Lori Saldaña makes The Case For A Green Economy AND Economic Prosperity

Brian Bilbray has always had the stench of corruption around him-- even back in the days when, as mayor of Imperial Beach, he tried, unsuccessfully (thanks for vigilant environmentalists and surfers), to build a yacht club for his wealthy supporters. He was a corrupt congressman in the '90s until San Diego finally got sick of him and elected Susan Davis to his seat. He immediately became a lobbyist and was known on Capitol Hill as a sleazy payoff man for utilities, anti-immigration extremists and shady gaming interests. When he pal Duke Cunningham, who represented a district north of Bilbray's, was arrested, convicted and imprisoned for corruption, local Republicans showed how little they cared by electing the most corrupt candidate they could find to replace him: Brian Bilbray.

This year Bilbray will be running in a newly redrawn district that is far less geared towards the kinds of people who celebrate corruption in public officials. Under the old lines, it was a 50-50 district. The new lines show Obama beating McCain 55-43%. Bilbray is probably looking for a new job on K Street already. Of the two Democrats running-- Port of San Diego Commission chairman Scott Peters and former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña-- Saldaña offers the most clear ethical and policy distinctions from Bilbray and is favored by most of the progressive community. I was especially interested in her record as an environmental activist-- in contrast with the guy who tried damming up the Tijuana River Estuary (now a State Park and National Research Reserve) so he could build a yacht marina for millionaires. I asked her to answer the duplicitous right-wing attacks that responsible environmental stewardship is somehow incompatible with a healthy, growing economy. Below is her guest post, which blows the GOP premise out of the water entirely.

Growing The Green Economy Is Good For Working Americans

-by Former Assemblymember Lori Saldaña


Confront Republican politicos with the facts; they cling on their talking points.
 
A few months ago, I addressed a professional green economy consortium. I was invited to present on the topic of how green policy can improve the triple bottom line of job creation, increased business opportunity, and reduced outlay of personal and business resources on power.
 
Several of the attendees had questions, including a clean-cut young man whom my Republican opponent Brian Bilbray had sent with a video camera as a ‘tracker,’ a paid stalker tasked with catching me saying something ‘outrageous’.
 
Politics…
 
“So, given a choice between jobs and the environment, which would you choose?” he asked, camera at the ready, eager for his ‘gotcha’ moment.
 
Really? I had just spent an hour making a well-sourced presentation using graphs, statistics and my own policymaking experience to demonstrate that jobs and the environment were not mutually exclusive public goods, and this guy pitches a question based on a threadbare debunked Republican false dilemma.
 
No wonder the GOP brand is damaged.
 
The facts tell us it’s not the environment OR jobs, but the environment AND jobs. In 2006 when we were faced with federal inaction on global warming, my colleagues and I in the California Legislature confronted the problem head on by passing landmark bills to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand the use solar and other renewable energy sources.
 
Far from a simple protest move, we were convinced that pursuing policies that promote cleaner energy, reduce carbon emissions and decrease energy also use had the potential to provide economic benefits in terms of solid middle-class jobs and opportunities for entrepreneurs. Quite simply, we wanted to ignite a new Green economy sector, using public policy as the framework.
 
Today, study after credible study shows we, and California, were right on target. Green energy and the economy are not an ‘either/or’ propositions.
 
Our legislative initiatives are now proven to be paying off in a big way. Between 2006 and 2010, $11.6 billion in clean tech venture capital flooded California, accounting for 24 percent of global investment and fueling an estimated 313,000 jobs-- even during the depths of the economic downturn.
 
Another bracing bucket of reality for Green Economy Deniers who carry (tainted) water for the fossil-fuel industry is that California is leading the nation in the percentage of the labor force working at green jobs. According to a 2011 study, jobs in the green economy grew 56% from 1995-2009. Green jobs expanded three times faster than total employment in California from 2008-2009.
 
So, you’d think that the potential to create jobs and clean up the environment might be persuasive for a coastal California Republican like my opponent Brian Bilbray.
 
Not so much.
 
Bilbray, who enjoys a seat on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, has had plenty of opportunities to vote on federal legislation that would support the growth in the green sector, but has instead voted in lockstep with his Republican brethren against the green stimulus, against enforcing CO2 emission standards, against removing subsidies for big oil, and against investment in homegrown biofuel.
 
And what Republican doesn’t love a tax break? Well, Brian Bilbray doesn’t love a tax break when it encourages growth in the green economy. He is on record voting to torpedo tax incentives for conservation and green energy production.
 
Did I mention he supports off-short drilling?
           
While there’s a clear party divide among politicians and pundits about the green economy, ordinary Americans of both parties are nearly unified about which direction our energy future should go. According to a 2012 Civil Society Institute survey, 83 percent of Americans-- again, both Republicans and Democrats-- agree that we need a grassroots-driven politics to realize a renewable energy future.
 
That’s a people-powered mandate and a mission that I will take to Washington.
 
When I arrived as a freshman in the California State Assembly, I saw, along with many of my colleagues, an opportunity for leadership on addressing climate change and jumpstarting the emerging green economy. I took it.
 
We were lambasted on editorial pages, labeled anti-business by the Chamber of Commerce and vigorously opposed by Republican (and some Democratic) members of the California Legislature. We’ve even had big oil interests attempt to nullify these policies with well-funded and ultimately unsuccessful ballot measures.
 
But we seized a historic moment. We passed transformative climate change legislation that would affect the course of policy nationally and globally. California’s pioneering green economic policies have become a (low-emission) engine for business opportunity, investment and good-paying middle-class jobs
 
With public sentiment solidly in favor, we have another historic opportunity to pursue these policies at the federal level. If I am sent to Washington, I will again seize this opportunity and join my colleagues in replicating California’s green economic success on a national scale.