Tag Archive for: California Prop. 30

Prop. 30 Splits California’s Ruling Elite

Even by national standards, state ballot initiative campaigns in California are big time politics. You can run a campaign for U.S. Senator in most states in America for less than it costs to qualify and successfully campaign to pass a statewide ballot initiative in California. Political insiders in Sacramento describe any controversial initiative with well funded antagonists as a “war.” And if politics is war by other means, they’re right. The latest war is over Prop. 30, the “Clean Cars and Clean Air Act.”

What’s unusual about Prop. 30, however, is how it has split California’s ruling elite. On the side in favor of Prop. 30, you have billionaire Democrats, a powerful corporation that promotes itself as both woke and green, and the firefighters union. Opposing Prop. 30 are Governor Newsom and the California Teachers Association, and to fund their opposition campaign, an assortment of individuals and organizations that defy categorization other than to say that Newsom and the CTA have picked some surprising bedfellows.

In this battle of juggernauts, and in a twist of politics that is exceedingly rare, the CTA is up against a bigger and stronger bully.

The best way to get recent information on campaign spending in California is on the Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance website under “Propositions and Ballot Measures.” Since the only money that matters in a state ballot initiative is big money, select “Proposition 30,” then for each committee listed, click on the “Late and $5,000+ Contributions Received” link. This will give you information on every major contribution up to 10 days ago.

The primary force behind Prop. 30 is Lyft, which has already dumped $25 million into the Yes on 30 campaign. This represents over 90 percent of the funding so far, and if their battle to rewrite AB 5 back in 2020 is any indication, Lyft is prepared to spend the opposition into the ground.

Joining Newsom and the CTA in opposition to Prop. 30 is the uncreatively named “No on 30” committee, with major donations so far totaling $11.4 million. The big donors include individuals whose giving history puts them all over the map: Libertarians, Never Trump Republicans, and Democrats. Motivations must vary. No new taxes? Not another subsidy? Business or ideological concern with Lyft’s agenda?

Also opposing Prop. 30 with $1.0 million in contributions is “Govern California,” a centrist PAC – emulating the public sector union model – that has 18 chapters spread around the state. This enables mega-donors to contribute to each chapter, then each chapter donates to an assortment of candidates targeted for support. The practical effect of this is that instead of a donor being constrained by the individual maximum donation they can make to a candidate, that maximum is magnified by the number of Govern for California chapters they support which in-turn donate to that candidate. Brilliant.

Although the firefighters union and the teachers union have not made significant contributions to the committees for or against Prop. 30, at least not yet, they are the face of the campaigns. Lyft may be paying the networks, but it’s a firefighter we see on television, in a saturation level campaign to convince us Prop. 30 will stop wildfires, clean the air, and fight climate change. Similarly, Newsom and classroom teachers are the face of the opposition campaign, which stresses the need for income taxes to prioritize “classrooms, communities,” and “transitional kindergarten, public schools, community colleges.”

Rhetoric aside, what does Prop. 30 do?

The initiative calls for a 1.75 percent additional state income tax on earnings over $2.0 million per year, and this new levy is estimated to raise up to $4.5 billion per year. Of that total, 80 percent will subsidize ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicle) charging stations and ZEV rebates, and 15 percent will pay for wildfire response – mostly to hire more firefighters – and 5 percent will be spent to thin forests to prevent future wildfires.

The biggest problem with this initiative isn’t just that it raises taxes, offers subsidies, and expands the state government. Those are all problems, but at the risk of heresy, one may consider the possibility that if new taxes, subsidies, and bureaucracies were doing something productive, that might make sense. Looking back to the construction of the state water project back in the 1950s and ’60s, we see evidence that public investment has not always been a pointless waste.

That isn’t the case here.

When California’s state legislature and the regulated electric utilities have figured out how to reliably pump 70 or 80 gigawatts (or more) through California’s grid, instead of the fitfully achieved 50 gigawatts that characterize power capacity today, then they can start disconnecting the natural gas pipelines that heat our homes, and then they can force automakers to sell nothing but electric cars, and force rideshare companies to ban non EVs. And that’s not all.

When California’s high-tech innovators who lobby for these special interest driven laws that supposedly are going to save the planet have perfected a battery that can be charged in five minutes instead of an hour, won’t catch fire, will last for at least 250,000 miles, and put it into an EV that doesn’t cost twice as much as a gasoline powered car, or even a gas/electric hybrid, only then can they honestly claim the electric age is going to be cheaper and equally practical for people who just want to get about their lives. They’ll also have to demonstrate that this new age of renewable electricity is going to be less destructive to the environment.

Altogether these are reasonable prerequisites. None of them have been adequately addressed.

