Hal Helsley, former Los Angeles County Planning
Commissioner and Nancy Helsley, current Treasurer and Director of the Board at
the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, both
requested that I share this speech, an introduction to State Senator Fran
Pavley at the RCDSMM Wild and Scenic Film Festival on Saturday.
Raise
your hand if you already know who our State Senator is.
In Malibu and adjacent areas, we are represented by
Senator Fran Pavley. Prior to that she was our Assemblymember.
I would suggest that apart from President Barack
Obama she might be the most important person in the United States.
[Audience erupts.]
Hear me out, hear me out. Ten to twelve years ago when all the smart people
I knew started freaking out about the inevitability of climate change, pretty
much equating it with the onset of the zombie apocalypse, she saw the rise of anthropogenic
climate change as a budgeting issue – an inappropriate relationship of energy input
and output. As with any troubled budget,
she saw this as a situation that with core changes and good planning, could be
managed and resolved.
So while the rest of the country had its head dug
in the sand ignoring the onset of climate change, she approached climate change
as a math problem and decided to create legislation that would reduce climate
change.
If California were a separate nation, we’d be the eighth largest economy in the world –
so her success in working with California's legislature has borne fruit.
In the nineties, her legislation to promote cleaner
cars included laws stating that car manufacturers selling cars in our state not
only had to reduce tailpipe emissions, they had to sell a percentage of cars that
are ZEV.
Anyone
want to tell me what ZEV stands for?
Right. Zero Emissions Vehicles.
In essence, this legislation forced the car
companies that wanted to continue to sell cars in the State of California to
build and sell EV and ZEV cars.
The response of the car companies?
They took it to the California Supreme Court – and the State of California lost that one.
They took it to the California Supreme Court – and the State of California lost that one.
So she took it to the U.S. Supreme Court – and won.
Her work setting the framework for carbon-trading markets is a model that
is being studied and emulated all around the world. She’s spoken to national
legislative bodies in such countries as Japan,
Norway and Canada about these legislative efforts.
Currently AB 32 requires a reduction in
statewide climate pollution to 1990 levels by the year 2020. The
largest polluters are the primary target including factories power plants and
oil companies. About half the required pollution reductions have already
been made, so the program is on track to be a success that other states and
nations follow.
The positive impacts on our state’s overall carbon
footprint are going to be breath-taking – or perhaps breath-adding.
In addition to her seminal work reducing climate
change, the Senator has been a huge advocate
for children, for the developmentally disabled, for our State Parks and for clean water and for maintaining water supply. Her legislation on groundwater is a critical dose of good
sense in an era of ongoing drought.
As an historian, I have to mention that she is a great-granddaughter of William
Jennings Bryan who ran for President in 1896.
As a parent, I love it that she spent 28 years teaching school.
As a staffer at the RCDSMM, I must tell you that she served on our board in the early days of her career as an elected official.
And, as someone who believes that the next
generation has the capacity to heal and restore our earth, I want to tell you
that my personal favorite piece of her legislation resulted in environmental education standards being
built into the curriculum for students in California.
Please welcome our honored guest, State Senator Fran Pavley.
-- Melina Sempill Watts
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