Californians Consider a Capitol Cash Flow Catastrophe

I spent the last few days in California’s capitol city, Sacramento. I was there lobbying for low-income energy and community service programs. Basically, this state has been in a perpetual budget crisis for over a decade. This economist article sums up the ingrained and systemic problems with the state government that shows why the state cannot seem to find solutions to these types of problems.

I was in Sacramento to advocate for the state department that distributes our federal block grant money. The governor has proposed to eliminate the CA Department of Community Services and Development in favor of giving our Low-Income Weatherization dollars to a newly proposed CA Department of Energy. In his last year in office, Schwarzenegger so far has proposed these cuts as well: eliminating state sponsored children’s health insurance, cutting Cal grants for incoming and future college students, closing down over 200 state parks (including all the state parks in Humboldt County) and eliminating CALWorks (the core welfare program for the state). Because it is a time of “crisis” all bills are being sent directly to the Budget Conference Committee, which typically acts as the place where bills passed by the Senate and the Assembly are merged to send one bill to the governor to sign, bypassing the normal legislative process. Because our issue is small (doesn’t actually save the state any money), we have been fighting just to figure out when decisions are being made, who is making them and how to educate legislators about why this cut doesn’t make sense. It is particularly hard to do this when you are hundreds of miles away and without proper political connections. So we ended up hiring this amazing lobbyist who used to work for the Governor during his first term. She took us around to different Senate offices so that we could argue our case. Most legislation seems to happen behind closed doors.

The Capitol building is amazing. A large white dome stands out around the drab, grey skyline of the city. The hearing we went to was in front of the Senate Humane Services Committee. The week before it had been in front of the Conference Committee and they kicked it back to this committee for further review. It was government at its most inefficient level. The purpose behind all these hearings is to find a way to cut California’s 24 billion dollar budget deficit, which seems to be growing massively by the day. Cutting our department is more about creating Schwarzenegger’s legacy then really doing anything productive. He has made climate change a key part of his platform and by creating a Dept. of Energy, he can cement in people’s minds that California is progressive and great when it comes to climate issues. Unfortunately, this is a needless adjustment to a self-sufficient and efficient program. Although it sounds good to say we are consolidating government and bunching energy programs together in reality it adds lots of bureaucracy and deconstructs a set of programs that strive to give operational control to the local level and allows for quick and versatile changes to happen when problems arise. Putting the Energy Commission, Public Utilities Commission and the Low-income energy programs together will greatly decrease the service delivery that we see right now and could mean the end to the program as we know it.

The hearing was short. The deputy director of CSD told the Senators what our programs were, that the department is entirely federally funded and that there would be no real savings by moving the department. My boss along with others also testified to that point. Immediately, Senator George Runner asked if anyone was there supporting this proposal, no one was. So they decided to go on a hunt for someone from the Department of Finance to get their input. The whole thing was ridiculous. Why would you have a hearing about cutting the budget and not insist on having people from the Department of Finance there? Of course the people who work for or get money from a state department are not going to argue for its demise. In this case the proposal doesn’t make sense but I could see these things happening over and over again. When they finally found someone from the Department of Finance, he wasn’t familiar with the issues and he couldn’t answer their questions. Basically it was a waste of everyone’s time. I found it incredibly fascinating.

Energy and the low-income community

California Energy Policy

It seems like I’ve been creating themes around my blog postings. This one is going to be about energy policy in California. I have been consistently impressed with the incredible amount of energy (haha) that goes into shaping environmental policy in this state. There are several state agencies (EPA, CA public utilities commission, CA energy commission, etc..), many US Congressional representatives from California belong to energy committees, the govenator Arnold has written several executive orders demanding changes to energy policy, and they are creating a statewide Cap and Trade program. The Attorney General of California has sued several local municipalities for not adequately planning for climate change (and won). The city of Stockton, CA will only be building Silver LEED certified buildings in all new construction. It is absolutely amazing that a state can be so far ahead in energy policy. At the same time, California is only doing what the International Panel on Climate Change says is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.

