April 24, 2020 Ms. Ann O’Leary, Chief of Staff Mr. Tom Steyer, Co-Chair, Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery Office of Governor Gavin Newsom 1303 10th Street, Suite 1174 Sacramento, CA 95814 Dear Ms. O’Leary and Mr. Steyer, First, thank you. Governor Newsom and his Administration’s leadership through the COVID-19 crisis have saved countless lives. We laud the establishment of his Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery and offer some initial thoughts, and a willingness to assist, in developing a resilient recovery plan in concert with our leadership. The massive financial disruption unleashed by COVID-19 necessitates immediate relief across a wide variety of job sectors, especially those hit hardest by social distancing orders, like the retail, entertainment and hospitality industries. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been impacted and are falling into poverty without an inclusive and comprehensive safety net — and this descent will only worsen without direct and sustained intervention. In architecting our economic recovery in California, we would urge you to consider a recovery plan that in the short-term prioritizes the essentials - food, housing and job security. For the longterm, the investments we make and the additional jobs we create must be high-quality and durable enough to survive a dynamic future of work under increasingly high-risk climate and public health conditions. These risks are not hypothetical. In recent weeks, superstorms from Texas to North Carolina to Florida have destroyed lives and communities already decimated by COVID-19. Climate disasters will likely compound the crisis in California in the coming months as we enter megadrought and wildfire season.i We know that rolling back critical environmental protections is not the path forward. By failing to meet our climate goals, we would not only bankrupt our state – we would drive countless species into extinction and erode the foundation that makes California golden. Now more than ever, we must uphold California’s commitment to a livable and prosperous future. Based on past stimulus efforts, as well as the success of various housing, education, transportation, water, disaster and resource bonds, we know the clean economy – transportation, housing, energy, water, manufacturing, waste, and natural and working lands – is one of the most cost-effective, resilient job creation sectors economy-wide.ii Given our fiscal limitations, we also encourage you to consider policy changes that incentivize clean economy job creation. We will be submitting a more detailed framework in the coming weeks and look forward to working with you to refine details, but until then, please consider focusing on three core areas to achieve a resilient recovery: • Leveraging All Available Sources of Funding by significantly augmenting climate resilience bond proposals; renewing federal assistance for state and local governments, joint powers authorities, transportation agencies, special districts and businesses through state financing authorities like the Infrastructure Bank; enhancing tax increment financing mechanisms; and unlocking private capital through creative public asset securitization. • Accelerating Job Creation through Expedited Project Delivery by reducing barriers to entry, such as discriminatory fees and interconnection delays, that stifle the creation of highquality jobs from clean economy projects for long-term energy storage, distributed generation, microgrids and other renewable and zero-emission grid resilience projects; permitting and procurement challenges for the electric vehicle supply chain, from lithium recovery to electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and impediments to construction for preapproved, shovel-ready projects like transit-oriented affordable housing, water resilience and waste recycling. • Ensuring a Just Recovery by focusing on keeping workers employed, with livable wages and benefits, providing improved support to small businesses, broadening the social safety net and targeting state benefits toward the most disadvantaged communities that already face immense challenges to their environment, health, education and opportunity. Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to partnering on a just and resilient recovery. Sincerely, ______________________________ Henry Stern, Senate District 27 _______________________________ Eduardo Garcia, Assembly District 56 _______________________________ Laura Friedman, Assembly District 43 _______________________________ Bill Monning, Senate District 17 _______________________________ Ben Allen, Senate District 26 _______________________________ Richard Bloom, Assembly District 50 _______________________________ Robert Wieckowski, Senate District 10 _______________________________ Jim Beall, Senate District 15 _______________________________ Bill Dodd, Senate District 3 _______________________________ Scott Wiener, Senate District 11 _______________________________ Connie Leyva, Senate District 20 _______________________________ Robert Rivas, Assembly District 30 ____________________________________ Tasha Boerner Horvath, Assembly District 76 _______________________________ Todd Gloria, Assembly District 78 __________________________________ Anthony Portantino, Senate District 25 _______________________________ Maria Elena Durazo, Senate District 24 __________________________________ Ash Kalra, Assembly District 27 _______________________________ Nancy Skinner, Senate District 9 __________________________________ Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Assembly District 16 _______________________________ Bob Archuleta, Senate District 32 CC: Senator Toni Atkins, President Pro Tempore of the Senate Assemblymember Anthony Rendon, Speaker of the Assembly i While California refines its understanding of the economic implications of future climate disasters in the Fifth Climate Assessment, a snapshot of our state’s risk exposure can be found in a 2015 report, From Boom to Bust? Climate Risk in the Golden State by the Risky Business Project. ii One notable effort that successfully reduced climate risk and resulted in resilient job creation is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which boosted gross domestic product overall by 2 to 3 percent, where the clean energy investment provisions alone supported about 1 million job-years from 2009-15, including an innovative loan program that is now cash-positive, yielding an ongoing revenue source and a return for taxpayers. Other efforts to consider include the 2006 “Rebuilding California” Propositions 1A-E and Proposition 84, Proposition 39 of 2012, Proposition 1 of 2014, and Proposition 68 of 2016. As a general rule of thumb, FEMA estimates every dollar spent on disaster preparedness saves six dollars over time, and according to a recent University of Massachusetts at Amherst study, for every billion dollars spent on public works, we create about 20,000 jobs.