Santa Monica’s State Senator Ben Allen recently successfully authored Proposition 4, a climate resiliency bond measure that will be on California’s November 2024 statewide ballot.
A 1996 graduate of Santa Monica High School and a former Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board member (2008-2014), Allen has made a mark in the State Senate pursuing big picture legislation. I asked him about Proposition 4 and why he is committed to paradigm-shifting work.
QUESTION: What would your bill SB 867/Proposition 4 do — the "Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024" — and why is it necessary?
SENATOR ALLEN: California is facing massive challenges relating to climate change, from our water infrastructure to wildfire prevention. With our 40 million people and drought challenges growing, our clean water supplies are going to be increasingly threatened. Investing in groundwater recharge and water recycling is critical to the long-term resiliency of our system.
Proposition 4 is a bond measure that will provide needed money to help our state improve clean and safe drinking water system security, drought and flood mitigation, wildfire prevention, parks and coastal resilience, biodiversity, extreme heat, clean energy, and sustainable agriculture. Without funding that looks to reduce the likelihood of wildfires, address extreme heat, better protect the coast from sea-level rise, and safeguard our natural resources, we will be forced to spend far more after disasters hit.
According to studies from UCLA, wildfire smoke in California resulted in 52,000-55,000 premature deaths at an economic cost of $432-456 billion in recent years. Wildfires caused an estimated $117.4 billion annually in overall economic costs, including more than $5 billion in annual state fiscal losses between 2017 and 2021. The 2022–2023 floods caused an estimated $4.6 billion in property damage. According to AccuWeather, February’s storms caused between $9 and $11 billion in damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure, and roadways in our state.
In California’s Fourth Climate Assessment, the California Natural Resource Agency warns that our state could face an annual cost of $113 billion from climate change by 2050 if no action is taken. I can hardly wrap my mind around that number. Upfront investments now can save us money down the road.
QUESTION: You say Proposition 4 would be the largest single investment of public funds for climate resiliency in California history and largest in the nation after the Federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). How are the two bills similar, different and/or complementary?
SENATOR ALLEN: Proposition 4 and the IRA are similar in some ways but also very different. The IRA is focused on domestic energy production and manufacturing and reducing carbon emissions nationally. The Federal government is uniquely positioned to invest in these goals. The investments in Prop 4 aim to improve the resiliency of California communities and natural resources in the face of climate threats. This includes reducing the risk of catastrophic fire or drought and safeguarding California’s drinking water supply.
QUESTION: When most people talk about solutions to the climate crisis, they focus on green energy, energy efficiency and ecological urban design. Why focus on climate resiliency in Proposition 4? Is this complementary to other California climate-related strategies?
SENATOR ALLEN: Given the climate impacts we are already seeing, including the massive wildfires occurring across the state right now and an unprecedented heat wave, we must take action to protect communities while continuing our ambitious efforts to reduce emissions. We simply do not have the luxury of waiting. California has been a global leader in clean energy and transitioning our economy off of polluting fossil fuels. We’ve made incredible progress, but the effects of rising temperatures are undeniable. We must both prevent worsening impacts and protect communities from the threat here today. But along the lines of your question, there are significant investments in green energy in the bond as well.
QUESTION: The IRA went through many changes in the Congressional legislative process, and ultimately became a less aggressive and comprehensive bill to enable its passage. Did you have a similar experience with SB 867 in the California state legislature? If so, what changes/compromises did you have to make?
SENATOR ALLEN: Every legislative process involves a push-pull of competing interests, an effort to balance priorities, and, eventually, a compromise. Earlier interactions of SB 867 would have secured $15.5 billion in investments for fire, water, clean energy, and habitat protection. However, given other state priorities and our strong belief that we need to be incredibly thoughtful about asking voters to approve new debt, we decided to reduce the bond to $10 billion. Reducing the measure was extremely difficult and required tough decisions about allocating less funding. We had to balance the overwhelming needs on the ground in our communities with policymakers’ objectives to exercise fiscal prudency – particularly following two budget cycles in which the state faced revenue shortfalls – as well as an electorate that is wary of authorizing excessive spending.
That said, similar to the IRA, we view this measure as a critical and unprecedented down payment on the climate infrastructure we will need to secure our state’s future, with the expectation that future investments will follow as the state’s financial outlook improves.
QUESTION: In 2022 you successfully authored The Plastic Pollution Reduction & Recycling Act (SB 54), which was passed by the State Legislature and by Governor Gavin Newsom, after two previous failed attempts to get similarly-intended bills through the legislature. What did you learn from the SB 54 process that you applied to SB 867?
SENATOR ALLEN: We learned that to accomplish something big we must invest the time to hear from all interested parties and receive as much feedback as possible. Buy-in is key. A comprehensive process is harder and takes longer, but the outcomes are better. Both measures were tough and required a lot of time listening, hammering out differences, finding accord where we could, and in some cases making some hard choices. Not everything in a negotiation needs to be a zero-sum equation. But you need to spend the time focusing on your goals, hearing people out, and crafting a winning path.
QUESTION: Both SB 54 and SB 867 are systemic, paradigm-shifting approaches to major environmental issues. SB 54 was about a big concept — a ‘circular economy’ — when most people don’t even know what that would mean in practice. SB 867 asks us to adapt our way of living to a radically and rapidly changing climate than we have never experienced before as a species, and to do so in a very short time period. What motivates you to take on these ‘world view/paradigm-shifting' approaches to major problems and why have you been successful so far?
SENATOR ALLEN: Because of our size and relative political consensus, California is uniquely positioned to lead the nation and even the world by example in addressing our most pressing environmental challenges. Whereas partisan gridlock and disagreement on the severity, urgency, or even existence of our climate and pollution crises have often stymied efforts to address these concerns legislatively at the federal level, California’s policy arena has been much more amenable to more comprehensive environmental reforms. And because of our outsized influence in the global economy, mandated standards in California often become market standards nationwide and even overseas. In fact, we specifically constructed SB 54 to be a model that could be easily replicated and adopted elsewhere, and we have already seen European nations working on their own anti-plastic pollution policies based on our Extended Produce Responsibility framework. It is our hope that SB 867 will similarly spur investments in climate resilience beyond California’s borders.
Big "paradigm-shifting" bills take a lot of work and time and patience. But given the size and scope of the challenges we face, I consider them to be a much better use of my time and resources as a legislator than environmental one-offs that also take a lot of work, often generate quite a bit of partisan scorn, and don’t really move the needle on the macro-level.
With my team, we’ve worked hard to hear people out on all sides and be an honest broker. But I’ve also tried to make it clear that I’m not going to walk away from these critical issues just because it’s hard, or because I’ve had setbacks, or have failed a few times. Being in the Senate is hard work, it takes me away from my family, and I’m certainly not getting rich in the job. I want to make all of this time and effort as a Senator really count, and be able to help the state make progress on things I care about. So yes on big issues such as circularity, climate resilience, and environmental protection more broadly, I do think that shooting for paradigm shifts is important. These issues are massive and require ambitious, aggressive rethinking.
Michael Feinstein is a former Santa Monica Mayor (2000-2002) and City Councilmember (1996-2004). ‘Inside/Outside‘ is a periodic column about civic affairs Feinstein writes for the Daily Press that takes advantage of his experience inside and outside of government.
