A broad coalition of labor, environmental and education groups came out Monday against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal to shift money intended for school heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades to support electricity use during grid emergencies.
What happened: United Steelworkers, the California Labor Federation, the California Teachers Association, Sierra Club and other groups signed a letter opposing trailer bill language proposed by the Newsom administration in May that would send unused funds remaining in the CalSHAPE program by July to programs that reward electricity customers who cut back on energy use during grid emergencies.
The letter contends that the proposal, which targets the more than $190 million remaining funding in the program, will “prematurely end the CalSHAPE program and cause a wide variety of harmful and potentially fatal conditions among students and education workers.” The groups contend that CalSHAPE funding would become even more important if Congress repeals federal clean energy tax credits.
“The one-two punch of simultaneously repealing these tax credits and CalSHAPE would doom countless California students and teachers to intolerable temperatures in the learning environment and drive California even farther away from a climate-resilient education infrastructure,” the letter stated.