But equally disingenuous is the claim Prop. 30 will save California’s forests. A research paper published in March of 2022 by the California Fire Science Consortium concluded the following: “Overall, between 1911 and 2011, tree densities on average increased by six to seven fold while average tree size was reduced by 50%. This shift in contemporary forest conditions resulted from ingrowth with very high densities.” Got that? California’s forests are seven times as dense as they were 100 years ago.

Forests are burning because at the same time as California’s firefighters got so good at extinguishing natural fires caused by lightening strikes, the state legislature regulated into near oblivion our timber industry, along with our ability to conduct controlled burns, mechanical thinning, and cattle grazing to reduce underbrush.

That’s the reason the forests are burning so hot. These overcrowded trees and overgrown brush are dried out and stressed. Our once majestic forests have been reduced to tinderboxes, because wherever the root systems of just one tree used to compete for water, now there are seven trees and a ton of brush. Until these absurd policies are reversed, devastating superfires will keep on burning. The destructive impact of these policy blunders have no prior equivalent throughout the millennia that California’s forests have existed. If and when California’s forests are entirely gone, burnt down to the dirt, blame environmentalists. It will be their fault.

Lyft has committed by 2030 to only work with EVs. How many people driving for rideshare companies, not exactly a super remunerative occupation, are going to be able to afford an EV? Equally of concern, how are they going to put in a decent work shift as a driver, if every three hours or so they have to pull over and wait in line to refuel at a rate of five miles of range for every minute spent plugged in to the “high speed” charger?

When 2030 rolls around, and normal people who can’t afford EVs won’t be able to make money in the rideshare business anymore, Lyft can adapt. They can buy a fleet of company cars. When these cars aren’t charging, Lyft can rotate independent drivers through them to earn money like 21st century sharecroppers. Or Lyft can just deploy company cars that don’t need a driver at all. Lyft has options.

But for now, and as reported by Reuters over two years ago, “The company plans to push competitors, lawmakers and automakers to make it easier for drivers to switch to electric vehicles by creating financial incentives.”

That was an understatement, and a promise kept. With Prop. 30, they’re pushing. Also reported by Reuters, “John Zimmer, Lyft’s co-founder and president, said the company has reached a scale to impact policy change.” Also an understatement. Lyft spent $79 million on Prop. 22, their 2020 initiative to roll back certain provisions of AB 5. They’ve spent $25 million so far this year on Prop. 30. As we enter the final weeks of campaign season, there is no reason to think their spending will abate.

CTA take note. There’s a new kid in town. Just as woke, wielding equally seductive populist rhetoric, armed with big bucks, and just like the CTA, determined to advance their special interest agenda regardless of how it might actually help or harm ordinary Californians.

Prop. 30 is likely to pass. But regardless of the outcome, California’s state legislature should approve new nuclear power plants and end their war on natural gas development and infrastructure. They should guarantee equipment loans to revive California’s decimated logging and milling industry, and scrap the regulations that make it so hard to operate logging and ranching operations, as well as conduct controlled burns and mechanical thinning.

Almost everything Prop. 30 is doing is misguided. If it passes, taxpayers will pour tens of billions into EV technology that will be obsolete within a decade or two. Billions more will be spent to hire more firefighters, while only a token percentage will be spent on prevention. But in this war, money talks.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

California’s Prop. 30 Will Not Save the Forests

The television ads are impossible to ignore. A stern man in a firefighter’s uniform stands beside the wasted ashes of an immolated forest. As a harrowing montage of towering flames, skies filled with smoke, and CO2 belching cars on freeways slide across the screen, exuding masculine authority, he explains “we are in a crisis.” His message is compelling. To save our forests, clean our air, and address the climate emergency, we must vote yes on Proposition 30.

Despite the vociferous opposition of the California Teachers Association, and their reliable surrogate, Governor Gavin Newsom, Prop. 30 looks headed for victory in November. This is proof, once again, that you can convince California’s electorate to approve anything so long as you claim it will address the climate crisis.

Prop. 30 is clever. Its popularity relies on the understandable frustration Californians have over worsening wildfires, which most Californians have been convinced is caused by climate change. Its solution? Slap a 1.75% tax on all personal income over $2.0 million per year, and use the money to fund “Zero-Emissions Vehicles and Wildfire Prevention.”

The devil is in the details. Of the estimated up to $4.5 billion annual proceeds, 80 percent will subsidize ZEV (Zero Emissions Vehicle) charging stations and ZEV rebates, and 20 percent will pay for “wildfire response and prevention.” But of that 20 percent, 75 percent will go to wildfire response, and 25 percent will go to wildfire prevention. Which is to say that out of $4.5 billion per year, five percent will be spent to thin forests, and the other 95 percent will be to either hire more firefighters, or to subsidize the EV industry.

