Proposition 30 could help California meet its climate goals. So why is Newsom against it?
At a glance, Proposition 30 seems like a series of strange coincidences.
Strange that Election Day on Nov. 8 and a proposition addressing climate change, wildfires and California’s rapidly worsening air quality coincide with the fourth anniversary of the Camp Fire, the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire.
Strange that Proposition 30 is so ardently opposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that he has publicly campaigned against it. Stranger still that Newsom joins the California Republican Party in opposition.
It could seem strange that a campaign for cleaner air and a larger budget for Cal Fire should be bankrolled by one of the nation’s largest ride-hailing companies and a massive contributor to the state’s rising greenhouse gas emissions, Lyft.
Or perhaps none of this is strange at all, considering Newsom has mandated an 80% reduction in emissions below the state’s 1990 levels by 2050, and has promised California will be carbon neutral by 2045.
State regulators voted to ban all new sales of gas-powered cars by 2035 and will require ride-hailing companies, such as Lyft and Uber, to log 90% of their drivers’ miles in electric vehicles before the decade is out.
So in order to meet those goals — to make it easier for the middle- and lower-income Lyft drivers to afford electric vehicles — Lyft has poured more than $45 million into the Yes on 30 campaign, which would impose a 1.75% personal income tax on Californians earning more than $2 million a year.
Such a revenue stream would generate $3.5 billion to $5 billion annually, analysts say, which could subsidize the state’s mandated zero-emission vehicles and also fund wildfire response and prevention. Taxpayers already spend approximately $2-$4 billion on wildfire prevention annually.
Perhaps Newsom’s opposition is no mystery at all, since the governor has a lot of friends who earn $2 million or more.
California already has the most polluted air in the U.S., according to William Barrett, the National Senior Director of the American Lung Association, who spoke along with other Prop. 30 supporters at a rally Saturday in Sacramento to mark the anniversary of the Camp Fire.
California hosts eight of the top 10 most particle-polluted cities in America, including Fresno and Bakersfield in the top two spots, Barrett said. The Sacramento-Roseville area checks in at No. 7.
More than 90% of California residents live in a community with unhealthy air, and wildfires “drive particle pollution off the charts,” he said.
Prop. 30 would be a step toward achieving the climate goals Newsom professes publicly to support while funding the emergency firefighting operations that Californians depend on.
I have seen firsthand the destruction and trauma that California’s megafires leave behind. I have heard the hundreds of 911 calls that Paradise, Magalia and Ridge residents made the morning of Nov. 8, 2018, as the Camp Fire closed in on their towns, and I have heard their sobbing pleas for help as smoky air choked their lungs and their escape routes.
No one should ever have to experience a wildfire, but wishing will not make it so.
In the meantime, we can take a significant step toward a cleaner future by incentivizing middle- and lower-income residents to buy electric cars and meet our climate deadlines. The rest of the revenue from Prop. 30 will go toward paying for firefighters to protect our state’s most vulnerable communities.
Actually, nothing about this is strange at all.
