María Elena Durazo is an American politician serving in the California State Senate. A Democrat, she represents the 24th State Senate district, which encompasses Central Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. Prior to being elected to the State Senate, she was an American trade union official.
Our higher education system is vital to California’s economic productivity and innovation – it produces a four-fold return on investment. Although, the rapidly increasing cost of a college degree threatens that impact for our economy.
The state’s new College Access Tax Credit is an unprecedented step to ensure California’s continued success.
This new tax credit invests directly in California’s students while allowing contributors to receive a high return on their state and federal taxes. Upon contributing, participants qualify for both a 55 percent state tax credit and a significant deduction on their federal tax return.
The College Access Tax Credit will go directly to increase the Cal Grant B Access Awards for nearly 197,000 low-income California college students and help pay for books, housing, transportation, childcare and additional costs associated with attending college.
LOS ANGELES – Presenting a long-term investment strategy that would further California’s pursuit of its landmark greenhouse gas reduction goals, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and State Senator Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) at a downtown press conference in Los Angeles this morning, Friday, June 6, 2014.
“This is smart legislation that would spend Cap and Trade funding where it naturally should be spent – on reducing pollution and improving the health of our neighborhoods and our city,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “Cities are where we work, where we live, but they’re also where we pollute, so addressing the needs of cities like Los Angeles is critical in tackling climate change.”
Focusing on transit solutions, Senator De León remarked, “Action is long overdue, but California is preparing to lead the nation in fighting climate change, and where better to start than right here in Los Angeles.”
The Senate Democrats investment strategy (available here) dedicates a permanent source of funding for mass transit, transit-oriented development, and offers a catalyst for job-creation as California’s economy continues its recovery.
“The single largest contributor of greenhouse gases in California is the transportation sector and Californians are logging more vehicle miles annually than ever before. We’re on track to break the 400 billion miles barrier by 2020,” Senator Steinberg said. “Building new mass transit options near homes and commerce will dramatically reduce emissions and implementing this long-term strategy would be a huge victory for our environment, our economy, and the people of Los Angeles.”
Arriving by electric bus to highlight the goal of deploying one million zero emission vehicles by 2020, the elected officials, LA Metro’s Diane DuBois, TransForm’s Ryan Wiggins, Environment California’s Michelle Kinman, Communities for a Better Environment’s Bahram Fazelli, and labor leaders offered a plan with both near and long-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategies, with a commitment to focused and on-going funding.
Under AB 32 of 2006, California created the nation’s first benchmark for greenhouse gas emission reductions and from it, the Cap-and-Trade program that allows companies to sell unused emissions to the biggest polluters. Cap and Trade has helped put California on course to meet its Climate Goals for 2020 but there is no long-term strategy to reinvest the revenues that could total between three and five-billion dollars every year.
The press conference was held at LA Metro’s Division 13 Facility, a LEED Gold goal project currently under construction and designed to accommodate a fleet of 200 clean energy buses. The facility is one example of a project that could be eligible for a significant infusion of state funds to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Senate Democratic proposal to direct Cap and Trade auction revenues over the long term.
SACRAMENTO – A state department whose responsibilities include monitoring hazardous waste facilities will itself be monitored by independent experts, according to provisions sought by Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León in the recently approved budget.
The 2015-16 budget signed by Governor Brown last week established a 3-person panel to monitor the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC), in addition to a $13 million budget increase to boost its permitting process and hazardous waste oversight operations.
“The establishment of an oversight board to scrutinize DTSC is a critical first step in making sure industries that handle hazardous and toxic materials do so by the books,” De León said. “Failure to do so puts the public at serious risk.”
Enacted in 2012 through the legislation authored by Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León (SB 1234), the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program recognizes the need to provide retirement security for the 6.8 million Californians in lower and middle-income private-sector jobs who have no access to workplace retirement plans.
A public-private partnership, Secure Choice provides workers a portable and reliable retirement plan that serves as a vital supplement to Social Security, encouraging participation through automatic enrollment and small payroll deductions with the option of opting out. SB 1234 has been called “a model for addressing a national problem” in an editorial by the New York Times (California Takes On the Retirement Crisis).
Background:
According to a UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education report:
​Here in California, nearly one-half of workers will face significant economic hardship in retirement, with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty threshold. The most at-risk groups are young workers age 25-44 and low-income workers, but even middle-income workers will be at risk of not having enough retirement income to be self-sufficient.
Since the nation’s personal savings rate is extremely low, we are staring at something that if left unaddressed will overwhelm taxpayer-funded entitlement and other safety net programs. The lack of retirement savings affects all Californians, as seniors without sufficient savings will more likely need to rely on government assistance for basic necessities.
Social Security is the foundation of retirement income for the vast majority of retirees in California, but these payments alone, today averaging $1,261 per month, are not enough to sustain workers in retirement. Although Social Security has reduced the poverty rate among retirees in general, women and minorities are disproportionately represented among retirees living in poverty and among low-income retirees. In California, approximately 2/3 of the retirees living in poverty are women.
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