Welcome to A Climate Change, the show where we talk with change makers and thought leaders who are taking action to stop the existential threat of climate change. I

‘m your host. Matt Matern, today on the show, we have California Senator Ben Allen joining us once again. Senator Allen has authored environmental laws, including the landmark legislation as helping reduce plastic waste in California. This law is literally the model for the rest of the world and other countries are copying this law to reduce plastic waste around the planet.

This is a big deal. He joined me to talk about crucial issues at stake in the upcoming election, which is now less than a week away. Side note, make sure to go out and vote during the episode we discussed Harris and Trump’s vastly different stances on climate policy, economic impact and the future of American democracy. Senator Benn, is always amazing, and I think you’re really going to like it. Enjoy the show.

Senator, it’s been great to have you back. You’ve been on the show a few times, and always love talking with you. Tell us, from, you know, your eyes, what’s happening in the presidential race, and kind of, can you give us some insight, you know, from an insider’s perspective.

Yeah, I was, I’ve just been, I think all of us have been going crazy thinking about what’s going to happen. I was watching David Brooks the other day, who made some comment about how he’s never seen an election start as a tie and get even closer. I mean, it is so close. It is so close that that nobody has any idea how to predict this thing.

Of course, it’s really coming down to six or seven swing states and and maybe even just four or five of them, and it’s just going to, you know, what’s so fret was so crazy about this is that the leader of the Third World, the leader of the of the free world, is going to be determined by by such a hair, and it could very easily come down to things like, what’s the weather like in Philadelphia that day? It’s, it’s, it’s scary for those of us who know how important this is.

You know, for me, it’s so clear who the right choice is, and I it’s hard for me to get my head around how many people seem to feel otherwise. And then, of course, it seems to be really coming down to who can, who can, who can get those folks who are pretty unpolitical to care and turn out that that’s going to ultimately be what determines the the outcome here.

You know, we’ve got a pretty half of the cut you. Half of the electorate is determined to vote for her, half of the electorate determined to vote for him, and yet, then you got these folks that are that are that typically don’t participate in the process, or a little turned off to the process, and they’re going to play a huge role in determining who becomes the next president.

What do you say? What’s your message to them? Give me your one minute pitch to somebody who’s kind of turned off the system, you know, isn’t tuned into politics. What do you say to them?

Yeah, I think, on the one hand, you’ve got a guy who’s all about himself, a total megalomaniac and a convicted felon, all those kinds of things, who, who’s a charlatan, who, who has just played working people his entire life. And then on the other hand, you have someone who, who you know was raised with humble means and has devoted her entire life to public service, to making lives better for people.

The choice is, is, is really stark from my perspective, but I understand that there are a lot of people who feel as though the system hasn’t worked for them, and they’re turned off to it. I guess I would just say that that the kind of chaos that that we saw on January 6 could become much more of a thing in the United States if Donald Trump wins the presidency.

You know, a lot of people say, Oh, well, he was president before everything was fine, yeah. But you know what he was he was protect. We were protected from his worst impulses by a lot of the folks that he had around him, none of whom are going to be in the room this time. He’s now surrounded himself by yes men the part he’s purged the party of any independent thinking.

And he’s, he’s really setting himself up toward toward a, I mean, I don’t want to, I’m, it’s too strong, perhaps, to use the word dictatorship, but everyone who works with him seems to think that he wants to that’s where he would ideally lead his administration. And so please care about American democracy. Please care about the future of civility in our country. And please vote for Kamala.

Yes. And I was thinking I saw somebody interviewed who was in Georgia, and they were saying, Hey, I’m I’m voting for Trump because I’m concerned about my 401 k. And I’m thinking, that’s so nonsensical. The market is up at a record high. It’s like, you know, come on, if you’re looking at if you’re voting for your economic interests, your 401 k is never done better under you know Biden and Harris.

So that doesn’t make any sense, and you add to it, what’s Trump’s economic agenda? But to raise tariffs and throw 10 or 11 million people out of the country, which all economists say, both those actions will tank our economy.