So it is both exciting and slightly terrifying to be challenging energy issues every day. It is exciting to be on the forefront of policy change and renewable energy innovation but it is terrifying to be in a coastal state that will probably be significantly impact as sea levels rise. The state parks department is already planning on moving trails inland, the transportation agency is planning for sections of hwy 1 to fall into the ocean. But a huge issue in climate change policy has not been adequately addressed: the impact climate change and climate change policy will have on low to moderate income people. All these energy regulations will increase the price of goods, energy and transportation. It makes sense that we have not accurately been paying for the actual cost of Green House Gasses and this should be remedied. But as we begin to regulate green house gases through a cap and trade program or a carbon tax, it is important to realize these costs will be directly passed on to consumers and those who are really struggling, facing shut-off notices from their utility companies and cannot afford energy prices as they are. An increase to any of these things could be catastrophic to the health and safety of our low-income population. Currently, only a few people are even considering this impact. The most recent person has been President Obama. The 5 billion dollars that he allotted in his stimulus bill to low-income weatherization programs was a crucial part of his energy plan. Unfortunately, there was not an increase to the energy assistance program that helps low-income people directly off-set their energy costs. There has been a discussion around the revenues that could be generated by a cap and trade program and giving this money directly back to off-set the increased energy cost. But talk is not action and some are skeptical that a cap and trade program is politically feasible during a global economic recession.

I have been thinking more about this recently. This weekend I attended a local energy conference that is designed to help promote sustainability and “encourage the adoption of economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable practices in Humboldt County and to facilitate their implementation through education, collaborative partnerships, and technical assistance.” It was an awesome conference that was complete with a fleet of electric vehicles; rows of booths featuring the energy community of Humboldt County; and a plethora of speakers address various topics. The thing that was missing from this conference was the low-income community discussion. It was apparent that the organizers hadn’t really made this a priority. My organization was the only non-profit that helped low-income people, none of the speakers focused on low-income energy issues, and it wasn’t even mentioned by the event organizers. It wasn’t that they were intentionally neglectful but as I talked to people coming to my booth, few even cared to ask about my organization’s programs and most simply wanted to complain that CFL light bulbs burned out too fast and contained mercury. It also took place in Arcata, the wealthiest town in Humboldt. No one from the low-income community was asked to speak and there was no track that focused on low-income issues. Some may argue that this conference was not focused on low-income issues or poverty so it wasn’t relevant. This is the problem though. Activist and author Van Jones often criticizes the environmental movement for neglecting the social justice movement. One example of this he uses is how white environmentalists talk about saving the polar bears.

Try this experiment. Go knock on someone’s door in West Oakland, Watts or Newark and say: ‘We gotta really big problem!’ They say: ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta really big problem!’ ‘We do? We do?’ ‘Yeah, we gotta save the polar bears! You may not make it out of this neighborhood alive, but we gotta save the polar bears!’

We need a different on-ramp for people from disadvantaged communities. The leaders of the climate establishment came in through one door and now they want to squeeze everyone through that same door. It’s not going to work. If we want to have a broad-based environmental movement, we need more entry points. ...
You can’t take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back. So we are going to have to put people to work in this country—weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college.

Remember, a big chunk of the African-American community is economically stranded. The blue-collar, stepping-stone, manufacturing jobs are leaving. And they’re not being replaced by anything. So you have this whole generation of young blacks who are basically in economic free fall.

If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they’ll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors. The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country.

Recently, people have finally begun to listen to him and a huge ‘green-collar’ movement has sprung up. But there still has not been penetration into the environmental movement. Many barriers exist and often those who are included in the conversation are those groups that do advocacy work instead of direct service. Green for All, a non-profit in the Bay Area, has gotten a lot of press recently for their work in this area. But it is important for us to also include those that provide direct services to low-income people. So, what I’m saying is I am disappointed that more discussion in the environmental movement is not focused on environmental justice. Too many upper class folks are not thinking or understanding the struggle that low-income people are having with energy right now.

Humboldt Fog

Well February marks the third month of my Americorps year. The first three months have been full of sunshine, hiking and political lobbying. I’m officially a research assistant for the Redwood Community Action Agencies Energy Services Division. I’ve been doing everything from researching California’s Global Warming Bill (AB32) to listening to Webinars about carbon credit trading to trying to convince Nancy Pelosi’s aids to give me their contact information. Basically I’m trying to figure out how to tactically bring money into our Weatherization program. The Energy Services division has two programs: The low-income heat energy assistance program (LIHEAP) and the weatherization assistance program (WAP). LIHEAP is direct energy assistance to low-income people in the form of wood, propane, oil or utility assistance. The weatherization program makes homes more efficient by installing new doors or windows, putting low-flow mechanisms on showerheads and faucets, weather-stripping doors, insulating attics and floors, and installing compact fluorescent light bulbs. Right now all these programs are funded through block grants from the federal government. So this big stimulus package that Congress is working on has in it 6.2 billion dollars for weatherizing low-income households across the county-- because the fastest way to cut down energy use is to make homes more efficient. So I’ve been sending off letters asking for Congress to follow through on funding us. Recently I’ve been calling Senators and Representatives, watching a lot of CSPAN and reading a lot of news articles. My boss just left for D.C. to lobby on behalf of rural energy assistance programs. This isn’t that new to me because I did a lot of this kind of stuff when I was working for CODEPINK. The great thing is that this time I am actually truly behind the cause and congressional members actually want to talk to me


