We live on a most beautiful planet, for which we are the caretakers. If we want future generations to enjoy its rich bounty as we have, we must do everything in our power to ensure that we don’t destroy it. Although we normally have few opportunities to affect the environmental choices made in Congress, elections provide a major one.
To preserve and protect our environment, we must vote for representatives who will stand up actively for Mother Earth. And if you wonder where the candidates for our 27th Congressional District stand on the issue, you may find the summary below helpful.
Rep. Mike Garcia: As congressman for the 25th District, Rep. Garcia has earned a 19% score from the League of Conservation Voters. He cast a pro-environmental vote on only one out of 19 bills under the category of climate change: the Protecting Public Lands and Waters Across the West Act, a package of six bills, which includes the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act.
Among the bills he voted against were: the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested $555 billion in climate, clean energy jobs, and environmental justice; the Moving Forward Act, which would have reauthorized surface transportation programs, funded water infrastructure improvements, and helped tackle climate change through numerous different programs; the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act; and the Inflation Reduction Act, which invests $369 billion in climate, jobs, and justice, marking the single largest investment in climate action in American history.
He voted to rescind U.S. participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and to maintain the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to roll back the 2016 methane standards.
Climate change is not one of the key issues highlighted on Rep. Garcia’s website (mikegarcia.house.gov/issues/), and in fact is not mentioned at all.
Christy Smith: As Assembly member for the 38th District, Smith received a 100% environmental score from CA Environmental Voters (environmentalvoters.org), and a 100% legislative score from the Sierra Club. She was appointed to the Delta Stewardship Council by Assembly Speaker Rendon in 2021 and reappointed in 2022 to serve through 2026. A government agency formed to manage the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, the council was created to “advance the state’s coequal goals for the Delta — a more reliable statewide water supply and a healthy and protected ecosystem,” according to their website.
She voted to require protection for 30% of the state’s land and waters by 2030, to establish a smog-check program for diesel trucks, to prohibit water transfers from desert groundwater basins, to increase tax rebates for electric vehicles, and to increase penalties for oil spills, among other environmental bills. She supports California’s cap-and-trade system, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions from our largest polluters and reinvests those dollars in environmental projects.
Taking on climate change and fighting for environmental justice is one of Smith’s six priorities as enumerated on her website (www.christyforcongress.org). To protect our air and water, she supports shutting down the Aliso Canyon gas facility and ensuring aggressive oversight of our district’s two toxic waste cleanup sites — Santa Susana Field Laboratory and Whittaker-Bermite — and three landfills, Sunshine Canyon, Chiquita Canyon and Simi Valley.
She states, “We must also invest in building a fully renewable and clean energy infrastructure using wind and solar to create good mortgage-paying jobs and combat the climate crisis so we can ensure our community is a place where families can live and thrive for generations to come, before it’s too late.”
Choose carefully, and make your voice heard! Vote!
Cher Gilmore
Newhall
