Youth Climate Movement Targets Alvarez on ‘Make Polluters Pay’ Bill

Eastlake High School students staged a walkout Friday calling on Assemblymember David Alvarez to commit to holding oil companies accountable for climate change. 

Eastlake High was one of an estimated 20 schools in San Diego where students demonstrated on campus, calling on their state lawmakers to vote in favor of the California Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act. The bill, introduced to the state Legislature in March, aims to hold oil, gas and coal companies financially accountable for emissions that drive climate change.  

These Chula Vista students’ focus: Putting pressure on Alvarez, who represents their neighborhood, to vote in favor of the bill.  

Diego Sandoval, a senior at Eastlake, is part of the larger student group Youth4Climate that organized walkouts in support of this act across California schools. He helped coordinate the demonstration at Eastlake in hopes of igniting community support. 

“David Alvarez is absolutely one of the legislators in California that we are hoping this message really does get across to,” Sandoval said.  

Sandoval pointed to a 2024 story in the Los Angeles Times that reported Alvarez as among the top 10 California lawmakers that have received the most donations from the oil industry.  

“I think especially as San Diegans, who live in a very ethnically diverse region, there’s many Hispanic, Filipino and other (communities) in his district that are seeing the impacts of environmental hazards, environmental pollution, including oftentimes, environmental racism,” Sandoval said. 

This act would require the largest fossil fuel contributors from 1990 to 2024 to pay fees. The amount these companies would owe would be calculated based on the amount of pollution and damage they’ve caused to the climate. Those fees would then be put toward programs that aim to remedy or prevent the effects of climate change in local communities.  

New York and Vermont have already enacted similar measures despite massive opposition from the oil and gas industry.  

The assemblymember’s communication director, Haakon Christoffer Jonsmyr, said that Alvarez is supportive of students taking a stand for what they believe in. However, he could not comment about the assemblymember’s stance on the bill. He said that Alvarez usually waits until the vote is closer to review the legislation. 

But the bill has stalled in the Legislature since April, even as environmental groups — galvanized by the death and destruction of the January Los Angeles wildfires — have made it a top priority, CalMatters reported. 

At the walkout, Sandoval called out to the crowd of around 100 students over a microphone: “What do we do when the Earth we love is under attack?”  

In unison, students responded with, “Stand up, fight back.”   

The group also held a symbolic oil spill demonstration. Roy Licht, a senior at Eastlake High, dressed up in a suit, top hat and mustache to personify big oil companies. With him, he carried a bucket filled with a mixture of activated charcoal, cocoa powder and water — meant to represent oil.  

Four students took turns stating statistics about how oil companies have caused damage to communities before having the mixture poured onto them.  

“Every month, 2.7 million Californians live within half a mile of oil wells. Most of these are BIPOC communities that have asthma, other respiratory issues or other health concerns,” a student said. The crowd booed in response and she then had the “oil” spilled onto her.   

At the end of the walkout, Eastlake students signed a banner calling on Alvarez to “vote in support of a healthier, liveable future” and pass the make polluters pay act.   

“We’re really doing it to show our legislators that we demand climate action,” Sandoval said. “We are the future, and even though we can’t vote yet, we know what we need going forward, and we’re really just trying to communicate that message to those officials in power.” 

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