NOVEMBER 2024 VOTER GUIDE
YES ON PROP 4
Parks, Environment, Energy, and Water Bond Measure
ENDORSE-O-METER SAYS: YES
This measure provides billions in climate change resilience funding—which seemingly becomes more urgent on a daily basis—by restoring what was cut from the state’s budget by Governor Newsom amid a massive shortfall. While we wish that the state’s budget could account for these essential climate programs, we recommend voters pass this alternative funding solution.
The Context
Governor Gavin Newsom proposed spending $54 billion on climate efforts in 2022, but then had to cut that funding from the state budget. Dozens of environmental groups, renewable energy companies, labor unions, water agencies, and social justice advocates have been lobbying state lawmakers to place the climate bond on the ballot, and lawmakers have acquiesced. It’s not ideal to place essential infrastructure funding before voters, but climate change is the gravest threat facing the human race today, so let’s get ‘er done, shall we?
The Money
California taxpayers would pay this bond back with interest, but rather than raise taxes, this bond just stretches over a longer period of time and comes out of the state’s General Fund, which is filled via tax revenues. An analyst for the Assembly estimated that the $10 billion bond would cost the state $650 million a year for the next 30 years—or more than $19 billion.
If this measure is approved, here’s what we’d spend it on:
$3.8 billion for safe drinking water, drought, flood, and water resilience programs
$1.5 billion or wildfire and forest resilience programs
$1.2 billion for coastal resilience programs
$450 million for extreme heat mitigation programs
$1.2 billion for biodiversity protection and nature-based climate solution programs
$300 million for climate-smart, sustainable, and resilient farms, ranches, and working lands programs
$700 million for park creation and outdoor access programs
$850 million for clean air programs
Total: $10 billion
Additional Details
The fine print here states that at least 40 percent of this funding should go to projects that provide benefits to disadvantaged communities: populations in which the median household income is less than 80 percent of the area average, or less than 80 percent of the statewide median.
Support & Opposition
This measure is supported by a coalition of 170 environmental groups and other stakeholders including Sierra Club CA, Audubon CA, and Ocean Conservancy.
Some legislators like Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano) have pulled their support, saying that the measure doesn’t place enough emphasis on supporting financially disadvantaged populations. It is true that hundreds of millions of dollars from the bond would benefit private industry. For example, it would provide $850 million to clean energy projects, including offshore wind farms that are already benefiting from subsidies in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a fiscally conservative watchdog group, opposes this measure.
Paid for by TogetherSF Action. Not authorized by any candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.