{"id":238762,"date":"2016-10-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/battling-climate-change\/"},"modified":"2016-10-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T07:00:00","slug":"battling-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/battling-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Battling climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Toni G. Atkins |\u00a0Notes from Toni<\/p>\n

When I boarded a plane bound for Paris in late November 2015, where I would participate in an international climate-change summit, my pride was still fresh from the Legislature recently passing Senate Bill 350, which expanded renewable energy and increased energy efficiency. However, we still had work to do on SB 32 to advance our targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.<\/p>\n

\"Assemblymember<\/a>
Toni G. Atkins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the time I returned home from Paris, I was even more invigorated, because our California delegation had been greeted as rock stars in the global campaign to battle climate change. I knew we could get SB 32 done with a bit of hard work.<\/p>\n

California is the leader on climate change because we set ambitious emissions-reduction targets and we have created innovative ways of hitting them. But that doesn\u2019t mean the system is perfect. Some communities \u2014 struggling rural towns in the north, disadvantaged urban neighborhoods and our border region in the south \u2014 are feeling left out.<\/p>\n

My message to my colleagues: Let\u2019s not throw away the sturdy structure of our policies that provides a model for the rest of the world just because not every part of it is working exactly how we would like it. Instead, let\u2019s continue what\u2019s working overall and commit to fixing the parts that some of my colleagues say are leaving their communities behind.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy to say that we succeeded. We passed SB 32 and Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, my friend from the Coachella Valley, is a big reason for that.<\/p>\n

Mr. Garcia is one of the colleagues I selected to join our Assembly delegation in Paris. Last year, he declined to vote for SB 32 because he felt that our climate programs weren\u2019t benefiting disadvantaged communities. But this year, he became a partner with Sen. Fran Pavley the author of SB 32, and he proposed a companion bill, AB 197, to address the concerns that he and other members of the Assembly had last year.<\/p>\n

At the end of our session, we passed both bills, and in early September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed them. SB 32 requires California to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 (its predecessor, 2006\u2019s AB 32, required the state to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020). AB 197 makes the California Air Resources Board (CARB) more accountable to the Legislature and requires CARB to be more considerate of disadvantaged communities when it develops new climate programs.<\/p>\n

This was a great example of people representing different factions of the Legislature working together to solve a problem. In the process, we sent an important message to the private sector that California remains committed to green technologies and supportive of clean-industry innovation, and we made our climate program \u2014 as Assemblymember Garcia puts it \u2014 more equitable, accountable and transparent.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thrilled with the steps we\u2019ve taken to fight climate change and I\u2019m proud of California\u2019s role as a global leader. We don\u2019t want to leave anyone behind. We\u2019re all in this together.<\/p>\n

Around the District:<\/strong> Seniors who need help with property taxes can apply to the state\u2019s Property Tax Postponement Program<\/strong> to defer current taxes if they meet certain conditions and have a household income of $35,500 or less. For more details, see sco.ca.gov or 800-952-5661 \u2026 October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month<\/strong>. Free mammograms are available throughout October at various locations throughout the city and county. For more information, click the \u201cevents\u201d tab at komensandiego.org, where you also can find tips on breast health and an explanation of why mammograms are important \u2026 October is also the time to celebrate libraries and encourage reading for your teen. Teen Read Week<\/strong> takes place from Oct. 9-15 and National Friends of Libraries Week<\/strong> is Oct. 16-22. One local event for teens, exploring books and cover designs, is set for Oct. 13-14, from 3:30-5 p.m. in the Downtown Central Library\u2019s IDEA Lab. Registration is required \u2014 call 619-238-6675.<\/p>\n

\u2014Toni G. Atkins is the Speaker Emeritus of the California State Assembly. For more information, please visit her website, <\/em>asmdc.org\/members\/a78 <\/em>where you can sign up for her e-newsletter or get the latest news on legislation and other activities. You also may follow her on Twitter, @toniatkins.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Toni G. Atkins |\u00a0Notes from Toni When I boarded a plane bound for Paris in late November 2015, where I would participate in an international climate-change summit, my pride was still fresh from the Legislature recently passing Senate Bill 350, which expanded renewable energy and increased energy efficiency. However, we still had work to […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":859,"featured_media":233104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Battling climate change","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/859"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}