In the News

KCRW: New hope for people inhaling toxic air in southern LA County

May 08, 2023

By Caleigh Wells

On one side of a chain-link fence, a cluster of toddlers dig in the dirt next to Cabrillo High School in Long Beach. Nearby, a lawn mower prepares the field for the baseball team. It feels safe here, and clean.

But before you even look over the fence, the smell is a dead giveaway.

On the other side, a freight train leaving the Port of Long Beach passes between a convoy of semi-trucks and an endless expanse of oil tanks. A brown haze obscures the blue sky, thick as dust above a recently-driven dirt road.

LA Times Opinion: I grew up next to an L.A. oil well. California can protect others from what I went through

April 24, 2023

BY NALLELI COBO

I grew up 30 feet from an oil well. We couldn’t open the windows of our South L.A. home because of what was in the air. I couldn’t play outside for more than a few minutes without feeling sick.

At the age of 9, I started organizing to shut down the drilling that was making me, my mother, my sister and our community sick. I helped found a grassroots campaign called “People Not Pozos,” Spanish for “wells.” Over a decade later, it’s a campaign I and others are continuing across California as toxic drilling continues in our midst.

Spectrum News 1: Service workers rally for California bill supporting 7 days of paid sick leave

April 19, 2023

BY SUSAN CARPENTER

LONG BEACH, Calif. — For all COVID’s negatives, there was one major upside for California workers last year: supplemental paid sick leave that guaranteed employees ten days off if they fell ill. For many service workers, that was a vast improvement from the three days of paid sick leave employers are required to provide under California law.

Now that expanded compensated sick leave is over, a proposed bill in the state legislature is seeking to raise the required minimum. SB 616 would increase guaranteed paid sick leave to seven days and also allow employees to carry over seven sick days to the following year.

“We talk a lot about California being the fourth largest economy, but that is solely because of our hardworking California workforce that has been showing up every single day,” California Sen. and SB 616 author Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, said at a rally Wednesday. “California is a leader in a lot of ways, but paid sick leave is one where we’re actually trailing behind many other states.”

CapRadio: Proposed California bill aims to boost air monitoring near petroleum refineries

April 18, 2023
 
Long Beach has a history with oil. The city, located in Southern California, is home to numerous petroleum refineries as well as one of the largest oil fields in the state. 

Saul Ventura, a resident who grew up in West Long Beach, attended a high school located near the refineries. Although he’d long been aware that they existed, he said he’d never been taught about what their emissions might mean for his own health. 

State of Reform: Latino Coalition for a Healthy California discusses importance of pending legislation to strengthen data collection for Latino and indigenous individuals

April 13, 2023

By Hannah Saunders

The California Senate Judiciary Committee meeting unanimously passed Senate Bill 435 on Tuesday, which would require certain state agencies, boards, and commissions to use separate collection categories and tabulations for each major Latino group, Mesoamerican Indigenous nation, and Mesoamerican Indigenous language group. 

Dr. Seciah Aquino, executive director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California—which is sponsoring the bill—spoke with State of Reform about the need for this bill. 

LA Times: Why we can’t solve the climate crisis without schools — and teachers

March 02, 2023

BY SAMMY ROTH

Building schools that run on renewable energy and provide shelter from heat and smoke, the report argues, will not only protect children — it can also support entire communities struggling to deal with climate change impacts and help prepare young people to thrive in a world that’s only getting hotter.

At least one legislator is already listening.

Jonathan Klein — a co-founder of the nonprofit UndauntedK12 and another of the report’s lead authors — pointed me to Senate Bill 394, introduced last month by Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach). It’s a “spot bill” still waiting to be filled out with details. But the goal is clear: to “require the creation of a master plan for achieving sustainable and climate-resilient school facilities.”

 

What bills are Long Beach’s state legislators working on?

February 26, 2023

By 

With nearly two months of the 2023-24 state legislative session under their belts, Long Beach’s representatives have drafted a slew of bills to address opioid addiction, gun regulations, air pollution from oil refineries and more.

Friday, Feb. 17, was the deadline to introduce new bills for this session. Some bills are placeholders on topics legislators are still researching, and others may get rewritten in an effort to win support as they pass through committees. Here’s a sampling of the issues the city’s delegation is working on.

CalMatters: Sen. Lena Gonzalez plans to introduce a bill today to make permanent a pandemic-era policy that extends the number of paid sick leave days

February 15, 2023

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Sameea Kamal:

In another effort to help workers, Sen. Lena Gonzalez plans to introduce a bill today to make permanent a pandemic-era policy that extends the number of paid sick leave days from three to seven — or 24 hours to 56.

POLITICO: California goes after corporate carbon

January 31, 2023

By LARA KORTE, JEREMY B. WHITE, MATTHEW BROWN and RAMON CASTANOS

A group of Senate Democrats Monday unveiled new versions of climate bills that died in the Legislature last year, hoping to put a tighter leash on a sector of the population that environmental advocates have long complained pumps an outsized amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The bill package championed by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) is three-fold and attempts to crack down on corporate “greenwashing,” require climate risk disclosures, and — this is a big one — force the state pension funds to divest from fossil fuels.

AP News: Democratic lawmakers in California introduce a package of climate bills

January 30, 2023

By Sophie Austin

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Democratic lawmakers in California introduced a package of climate bills Monday aimed at holding corporations accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions.

The bills include legislation to require companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions to the public, ban the state’s public pension funds from investing in major fossil fuel companies, and create a group to analyze climate-caused financial risks for corporations. Similar efforts in prior sessions have failed to win enough support, but the Democratic lawmakers behind them say they’re hopeful for a different outcome this year.