FRONTLINE COMMUNITIES CO-SPONSOR NEWLY INTRODUCED 'CLIMATE SUPERFUND ACT OF 2025" TO MAKE POLLUTERS PAY FOR CLIMATE-FUELED DISASTERS
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- As Californians struggle to rebuild communities torn apart by devastating wildfires, The Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California (CSHC) today announced that it is co-sponsoring the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025 (SB 684 and AB 1243) along with the Center for Biological Diversity and California Environmental Voters. Introduced by Senator Menjivar and Assemblymember Addis, this bill addresses the financial injustices imposed on taxpayers and working families from climate-related disasters by requiring fossil fuel polluters to pay for the destruction they cause.
'For decades, Big Oil has reaped massive profits while driving the climate crisis and misleading the public. It's time for polluters to pay for the destruction they've caused,' said Darryl Molina Sarmiento, Executive Director for Communities for a Better Environment and CSHC Steering Committee Member. 'This legislation provides a critical pathway to hold these corporations accountable for the damage caused by their products.'
Fueled by climate change and driven by extreme drought and record-breaking heat waves, California's wildfires are exacerbated by decades of environmental harm caused by large corporate polluters who knew exactly what their pollution would cause.
Despite heroic efforts by firefighters and first responders, Southern California wildfires burned more than 10,000 structures, including homes and businesses, and have driven 180,000 residents out of their homes. This devastation alone is estimated to cost Californians at least $250 billion.
The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act identifies and assesses a fee on a small number of the world's largest fossil fuel polluters, proportional to their fossil fuel emissions since 1990. This legislation addresses a growing crisis in California, where increasingly frequent and devastating wildfires, extreme weather, and other climate-related disasters have placed an enormous financial burden on families, businesses, and the state.
A recent study revealed that ExxonMobil and other oil giants were aware of the climate risks associated with fossil fuels as far back as the 1950s. Instead of acting responsibly, they funneled millions into disinformation campaigns, stalling action and ensuring continued reliance on their products. This deliberate deception has resulted in irreparable harm to California's families, infrastructure, and natural environment.
The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act will:
Direct CalEPA to complete a climate cost study to quantify total damages to the state (through 2045), caused by past fossil fuel emissions.
Direct CalEPA to identify responsible parties and assess compensatory fees on the largest fossil fuel polluters proportional to their fossil fuel emissions 1990 through 2024, to address damages quantified in the cost study.
Fund California's future. Fees collected will fund projects and programs to mitigate disaster related rate increases for Californians and remedy or prevent climate-related costs and harms. The bill prioritizes labor and job standards and dedicates at least 40% of the funds to benefit disadvantaged communities.
'As a Steering Committee member for the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California, I am proud to stand alongside a diverse coalition of community leaders and environmental justice organizations in support of the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act,' said Martha Dina Argüello, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and CSHC Steering Committee Member. 'This bill represents a unified effort to ensure that Big Oil polluters, who have reaped billions in profits while knowingly sacrificing the health and well-being of frontline environmental justice communities and fueling the climate crisis, are held accountable for the damage they have done. Together, Physicians for Social Responsibility LA, Communities for a Better Environment, California Environmental Justice Alliance, Black Women for Wellness LA, Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, and Asian Pacific Environmental Network Action demand justice for California communities by making polluters pay.'
The state of New York also recently passed a Climate Superfund Bill that shows growing momentum nationwide to hold Big Oil accountable for decades of pollution and its devastating effects on a state and local level. These actions by states are critical as President-elect Donald Trump vows to unravel corporate accountability for the oil industry's polluting ways.
California has long been a leader in climate policy, and the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act builds on this legacy. From wildfire recovery to rebuilding efforts and mitigation, this bill provides a lifeline to families and communities bearing the brunt of climate change.
California's largest greenhouse gas emitters should be the ones paying for firefighting, disaster recovery, and rebuilding efforts in communities most affected by climate-driven disasters and prevention efforts to limit future tragedies.
