Proposition 4 Would Raise $10 Billion in Bonds for Climate Projects

This is a transcript of the episode.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:00] California has got some of the most ambitious climate goals in the country and the world.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:00:06] In 2022, the state released the world’s first plan to achieve net zero carbon pollution.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:13] But we’re not going to get there overnight or for free.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:00:17] It’s going to take a radical reimagining of how we live life in California.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:24] I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:00:26] And I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And you’re listening to Prop Fest, a collaboration between the Bay and Bay curious where we help you get smart on all the statewide propositions on your ballot this year.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:39] Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a $10 billion bond to invest in climate change programs and solutions. And now it needs voters final seal of approval.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:00:51] And it’s coming to you in the form of proposition for the climate bond.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:56] This proposal to borrow more money for climate change solutions comes at a time when the state made some tough decisions on climate related programs because of a big budget deficit.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:01:08] So now it’s up to voters to decide how much of a priority climate change solutions are. By voting to approve or reject this $10 billion bond.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:18] Today, we’re going to break down Proposition 4 for you right after this.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:28] Today we’re talking about Proposition four. Here’s how it will read on your ballot.

Voiceover [00:01:33] Prop 4 authorizes 10 billion in general obligation bonds for water, wildfire prevention and protection of communities and lands.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:41] We hit up climate reporter Ezra David Romero to break down what this prop will mean for you. Well, Ezra, so we’ve got another bond on the ballot this November. This time voters are being asked to borrow $10 billion for investments in climate change solutions. What is the back story like? How did this get on the ballot in the first place?

Ezra David Romero [00:02:04] Yeah. To understand that, we have to go back a couple of years, when environmental lobbyists started lobbying the legislature to like say, look, let’s have a climate bond. Let’s create some big projects that can hopefully protect the state from wildfires and floods and things like that. About two years ago, both sides of the state legislature came up with two different bond measures for about $15 billion each to, you know, combat climate change across California. But at the same time, California was going through this really big, huge budget deficit. Right? And this year, we had about a $46.8 billion budget deficit, which meant that some of these climate programs were also going to get cut. It was really about like, how can we do this? Like really big infrastructure projects that can make sure our future is safe when it comes to wildfires, when it comes to flood, maybe like sea level rise, drought, things like that. And the fight to get this climate bond this year was actually like quite until the end. The two sides of the legislature came together and created one climate bond. And it really wasn’t even in real language until  the day before it was due a few months ago. And that’s because a few things like the state only had a certain amount of bonding capacity. How much money the state’s really willing to like go in debt for. And then there were like competing bonds and housing and education. And then also, like climate groups really wanted this thing. But ultimately it happened. And now we have like a $10 billion bond that voters can potentially vote for in November.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:39] Right. And clearly, lawmakers believe that addressing climate change with this bond was important enough. So what exactly was their rationale behind this? How did they talk about that in the state legislature?

Ezra David Romero [00:03:53] Yeah, I think it’s really quite simple. We live in a state that has all these climate effects happening right now. Just think of this year, right? We had major wildfires in Southern California just this past month. We had major flooding in Los Angeles, you know, earlier in the year. We had extreme hot days in Sacramento for like a couple of weeks. Right. And then we had the fourth largest fire in California history called the Park Fire near Chico. So we had all these things happening at the same time. We needed to prepare for the future because all these things could get worse.

Asm. Damon Connolly [00:04:26] People are living the consequences right now in our state.

Ezra David Romero [00:04:31] I spoke to Damon Connolly. He’s the assemblymember for the San Rafael area. And he basically said, you know, like his area floods, his area burns, and like this climate bond would help protect his region, hopefully from future climate change when it comes to flooding and drought and fires in the future.

Asm. Damon Connolly [00:04:49] The climate bond proposal will ensure that our investments in climate resilience are bolstered rather than falling by the wayside.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:58] So this climate bond passed in the legislature and now voters will decide whether or not to approve it. And the official name is actually got a lot going on in it. It’s the Safe Drinking Water, Drought Preparedness and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024. It’s got lots of things going in there. Ezra, what would Prop 4 do exactly, though?

Ezra David Romero [00:05:24] Yeah, you’re right. It does have like this big name and that’s because it’s this big bond to do many things. And I think to like get Californians across the state to vote for it. It has to do a lot of things. Right, because the climate effects in, say, Southern California aren’t the same in Central California or Northern California or the Bay Area. First, it provides funds for some of those programs that were cut because of the budget cuts, and that’s a smaller amount. And then in a really big way I think the second thing it does is going to be used mostly for these big infrastructure projects like improving levees or the storm water systems that capture water during storms, preparing homes for wildfires and thinning the forests that could burn or preparing for the drought when it comes to like water supplies. A lot of this money is going to go to water and flooding about $3.8 billion, the most money out of the entire bond in one area. One of those areas is water recycling. You know, that’s where our water from, our toilets or our showers, you know, goes into like a water plant. And then it’s like cleaned up in, say, in the San Francisco Bay area. It goes back into the bay. But the idea there is they want to spend $400 million to make these plants into more of a water recycling plant where we reuse that water perhaps for drinking or for our gardens or our lawns and things like that. And that’s really important because in the future, as we have more droughts, like we’re going to have like a smaller water supply.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:56] And we talked about some statewide programs getting cut from the governor’s budget because of this budget deficit that the state is facing. But what kinds of climate programs could actually get restored with the money from this bond?