To be clear: if every car in California were an EV, it would do nothing to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Even assuming that the planet is experiencing a permanent warming trend, and even assuming cars and other uses of fossil fuels are the reason for that warming, California, at roughly 350 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, only contributes one percent of the 35 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted globally each year.

As for using 20 percent of Prop. 30’s funds to pay for fire suppression and fire prevention, the priorities are flipped. Californians are already spending over a billion dollars per year to put out wildfires. Fire suppression is the primary reason forest fires have gotten so bad in California, and climate change, for all the hype it attracts, is a secondary cause. Cataclysmic wildfires will never be stopped merely by extinguishing them, at least not until every one of California’s 33 million acres of magnificent forests are burnt down to the dirt. To solve the problem of superfires, California’s forests need to be thinned back to historical norms.

For over 100 years, and with increasing effectiveness, California’s firefighters have suppressed forest fires that, for millennia, were sparked by lightening and would burn away smaller trees and brush. Up until about thirty years ago, despite suppression of natural fires, commercial logging, cattle grazing, mechanical thinning and controlled burns kept forest growth in check. As recently as the 1990s, over 6 billion board feet were being harvested every year out of California’s forests. Today that total is down to barely 1.25 billion board feet, and the regulatory process to graze, thin, or burn off undergrowth has become prohibitively expensive and protracted. As a result, California’s forests are tinderboxes.

If you care about such things, every year there’s a superfire in California, around 100 million tons of CO2 enter the atmosphere. Less abstract and of more universal relevance is the filthy smoke and soot that hangs in the air for weeks, and the ash laden silt that fouls the rivers after the first rain. Anyone concerned for the environment might also recognize that trees in California’s forests are stressed and dying not because we’re having heat waves and droughts, but because wherever the root systems of just one tree used to compete for water, now there are seven trees. This unnatural reality is also the reason less of our precious rain percolates into aquifers, replenishes springs, or runs off into streams. The desperately overcrowded tree roots suck up every drop.

A research paper published in March of 2022 by the California Fire Science Consortium concluded the following: “Overall, between 1911 and 2011, tree densities on average increased by six to seven fold while average tree size was reduced by 50%. This shift in contemporary forest conditions resulted from ingrowth with very high densities.” Got that? California’s forests are seven times as dense as they were 100 years ago.

This is the truth that firefighters ought to be proclaiming in front of television cameras, and this is the catastrophe that responsible politicians and public servants ought to be urgently trying to fix, instead of endlessly preening and bloviating about the “climate crisis.” Restoring the timber industry ought to be a top priority. It has been decimated thanks to relentless and misguided assaults by environmentalists. Private investment in logging and milling operations could then finance much of the necessary forest thinning. Encouraging the adoption of mass timber – cross laminated structural beams that are stronger and weigh less than reinforced concrete – could make harvesting the unwanted and overcrowded smaller trees profitable, since manufacturing this innovative new wood product does not require large diameter trees.

Reforming the environmentalist edicts and bureaucratic obstructions that prevent property owners to thin and do controlled burns, or ranchers from grazing their cattle, would attract additional private investment that would help restore California’s forests.

Without private investment as described, thinning California’s forests is impossible. As it is, Prop. 30 will allocate, at most, $225 million per year to forest thinning. Cost estimates to do thinning vary, but the best we may expect on average is around 1,000 per acre. That means these funds, even if most of them aren’t first skimmed to placate armies of ESG commissars, would restore 225,000 acres per year. That sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. With 33 million acres of forest in California, and with that budget, it would take 150 years to finish a job that has to be repeated every 20 years unless private logging, grazing, controlled burns, and mechanical thinning are once again permitted.

California’s firefighters should be using their substantial political clout in Sacramento to publicly confront an inconvenient truth: environmentalists and state bureaucrats have inspired and implemented policies that are destroying California’s forests. Until those policies are reversed, forests will continue to burn like hell.

Newsom, who has the advantage of being politically unassailable merely because he is less lunatic than every other major politician in California’s ruling party, has decided, just this once, to defy the will of the climate crisis industry. Instead he’s lining up with the CTA in opposition, preserving their apparent determination to make sure they remain first in line to pickpocket the deep pockets of California’s wealthiest taxpayers.

But Newsom, along with every other special interest that opposes Prop. 30 in order to make sure their own place at the public trough is undiminished, are lying in a bed of their own making. When the forests burned, Newsom didn’t call for meaningful reforms to forest management. He announced a plan to ban gasoline powered vehicles. Now he is going to get what he wanted. The results will be expensive and mostly symbolic, if not counterproductive.

This article originally appeared in the Epoch Times.