Prop 23

A forum held to educate voters on proposition 23 attracted a moderate crowd last Tuesday night at Sacramento’s arts, culture, and activism center, Sol Collective.

California Director of the Sierra Club, Bill Magavern and Yes on 23 Chief Spokesperson Anita Mangels answered and debated prop 23 questions based on policy, environmental, financial, investment, and cap ‘n trade.

Prop 23, designed and paid for by Texas oil companies, will suspend California’s air pollution control law, Assembly Bill 32, until California’s unemployment rate reaches 5.5 percent (or less) for one consecutive year. AB 32, passed by legislature in 2006, was set into action in order to hold major polluters accountable by reducing and reporting their greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to combat California’s contribution to global warming.

Prop 23, or the California Job Initiative, is proposed in the light of California’s sky rocketing unemployment rate. The proposed law states that at the time AB 32 was signed California’s unemployment rate was at 4.8 percent. It is currently 12.4 percent. The law says, “California businesses cannot drive our economic recovery and create the jobs we need when faced with billions of dollars in new regulations and added costs.”

“We have been losing businesses at an alarming rate,” said Anita Mangels. Regulatory burden is forcing businesses to leave the state and by passing Prop 23 it will relieve them so they have the financial balance to recover from a wounded economy she said.

“There are two different visions of how we get this state to economic recovery,” said Bill Magavern. He said that prop 23 is telling California “these environmental standards, they’re a luxury, we can’t afford that during bad economic times; get rid of them.” He described the other vision as “taking the high road to recovery,” that emphasizes on California’s educated work force and high standards which attracts green capitol.

Another argument is based on California’s role in the fight against global warming.

“California can’t do anything about global warming in its own,” said Mangels. California should take a look at the rest of the world and follow what they are doing instead of wasting resources on things that do not work. “Some of the greatest advocates of global warming policy and climate change action have all moderated their approach because they recognize their economy cannot sustain it,” she said.

“California is the leader in this country, the problem is the federal government is not taking the kind of action that California has,” said Magavern. The rest of the world is waiting for the U.S. to take action as a nation and California is leading the way. “That’s one of the reasons why we need to defeat prop 23,” said Magavern.

“Do your homework, don’t take my word for it, don’t take Bill’s word for it,” said Mangels in her closing argument. “We’ll save billions of dollars for employers, universities, and small businesses.” She also reinforced her argument by saying Prop 23 would not repeal or weaken California’s global warming laws but will only suspend it.

“If you want to build a bridge back to the 20th century, to a fossil fuel dependent economy, then vote for prop 23,” said Magavern, “If you want to move into a cleaner, greener economy where we compete based on our skills and become a model for the rest of the country, the rest of the world, then vote no on 23.”

Marc Grossman, a California voter and spectator at the event, said he recently read a survey printed in the Sacramento Bee saying only two or three percent of businesses were in fact leaving California because of regulatory burdens. Grossman then asked if there was any “hard economic data” which indicates that jobs are leaving.

Mangels replied that there are unscientific polls that say we have lost “hundreds of thousands” of manufacturing jobs and California has lost 1.4 million jobs in the past four years. “They’re not just going away, they’re going somewhere else,” said Mangels.

Magavern responded, “the answer is no, there is not a single, credible study that shows regulation has forced businesses out of state.” He emphasized that it is no secret why the economy is bad, “We are in a global recession and we cannot blame recession on environmental regulations.”

“They were both very effective, but I don’t believe allot of the premise of what’s being said,” said Grossman. “I’m still voting no.”