Here’s What We’ve Accomplished This Year

We want to first acknowledge what a difficult year this has been. We have all survived so much together and it can be hard to celebrate the big wins amongst the incredible losses. Yet, because of your continued support we have been able to continue making critical progress in California’s fight to solve the climate crisis. The biggest collective win was defeating fascism and sending Biden and Harris to the White House on the boldest, most justice-centered climate plan ever. Thank you for partnering with us to achieve climate justice and expand our democracy.

Here are our top 10 hits of 2020. Let these be a reminder of our resiliency, and may we find encouragement in knowing we were able to achieve so much during a year where hope was sometimes hard to find.

We are ready to continue this fight in the new year. The climate crisis is not on hold.

1. Championed Safer, More Accessible Voting – We fought for and passed new state laws mandating every registered voter to receive a ballot in the mail, requiring ballot drop-off locations, and extending voting times. More than 17.5 million Californians voted in November, many for the very first time.
2. Defeated Oil Industry Candidates – In the March primary, we defeated Big Oil’s multi-million dollar war chest and industry-bought candidates. 95% of EnviroVoters endorsed candidates made it to the general election.
3. Passed the Great American Outdoors Act – We passed historic federal conservation legislation that fully and permanently funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a conservation community goal 50 years in the making.
4. Enacted New State Environmental Policies – We successfully pushed for a new state law to increase penalties on oil companies that knowingly cause an oil spill. And we helped create a new grant program so that schools can make much-needed heating and cool upgrades and replace aging water fixtures.
5. Pushed for Climate Action by the Governor – We successfully pushed for the Governor to issue two Executive Orders on the climate crisis, including getting new clean cars on the road and protecting our lands, water, and oceans.
6. Defeated Anti-Environment Candidates – We unseated two California State Senate incumbents with awful environmental records, including one who denied climate change. We sent climate justice champions to Sacramento instead, creating a State Senate ready to take on the climate crisis!
7. Advanced Youth Civic Engagement – We successfully passed a constitutional amendment in Sacramento allowing young voters to vote in the full election cycle. While we didn’t win at the ballot box in November, we built an important coalition and foundation to continue this work.
8. Re-elected Freshman Congressmembers – We successfully re-elected three of California’s freshman Representatives in Congress. But we also lost key members of the delegation. This was an important reminder that we’ll need to double down on grassroots organizing ahead of 2022.
9. Secured New Committee Leadership – We successfully pushed for new leadership on the Assembly Transportation Committee. As the transportation sector is the largest polluter in our state, this new committee will be key in advancing climate just policy.
10. Launched Two New Local Leagues – We launched new Leagues in the Central Valley and Inland Empire. Change happens from the ground up and these new Leagues are leading the way to elect climate justice champions at the local level.