So it’s, he’s an idiot. I mean, he doesn’t have any common sense and and as far as handling the economy, he’s a he’s totally and, I mean, I think the problem here is he’s, he’s played a successful, rich guy on TV for years, and so people have confused that persona as an actor on The Apprentice, ordering people around, looking authoritative with the with the actuality of the story, which is that he was handed, you know, a silver spoon in his mouth, and is actually squandered $50 million 450 right?

And he’s actually been bankrupt many times. And so, you know, I like to think that you and I could have done a lot more, both for ourselves and for the economy and for jobs with if we, if we’d been handed the benefits and advantages that he was. Instead, he’s, he’s, he’s, you know, he’s really nearly everything he’s touched, his has has turned to to disaster. And I just don’t want to see him do that to our country.

Well, he, his former chief of staff came out, and I’m blanking on the Marine General Kelly. General Kelly came out yesterday, interviewed by the New York Times on tape saying that Trump was basically a fascist, and you know that he was completely untrustworthy and that he, you know, called this woman who died serving for our military and effing Mexican.

I mean, like, where are the boundaries here? I mean, this disqualifies anybody for holding office at all. I mean, period, it’s just local. I mean, Matt. I mean, Matt, I mean, it must be particularly frustrating, you know, I know you know, you’ve, you’ve been a lifelong Republican. I know before, at least. I mean, you think about registered Independent, I just want to put down.

Okay, all right, all right. All right. I bought you Republican at one point. Yeah, yes, I was. All right, but, but, I mean, but you think about the honor and the dignity of a man like Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford Dwight, Eisenhower to think, and even more recently, folks like John McCain and Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, I mean honorable, honorable leaders, and to think that the party has now fallen in a trance to This guy. It’s a sad story. It’s a really sad story.

It is indeed. So tell us a little bit about kind of from a environmental standpoint, how do you see this playing out if, if Trump were to be elected?

Well, it’s one of the areas where I’m most concerned about, quite frankly. I mean, this is a guy who’s so deeply in bed with big polluting corporations has routinely said that he wants to make life easier for them to pollute. And you think about you contrast the two records, right? I mean, Trump pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords almost immediately, he continues to push back on the movement toward electric vehicles, even though it’s a major job creator and innovation, creator for the United States. He continues to advocate for doubling down on fossil fuels.

He appointed anti-climate Supreme Court justices who recently ruled to scale back the regulatory power of agencies like the EPA to protect the public. And then, and then, you know, as we’ve been talking about, you know, his his the his approach to the rest of the world, I think, will have spillover effects that won’t just impact the global economy in ways that you just alluded to, with regards to terrorists, but But you know, our global leadership on the environment is so important.

Why would other countries that are in a lesser stage of development ever want to prioritize decarbonizing, doing their part in addressing the climate crisis, if the United States isn’t going to do it, you know, on the other on the other contrast, you look at the the Biden Harris record, where they rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. On day one in office, they land, they launched the National Climate Task Force to meet all these important greenhouse gas reduction goals, reaching, you know, carbon free, your carbon pollution free electricity goals and Net Zero economy, the 30 by 30 initiatives, Justice 40. You know, of course, all the legislation that is that is putting a major investment into climate friendly technology.

G’s investing in clean energy and electric vehicle Production and Infrastructure really helping to reinvigorate a lot of our, of our moribund industry in green in the green space. You know, this has led to, I think, nearly 600 new clean energy manufacturing facilities and 10s of 1000s of good, paying green jobs around the country. And, you know, EV sales are now shooting up. I think we just hit 1 million annual EV sales three years earlier than people were forecasting.

So all these, all these, there’s, there’s sort of this bright future that we could move toward that is about job creation and and really investing in in not just American innovation, but California innovation. Because we all know that California has been at the heart of the green economy in so many ways, versus this kind of darker vision that’s that’s doubling down on more abundant industries. I mean, you realize that there’s more jobs in the California solar industry than there are nationwide in coal, and yet, you know, there’s this continual doubling down on an old model.

But of course, I do think I mean getting back to your earlier question, that we have to do more to reach out to and engage with and ensure that there’s good training and good opportunities for all those folks who are in those old industries.