'California needs to seize this moment - it is time for our leaders to take bold action to protect our communities and hold those responsible for the climate crisis to account,' said Mabel Tsang, Political Director for California Environmental Justice Alliance and CSHC Steering Committee Member. 'Making these polluters pay for their climate damage is the moral and economic responsibility of this generation.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hong Kong Airlines Celebrates Inaugural Flight to Sydney
Offering Travellers More Direct Flight Options to Australia HONG KONG, June 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Hong Kong Airlines' inaugural flight between Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia, departed yesterday, making it the second local airline to operate this route and providing greater travel options for business, leisure, and transit passengers. To mark this new milestone in its network expansion, Hong Kong Airlines held celebratory events at both Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) and Sydney Airport (SYD). Prior to departure, a launch ceremony was held at the boarding gate of the HKIA. The event was attended by distinguished guests, including Mr Jeff Sun, President of Hong Kong Airlines; Mr Ian McGraw from the Australian Consulate-General in Hong Kong; Ms Carmen Tam and Ms Vivien Yuen from Tourism Australia; Ms Jennifer Tung from Destination New South Wales; and Mr Ricky Chong from Airport Authority Hong Kong. The guests interacted with passengers and presented them with bespoke souvenirs to commemorate the historic occasion. During the event, Hong Kong Airlines President Mr Jeff Sun stated: "As a full-service local carrier, the launch of our Sydney service marks a significant step in our transformation to an international airline. Sydney is not only a popular destination for leisure and business travel but also one of Australia's most vital economic hubs. The expansion of the bilateral traffic rights agreement allows us to offer more choice to travellers in both cities, strengthening the connection between them." He added, "While Hong Kong Airlines may be a younger brand in the mature Australian market, we are endeavouring in our commitment to providing quality service. We operate this route with our Airbus A330 aircraft, featuring comfortable business and economy class cabins, and strive to deliver a passenger-centric in-flight experience through attentive service and fine dining for our long-haul customers." Sydney Airport CEO Mr Scott Charlton said: "We're proud to welcome Hong Kong Airlines to Sydney as our 52nd airline partner with its strong reputation for service excellence, efficiency and value. This inaugural service comes on the back of the first expansion in bilateral air traffic rights between Australia and Hong Kong in 19 years and we thank the Albanese Federal Government for its role in enabling this important agreement, which reflects the strength of our longstanding cultural and economic ties." NSW Minister for Jobs and Tourism Steve Kamper, said: "Hong Kong is a priority international market for NSW, with incoming travellers contributing substantially to the NSW visitor economy. The Minns Labor Government has made it very clear; we want to grow our visitor economy and the best way to do this is by increasing airline capacity and unlocking new international markets for NSW. We've set our sights on increasing the state's aviation capacity by 8.5 million seats, and this new Hong Kong route will complement other new routes we're securing as we work towards landing this goal." Mr Wang Yu, Consul General of People's Republic of China (Sydney), said: "As the second Hong Kong-based airline to operate the Hong Kong–Sydney route, Hong Kong Airlines not only provides a convenient new option for traveling between China and Australia, but also contributes to enhanced exchanges among students, tourists, business professionals and friends from all walks of life. This new service will strengthen Hong Kong and Sydney's role as vital gateways for the flow of people and goods, injecting fresh momentum into the economic and cultural ties between China and Australia. Its launch will also attract more international travelers to transit through Hong Kong or Sydney, further strengthening both cities' positions as global aviation hubs and creating new opportunities for trade and investment. Looking ahead, the Consulate-General of China in Sydney will continue to encourage and support airlines from both China and Australia in restoring or launching new routes based on the principle of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. We believe that Hong Kong Airlines will continuously enhance its service quality and showcase a good corporate image." Also in attendance at the Sydney welcome ceremony were representatives from the Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Sydney, Destination NSW and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Sydney). Exclusive Lounge Access for Connecting Passengers To celebrate the launch of the new service, passengers travelling on this route and transit at Hong Kong for selected Hong Kong Airlines flights* to Vancouver, Bali, Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Shanghai (Pudong), Haikou, or Sanya, between 20 June and 31 October 2025, will receive complimentary access to the airline's