• More than 12,700 tons of trash was cleared from state roadsides during the first year of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Clean California initiative—a $1.1 billion multiyear cleanup effort that began July 2021, according to a July 14 statement from Newsom’s office. This amount would fill enough trash bags to line the California coastline twice, according to the governor’s office, and the initiative itself funded 231 projects to revitalized underserved communities and created nearly 1,500 jobs with more expected in the coming years. “It’s simple: All Californians deserve clean streets. That’s why we’re cleaning up California like never before in our state’s history,” Newsom said in the statement. “I’m proud of the work we’ve done in just one year to make the Golden State a cleaner, safer place to call home—and we’re just getting started.” In the first-year of Clean California, Caltrans collected more than 12,000 tons of litter from the state highway system and hired more than 700 new team members and 470 maintenance positions. California saw 126 beautification projects with a $312 million budget to transform and connect communities, along with local grant projects and adopt-a-highway program, according to the governor’s office.
• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal voted to approve two bills he co-sponsored in the U.S. House of Representatives to affirm the right to keep reproductive health care choices between a patient and a doctor, according to a July 15 statement from the congressman’s office. The first of the two bills would codify a nationwide right to abortion and the other would secure a patient’s right to travel nationally for reproductive health care without interference or fear of prosecution. “In the weeks since members of the radical Supreme Court chose to break its own vow to uphold Roe as settled law, we have seen that far-right Republicans are not interested in stopping here,” Carbajal said in the statement. “There are now nationwide abortion bans being championed in Congress, at least nine states have banned abortion outright and more plan to imminently, and millions of women now live in communities hundreds of miles from the nearest reproductive health provider. I have fought to codify the rights to privacy and abortion access in Congress, and I continue to with these votes today.”
• U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla along with several of his colleagues sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, commending the U.S. Department of Justice’s restoration of supplemental environmental projects—which advance environmental justice and environmental law—and outlined recommendations to improve the program, according to a July 13 statement from the senator’s office. Examples of successful supplemental environmental projects include setting up health clinics, expanding community air monitoring or school air filters, providing mobile asthma vans, and funding equitable home buyouts. “Enforcement of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws is essential to protecting fence-line communities, especially communities of color, low-income communities, and tribal communities,” the letter stated. “Under your leadership, we believe that the [Department of Justice] and [Environmental Protection Agency] can rebuild what it means to enforce environmental laws in a manner that provides tangible benefits to the communities harmed by the violations.” This continues to be important as communities grapple with the pandemic’s effects, which have harmed the same communities who face toxic air, water, and chemical pollution, the senators added.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2022.