Now, my wife’s from Ohio. I’ve spent a lot of time in Northeast Ohio, in an area that’s very Rust Belt, and it is exciting to see new investments happening there, from some of the new companies that are that are taking advantage of all these incentives that were put in place by the Biden Harris administration to invest in American manufacturing, in in the green economy. And there, it’s just, it’s exciting to see, and I really want to see that progress continue.

Yeah, it is. It’s amazing, and there’s tremendous innovation in the country, and Trump would do his best to probably try to stifle it, because he’s both uneducated about the environmental problems and he’s just ideologically opposed to it because he’s, quite frankly, stupid. I had Mayor Rex Paris on the show the other day, and he made some news, kind of, by saying, hey, he clearly saw that Kamala Harris was the better candidate on environmental policy.

And he’s a Republican, and he’s also said that Republican Party is in the in the bed, essentially for big oil. And, you know, it’s not anything, you know, new, but this is something new for a Republican official to admit that the Republican Party is, you know, essentially bought and sold before, but bought and sold by and one of the things, it’s, one of the many things that’s sad is how much they are willing to to defend and deflect and prevent big oil and other other major polluters from being held accountable for the impacts of their pollution.

I mean, my father in law, died of cancer, spent much of his life living on the Ohio River, on the border between Ohio and West Virginia. A lot of people die of cancer in that area, and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s because of pollution from big corporations in that area.

And it’s sad to see so many working people being impacted by the the effects of pollution and the inability and the unwillingness of so many people in government to hold these folks accountable and actually get them to shut down the pollution that they continue to foist upon a lot of people living in working parts of working class parts of the country.

And you contrast that to Kamala Harris, who, as Attorney General was took the lead in a number of lawsuits against the nation’s largest oil companies for issues such as information, misinformation campaigns, coastal oil spills. She went after Volkswagen for their test, you know, for their emissions test cheating scandal.

You know, she went after oil over leaking fuel storage tanks and air quality violations and other, you know, other other big polluters, and that’s ultimately about making sure that working people have have access to cleaner water and cleaner air, you know. I mean, she did similar things. You know, capping, I think the recent administration has been capping 10s of 1000s of oil of idle oil and gas wells.

And, you know, taking action to reduce exposure to PFAs, which is this chemical that gets into people’s bodies and creates all sorts of problems, including cancer, you’re prioritizing funding and clean drinking water infrastructure. I mean, again, it’s are you in bed with with these industries that want to continue to pollute and make people sick, or do you want to hold them accountable and take them to task?

Yeah, I think that’s a good point and something that should resonate with kind of working class folks that big corporations are not out to protect them. And I think that that was something that for generations of.

Uh people who supported democratic tickets, uh, recognized and and now it seems that there’s a millions or 10s of millions of people who are working class folks who are willing to vote kind of against their not only their economic interests, but their personal health interest, to support a candidate who cares not at all about their health or their welfare.

It’s, it’s, um, you know, look, I think, I think we are now the victims as a society of of a very well financed misinformation campaign, some of which is actually being led and directed by foreign enemies, quite frankly, that continue to to push out lies and misinformation that that is that’s detrimental to to working people and to to American society in general.

And of course, some of this is being heavily financed by the fossil fuel industry. I mean, you know, the Koch brothers, of course, are deeply embedded and deeply invested and leaders in that space, and there are a lot of others that just continue to spend a lot of money pushing out propaganda or tamping down the truth about about their impact on on our environment.

And it’s it’s nefarious, and I just read an article about, I was reading this article that these two Texas oil billionaires who are kind of, you know, allegedly Christian, you know, supporting, and, you know, every, every Far Right, wing cause they can and actually going after people who were 95% rock ribbed Republicans and throwing them out of the party, essentially, and primary unless they gave 100% deference, yeah, to these two crazy billionaires, they were out.

And that’s kind of the future of this, where this movement is going. It looks like we can’t let it happen. We can’t let it happen. And it’s why. It’s why. You know, really getting engaged in this election over the next couple weeks is just so important.

Well, tell us, what do you think are the things that people can do? Listeners can do to activate, to help out and support the Harris, yeah.