Outside of work I’ve been—well working out. I joined the Eureka Adorni Center, which is the local recreation center. For $27 a month – yes Eric and I joined with a family membership—I can lift weights, play basketball OR kickbox with old women. You can guess what I’ve been doing. Cardio kickboxing involves jabbing (I’m not too bad), quasi drill team like dancing (I’m absolutely horrible) and of course kicking (in my case not very high). The bright side is that everyone else is over 40 and so by default I’m not the worst one. It’s pretty hilarious to watch myself in the aerobic room mirrors as I attempt to kick forward left right and back all in a five second period. The instructor is right out of the 80’s with bright red, tightly curled long locks. Her spirit could only be described as spunky. I was recently perusing the class list and realized she teaches 80% of all the classes. So that’s at least 5 hours of fitness a day. She must eat a lot of carbohydrates. We finally got some of the other Americorps kids to play basketball with us. So last week Eric and I played two-on-two with Brian and Kika. Eric happens to be 6’3 so basically he killed us. We had to resort to dirty tactics like pantsing and illegal hip checks under the basket just to stay in the game (and this was after Brian, Kika and I all joined up on one team against Eric). If you ever want to win a basketball game you’d better be on Eric Matthew Miller from Wisconsin’s team (see photo above).

I’ve also been looking for extra work in Eureka to supplement my below minimum wage income. So far that has been a horrible stint of house-sitting for this woman that I work with. She has three small dogs—two Chihuahuas and one miniature poodle. In the week I was there, one of the dogs never came out from under the upstairs bed and all three of them chose to pee in the house instead of outside. Well people say that babysitting is better than abstinence education; I would argue dog sitting does the same thing for detouring potential pet owners. Needless to say I will not be adopting a dog any time soon. My other idea for work was to be the bouncer at the gay bar in Eureka. This was more of an impulsive idea I had when I went to a really bad show there last week but can’t you just picture me in a cutoff shirt throwing people out to the curb? Don’t worry this probably just a pipe dream.

This past weekend was a five day one for me because we got Lincoln/Darwin’s Birthday and President’s Day off. I took that opportunity to travel up to see Ben Robinson. A fellow Vista was driving from Eureka to Portland so I hitched a 7.5 hour ride up and then took a 4 hour bus up to Seattle. I think I’m addicted to ridiculous traveling and it felt good to get out of Humboldt County for the weekend. Ben just got a job with Habitat for Humanity of East King County and so I spent a day out on site putting in insulation into a unit they have been building. When I was in Seattle in October I also helped build on the same house (Ben’s girlfriend also works for Habitat). In that short amount of time the housing units looked complete different as so much work had been done. It grilled Ben’s supervisors about the energy efficiency measures that would be going into the homes. I was surprised when they named off quite a few things they were doing. They have actually recruited a Vista to research green building techniques to make the houses they build even better. The one big thing they haven’t done is switch over to cellulose installation. So instead we were dealing with pallets of itchy fiberglass. A family of three was in my volunteer group (who we found out later use to run with the Diebels family from Juneau) along with Ben and Susannah. As the three of them worked upstairs; Ben, Suz and I finished insulating the garage. With masks on our faces and big jackets covering our clothes, Ben and I yelled measurements from atop our ladders and Susannah cut pieces to meet our specifications. Then we stuffed the pieces in between beams in the ceiling, maintaining the fluff of the fiberglass. A hard day’s work.

Saturday being Valentines Day, after building we were invited to a formal V-day themed pub crawl. Of course I threw in a little Juneau style and wore my extra tuff boots. Ben wore a sweater that he got at a thrift store that had bits of bronze, gold, silver and black. In fact, it was even a woman’s sweater. The crawl started on the top floor of one of the bigger sky scrapers in downtown Seattle. The actual bar wasn’t that great but the view from the top was beautiful. Lights glistened and street lights lit up tiny specks of cars passing underneath. After finishing our ‘Prison Tattoos’, a horrible drink that was some mixture of Southern Comfort and whiskey, we headed to the next place: Rock Bottom Brewery. I’m on a mission to eventually sample every single brewery in the Pacific Northwest so I was excited to check another one off the list. I had the Brown Bear Brown Ale and it was delicious. Then we were off to Elephant and Castle, which Tom Robbins referenced in Skinny Legs and All. We had so much fun at the first three bars we didn’t make it to the fourth one until after last call but we considered the crawl a success and no one ended up having to actually crawl between the bars so it was even better.