Pirate's Cove

Staying on the west coast, California will piss away the people’s money on a scam, all while unemployment claims skyrocket, inflation is rampant, housing prices are even higher than normal, homelessness is continuing to go up, and people are streaming out of the state, among other issues. All while still dealing with skyrocketing COVID infections and the issues from COVID

Here’s how California plans to spend $37 billion fighting climate change

When she first came to work in California during the Trump era, Lauren Sanchez says, the state’s climate budget was typically a few billion dollars a year, with much of that money automatically going to a couple of high-profile projects, including the bullet train through the Central Valley. That left climate policymakers and advocates fighting over a few hundred million dollars.

How times have changed. The latest budget proposal, unveiled this week by Gov. Gavin Newsom, includes $22 billion in new climate funding. It also allocates money from last year’s budget, for a total of $37 billion in climate spending over six years.

Sanchez, Newsom’s senior climate advisor, says it’s more than the large dollar figures that make this year’s budget different.

That leftover $15 billion sure could have helped California citizens, including those who the state is trying to take COVID relief payments back from, right? Those who lost their businesses from COVID restrictions?

She told me the proposed funding is laser-focused on equity, which means supporting the low-income communities and people of color hit hardest by extreme heat, shrinking water supplies and more extreme wildfires. She said the budget also reflects an “all of society, all of government response” to the climate crisis, with investments in education, healthcare and affordable housing.

Global warming is usually associated with despair, not hope. But with the right strategies and investments, Sanchez said, California can create sustainable jobs, unleash clean energy innovation and protect the most vulnerable from rising temperatures.

This really has nothing to do with Science, eh?

The governor proposed $6.1 billion in new funds to help Californians ditch gasoline, including $256 million in clean car rebates and other programs for low-income families, $900 million to build electric vehicle chargers in low-income neighborhoods and $419 million for “community-based transportation equity projects.” Those projects could include electric van pools for farmworkers, for instance, or infrastructure to support electric bikes or scooters — whatever local communities determine they most need.

Why would the “poor” need chargers in their neighborhoods when even middle class folks will have a tough time affording an EV? No chance they’ll be vandalized, eh?

Public schools would get $1.5 billion for green transportation, which state officials estimate is enough to convert about one-third of the bus fleet to electric. Passenger rail is another big winner, with Newsom proposing $4.2 billion for high-speed rail — aka the bullet train — and $3.25 billion for other transit and train projects, with some of that money carved out for Southern California.

The trains most people won’t take?

Half a billion dollars would go to “active transportation” projects that encourage walking and biking, along with $100 million for pedestrian and bicycle safety. Another $150 million would establish the Reconnecting Communities: Highways to Boulevards pilot program to convert underutilized highways into “multi-modal corridors” that could include walking paths and affordable housing — an effort to address the racist history of highway expansion that my colleague Liam Dillon has been writing about.

Good grief. “Active transportation”. That’s a new one. There’s a whole bunch of climate crazy, including

Sanchez was especially excited to talk about proposed investments that might not normally be considered part of a climate plan, but which she sees as critically important for helping Californians cope with — and work to prevent — rising temperatures.

One of those investments is $1 billion for new housing — and not just any housing, but “infill” housing within developed areas, rather than sprawling new subdivisions that create the need for long car trips. Newsom wants to spend $500 million building homes on “prime infill parcels in downtown-oriented areas.” Another $300 million would go to the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program, which funds “land-use, housing, transportation and land preservation projects.”

In other words, stuffing low cost housing and all the urban blight that comes with it into middle class areas. You can bet it won’t happen in the richer neighborhoods.

7. Maybe Tesla will come back

Doubtful. Anyhow, have fun, California citizens. You voted for this, don’t be surprised when the money is wasted, they force you out of your fossil fueled vehicle, and raise your taxes, which goes great with energy costs skyrocketing, making everything else skyrocket.