Ezra David Romero [00:07:15] One program really sticks out to me. That’s the Transformative Climate Communities Program. And that’s all about like making sure communities themselves can come up with their own ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their own communities. In the budget, in the in the over the past two years, that program was basically zeroed out. And this bond, if like California voters vote for it like could restore that project to $150 million. And that project has helped communities all over California like Arvin, Stockton, Bakersfield, Pomona, Coachella, San Diego. So it’s really helped communities all across the state. And that funding could come back.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:55] Yeah, that’s I mean, that’s a huge difference as far as $0 to $150 million for this program.

Ezra David Romero [00:08:01] Yeah, definitely. You know, it could bring to life this program and allow grants to be given to more communities. Basically, that program cycles a number of grants every year, and this will allow them to potentially give more grants to communities if voters vote for it.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:19] So, I mean, it seems pretty clear that Democrats in the legislature who who voted for this bond and approved it in the legislature earlier this year are for this bond. But who else is supporting Proposition 4?

Ezra David Romero [00:08:35] Well, there’s this really big group of environmental groups and nature based groups and firefighter groups that all came together and made a letter to the legislature earlier this year. And they asked the legislature to support this. So there’s groups like Latino Outdoors and there Save the Bay. And then there’s the California Environmental Voters Organization.

Mike Young [00:08:56] Climate change, whether you believe it or not, it’s happening. It’s not a belief system. It’s just the science. And sooner or later, we’re going to face those consequences. And many people already are.

Ezra David Romero [00:09:06] I spoke to Mike Young. He’s a senior political organizing director at California Environmental Voters. He basically really loves this plan because it’s going to help create California, you know, that maybe can withstand droughts and wildfires and sea level rise in the future.

Mike Young [00:09:19] Lot of times environmental benefits are that people relate to or the ones that they can see the most. Seeing California build out clean energy infrastructure, especially solar and offshore wind is going to be really helpful.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:32] And who’s coming out against Prop 4?

Ezra David Romero [00:09:35] In my reporting, I didn’t find very many groups or people against it. I only found two. There is the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. They didn’t respond to my emails for comment. They say the bond is a most expensive way for the government to pay for things. Secondly, they say that some of the money could go towards technology that’s like maybe not proven. Third, they think California should like maybe find other ways that don’t and care so much debt for the state.

Sen. Brian Jones [00:10:02] The bottom line on Proposition 4 is it is the most expensive way to fund government.

Ezra David Romero [00:10:08] And then there’s Senate GOP leader Brian Jones.

Sen. Brian Jones [00:10:11] Many of the items that are being proposed to be paid for in this bond do not rise to the level of being a long term infrastructure project. For example, grants for exhibits and galleries at zoos and museums.

Ezra David Romero [00:10:27] He wrote an op-ed in Calmatters. His whole point was that, like, the taxpayers are going to have to pay for this and it’s just too expensive.

Sen. Brian Jones [00:10:35] In my opinion, Proposition 4 pays long term for short term projects and should be rejected by the voters.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:45] And let’s talk about the money here, Ezra. Who’s funding the support and opposition for Prop four?

Ezra David Romero [00:10:53] Well, the people for it, the organizations for it have raised about $700,000. Those are most of those environmental groups that I talked about a little bit earlier. And the opponents from to my knowledge, haven’t raised anything. And I found some new polling from the Public Policy Institute of California that came out recently. And they found that like 65% of voters would likely vote yes for the climate bond and that 3 in 4 likely voters say the outcome of Proposition 4 is very important or somewhat important. And I think it all comes down to like Californians are living through all this. Right? And it’s top of mind.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:28] At the end of the day as to how much will this bond cost Californians.

Ezra David Romero [00:11:34] Yeah. Bonds always mean debt. So repaying the money could cost about $400 million a year for about 40 years. That’s according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. And altogether, that’s about $16 billion in total.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:48] Well, Ezra, thank you so much for breaking down Prop four for us. I appreciate it.

Ezra David Romero [00:11:52] Hey, no problem.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:54] In a nutshell, a yes. Vote on this measure means the state could borrow $10 billion to fund various activities aimed at conserving natural resources, as well as responding to the causes and effects of climate change. A vote no means the state could not borrow $10 billion to fund various conservation and climate change related projects.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:25] And that is it for today’s episode of Prop Fest. You can always find our other prop these episodes and share them with your friends at KQED Dawgs Prop Fest. Stay locked in and make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out on the next ones.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:12:44] Prop fest is a collaboration between the Bay and Bay Curious Podcasts. It is produced by Alan Montecillo, Jessica Kariisa, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Ana De Almeida Amaral, and me, Olivia-Allen Price.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:58] We get extra support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, and Holly Kernan.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:13:05] And the whole KQED family. Our show is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. If you value podcasts like this one, please consider becoming a sustaining member of KQED. Learn more at kqed.org/donate.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:21] I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara.

Olivia Allen-Price [00:13:22] And I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be back tomorrow with an explainer on Proposition five, a change in how we approve local bonds. I’m already needing some help with that one.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:33] And I am right there with you, Olivia. Peace.