Governor Newsom’s May Budget Revise fails to deliver on the environmental justice priorities frontline communities have long fought for.
Contact:
Diana Vazquez Ballesteros, diana@ceja-action.org, +1 (818) 270-0745
Cap and Trade: Nile Malloy, nile@ceja-action.org, +1 (510) 926-5737
Climate Superfund: Mabel Tsang, mabel@ceja-action.org, +1 (650) 387-8638
Permitting Reform: Rabeya Sen, rabeya@ceja-action.org, +1 (310) 291-0441
Energy Affordability: Tyler Valdes, tyler@ceja-action.org, +1 (619) 736-5582
(Sacramento, CA) – Today, Governor Newsom’s office released its May Revise Budget that proposed various cuts, deferrals, and extensions of pivotal programs to try to close an estimated shortfall of $12 billion to balance the state’s budget. Unfortunately, it fails to deliver on the environmental justice priorities CEJA Action and frontline communities have long called for.
We urged the Governor to restructure the Cap-and-Trade Program, reject harmful permit streamlining efforts, support the Climate Superfund Act, and prioritize energy affordability to protect public health and communities most impacted by harmful pollution and rising costs.
CEJA Action’s May Revise Priorities
CAP AND TRADE PROGRAM
CEJA Action signed onto a letter with dozens of organizations urging lawmakers not to approve a straight reauthorization of California’s cap and trade program, which currently protects polluters and leaves communities behind. Restructuring Cap-and-Trade is a key opportunity to stop the billions in subsidies going to Big Oil and instead invest in solutions that actually help people. Instead, the Governor proposed reauthorizing Cap-and-Trade without meaningful reforms, locking in billions of dollars in subsidies for polluters while Californians struggle to pay their utility bills and stay safe in record heat.
“Environmental justice communities need more than a rebrand of the Cap-and-Trade program,” said Nile Malloy, Climate Justice Director at the California Environmental Justice Alliance Action. “Renaming it ‘Cap-and-Invest’ must come with real, meaningful reforms—not just cosmetic changes. Reauthorization must include strong, enforceable standards that eliminate free allowances and corporate giveaways. We look forward to working with the Legislature to ensure GGRF investments center environmental justice, public health, air quality, and affordability. Every dollar must go toward reducing pollution, protecting frontline communities, and building truly clean, public-benefit infrastructure – not propping up business-as-usual climate polluters while communities continue to bear the burden.”
CLIMATE SUPERFUND ACT
As California faces a projected $12 billion budget deficit, the Climate Superfund Act offers a powerful solution: make the biggest polluters pay for the damage they’ve caused. By holding top fossil fuel companies accountable for over a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, these bills would generate billions in revenue without raising costs for everyday Californians – protecting public health, housing, water, schools, and frontline communities while easing the affordability crisis on all Californians.
“Oil industry, led by Exxon, Chevron and WSPA, enjoy unconscionable record-breaking profits while continuing to be paid out $890 million dollars in subsidies from the state of California. It is unacceptable that Californians, burdened with a worsening affordability crisis and increasing climate disasters, continue to pay for Big Oil to pollute next to our homes and in our neighborhoods” said Mabel Tsang, Political Director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance Action. “Now more than ever we need to pass the Climate Superfund to lower costs for working families, support workers to transition from fossil fuel polluters, and commit to programs that protect our public health and reinvest in our communities.”
PERMITTING REFORM
CEJA Action strongly opposes any efforts to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), California’s bedrock environmental law, in the name of “streamlining” housing. Real solutions to California’s housing crisis must include building affordable, healthy homes by ensuring that environmental harms are addressed – not stripping away one of the only protections that safeguards our communities from toxic development. We reject the false choice that tells us we can only have either our housing or our health.
“We are deeply disappointed that during the May Revise announcement, Governor Newsom applauded efforts to rollback CEQA and misrepresented them as a solution to the housing crisis. These rollbacks silence communities most harmed by toxic development and fast-track harmful development at the expense of public health and environmental justice,” says Jennifer Ganata, Communities For A Better Environment’s Legal Department Co-Director. “CEQA helps to ensure that much-needed development, including affordable housing, coming to our neighborhoods also advances public health and prevents gentrification and displacement.”
ENERGY AFFORDABILITY
Californians face some of the highest electricity rates in the country, and for-profit utilities and corporate polluters are using this crisis to stall climate progress. CEJA Action is fighting for real solutions that lower energy bills while holding the right actors accountable. The true drivers of rising costs are utility mismanagement, unchecked corporate profits, and the growing price of fossil fuel-driven climate disasters like wildfires and extreme heat. California must invest in clean energy to strengthen its climate leadership and create an energy system that is affordable, equitable, and fossil-free.
“While we applaud the initial steps taken to address the energy affordability crisis through the continuation of the California Climate credit, weare disappointed that funding for community renewable energy and storage was slashed from the Governor’s May Budget Revise,” says Tyler Valdes, Interim Energy Justice Director at the California Environmental Justice Alliance Action. “The State should be doubling down on its investment toward community energy and storage programs that improve grid reliability, apply downward pressure on utility rates, and reduce reliance on fossil gas resources in frontline communities of color.”
####
California Environmental Justice Alliance Action is a statewide, community-led alliance that works to achieve environmental justice by advancing policy solutions. We unite the powerful local organizing of our members in the communities most impacted by environmental hazards – low-income communities and communities of color – to create comprehensive opportunities for change at a statewide level. We build the power of communities across California to create policies that will alleviate poverty and pollution. Together, we are growing the statewide movement for environmental health and social justice.