Garamendi Coy in Altadena About Gubernatorial Run in 2010

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Sharon Kyle and Dick Price

Speaking before supporters in Altadena this week, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi tiptoed lightly around talk of running for governor of California next time around. “We’ll have an announcement about that in January,” he said, though the reception was titled “Garamendi—2010” and nobody present stuck their fifty bucks in the envelope to support his run for anything short of California’s top spot.

Instead, Garamendi spoke about four issues that have consumed his first year as lieutenant governor: the environment, transportation, education, and health care.

“Europe took Kyoto seriously. They made major changes,” he said, regarding the Kyoto Climate Change Conference he worked on as Deputy Secretary of the Interior Department during the Clinton Administration in the mid 1990s. “Germany now gets 25% of its energy from renewable sources, up from almost nothing 10 years ago.” In the meantime, the United States—which has not adopted the Kyoto Accords—has fallen behind even China in average gas mileage.

“Global warming is a profound problem for our state, our country, and the world; we need to stop ignoring it,” he said, citing warnings from scientists that snowfall in the Sierra Nevadas—California’s biggest water resource—might fall between 30 and 70% this century, while oceans now might rise 30 inches. “In Northern California, we’ll need to rebuild the dike system, as a result. Here in Southern California, we’ll need to find ways to use the tainted water in the huge reservoirs under the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys.”

Talking to a group of 50 or more Democrats who had gathered in the courtyard of the home of Mike and Nairie Balian, Garamendi had high praise for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts on behalf of the environment. “You hear complaints about all the traveling he does around the world, but nobody’s a better spokesman on California’s environmental challenges. Right now, we’re working together to get a high-speed rail bill passed.”

Garamendi first authored a high-speed rail bill in 1989 during his 14 years as a California state senate representing the region around his family ranch outside Sacramento.

Before the reception this Tuesday, Garamendi had attended a University of California Regents meeting, where he has attempted to address the spiraling tuition costs, which now costs students $23,000 a year. “Tuition in the UC system has doubled in the past five years,” he said. “We’re moving away from the most important public benefit California has ever established, almost 150 years ago—free public education.”