JOE KERR: I WANT TO KNOW IF CALIFORNIANS ARE BEING GOUGED ON GAS
Q:From wildfires to sea level rise, the climate emergency is increasingly affecting California. What immediate steps should California lawmakers be taking to address it?
A:
While I support solar
energy and electric vehicles, we cannot solve the climate crisis without first controlling the annual occurrence of our wildfire problem. As a former wildland fire defense planner responsible for 173,000 acres of state land, I think Californians would be surprised to learn that California wildfires are now major contributors to our global climate emergency. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in 2018 alone, California wildfires released 68 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, or about 15 percent of all CO2 emissions produced by Californians on an annual basis. It is not uncommon for California wildfires to consume 1 million to 2 million acres per year, so essentially what this means is that California doesn’t really have an effective cap and trade program since our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through electric vehicles and solar energy are nearly evaporated during our now yearlong fire season. Besides the obvious devastating impact of wildfire on human life, neighborhoods, infrastructure, wildlife, water quality and firefighters, this CO2 can stay in our atmosphere for 100 years. With every acre we burn, we lose CO2 sequestration for years until the vegetation is reestablished, and with prolonged drought sometimes it oknever comes back; we are seeing the desertification of our wildland areas because of the increase in intensity and frequency of our fires. The California Legislature must continue funding essential wildfire prevention, reduction, abatement and mitigation programs by supplementing the grossly understaffed fire service, increasing fuel reduction programs in the offseason, and enhancing efforts to harden homes, neighborhoods, infrastructure and utilities. We must also continue to support, implement and maintain early fire confirmation technology, such as fire cameras, to catch fires in the incipient phase and keep small fires small. UC San Diego, in cooperation with the California Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom, has already positioned 1,000 of these fire cameras in remote areas
throughout the state, and we are already utilizing these cameras throughout San Diego County with great success.
Q:
The governor’s pleas
to reduce water use have been widely met with indifference. What, if anything, should state lawmakers be doing to address drought conditions?
A:
California is facing a
rare megadrought. Some California politicians have described our current prolonged drought to heavy flooding situation as being a new normal, but we must acknowledge that we are actually living in a new extreme. As vice chair of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, responsible for watershed in parts of three counties, I am constantly updated on the effects of drought impacting our state. We are always going to volley between periods of prolonged drought followed by intense atmospheric rivers bringing massive flooding events. As Californians, we all need to do our part to reduce water consumption around our homes and businesses by adding low-flow devices, reducing watering times and replacing thirsty vegetation with drought-tolerant, fire-resistant, indigenous vegetation. California’s population has increased dramatically over the last several decades; however, our water storage capacity has not. In the Senate, I will work with other lawmakers to bolster efforts to increase our reservoir capacity and improve our ability to capture stormwater runoff so that we don’t lose our most precious, and increasingly scarce, natural resource to the ocean.
Q:
What would you do to
address the surging gas prices in California?
A:
Californians pay the
highest gas prices in the country. Part of that is due to our high taxes and strict environmental regulations; however, rather than simply accepting this as part of the California way of life, I feel it is also important to know the actual breakdown in the cost of fuel. Much has been made about delaying the automatic 3-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase coming in July, but we also need to look at the bigger picture. When a company like Costco can sell gasoline in California for nearly a dollar less per gallon than other gas retailers, it is clear that there are other factors at play. Are the additional costs legitimate, or are we being gouged?
I believe it’s time we peel back the veneer on the actual breakdown in the average cost of oil and the profit margin on gasoline being sold in California. There is a new Senate bill in committee, SB 1322, that aims to find out why we pay so much at the pump, and as your senator, I would vote to support this bill asking for transparency and accountability on the part of suppliers.
Once we know where the money is going, we will have a better understanding of how to alleviate the burden on the consumer now and in the future.
Q:
How do you strike a balance between reducing the state’s dependency on fossil fuels and addressing energy affordability issues, including the high cost of gasoline? A:
These are both very
real concerns, but I don’t see them as balancing each other out — rather, they’re both symptoms of one root problem: Washington and Sacramento for years were happy to push the market toward a onesize-fits-all approach to energy resource management, transportation and urban planning. The high cost of gasoline is catastrophic to families at the pump exactly because there aren’t viable alternatives in each of these policy spaces. We need to invest in a more diversified energy portfolio that makes sense now and for future generations, such as solar, wind and hydrogen, and we must also keep generating the energy we need today and not rush into an energy shortage of our own making.
Q:
What single change
would you make to improve California’s K-12 public school systems.
A:
Pay teachers more.
Q:
Should taxes in California be increased? If so, which ones?
A:
No. Californians are
already overtaxed.