Video Exposes Campaign to Kill Community's Clean Air Successes

Former Reagan Sec. of State George Shultz has joined a growing list of political, business and community leaders in urging voters to reject Prop 23 on Nov. 2, a ballot initiative seeking to end California's landmark greenhouse gases law.

Shultz calls Proposition 23, a measure largely funded by well-moneyed oil companies - including the owners of two oil refineries credited with spewing thousands of tons of pollution into local skies annually - an issue that "transcends party divisions and is important to all of California and, for that matter, the United States and the world."

The video, "Prop 23, the Battle Over California's Future," depicts the forces behind the ballot measure and the grass-roots organizations fighting to defeat it at the polls Nov. 2.
Prop 23 would suspend AB 32, a landmark 2006 law that seeks to lower carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by 2020.

Economists credit the bill with spurring investments topping $2 billion in California in 2009 ($9 billion since 2005) to fund research and development of alternative-fuel and energy sources needed to meet AB 32's goals - and put a dent in the nation's increasing reliance on foreign oil.
Despite a well-funded campaign to discredit man's contribution to climate change, the overwhelming majority of scientists across the globe consider the phenomenon real - and well underway.

"These oil companies are putting this proposition on our ballot for their bottom line and it's at the detriment of California's public health," said American Lung Association President Jane Warner. "It is a matter of life and death.