Climate Point: In state races, climate change is on the ballot
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m Erin Rode from Palm Springs, California.
We’re now less than a week out from Election Day, and this year climate change is a key issue both up and down the ballot.
In 30 states and Washington, D.C., voters will choose their next attorney general, a role that impacts climate and energy policy both at the state and federal level, according to E&E News. In addition to enforcing their own state’s environmental laws, state attorneys general can also file comments and briefs critiquing federal rules and can file lawsuits against industries and the federal government.
In California, for example, former Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed over 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration. Some lawsuits related to environmental rules forced the federal government to reverse course on issues like asbestos reporting and delaying a fuel efficiency rule, according to CalMatters.
More recently, the state’s current attorney general, Rob Bonta, has sued a Southern California city over its approval of a large warehouse near a public high school and threatened legal action against local governments that don’t address fire risks when considering new development in the wildland-urban interface.
This year’s elections could tip the current Republican majority of attorneys general in Democrats’ favor, according to E&E News, which has compiled a list of the 15 key state attorneys general races for the environment.
This year’s election also includes key state ballot measures on climate, including two major initiatives in New York and California, writes Blanca Begert for Grist. In New York, voters will decide on the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Bond Act of 2022, which would provide $4.2 billion for a wide range of environmental projects, including land conservation, climate change mitigation, water quality improvements, climate-resilient infrastructure, and reducing flood risk.
In California, Proposition 30 would raise taxes for California’s wealthiest residents to fund electric vehicle adoption and wildfire firefighting. That proposition is hotly contested, with the California Democratic Party endorsing it but Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom appearing on a television ad opposing the bill.
In other news, New York Times reporter Hiroko Tabuchi reported this week that Frank Mitloehner, the head of an agricultural research center at the University of California, Davis, and an outspoken defender of meat, gets almost all of most of his funding from the meat and farming industry.
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