California Legislature Green Climate and Energy Bills that accelerate California’s ambitions climate goals and Transition the State into a Green and Clean Economy
SACRAMENTO, CA—The California Legislature today sent a package of legislation to the Governor authored by State Senator Josh Becker (D- Menlo Park). Together, these bills would implement sweeping climate change policies that promote clean energy, resiliency, and the green economy, and would implement some of the most comprehensive laws to invest in sustainable clean energy infrastructure and transition California to zero-emission.
“We are facing an unprecedented climate crisis, with extreme weather causing irreparable harm and even death. The time to act is now,” said Senator Becker. “With the Legislature’s approval of my comprehensive clean energy and climate bills, California continues to lead the world on implementing policies that will ensure a secure, efficient and green electric grid while addressing the contributing factors of catastrophic climate change on our environment and vulnerable communities.”
Large buildings are a massive contributor of emissions, causing more than 20 million tons of CO2 per year. We already have strong regulations on new buildings, but now we need the courage to tackle older, large buildings. This bill strikes the right balance to get buildings where they need to be in order to reduce emissions and create clean, safe and comfortable places to work and live. While improving the carbon footprint of these large buildings, this bill is also projected to generate over $35 billion of economic activity in cumulative investment by 2040.
This bill tackles one of the greatest needs and the greatest limiting factors when it comes to our clean energy goals: more space for solar panels and transmission lines. SB 49 utilizes an untapped resource, the unused land along our highways that the state of California already owns, so we can build more solar and transmit clean energy to our cities. Three Southern California counties alone have the potential to host 960 MW of new solar generation, enough to power 270,000 homes annually.
California needs to accelerate upgrading its electric grid to meet the diverse transmission infrastructure needs across our state. This bill accelerates approvals for upgrading small, critical distribution lines needed to get energy where it needs to go.
These bills advance California’s commitment to addressing climate change, protects residents from its disastrous effects such as wildfires, extreme climate, and drought, and keeps our state on a path towards creating green jobs. This legislation now heads to the Governor for signature.
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Senator Becker represents the 13th Senate District covering portions of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties and includes the cities of Atherton, Belmont, Brisbane, Burlingame, East Palo Alto, Foster City, Half Moon Bay, Hillsborough, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Mountain View, Pacifica, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Carlos, San Mateo, South San Francisco, and Woodside.