New Project
Sierra Club California has a new staff member and a new project for at least the next 12 months.
Daniel Barad has joined the staff to work on forest biomass policy and ways to ensure that forest biomass burning in California doesn’t expand and create new pollution while displacing renewable energy. Biomass is organic matter, such as logs and branches, that is used as fuel, especially in a power plant to generate electricity.
Daniel’s work will focus on regulatory issues and key agencies, and ways to engage Sierra Club allies and Sierra Club members in the biomass issue.
Last summer, Daniel was an intern at Sierra Club California. He graduated in December from Gonzaga University with a degree in biology and environmental studies.
Watch this newsletter for more from Daniel as the biomass project takes shape.
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