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Invest In a Green Future for California

During his State of the State address, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled an unprecedented $68 billion bond proposal to finance new infrastructure for transportation, water and flood protection, education, public safety, and state facilities over the next 10 years. As California’s population continues to mushroom to a projected 46 million by 2025, improvements in infrastructure are necessary. However, the Governor’s plan raises two major environmental concerns:

• An infrastructure bond should fund parks and protected lands. The state’s public infrastructure must be broadly defined to include the full range of capital investments that improve the quality of life in California, including parks and open space.
• New infrastructure investment needs to avoid past mistakes that contributed to sprawl, traffic congestion, air pollution, and inequitable distribution of benefits.

California does not need a bond that will repeat past mistakes and build more highway lanes resulting in longer commutes, more air pollution, jobs further from home, and continued destruction of the state’s most valuable farmland and open space. Rather, we need a bond that builds infrastructure and simultaneously reduces commute distances and time, improves air quality, increases development in urban areas, provides more neighborhood parks, and saves threatened farmland. Those are the kind of infrastructure improvements Californians want and need.

Currently, the Governor’s bond proposal takes outdated approaches to relieving traffic congestion. It focuses on building more highway lanes, which relieve congestion only temporarily; ultimately, they induce more sprawl, traffic congestion and air pollution. Further, the Governor’s proposal does not give priority to new infrastructure close to mass transit hubs that achieves urban infill, which would help reduce vehicle miles traveled to work. Other problems with the proposal include a lack of future funding for state and urban parks, publicly protected lands for conservation, ecosystem restoration, or drinking water system improvements.

These problems are compounded because this bond package represents a major commitment of state resources over a long period of time. A bond is a loan paid back by the state out of the general fund over a set period. To justify the borrowing and long-term repayment, bonds are generally used to obtain capital assets that last many years. The Governor’s proposed bond is so large that he spreads it out over five election cycles, essentially tying the state’s hands for the next 10 to 15 years and squeezing out the opportunity for any additional bond funding for neglected needs like urban parks and open space. For that reason, it is critical that he and the Legislature improve the plan now.

What You Can Do

Ask the Governor to incorporate responsible investments into his bond proposal, including parks and smart growth options such as transit-oriented development and urban infill. See our sample letter and send one to the Governor today!

Send a fax to: (916) 558-3160

Or, email the governor using his web form at http://www.govmail.ca.gov/

Or, send a letter:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
1st Floor State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841 ext. 5