Green New Deal

April 22, 2021
|In Uncategorized
|By adriel

The health of our land, air, water and bodies are interconnected.  

The scientific community has said in extremely clear terms that we have till 2030 to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable and efficient energy, if we expect to leave this planet healthy and habitable for ourselves, our children, and future generations.

In recent years, Californians have witnessed and endured the deadly consequences of our climate crisis and public policy failures. Extreme weather events like record-setting heatwaves, record-setting wildfires, record-setting droughts, and record-setting floods have devastated and upended entire communities in every locality.  Fracking has been linked to recent record-setting earthquakes which caused record-setting fires surrounding nuclear sites. Smoke from our million-acre megafires travelled around the world and still remains in Californians lungs and skies.  These extreme weather patterns and events have caused widespread health emergencies, exacerbated land loss, amplified predatory land speculation, destroyed local economies, devastated ecosystems, taken lives and threatened the livelihoods of millions in #OurCalifornia.  We cannot continue to move from one life-threatening, one ecosystem-threatening, one economy-threatening incident to the next.  We need a new way to respond. We need a new way to care for our Planet and our State.  We need a new way to care for ourselves.  And our responses to one existential crisis must not fuel another.

It is imperative that we counteract climate change, our health *and* our economic crises by investing in ourselves and our communities to ensure a just recovery, resiliency, and sustainably healthy futures.  I believe that we can provide State Guarantees which provide quality employment, housing, healthcare while we build infrastructure to provide us with resilient and sustainable communities.

No more.

I recognize that many localities and underserved populations across our State have historically been excluded from economic prosperity – I intend to elevate your needs and amplify your voices to ensure this Green New Deal leaves no Californian behind.  I will End Poverty in California.  Our Green New Deal will counter systemic inequities by directing long term and sustainable investments in rural localities; in working families; Black, Brown & Indigenous People who reside in frontline communities; our frontline communities; our Poor; our Disabled; our Elders. This Green New Deal will hold Energy Corporations and the wealthy who own them accountable.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win. This Green New Deal is for us ALL and will invest in us ALL. 

I have developed an eight-year, Statewide mobilization effort for this Green New Deal centered around #OurCalifornia’s justice, equity and resilience.   It is time to invest in ourselves and  in innovative public works that benefit us ALL. 

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government, and our communities to reimagine justice and ensure public safety for all Californians.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and these are the Green New Deal along with  environmental justice policies and the vision I believe will help us achieve this:

