Tom’s Climate Wins
Tom’s history of climate results proves he’s the strongest candidate to take on the climate crisis.
Tom’s history of climate results proves he’s the strongest candidate to take on the climate crisis.
In Nevada, Tom and NextGen Climate Action were directly involved in funding the successful Renewable Energy Standards Initiative in 2018. The measure raised the state’s renewable portfolio standards (RPS) to 50%, meaning the state committed to generating half their energy from renewable sources by 2030.
In Michigan, Tom was prepared to take on two of the state’s largest utilities — DTE Energy and Consumers Energy — at the ballot box in 2018. He worked with NextGen America and local activist groups on an initiative to significantly increase the state’s renewable requirements, but before they could submit petition signatures to the state, an agreement was struck. Thanks to this grassroots effort, Consumers Energy pledged to increase their renewable power by 25% by 2030.
Tom worked with state Senator Kevin De León to make California the largest jurisdiction in the world with a 100% clean energy law. Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 100 into law in 2018, committing the state to get all its energy from clean sources by 2045 and solidifying its place as a global leader in the fight against climate change.
Tom helped win a ballot initiative in 2012 that closed a corporate tax loophole, generating $1.7 billion for California schools and 19,000 new jobs for the state. Pre-existing tax law let out-of-state companies reduce their income tax, essentially rewarding them for taking jobs out of state. That $1.7 billion went towards necessary energy upgrades in schools, reducing their utility costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
In the environmentally-burdened coastal town of Oxnard, NRG Energy wanted to construct a new power plant called the Puente Power Project in 2017. Residents loudly protested this attempt by corporate polluters to disadvantage a community largely made up of immigrants, people of color, and low-income families for their own gain. Tom joined local protesters and together, they pressured the Energy Commission to shut down the project. NRG ended up withdrawing their proposal, and plans are now in the works to build clean energy projects instead. Ventura County got a small piece of the environmental justice they’re owed.
In 2010, Big Oil tried to roll back California’s nation-leading climate protections with Prop 23, which would have frozen the state’s greenhouse emissions targets. State Republicans and big oil companies like Valero and Tesoro who backed the prop called it a “jobs initiative,” but Tom and the No on 23 movement saw it for what it really was: a way for big corporations to make more money at the expense of our environment. Voters overwhelmingly agreed, and defeated the measure by a 23% margin.