flagship lounge "Club Autus" at Hong Kong International Airport. *Please click here for the relevant terms and conditions. Expanding Route Network The launch of the Sydney service indicates Hong Kong Airlines' overarching strategy for its network expansion. Coupled with the various significant destinations that have been inaugurated or reinstated since the start of the year, including Gold Coast in Australia, Vancouver in Canada, and Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia of mainland China, the airline has cultivated a more extensive and diversified route map. This further underscores Hong Kong Airlines' commitment and contribution to the aviation industry's recovery and long-term development. In addition to the new routes, the Company also increased the frequency of services on multiple routes to cater to the summer travel demand. This includes the resumption of seasonal flights to the Maldives and an increase in flights to Da Nang to two per day. Additionally, flights to Shanghai Pudong will be increased to four per day, while services to Hangzhou and Nanjing will become twice day. The variety of flight times available throughout the day provides business, leisure, and transit passengers with the flexibility to plan their itineraries. The Company will launch another new service in July, providing passengers with more travel options. Hong Kong Airlines flight schedule* between Hong Kong and Sydney is as follows (All times local): Route Flight Number Departure Arrival Frequency HKG – SYD HX017 22:25 09:50+1 Daily SYD – HKG HX018 11:30 19:10 * Flight number and schedule may change without prior notice Please download high-resolution photos through this link. About Hong Kong Airlines Established in 2006, Hong Kong Airlines is a full-service airline firmly rooted in Hong Kong. The airline flies to over 30 destinations across the Asia Pacific and North America, and currently maintains interline and codeshares with multiple airline partners and ferry service providers. Hong Kong Airlines operates an all-Airbus fleet. It has been awarded the internationally acclaimed four-star rating from Skytrax since 2011. For more information, please visit or our social media channels on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Hong Kong Airlines Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio
San Francisco Chronicle
8 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
California will do anything to protect immigrants — except build them housing
Over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Californians have taken to the streets to protest the Trump administration's increasingly authoritarian efforts to deport the state's undocumented population. There's a moral imperative behind these protests; the vast majority of the people being targeted by federal agents are law-abiding workers with no criminal records. There's a practical one, too: This state cannot function without its migrant workers, particularly our agricultural sector. It isn't just that undocumented workers will accept lower wages than their American counterparts. Farming is hard, skilled labor. Absent changes to federal immigration policy that would allow and incentivize more migrants to come here legally, California doesn't have the trained workforce it needs to feed itself and the nation. (We accounted for 41% of the country's vegetable sales in 2022.) And so, Californians and our politicians have rightly gone to battle with President Donald Trump. Yet as supportive as this editorial board is of these efforts, we'd be remiss if we didn't call something out: This state needs to become as passionate about housing our essential workers as it is about fighting Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's been just over two and a half years since the deadly shootings in Half Moon Bay put the Dickensian living conditions of California's farmworkers — the vast majority of whom are undocumented — on the national radar. For decades, California had allowed its migrant workers to live in overcrowded, mold-filled housing with bacteria-ridden drinking water. That's if it housed them at all. What's changed? Not nearly enough, according to San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller, whose district includes the site of the 2023 massacre. Building housing on farmland in his district has proven to be a logistical challenge amid drainage issues, sewage concerns and access to drinkable water. Yet trying to build worker housing off-site hits an even more intractable roadblock. 'The coastal community is, by a large majority, supportive of farmworkers,' he said. 'The opposition you run into is around density.' San Mateo County is hardly unique in this regard. In Marin County, for instance, an effort to build housing for the workers, many undocumented, being displaced by the closure of ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore has been met with a lawsuit by NIMBY groups. This is, of course, unacceptable. And yet, state and local rules still too often empower obstructionism. Mueller said the arduous progress San Mateo County has made in building farmworker housing was mostly achieved using emergency powers that streamlined the usual permitting processes. 'The state was wonderful in getting our project moving,' Mueller said. 