  • Fast-track a just and 100% complete transition to renewable energy, especially wind, solar & water;
    • The State will obtain respective California Indian Consent for all new land altering projects completed on stolen land.
    • Ensure environmental justice remains at the forefront of #OurCalifornia’s Green New Deal
      • Ensure a just transition and redress for frontline communities, especially under-resourced & underserved groups across localities: Rural communities, Communities of Color, California Indians, the Disabled, Children and our Elders;
      • The State must fund a Green/Sustainable Energy & Utility Plan for all 109 Federally Recognized & 55 non-Federally recognized tribes in California that each of California’s First Nations develop:  Including, but not limited to telecommunications (including high speed internet and wireless) infrastructure, electricity, & any other infrastructure support California’s First Nations determine as necessary.
      • Prosecute energy bad actors that harm the health, land, water or air of #OurCalifornia through careless actions, standard processes, or outdated equipment.  My government will no longer place the expectation of #OurCalifornia to subsidize the clean-ups of energy bad actors and they will be sanctioned accordingly.
    • Ensure workforce rehabilitation for all current employees within the oil, gas, fracking & nuclear energy sectors to State clean renewable energy:
      • Provide State-Paid workforce redevelopment for unionized employment transfers  in sustainable energy public sectors;
  • Create a new Indigenous Environmental Stewardship & Reclamation Department to work with ALL of California’s 164 First Nations to determine what they’d like to see this department become, do, protect, and how we can authorize California’s Indians in leading it.  
    • Creating a Statewide Seed Bank & Library run by Indian/Native Peoples at every level from all Federally & Non-federally recognized lands
    • Local Seed Bank & Library Local and native species for preservation identified by Tribes, Clans, Native Peoples in each County/Region to strengthen permaculture, biodiversity & ensure California’s Climate Resilience
    • Collaborate with the State Attorney General to hold Energy & Resource Extraction Large Corporations accountable for Corporate Crimes, Environmental Crimes, Suppressing Tribal Sovereignty, and Environmental Injustices;
      • #LandBack ex. – California Edison spaces (and any other Energy/Utility/Resource extraction  Corp that owns forest in State Parks) – returning those IMMEDIATELY to California Indians to become protected tribal land and ensure environmental stewardship;
      • #LandBack ex. All Private Water Bottling Company Locations (Arrowhead, Nestle, Pure , Dasani, etc.; – returning those IMMEDIATELY to California Indians to become protected tribal land and ensure environmental stewardship because #WaterIsLife;
      • See #SoakTheRich & Corporate Accountability for further details
    • Fires are a way of life for California – however the severity and duration of the natural disasters we’ve seen in recent years have as much to do with rises in temperature, droughts, as much as Federal and State mismanagement and legislation.  More importantly, California Indians and First Nations have long been stewards of our environment and have been spiritual practicing rights with cultural burns, and the weakening of Tribal Sovereignty.  No more.  The State of California will meet California Indians and First Nations Land and Forest Rehabilitation needs (specifically through funding, legislation) where both our State and Federal Government do not. State Legislation must reflect California Indian needs, spiritual practices, and environmental stewardship.
    • The State of California must meet Sovereign States’ Fish, Wildlife and Recreation needs (specifically funding) that the Federal Government does not. State Legislation must reflect California Indian needs, spiritual practices, and environmental stewardship.
    • As the FY2019 Federal Budget proposed to eliminate the BIA Tribal Resilience Program, which helps increase tribal capacity to address the effects of climate change, the State of California must fully cover (and expand) all services this program provided under California’s new Indigenous Environmental Stewardship & Reclamation Department. State Legislation and action must reflect California Indian needs, spiritual practices, and environmental stewardship.
  • Unlike previous spills, hazardous leaks, and toxic sites that remain a public health hazard without EPA enforcement and accountability to address the magnitude of harm caused and clean-up required, and #OurCalifornia’s funded responses and financial liability for Corporate actions we didn’t cause, I believe the People of this great State deserve better.  In #OurCalifornia’s full and complete transition my government will mandate energy and resource extraction Corporations fully fund future isolations, impoundments, stabilizations, open channel flows, excavations & environmental assessments along any other processes required to address and ensure their Corporations safe withdrawal, harm reduction, sustainably engineering complete restoration & stewardship.  Furthermore, as our State has increasingly expanded fire seasons and damage – fires at these imperiled hazardous waste & superfund sites could release toxins ranging from acid mine drainage to radioactive smoke into our communities, water, and air to impact our State, States of the US and other countries around the world – our failure to act will harm countless people.  It is a Corporation’s responsibility to finally and fully address the harm they have caused us, our communities, our Planet and future generations.  They can more than afford it:
    • To be completed and approved both by the Indigenous Environmental Stewardship & Reclamation Department & California government environmental & restorative agencies;
    • Utilizing the Provide my Office of the Attorney General with the resources to formally investigate and prosecute  all Energy & Resource Extraction Corporations for defrauding the government, environmental act violations, lobbying for significant influence and favor of our government officials & corruption, ceasing all contracted use of State land;
      • Applying sanctions when found responsible for violations of the law will include restitution and up to public domain allotments, public trust & forfeiture to transition all large Public and Private waste management corporations into a customer-owned cooperative belonging to every resident of #OurCalifornia;
