(Full post) In 2022, you changed the way that climate plans get written. As California’s top air regulators put together their 20-year climate blueprint for California this year, thousands of people joined us in taking action to demand a climate plan that puts us on a path to a future beyond oil and gas where our families are safe from toxic pollution, asthma, and cancer.

Together, we sent over 10,000 letters to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and placed hundreds of calls to Governor Newsom. We held community meetings and rallies from Richmond to the Central Valley, and turned out in force to meeting after meeting in Sacramento.

In response, CARB made changes to the plan that will have huge implications for communities across California. The final Scoping Plan, which CARB voted on yesterday:

✅Stops the expansion of dirty gas power plants, investing instead in offshore wind.

✅Doubles the state’s targets for reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled – meaning more mass transit for all.

✅Creates a multi-agency process to coordinate the phaseout of oil extraction and refining in California.

Together, these changes mean that communities like ours across the state will breathe cleaner air and live in healthier neighborhoods, and be able to walk, bike, and commute to work and school more easily.

However, major elements of the final plan will bring real harm to our communities and our climate. Alarmingly, the final plan still relies far too heavily on carbon capture schemes, which could keep fossil fuel infrastructure online indefinitely, in addition to subsidies for fuel sources like dirty hydrogen and biofuels that increase pollution in California’s working-class communities of color.

In the coming years, we will need to fight to make sure that the burden of the energy transition doesn’t fall on the communities already hit hardest by pollution. 

At the meeting yesterday, CARB members and the Chair spoke in support of a permanent Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, which was instrumental in lifting up the voices and perspective of frontline communities in this year’s Scoping Plan Update. They also confirmed that there will be a dedicated process in 2023 to create rules regulating proposals for new Carbon Capture and Storage projects in California. These are procedural changes that our advocates have been calling for and that create real opportunities for us to make sure frontline voices are centered at CARB in the next few years.
But for right now, we should celebrate our wins. Whether you wrote a letter, called, marched, rallied, gave public comment, or engaged on social media – thank you for standing in solidarity with California’s frontline communities this year.

(Full post) Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo, and Kevin de León must resign NOW!  We denounce the racist, violent, anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and homophobic rhetoric heard in the leaked audio from public servants and a labor leader, some of whom CBE has worked with closely in pursuit of environmental health and justice. These Councilmembers and former labor leader have betrayed our trust, the trust of their constituents, and communities across Los Angeles. We demand accountability for their racism and assault upon democracy. There is no place for bigotry in the movement for environmental justice.

Community members are the true voices of Los Angeles. No politician or city leader can take away from the beauty, power, and worth of the Black American/ African American/ African Descent, Indigenous, Central/ South American, and Latine/Latinx communities in LA. CBE is committed to centering and advancing the rights and dignity of multiracial, multiethnic, LGBTQIA+, tenants, families, and children in Los Angeles and across the state.  We are fighting to dismantle institutional and systemic racism, white advantage, settler colonialism, and anti-Blackness that is pervasive and divisive.  

The recorded backroom conversations are indicative of gerrymandering. Equally troubling is that Latine/x Councilmembers Martinez, Cedillo, and De León’s callous plans to remove assets from Black communities are reminiscent of redlining, a historically discriminatory practice that limited resources and services to communities based on racial characteristics, which still affects these communities today. In addition to voicing repugnant views, we believe that these three councilmembers may have violated California’s vital sunshine law, the Brown Act, whose purpose is to prevent backroom, biased decision-making. Therefore, we ask for a full investigation into these conversations and the historical actions of these council members. CBE joins allies in the call to reevaluate the redistricting process, as we also believe that these councilmembers were actively strategizing to erase Black political power.  

Far too often in our communities, some people embody white advantage ideals and actions to compete for resources and power. As we collectively move towards a Just Transition and towards a better way of being, we must address bigotries so as not to replicate the same policies and actions that got us here. 

Angelenos deserve elected officials who value the richness of diversity and work towards building our collective power and liberation. Unity and solidarity are needed now more than ever. We join our movement partners to demand the immediate resignation of Martinez, Cedillo, and De León. Together, we can root out people who aim to divide us, move forward in electing the representation communities deserve, and deliver on equity and justice

(Full post) Nizgui Gomez has fond memories of growing up in Wilmington: going to the waterside park with her cousins, getting ice cream from an ice cream truck.

The problem: right next to the park was the Phillips 66 oil refinery, polluting the air and making children sick.

“Children play near there. It definitely makes me frustrated that we have these industries next to our parks. I don’t think it’s fair we have to settle to that.”

Now, Nizgui organizes in her community with Communities for a Better Environment, and continues to fight for a #FutureBeyondOil for Wilmington and frontline communities across California.

Join Nizgui in calling on Governor Newsom to direct his top air regulators to plan for a phaseout of fossil fuels in California: call (866) 932-1358 or head to caleja.us/newsom to take action 📞📞

“We need a target date to phase out fossil fuels in California. Politicians need to do better for the people who elected them in that position. They need to actually hear our voices because that’s not something that they’re doing. And if that’s not something that they’re willing to do, then we’re going to kick them out.”

Shout out to the folks at Survival Media, CEJA and APEN for their incredible work on this video!