FOR Volunteer Represents Rivers at Green California Advocacy Day

Dan Kanner, FOR Volunteer, and Julia, a family member and aspiring environmental attorney, took on Green California Advocacy Day at the Capitol. Credit: Daniel Kanner.

By Daniel Kanner

As a relatively new volunteer with FOR, I decided the best way to get familiar with policy was to jump into the deep end and get involved. I recently had the honor to represent FOR during the Green California - Environmental lobby day at the State Capitol on August 30th. Green California is a coalition consisting of 140 organizations that together serve as key thought partners for passing impactful environmental, health, and justice legislation in California.

We started the day hearing from the speaker of the Assembly, Robert Rivas, about his support for the bills in focus and overall commitment to the environment. Assemblymember Eloise Reyes spoke about her battles in Southern California around pollution. The new majority leader, Assemblymember, Isaac Bryan, spoke about changes he wants to make to the referendum process due to abuses by the oil companies that he has seen firsthand in his district in LA.

About 70 people attended, from a mix of environmental organizations. We prioritized 12 bills for discussion with legislators. This large group split into 14 teams to tackle meetings with senators and assembly members. I focused on the 2 water related bills: (1) SB 389 which would clarify the State’s authority to verify use of State waters by explicitly giving the State Water Board the authority to verify senior water rights, including pre-1914 and riparian rights; and (2) SB 3 which would protect poor residential users in small districts by preventing water service discontinuation without due process.

SB 389 is an important step forward to make the powerful “pre-1914” water rights holders more accountable to the State Water Board and it gives the Board power to investigate these water rights, which are about 35% of the agricultural water in use in the state. This bill has been amended to only have the Board do investigation and not make direct water rights decisions, but they can invoke due process litigation in cases of mis-use. These amendments "watered down" the power that the Board would have had to take action, but the bill is still a step in the right direction.

I teamed up with Megan Cleveland from the Nature Conservancy, and Sophia Rafikova from the Clean Air Coalition. Megan was dressed up as a sea otter to help get attention to the ocean habitat bills they were sponsoring. I also brought my girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter who is an honors student interested in environmental law.

We first met with the staff for Assemblymember Chris Holden, Chair of the Appropriations Committee. His office was already aware of and in support of many of the bills. We gave some additional information where needed, but it was a smooth meeting with easy consensus. Chris Holden did walk by and talk with us for a few minutes, so it was great to meet him in person and he appreciated our efforts. I thanked him because he represents Pasadena, where I grew up, and he has done a lot to build more hiking trails and protect the mountains and canyons down in my hometown.

Next, we did a drop-in meeting with Senator Bob Archuleta’s office. We were able to meet for about 10 minutes with his Chief of Staff, John Ackers. He was well informed about most of the bills. Megan gave him more details on the ocean habitat bills. Overall, he was supportive of the bills and in alignment. He said that Senator Archuleta was interested in finding an environmental bill to sponsor in the next session. We did get to say hi to the Senator for a second as he passed by.

We did a drop-in meeting with Assemblymember Laura Friedman. She has authored several environmental bills this session – one of which was an attempt to strengthen enforcement measures when people steal water. We were not able to get a meeting with her or her staff, but we left materials, and I heard she attended the reception event that evening to show her support for this event.

Dan Kanner (2nd from left) meeting with Assemblymember Pacheco’s office on Green California Advocacy Day. Credit: Daniel Kanner.

We met with the Legislative Analyst for Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco. We reviewed the bills with her to answer her questions and confirm her support. Most of the bills were expected to be supported and she was interested to know if opposition had been removed for SB 389 (which it mostly has been).

It was interesting to experience the process for meeting with the staff and hearing their questions and concerns. I was impressed on how easy it was to meet with our legislators and help educate them on these bills. It would be great to keep going back and to try speaking with opposition or swing Assembly and Senate votes to hopefully make some ongoing change to our state water policy.