      • Energy & Resource extraction corporations will fully fund a resource extraction escrow account *per site* with future funds generated from the interest off that principle.  These funds will be transferred into an operating account, which the State of California will pull from to complete environmentally restorative maintenance and monitoring;
  • Expand State Public Lands, State conservation efforts, and State conservation investments so we can truly begin to heal our land, water, air and ultimately the health of #OurCalifornia as we are all interconnected; 
  • It is time #OurCalifornia says YES to Investing in our Public Utilities and returning them to the Public:
  • Invest in sustainable Publicly-funded and Publicly-Owned Green Fleet Transit and Transportation for resilient communities positively impacting our climate health in #OurCalifornia; (solar? Food-oil based? Hydrogen?)
    • Instead of relying on automotive corporations and luring them in with significantly high tax dollars from #OurCalifornia in the form of subsidies, I want to build our own green fleet with manufacturing factories owned by the State.
    • Green Jobs! Green Jobs! Green Jobs!
      • Bus design by UC or Cal State program graduates (civil engineering, mechanical engineering, design, etc)
      • Manufacture every piece of this bus in California – from the nuts to bolts, to spacers, handlebars, to windows, to seats, to radiators and wheels.  
        • Localities heavily impacted by Corporate disinvestment and economic downtowns will be prioritized first with factories and well-paying manufacturing jobs  
      • All Green Fleet employment will be unionized
    • Ensure every locality has a minimum fleet of 500 by 2026
    • California riders will ride free – we are subsidizing our own public transportation instead of corporations providing electric personal vehicles for the wealthy who move our employment to Texas.
    • The State will also purchase any failing privatized public transportation systems – repurposing those buses; upcycling engines and interior with Green Fleet manufactured parts built by #OurCalifornia Green Fleet Factory & Lineworkers
  • #OurCalifornia Customer-owned Cooperatives for Energy
    • Immediately end all easement rights and State contracts for fossil fuel; Reacquiring all State land leased or occupied by any private oil, gas, fracking, electric and nuclear corporations;
      • Strengthening Tribal Sovereignty, ensuring #LandBack & expanding Indigenous Environmental Stewardship & Reclamation Department  opportunities by removing Corporations and Private Energy and/or Resource Extraction Equipment from Tribal Lands;
    • Cease all State and locality land use for Corporate resource extraction and end State permit programs which enable this resource extraction and the proliferation for Corporate Energy Bad Actors who remain unaccountable for the harm they create;
      • Strengthening Tribal Sovereignty, ensuring #LandBack & expanding Indigenous Environmental Stewardship & Reclamation Department  opportunities by removing Corporations and Private Energy and/or Resource Extraction Equipment from Tribal Lands;
    • Safely disarm existing State oil, gas, fracking & nuclear energy stockpiles in the State of California;
    • Build the necessary infrastructure to achieve a just & 100% complete transition to renewable energy, especially wind, solar & water
    • Replace and upcycle current energy facilities, waste facilities and incineration plants to become multi-use facilities that combine heat, power waste-to-energy (biomass) plants with functional, fun, green communal spaces. Think #Copenhill, but make it relevant to meet Cali communal needs in each locality;
  • #OurCalifornia Customer-owned Cooperatives for Water
    • Immediately end all easement rights and State contracts for Private Corporations privatizing public water sources from public land;
      • Nestle, Arrowhead, Crystal Geyser, PureLife, Aquafina, Dasani, etc.
    • #WaterIsLife: Cease all State and locality land use for Corporate resource extraction and end State permit programs which enable this critical resource extraction and the proliferation for Corporate Energy Bad Actors who remain unaccountable for the dynamic harm they create to the People of our great State;
      • From improperly disposing of toxic wastewater to leave localities with arsenic ponds,  to plundering our already drought-ridden California mountain springs and municipal water stores for Corporate profit, our public water is privately sold across the country and globe while #OurCalifornia suffers;
    • Strengthening Tribal Sovereignty, ensuring #LandBack & expanding Indigenous Environmental Stewardship & Reclamation Department  opportunities by removing State Water Initiatives, Private Corporations and Private Resource Extraction Equipment from Tribal Lands;
      • Ensure all current and future infrastructure plans obtain IESRD approval and First Nation consent;
    • Return our public waterways back to the public, invest in publicly-controlled water systems & expand/improve infrastructure for resilient & healthy communities;
    • Build the necessary infrastructure to achieve a just & 100% complete transition to renewable energy and protect our water
  • #OurCalifornia Customer-owned Cooperatives for Waste: 
    • Immediately end all easement rights and State contracts for Private Corporations privatizing public waste for private profit and public harm;
    • Build the necessary infrastructure to achieve a just & 100% complete transition to renewable energy, especially sustainably using our waste as an energy source
    • Replace and upcycle current energy facilities, waste facilities and incineration plants to become multi-use facilities that combine heat, power waste-to-energy (biomass) plants with functional, fun, green communal spaces. Think #Copenhill, but make it relevant to meet Cali communal needs in each locality;
  • #OurCalifornia Customer-owned Cooperatives for Telecommunications:
    • Immediately end all easement rights and State contracts for Large Corporations privatizing public telecommunications for private profit and public detriment;
    • Cease all State and locality land use for private Corporate occupation and end State permit programs which enable this critical resource to be abused, mismanaged and the proliferation for Corporate Telecommunications Bad Actors who remain unaccountable for the dynamic harm they create to the People of our great State;
    • #HighSpeedBroadbandForAllCalifornians
    • Build the necessary infrastructure to achieve a just & 100% complete transition to renewable energy, inclusive of all #OurCalifornia’s telecommunications needs