Well, I first say, if you are a committed Christian, go back and read the Sermon on the Mount three times and reflect on whether you know, on whose message, whose priorities are better in line with the liberating message of Jesus. That would be one, that would be one thing I’d start with. But, you know, look, I think there are lots of ways of getting involved.
Obviously, you know, donations are always helpful, but, but, you know, there, there are a lot of organisms, of grassroots headquarters, democratic headquarters, that are sprung up over all over the place. Certainly in my district, there’s a number of them where people are going every single day to make phone calls and text bank we’re organizing bus trips to Arizona and Nevada for people to knock on doors in those two states, and we happen to be close to, very close to two of the most consequential swing states in the country.

And so there are people who are, who are organizing to go out there. Obviously, if you you know, if you have any other reason for your family or family or friends, you want to go to Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, by all means, go out there. But, but if you want, if you need to do even, even from home, there are programs that you can log on to through the various democratic organizations that are out there to just make phone calls, and ultimately, it’s just about reminding people to vote. These are lists of people that they’ve identified as highly likely to vote for the Harris walls ticket if they actually make it to the polls. But sometimes that little nudge makes a difference.

I remember last election, I had many conversations with people that just needed a little bit of information. Oh, where’s my polling place? Oh, gosh, you know what? Yeah, I’ll go down and vote. I mean, you be we’re talking here about for you. And I Matt, I mean, we’re really into politics. And I would think that, you know, a lot of people who are listening to this are as well.

So it’s hard to get yourself into the mindset of someone for whom really it’s an open question as to whether they’re going to vote or not, and a lot of it’s going to come down to what’s going on that day.

You know, here in California, we’ve made it extra easy to vote. You can vote by mail. You can go to the vote center. The vote centers are open for 10 days before election day. You can go anywhere in the county. It’s really easy to do, but in a lot of other states, you can only vote in one place, in one location on election day. And you know, if something comes up at work or your kids get sick or you’re running late, you know you may not end up voting.

And you know that extra push, that extra nudge from somebody giving them a phone call or sending them a text or sending them a note, you know it really can make the difference in determining whether. Are they’re going to make it to the polls or not? And, you know, this election is really going to come down to those folks that are, you know, not really sure whether they’re going to vote or not. What we’re not really sure whether they’re going to vote or not.

Unfortunately, a lot of Democrats are in that category. So, so just you go, go if you want to get involved. You know, contact one of your local democratic headquarters, and they will put you to work. And one of the really fun things to do, if you got the time, is to go to go to door to door. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a really great way to get to know another part of the country.

I mean, when we travel to other places, usually go sightseeing or you visit family, but walking neighborhoods, you know, in a community, in an area like North Las Vegas, for example, as I have done, just gives you such an interesting insight into into our country and why people are the way they are, and why they think the way they think. And just talking to people at their doorsteps is a really I’ve always loved doing it, and I gain a lot from it.

It’s old school democracy in action. So and you know, I appreciate your service and the call to action to others, because I think it is a it’s going to be a turnout election, and whichever party turns out their voters is going to win this thing. So we’ve got to do the the heavy lifting, the maybe not so easy stuff, of making phone calls and knocking on doors and reaching out to friends and family members that you know who are maybe low propensity voters, and saying, Hey, come on.

I gotta tell you. I mean, it is, it is, it is so it’s hard to describe how close this election is. It is. It is so close. I mean, there’s, there’s just nothing like it in modern American history. When you talk to the people who study this, and so it really, I mean, it’s scary. And of course, I do worry about what impact that’s going to have in you know, even if Kamala ends up winning, it’ll probably be close, and there’ll be we all know Trump’s propensity to to toward chaos, and what that’s going to look like in the post election weeks.

But the nice thing about it, I guess, is that it does provide every one of us with an opportunity to make a difference. I mean, if this thing could come down to literally hundreds of votes in Nevada or Arizona, and you could know that if you went out there and you spent some time in Phoenix or Las Vegas, wherever else you know, just just persuading some people to go vote, you could literally have personally played a role in making a difference in determining the leader of the free world. And that’s a that’s a pretty special opportunity, if you think about it.

