Among the many questions on your California ballot this November is whether to approve a $10 billion state bond to invest in climate adaptation. Proposition 4 is one of the largest bonds on the ballot in the country this year.
What problem would this bond solve?
The money in the bond will be used to make communities more resilient against climate change.
The list of projects is long. The largest sum will go toward water projects such as reducing flood risk, storing water for future droughts, cleaning contaminated water, and better capturing stormwater. The goal is to broaden water sources as droughts and floods become more frequent and more intense.
Another $1.5 billion goes toward wildfire mitigation by funding projects that will thin overgrown forests, clear vegetation, and help homeowners in high-fire risk areas with home hardening.
There is also some money set aside for habitat restoration, coastal resilience from sea level rise, and land conservation.
Where is the $10 billion coming from?
If the measure passes, the government will immediately sell bonds to people and businesses. The buyers make money because the government pays them back later with interest.
When bonds are issued, the money becomes available fast.
“They push things out into the future a little bit. It's future citizens of the state that are paying for the bond, not you today, right now,” explains Julia Stein with the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA’s Law School.
What do the supporters and opposition say?
The opposition points out that selling bonds is one of the most expensive ways to fund something. The $10 billion bond will cost a total of $16 billion over 40 years. That will get paid back with future tax revenue.
“This is really just spending on the credit card,” says Susan Shelley with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “To take that and put it in a bond and try to charge it to the future with interest is just fiscally irresponsible.”
Supporters like that the money becomes available fast, because climate change becomes more expensive as the planet warms, and investing to adapt to it earlier saves money in the long run.
“The reality is, we are in a crisis moment,” says LA Waterkeeper Executive Director Bruce Reznik. “We have a measure. It is not perfect. … But it provides a lot of funding for things that we need critically.”
There was recently a nearly $10 billion decrease in climate funding in the state budget. Does the ballot measure just fill in that gap?
In a way, yes. This ballot measure was in the works before the budget got slashed, and the projects the bonds would fund are not the exact projects that got dropped in state budget cuts. But there is some overlap. Both included money to combat the largest climate threats to California, including water scarcity and wildfire.
Is this expected to pass?
Yes. Roughly two-thirds of Californians polled by the Public Policy Institute of California support the bond.
Also, Californians have passed 34 out of 46 ballot bond measures since 1993. However, it is a large bond, and it is on the ballot at the same time as another $10 billion bond on education, so that could dampen enthusiasm.