Sacramento Report: Environmentalists Flock to Chula Vista Lawmaker’s Bill to Cut Climate Dollars Loose

Fourteen months ago, California voters approved the state’s biggest initiative yet to combat climate change with the passage of Proposition 4.

Assemblymember David Alvarez, who has continued to make environmentalism a key feature of his grab-bag legislative agenda, wants to let the billions of dollars allocated from the proposition loose.

Numerous conservation groups this week vigorously supported a proposal from the Chula Vista Democrat to cut certain procedural rules tied to distributing the $10 billion bond meant to fund various water, wildfire, drought and flooding resilience programs.

As much as $30 million from Proposition 4 could be used for nine Tijuana River projects, such as the Tijuana Estuary Tidal Restoration Program and the Smuggler’s Gulch sediment basin.

The proposal, Assembly Bill 35, unanimously passed the Natural Resources Committee on Monday and awaits a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Alvarez, whose district is affected by the millions of gallons of sewage flowing from Tijuana, Mexico, into San Diego County, said the bill could speed up funding by 12 to 18 months, and that it was a particularly urgent issue for his constituents.

The federal government has agreed to fund the cleanup near the Tijuana River, however little has been done at the state level to address its polluting waters, which are responsible for sickening people in nearby neighborhoods and prompting beach closures for decades.

“In terms of putting your money where your mouth is, this is probably the most significant thing,” Alvarez said about the purported amount from the state to go toward the river.

Similarly, Democratic Sen. Steve Padilla’s push to change how one of the toxic pollutants emanating from the river is reviewed by public health agencies survived its first hearing this week in the Environmental Quality Committee, but not without some pushback.

Business and pollution control groups shared concerns over the bill’s scope, which would require the state Air Resources Board to develop new standards for how it measures hydrogen sulfide and conduct public workshops in the Tijuana River Valley and Salton Sea regions.

“It seems to be creating a new health standard,” said Jon Kendrick, a lobbyist for the California Chamber of Commerce, who argued that the measure is being done too late in the process. 

The current standard for measuring dangerous levels of one of the pollutants, hydrogen sulfide, is outdated and does not reflect its impact on public health, Padilla said in response to the criticism.

Padilla’s district, which hugs the U.S.-Mexico border from Chula Vista to the Imperial Valley,  also envelops large swaths of the polluted area caused by disintegrating wastewater treatment plants in Tijuana.

The bill received near-unanimous approval, including from Sen. Catherine Blakespear who chairs the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

The bill now awaits an appropriations hearing in the Senate.

In Other Capitol News

Padilla is taking another crack at reigning in artificial intelligence data centers. His latest proposals, introduced this week, would impose a tax on data centers to prevent electricity costs from being passed on to ratepayers and ensure that data centers are subject to environmental regulations.

It’s the senator’s second go around at a ratepayer protection bill after his first attempt last year to implement protections seen in states such as Oregon and Ohio was watered down by Big Tech groups.

His proposals don’t stop there, either. The Chula Vista Democrat introduced another AI chatbot bill that would prohibit companies from showing sexually explicit material to minors, expanding on a law he authored last year that puts safeguards around the software. 

The new bill cites xAI as an example of a platform showing sexually explicit material to children, which is under investigation by the attorney general’s office over accusations that it is violating a new state law prohibiting fabricated pornographic images, or deepfakes.

Finally, Blakespear’s proposal to make it easier for military members accused of domestic violence to have a restraining order placed against them passed its first committee hearing this week. The bill now awaits a meeting in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Todd Gloria Looks Past Newsom On Homelessness Funding

In his sixth annual address on Thursday, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria began to look past the Newsom administration for any additional funding on homelessness, his biggest ask from the governor during his final year in office. 

Gloria visited Sacramento last week to lobby lawmakers to fully fund the Homelessness, Housing, Assistance and Prevention program after it was slashed from $1 billion to $0 in the state budget for this current fiscal year. The governor’s budget proposal, which will be finalized in June, partially restored funding to $500 million for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

“I’m calling on anyone who plans to lead the state as our next governor to make HHAP a permanent fixture in our state budget,” Gloria said at his address.

Gloria also touted a reduction in the city’s unsheltered homeless population and new housing permits for this year, 7,500, or nearly double the historic average.

What I’m Reading Now

Federal judges reject Republicans’ attempts to overturn gerrymandered U.S. House maps approved by California voters, The Associated Press writes.

Mayor Todd Gloria, the first Democrat to lead San Diego in decades, faced high expectations at the beginning of his mayorship five years ago. His advisers are disappointed, Voice of San Diego reports.

At last, Big Sur is accessible by California’s infamous Highway 1 for the first time since 2023, The Los Angeles Times explains.

The post Sacramento Report: Environmentalists Flock to Chula Vista Lawmaker’s Bill to Cut Climate Dollars Loose appeared first on Voice of San Diego.