So Trump has made the argument that, you know, California is a hell scape, and things like this, a lot of fear based. I mean, his, his whole kind of, you know, campaign is based upon fear, from what I can tell. I mean, it’s like it hell. It’s gonna go to hell in a hand basket without me. But, I mean, I’m standing here in California today, and I don’t think it looks like a hellscape.

No, he actually came to my district where he has a beautiful golf course down in Palos Verdes, and he, you know, he it was, it was funny because, as he kept calling it a hell skip, he kept saying, Oh, but, but this place is great. I got a beautiful place here, come golf here, you know, it was. It was just funny to watch, because it because, again, to your point when you come here.

And of course, you know Trump’s case, he has both a vested interest in attacking the state and also a vested interest in pointing out its beauty, because he’s got a business here that he wants people to come to. And you know that juxtaposition is, is, is stark. Sometimes. Look, we know California, it’s like anywhere there are problems here, we can and must do better. But this is also such a wonderful place. It’s a wonderful place to live and raise a family.

I’m raising my kids here. I love this state, and I’m committed to this state, and it makes me kind of sad. You know, I was reading some stuff about after during the Rose Bowl game, right? So it was Alabama versus Michigan, and some families were coming out from Alabama to watch the game. And, you know, and a lot of they were interviewing the LA Times was interviewing these folks from Alabama, and they were saying, like, look, I really was very scared about coming to California, you know, I was so, you know, we just, I almost didn’t come.

I love Alabama. I was so excited about them going to the Rose Bowl, but, man, I almost didn’t come because I was just so frightened by the by what I’d heard about, what this place was like. And I came here, and it’s so nice, and everyone’s so friendly, and such a great experience being at the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl.

And it was, it was it really, it was both heartening and touching, but also so sad to think that they, you know, that we’ve gotten to this point where we just think of each other as so we think, I mean the idea that these folks weren’t going to weren’t going to avail themselves of this really special opportunity to come watch their team play, you know, in the Rose Bowl, and enjoy a wonderful New Year’s Day here in California, because of how.

Of just this crazy amount of misinformation that they’re being pumped through, pumped with Adam Fox News and other other sources. It was both nice to know how, how, how much their experience contrasted with that, that imagery, but, but, but, but most people in the country aren’t going to have that chance, and they’re just fed on this diet of anti California propaganda. It’s just so ridiculous.

So I really another many things. I hope that, that, I hope we can find a path out of this, that that just brings us together more and that’s more focused on our commonalities.

Well, from your lips to God’s ears, as they say, tell us what you’re working on in the environmental space, in the state legislature?

Yeah, well, so many things. I mean, obviously, right. So one thing I’m working on with regards to the election is proposition four, which is the bond measure that we have on the ballot that I was very involved with. It’s a it’s a measure. So I wrote SB 867, helped to negotiate it. It’s a bond measure that’s going to put significant investments into making sure that California is more climate resilient. So it’s water infrastructure and wildfire resilience and clean energy, those kinds of things.

So making sure that we have that we’re better prepared for the impacts of climate change to come working on climate policy, working on toxins, working on extended producer responsibility programs, trying to make sure that polluters and producers have more of a role to play, more skin in the game, more accountability associated with the end use of their products in a wide range of subjects.

I mean, I did a big bill on plastics with that, with that extended producer responsibility model in mind, but we’re also looking to expand that to EV batteries, to to solar panels to household hazardous waste. Just got a bill across the finish line in that space with regards to paint care, you know, paint products. So so, you know, ultimately, trying to, trying to get industry involved in helping us come up with solutions for the end use of their products.

And then, you know, Open Space Preservation, all of those kinds of things. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of really good well, and then PFAs, too, as I mentioned, this carcinogen that is this chemical that’s getting into so many products that we really need to get a handle on it’s getting into our bodies. It’s a forever chemical. It does it never goes away.

So, you know, I’m there’s lots going on in the environmental space in California again, one of the other reasons why I’m, quite frankly, concerned about the possibility of a Trump presidency is because while other white houses, both Democrat and Republican, have given California a lot of deference and discretion in the past to go off on our own and lead the way.

