Category: Policy Update

Oakland City Council Passed a Budget – What Got Funded?

This Tuesday, after a dramatic multi-week negotiation, Oakland City Council passed the “Oakland Together Budget”. Supporters of Save The Bay, along with many others, called Council Members, emailed the Council and City staff, and attended meetings to ask the City for funding to address Oakland’s greatest needs. The resulting budget will steer the course of Oakland’s work for the next two years, determining how far the City goes to address pollution, local flooding, sea level rise, and many other critical issues. Wins for the Bay A few highlights in the new budget will benefit the community by helping to keep …

Oakland should play by the rules on a new stadium

Read this OpEd from our Executive Director, David Lewis originally published on March 27, 2019 in The San Francisco Examiner. If the A’s take shortcuts that endanger public interests and the environment, they will lose support. Fielding a winning baseball team is hard, but all teams have to play by the same rules. Building on the Bay shoreline is also hard, because we’ve wisely created rules to protect what we treasure for the public’s benefit. Those rules preserve natural areas for wildlife, beaches and trails for recreation, ports and airports for commerce. When someone tries to avoid or bend those …

BREAKING NEWS: Trump’s EPA eliminates Clean Water Act protection for Cargill’s Redwood City’s Salt Ponds

Cargill and DMB announce new effort to build in the Bay. As we warned in December, Cargill and developer partner DMB have colluded with the Trump Administration to advance its anti-environment agenda. EPA Administrator Wheeler has issued a jurisdictional determination that the federal Clean Water Act no longer protects Cargill’s salt ponds in Redwood City. The EPA’s decision is contrary to the law and the facts – EPA’s detailed 2016 review of the salt ponds concluded 1,270 acres of the ponds are in fact “waters of the United States” and deserve the Clean Water Act’s legal protection against filling. U.S. …

“Cease and Desist,” Caltrans ordered to stop trashing the Bay

On February 13, after a seven-hour hearing, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board voted unanimously for an unprecedented Cease and Desist Order against Caltrans. Now the state’s transportation agency must speed up trash removal from freeways and state roads and stop it from polluting creeks and the Bay, or face $25,000-a-day fines. This extraordinary victory capped off a two year plus advocacy campaign Save The Bay waged, backed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 75 Bay Area elected officials, partner organizations, and thousands of supporters and action-takers. Follow along the timeline to victory below. Save …

Cargill Salt and Trump Administration Try to Gut Clean Water Act Protection for San Francisco Bay

We have just learned that the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to give away its power to protect clean water and wetlands in San Francisco Bay and make it easier for Cargill Salt Co. to pave Redwood City salt ponds for luxury homes. President Trump’s Acting EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, is preparing to declare that Redwood City salt ponds are not “Waters of the U.S.” protected by the Clean Water Act or Rivers and Harbors Act. This action surrenders federal government jurisdiction to regulate or permit development on that site, overturns decades of legal precedent and overrules previous protections supported …

Nearly 80 Elected Officials Call for Caltrans Trash Enforcement

In March of this year, the SF Bay Water Quality Control Board asked their staff to bring back an enforcement order against Caltrans for the agency’s multi-year failure to clean trash from Bay Area highways before it pollutes local creeks and the Bay. Despite this clear and urgent direction, an enforcement order has yet to be presented. That’s why close to 80 local elected officials sent a letter to the Board last week urging them to take action immediately and demand cleaner highways for our region and the Bay.  

Your Bay on the Ballot: 2018 Election Results

Bay Area voters showed again this week that we understand climate change is upon us, and we will invest to keep our communities and San Francisco Bay safe and healthy. In fact, we are ahead of voters in other parts of California – and that meant some mixed results on priority ballot measures endorsed by Save The Bay Action Fund. Your votes made a big impact in this election, producing victories on most ballot measures in our Bay Smart Voter Guide, which benefit San Francisco Bay’s people and wildlife in a time of rapid climate change. Together, we passed measures …

YES on San Mateo County Measure W Transit and Transportation Improvement Sales Tax

Those who commute in San Mateo County know how bad the traffic is. If you’ve driven through the 101-92 interchange recently, you know something needs to be done to relieve congestion and improve commute time. To achieve this, we must not only fund highway projects, but also enhance public transit options, support alternative modes of transportation, and connect high-quality transit to affordable housing. Measure W will do just that by raising $2.4 billion over 30 years for projects that will take thousands of cars off of highways every day, fix potholes and maintain streets throughout the County, and make it …

No on Proposition 6 Cuts Transit, Road Safety and Bridge Repairs

Improvements and upgrades to Bay Area roads and public transit are decades overdue. Not only does this outdated, inefficient, and crumbling infrastructure impact our daily lives—especially for those traveling from the outskirts of our region—it threatens the health of the Bay. We need to invest in our transportation infrastructure to protect the Bay and improve quality of life in our region. But Proposition 6 will do the opposite by eliminating more than $700 million in statewide investments in public transit, road and bridge repairs, and initiatives to increase bicycle and pedestrian mobility.

Yes on Measure V for San Jose Affordable Housing

As San Jose grows and becomes more expensive, too many hardworking families are being forced out of the city they love. San Jose needs housing to reduce the hours and hours of time workers spend commuting. Affordable housing can reduce commute times and help decrease emissions that lead to pollution and contribute to climate change. Measure V authorizes $450 million of general obligation bonds to acquire, construct and complete affordable housing in San Jose. Alleviating the critical shortage of affordable housing is essential to creating Bay Smart Communities that improve Bay Area sustainability. Measure V will produce and preserve housing …

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