Protecting Our Environment

By Dennis Herrera

Among the current candidates for Mayor, no one has accomplished more to punish polluters and protect San Francisco's environment than Dennis Herrera.

Herrera negotiated the agreement with Mirant that closed the filthy Potrero Power Plant, one of the oldest and filthiest in the state. Securing a $1 million settlement for nearby pediatric asthma victims, Herrera's deal was praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as "nothing short of a miracle."

Herrera's lawsuit over the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill secured $3.7 million in compensation for the City. He also sued Pacific Cement Company for polluting San Francisco Bay, and his office's investigation into that company's practices helped criminal prosecutors later secure a guilty plea and more than $400,000 in restitution and fines.

Herrera's litigation in 2008 ended decades of inaction and forced ExxonMobil to clean up of its pollution on Port property near Fisherman's Wharf. And he led a coalition of local governments, environmental and public health groups to stop California's light brown apple moth eradication program, helping to end aerial spraying whose adverse health effects had not been fully evaluated.

Herrera worked tirelessly with City departments to meet the environmental review requirements to implement San Francisco's Bicycle Plan--the most ambitious program in City history to make bicycling a safe, reliable alternative to cars. He mounted an aggressive and ultimately successful defense from legal attacks, and moved to implement needed safety improvements throughout a court-ordered injunction.

Along with state and local governments in 2003, Herrera successfully challenged Bush Administration EPA rules to weaken clean air standards, and enabled aging, polluting power plants--like San Francisco's Mirant plant--to prolong their functional lifespan and evade tougher protections against air pollution. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2007 ruling forced EPA to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants.

As Mayor, Dennis Herrera will continue to be a strong and effective leader to defend the environment, and make San Francisco a cleaner, greener, healthier City.

Dennis Herrera will aggressively pursue a smart growth development strategy, as a means to halt suburban sprawl, and reduce our over-reliance on automobiles. Herrera strongly believes that 21st Century cities have a special obligation to push for urban density--creating livable cities, and transit-oriented, mixed-use urban infill development--to reflect the environmental imperative of our time: mitigating global climate change. Herrera will also push to eliminate or substantially lower minimum residential parking requirements as a critical element of smart growth.

Dennis Herrera will push for a San Francisco that lives up to its Transit-First Mandate, which recognizes that public transportation directly affects our quality of life, our economic wellbeing and our environment. But adequate funding for public transportation will succeed or fail by City leaders' ability to govern effectively, and fund it adequately. Voters enacted San Francisco's transit-first policy to establish that public transportation is an economic and environmental policy imperative. Reliable public transportation is an environmental linchpin to improve air quality, limit suburban sprawl, arrest global climate change and more. It's also a cornerstone of our economic policy to create a City that attracts jobs, retains middle-class families and remains livable for generations to come.

As Mayor, Dennis Herrera will work to fully implement and expand upon the San Francisco Bicycle Plan to promote bicycling as a safe, economical and healthy alternative transportation mode for work, shopping and recreational trips in San Francisco. Herrera will also support policies that make San Francisco more pedestrian- and bike-friendly, including creating car-free commercial areas that help small businesses and enhance urban livability.

Herrera fully supports the Climate Action Plan, and will work to make monitoring and continually reevaluation of the City's progress on it a priority. Still, Herrera knows we must look for opportunities to do better. The Climate Action Plan found that 49% of the City's greenhouse gas emissions came from buildings, and 51% from transportation. Fully 48% of the transportation share of emissions came from automobiles. That's why promoting transit-oriented-development, more reliable public transportation options and greener building practices will go a long way toward reaching our goals. An important point that is often overlooked in media coverage is that our Climate Action Plan doesn't doesn't account for emissions from the port, airport, or from San Franciscans' material consumption. If we are to fully confront our climate threat, we need to reduce emissions in these functions as well.

Dennis Herrera will continue to work tirelessly with the SFPUC, LAFCo and others to navigate the complex issues for San Francisco to make CleanPowerSF a success. Like many clean energy advocates, Herrera shares the frustrations of City policymakers about circumstances, finances, and state law that have made San Francisco's ability to implement community choice aggregation such a challenge. That's why it's so important for San Francisco's next Mayor to have the leadership, experience and commitment to support our community choice aggregation program.

As Mayor, Dennis Herrera will fight to fully fund the GoSolarSF solar rebate program, not simply for the obvious environmental benefits of dramatically increasing clean renewable energy, but for the program's success in expanding access to green collar employment opportunities to low+income San Franciscans. Since the program's implementation, a number of community-based organizations have been approved as workforce referral agencies, and the Office of Employment and Workforce Development has had great success in integrating the GoSolarSF program with its "Green Collar Jobs Academy," which trains and places low-income residents in both subsidized and unsubsidized positions in solar, green building, energy efficiency, and recycling positions. This critically important employment sector is poised for significant growth in the Bay Area, which holds enormous promise for San Francisco, both economically and environmentally.