With regards to environmental protection, Trump has repeatedly threatened to take those that discretion away. And there’s, there’s a number of federal waivers that have permitted California to go its own way. He tried to mess us up. We were able to to push back through some allies, both on both sides of the aisle.

But I really do worry, you know, given some of the changing dynamics, that that it will be harder for us to preserve our independence with regards to environmental policy, if he, if he, wins the White House, right?

And it’s so important, because not only California for itself, but I think it’s what 1617, other states have followed California’s lead, which then represents what 60% of the market, which creates a huge national coalition, which leads right?

We move markets and in a way. And let me just give it a very tangible sense of how important that is. Back when I was born, kids growing up in certain parts of urban LA, for example, were growing up with half of the lung capacity compared to kids growing up in rural parts of the country because of how bad our air pollution was, and California said enough is enough.

Automobile industry, we know you have the technology to do better, and yet we also know that you’re not going to do it unless you get pushed to do it. And so we’re going to force you to clean up your act and and reduce pollutants that are leading to the the untenable levels of smog that choke the air of Los Angeles and make it hard to even see the Hollywood sign. So we did that. We changed the rules. The automobile industry had to clean up its act.

It actually made cars burn cleaner around the world, because once they adopted our technology that we forced upon them, other jurisdictions forced it upon them, and then by then, they were already producing the cleaner cars, and everyone wanted them, and so it actually made things better. So in fact, now you look at LA, there are actually far more cars on the road in LA than there were in the 70s.

That’s another problem we can talk about. But the air is significantly cleaner. And the question is, do we want? Is that is so much? And as a result, kids. Have larger lungs than they used to have because we have, it’s mind blowing. It’s just mind blowing that good legislation can lead to such positive outcomes across the planet because of, you know, far sightedness well, because the industry is not going to do it themselves. They just won’t.

But, you know, they need to, because nobody, because one, if one car company were to do that, then they’d have a competitive disadvantage through the other car. That’s exactly right. And the interesting thing, you have to set the same rules forever, absolutely right. And they’re actually, you know, what I found in my negotiations with industry on environmental issues is most of the time, at least the best. I mean, the big ones, the best ones, are very open to new regulation.

They just want to make sure it applies to everybody. It’s about a fair playing field. They know they can do it, but they don’t want the competitive disadvantage, as you say. And so that’s what happened with our with our our air quality rules. That’s that was the, that’s the that’s the idea behind so many of the regulations that we’re that we’re promulgating.

We want to make sure that we do them in cooperation with industry, but move the ball forward. They know it’s actually good for them and good for the environment and actually not bad for the market, but, but they need, but they need us to step in and do it, because that creates a level playing field.

Okay, well, always following you and wish you all the best we you know, think you’re one of the great public servants out there, and appreciate your service to our you know, our state and to our country really makes a difference. Thank you. I have always appreciated our great dialogs and and I just, I love your I love the fact that we’re able to come to just find so much common ground.

You know, even if we may come at certain issues from different perspectives, it’s refreshing. And I just, I wish we could have more of these conversations at the national level right now, I think one big move towards that is electing Harris and hoping that Donald Trump goes off into the sunset and a saner Republican Party could evolve. It may take some time, but you know, certainly not with him.

And I think you know, I like, I love the fact that she’s talking about bringing a Republican into the into the cabinet, I think that that that will be, I mean, that was something that used to happen, but now I think it will be done with a lot of thoughtfulness and focus, and really with a mind toward toward toward rebuilding a better democracy for our country, which, which, which, which which seeks to bring people together, as opposed to divide.

We’re gonna end on this high note. And thank you, Senator. It’s always a pleasure to have you on the show and wish you all the best going forward and for anything we could do to help, let us thank you. And that was Senator Ben Allen. If you haven’t done so, make sure to vote. This is a very, very important election. Don’t know how to vote? Visit vote.gov to register and find your nearest polling place.

Learn more about our work at A Climate Chnage and how you can help us reach our goal planting 30,000 trees in the Amazon this year. Visit aclimate hange.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. See you next time.