Newsom signs higher ed bills + Offshore drilling ban? + CSU won’t invest in fossil fuels

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

NEW LAWS AIM TO SPEED UP DEGREES FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

Via Lara Korte...

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slew of bills on Wednesday aimed at increasing access and affordability in higher education — including a pair of bills that strive make it easier for community college students to transfer to four-year institutions.

Assembly Bill 928 by Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, requires California State University and the University of California to create a single education pathway to transfer admission into both of their systems. It also requires California Community Colleges to place students who declare a goal of transfer on a specific path for their intended major.

Assembly Bill 1111, also by Berman, requires community colleges to adopt a common course number system to make it easier to compare courses across campuses.

“When students discussed their experience with the transfer process from community college to four-year university their message was loud and clear: transfer is too complex, confusing, and difficult to navigate,” Berman said at the bill signing.

Newsom also signed Senate Bill 330 by Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, which requires the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to develop a pilot program to provide affordable housing to students or employees of LACCD.

Newsom signed the bills at a rally hosted at California State University Northridge, and used the opportunity to tout the $47.1 billion the state was able to put toward higher education this year thanks to an $80 billion surplus.

“Eat your heart out, Texas. Eat your heart out, Florida. Eat your heart out Tennessee,” the governor said. “California is back stronger than ever.”

SEN. MIN VOWS TO INTRODUCE ANTI-OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING BILL

As oil fills the waters of his home district, SoCal Sen. Dave Min has announced that he intends to introduce legislation to put a stop to all offshore drilling in California state waters, including under existing leases.

Min has previously called for a ban on drilling in federal waters as well. According to his office, he is the first lawmaker, at the state or federal level, to propose such a ban in the wake of the spill of the waters of Orange County.

“California is known around the world for its beautiful beaches and coastal ecosystems, which attract more than 150 million visitors each year and facilitate a $44 billion coastal economy that employs half a million people,” Min said in a statement. “The Orange County Oil Spill illustrates once again that offshore oil drilling is a bad deal for Californians. The revenues and jobs created by offshore drilling are miniscule in size compared to the negative economic impacts this creates. We must end all offshore oil drilling along California’s coast, including drilling performed under existing leases. I intend to introduce legislation doing just that.”

Such a bill likely would be supported by a majority of Californians, according to polling from the Public Policy Institute of California.

In their July 2021 survey, they found that 72% of Californians were opposed to more drilling along the state coastline. At least half of all Californians have opposed such drilling since 2013.

Democrats (87%) and independents (70%) are opposed to more drilling, while fewer Republicans (43%) are. In Min’s home region of Orange County and the San Diego area, 68% are opposed to more offshore drilling.

CSU BACKS AWAY FROM FOSSIL FUEL INVESTMENTS

Speaking of oil, the California State University system won’t be investing in it anymore, the Chancellor Joseph I. Castro announced on Wednesday.

The CSU’s three investment portfolios, worth approximately $5.2 billion, will pull out of all fossil fuel investments, according to the announcement.

“Consistent with our values, it is an appropriate time to start to transition away from these types of investments, both to further demonstrate our commitment to a sustainable CSU but also to ensure strong future returns on the funds invested by the university,” Castro said in a statement.

The announcement follows a May 2021 decision by the chancellor to ask the university system’s Investment Advisory Committee to review the university’s investments and ensure that it is committed to sustainability.

It also follows a concerted push from the student coalition group Divest the CSU, and student leaders across multiple campuses urged the university system leadership to divest from fossil fuels.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Truth be told, I’m still processing the horrors of the Orange County oil spill. I grew up swimming in these waters. As a kid, I didn’t have much, but I had the beach. How many more California treasures must be destroyed for us to finally understand: there are no safe pipelines.”

- Business entrepreneur Joe Sanberg, via Twitter.

Best of the Bee:

• Some Californians are seeing large unemployment balances. Why they won’t get the money, via David Lightman

• Groups of right-leaning San Joaquin Valley residents and farming families want to make one Democratic congressional district just a bit more Republican as the state prepares to redraw its legislative boundaries, via Gillian Brassil.

• The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision on Tuesday curtailed a California law that would have banned private detention centers in the state, ruling that the legislation should not go into effect because it impedes on the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration policy, via Nadia Lopez