The Year of Distraction: How the Environment Fared in California in 2007

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Life in the post-election, post-bonds, post-AB 32, post-partisan world

By Susan Smartt
Executive Director of the California League of Conservation Voters

As we reported in last year’s Scorecard, the 2006 legislative session was one of the most productive in recent years for the environment, capped by the enactment of the milestone AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. It was also an election year, and 2006 closed with hopeful signs of change:

• Almost half of the Assembly – 37 out of 80 members – were newly-elected freshmen (in 2004 there were 18). In fact, a majority of the Assembly Democratic caucus – 25 out of 48 – were elected to their first term.

• The voters approved an unprecedented $43 billion in infrastructure bonds, for everything from transportation to housing to flood control.

• Governor Schwarzenegger triangulated his way to easy re-election, cheerfully declaring that his election and the 2006 legislative session ushered in an era of post-partisan cooperation.

• For environmentalists, AB 32 promised to change just about everything. If the state was serious about reducing its global warming gas emissions, then the process itself would lead to many other environmental improvements we had long supported.

Alas, it was all too much. The post-election, post-bonds, post-AB 32, post-partisan world, both real and imagined, seemed to drive the legislature and governor to distraction. After the voters approved a record level of bonds, the legislature and governor were eager to “put the money on the street,” but they struggled all year to decide exactly how it should be spent. With so much money on the table, the battles among interest groups and legislators were intense and many detailed spending decisions were left for next year.

The governor’s post-partisan vision barely made it past his State of the State speech before the Capitol’s worst-kept secret became obvious: his fellow Republicans in the legislature really won’t follow his lead. That was demonstrated most glaringly when Senate Republicans held up enactment of the state budget for 53 days despite Schwarzenegger’s pleas for their support. The more he pleaded, the less they supported.

Even AB 32 was a distraction. The governor signed global warming agreements with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He addressed the United Nations General Assembly. He appeared on the cover of Newsweek with the whole wide world in his hands. Not to be outdone, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, the author of AB 32, jetted to Davos, Switzerland to attend the World Economic Summit. It turns out the post-partisan world was in New York and Davos, not in Sacramento.

What Got Done