'We just need to do that at scale across the state.' We're nowhere close. In 2024, California lawmakers passed a measure to exempt farmworker housing up to 150 units from review under the California Environmental Quality Act. However, this streamlining applied to only two counties: Santa Clara and Santa Cruz. A bill in the state Legislature, AB457 from Assembly Member Esmerelda Soria, D-Merced, would expand those streamlining measures to Fresno, Madera and Merced counties. Over 40% of the state's land is used for agriculture. We're never going to get anywhere with a drip-drop of county-by-county CEQA carve-outs. Assembly Member Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, told the editorial board he'd be supportive of an effort to expand CEQA streamlining to his district and perhaps even statewide. But even that wouldn't be enough, Mueller said. For many Bay Area farming communities, the California Coastal Commission has its own separate and arduous permitting process. Without streamlining bills to cover this and CEQA, little progress will be made. And now an even greater challenge comes from the Trump administration. Farmworker-specific housing makes easy pickings for federal raids. Mueller says he fears his efforts to build new farmworker housing may have inadvertently 'put a target on the back' of the people he's spent years trying to help. This fear isn't theoretical. Gov. Gavin Newsom's office recently issued a press release saying that federal deportation authorities requested and received the addresses and immigration status of Medi-Cal recipients after the state expanded health insurance benefits to low-income undocumented workers. Tailored government efforts for the undocumented risk creating a paper trail that puts them in danger. 'It is clear that we must reassess our programs to ensure we are doing all we can to protect the personal information of our community,' incoming state Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, told the editorial board. We don't have the answer to this quandary on the health care front. But California can do something for migrant workers as it relates to housing — something Limón and too many other California politicians have been reluctant to do. Make it easier to build. AB457 is an admission from legislators that CEQA creates onerous and unnecessary impediments to development. Yet housing streamlining bills such as SB79 from San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, which would exempt developments near transit from CEQA review, provided they comply with local affordable housing mandates and other criteria, are receiving immense political pushback. Undocumented renters in California have virtually the same rights as everyone else in the private rental market under the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act. And landlords are prohibited from disclosing, or typically even asking about, immigration status. But without an adequate housing supply, those protections go to waste. Can most undocumented workers afford to buy a shiny new condo? Almost certainly not. But they could potentially move into older units that open up when other renters decide to buy. And they certainly could benefit from the development of new mother-in-law units — such as those that might have been built had cities like San Diego not just rolled back their accessory dwelling unit laws in the face of community opposition. If California is willing to fight the federal government to keep its undocumented residents here, it should also be willing to fight to ensure they don't live in squalor.
New York Post
20 hours ago
- New York Post
What will it take for Gavin Newsom to focus on his day job?
President Donald Trump rightly took the ruling upholding his National Guard deployment to Los Angeles as a 'BIG WIN,' but it can be a winner for Californians, too — if it inspires their governor to focus on the job they elected him to. Gov. Gavin Newsom vows to litigate on, but if necessary the Supreme Court will slap him down, too. What will get him to quit his near-nonstop posturing to set himself up for a 2028 presidential run, and get his nose to the gubernatorial grindstone? It's bad enough that he sided with LA Mayor Karen Bass in obstructing ICE efforts to deport child predators, murderers and other worst-of-the-worst 'asylum seekers' — posturing that all but invited the riots that Trump deployed the Guard to shut down. Worse that this rush to the left came after Newsom's fake to the right with a series of podcasts where he pretended sympathy to centrist criticisms of the far-left agenda. That follows his haplessness during the Los Angeles fires — a disaster Trump credibly tied to Newsom's green obsessions. Other Gavin grotesquerie included rushing to meet the president on Trump's LA visit bare weeks after prepping for all-out legal #resistance to the new prez. California is plagued with soaring homelessness, elevated crime rates and brutally high costs of living: Even its welcome to illegal immigrants hasn't prevented a historic switch from growth to decline. That is: On Newsom's watch, Cali is for the first time ever losing seats in the House of Representatives because so many residents are fleeing to less-toxic jurisdictions. The Golden State is a natural near-paradise, but Newsom & co. are destroying it. That governor is still devoting his time and energy to a years-off national run is damning proof that he doesn't care a whit for the people of California.
