ACTION ALERTS
We make it easy for you to stay informed and take action!
Please go to the SIGN UP button above to receive our Actions & Events emails.
Follow us on Blue Sky @SFBayPSR, for more immediate news and info.
Upcoming ACTIONS & EVENTS here!
Below—Ongoing advocacy campaigns, recent advocacy efforts, and reading lists.
- SIGN: Support Make Polluters Pay bills in CA
- READ: Dr. Bob Gould’s speech from April 4 Stand Up for Science & Sanity Rally, Palo Alto
- PHOTO: April 5, Hands Off Rally, San Francisco!
- READING: Articles We Recommend
- READ our response to the current attacks by the new administration: Standing Together for Justice and Health for All
- UPDATE: Air District Advocacy for Zero-Emission Water and Space Heater Rules
- Keep Coal Out of Oakland!
- Close Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
- Demand the Cleanup of Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco
- And more below
SF Bay PSR works diligently to advance science- and health-based policy and regulatory solutions to the interlinked public health emergencies of militarization and nuclear weapons, systemic racism and social inequity, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis.
Make Polluters Pay!
This year California is going to make the polluters pay for the climate devastation they’ve caused (because we’ve paid enough!). Thousands of Californians are calling on the California legislature to pass the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act (Senator Caroline Menjivar and Assemblymember Dawn Addis, (SB 684 / AB 1243) to get the fossil fuel companies to pay their fair share. Now is your opportunity to be part of this historic campaign.
ACTIONS
SF Bay PSR wrote a letter for health professionals and advocates to sign in support of Make Polluters Pay. Your health voice can make a difference!
READ the letter and SIGN HERE
Note: SF Bay PSR never shares your email or info with other groups.
MORE INFO
While companies made billions of dollars despite decades of warnings of the accelerating dangers of climate change, Californians have increasingly faced rises in wildfire occurrence, flood occurrence, sea level, pollution levels, extreme heat, drought, and more. There have been numerous documented cases of fossil fuel companies polluting waterways, soil, and the air through oil spills, explosions, and fires, with further damage being caused by everyday industry practices. The costs in medical expenses, insurance rates, housing, and utility bills have undoubtedly been influenced by the actions of California’s biggest polluters driving our climate crisis. Yet the costs of these climate events fall on those who had no say in the extraction and destruction of our environment.
These funds will be used to respond to climate catastrophes, build climate-resilient neighborhoods and sustainable infrastructure, support workers suffering from climate-related health harms, and usher in a thriving and fair transition away from fossil fuels.
It’s time for polluters to pay for destroying our health and the health of our planet!
Thank you for taking action!
BRAVO! SF Bay PSR Intern Daphney Saviotti-Orozco and Board Members Dr. Bret Andrews and Dr. Bonnie Hamilton joined many health and climate justice advocates for the Make Polluters Pay Rally in Sacramento on May 27, 2025. These are the kind of real-life advocacy experiences that make our internship program so meaningful.
BRAVO! Dr. Bret Andrews, SF Bay PSR board member, joined up with PSR-LA; Dr. Linda Rudolph, Climate for Health leader; Jane Fonda; and CA community groups at the Make Polluters Pay press conference in Sacramento on April 29, 2025.
Trump’s Executive Order and How Make Polluters Pay Campaigns Across the Country Can Respond
On April 8, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to target state climate laws and lawsuits that hold fossil fuel companies accountable. The order explicitly targets New York and Vermont’s climate superfund laws and threatens ongoing climate accountability litigation nationwide. Th executive order is a clear attempt to shield polluters from paying their fair share of climate disaster costs. This executive order is a shameless attempt to ensure the burden falls on working families instead of fossil fuel billionaires.
- This Is a Fight We’re Ready For—and One We Can Win
- Trump’s executive order isn’t a setback—it’s proof that climate accountability is working and Big Oil is running scared.
- Democratic officials should respond with lawsuits defending their authority to hold polluters accountable.
- Trump campaigned on “states’ rights” but now attacks states exercising their legitimate power. This hypocrisy exposes that his administration serves corporate interests, not the constitution or constituents.
- Turn Defense into Offense
- This executive order should inspire MORE states to pass climate superfund laws against Big Oil, not fewer. Nothing in this order prevents states from continuing to advance climate accountability.
- Every state not yet considering climate superfund legislation should take this as their cue to introduce bills immediately. A coordinated response will make federal interference more difficult.
- Highlight the Human Costs and Political Risk
- As climate-fueled disasters ravage communities nationwide, voters will not look kindly on officials who protect fossil fuel profits over people paying for recovery costs.
- This executive order forces a clear choice: either fossil fuel companies pay for the damage they knowingly caused, or struggling families and taxpayers do.
- Every climate disaster now becomes an opportunity to highlight how Trump is attempting to block recovery funds that should be obtained from the companies that fueled the crisis.
Stand Up for Science & Sanity Rally in Palo Alto:
Speech by SF Bay PSR President, Robert M. Gould, MD
April 4, 2025
An excerpt: Over the years, we have utilized such knowledge gained in free inquiry in science and health research to defend and protect the communities most vulnerable to the impacts of widespread pollution. This includes downwinders exposed to radioactive fallout in the atomic detonations starting in New Mexico in 1945 and extending through the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to include widespread planetary contamination. As well the intense and persistent radioactive poisoning caused by massive nuclear explosions in the Pacific, from which contaminated naval vessels were processed and sandblasted at Bayview Hunters Point in SF, leaving a covered-up radioactive legacy for generations living in my city.
We have similarly relied on advances in scientific research to defend our patients and communities subject to health impacts caused by our climate crisis and connected issues of toxic pollution. Beyond generating our own research and reports, we have relied on decades of expertise and studies emanating from numerous government agencies and institutions such as EPA, NIH and NIOSH, to provide support for our testimony for stronger health-protective regulations that have of course encountered strong opposition from corporate forces long intent on placing the burden of proof on those suffering the health effects of pollution.
But the challenges and frustrations of working in an often corporate-captured regulatory environment are nothing compared with the full-scale assault on our public and environmental health and freedom to defend it, evinced by the wholesale destruction of EPA and regulatory protections illustrated by our current Administration carrying out a corporate-friendly agenda foreshadowed well in advance by Project 2025. It has been jaw-dropping to witness the stunning and truly cruel attacks on federal employees, agencies, and programs that protect public health, preserve our national parks and forests, monitor extreme weather, safeguard nuclear security, enforce environmental protections, and provide care to the most vulnerable across our nation and the globe.
As we have seen in what has been aptly described in Rolling Stone magazine as the “Bloodbath” of April 1, 2025.
“… more than 7,000 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were cut. Staffers with decades of experience received emails at 5 a.m. on Tuesday that they were being placed on administrative leave and would no longer have access to their buildings, effective immediately.”
BRAVO to everyone who joined us for the April 5 Hands Off Rally in San Francisco!
What a meaningful day! If you missed it, don’t worry. We will be sending out more opportunities to make your voice heard.
For information about HANDS OFF, please read here.
Together we can defend the communities and issues we care about and join the movement to build a better future.
READING
It’s hard to keep up with the news these days. We are working to make that a bit easier for you by sharing a selection of the articles we are reading. Also, please share these articles far and wide—together we can help combat misinformation.
American Public Health Association (APHA) Report: Decimated public health systems, a depleted federal workforce and the deletion of safety nets that maintain the health security of America are all outcomes of President Trump’s first 100 days
PEN America Report on Free Speech and First 100 Days
PEN American on Attacks to Higher Education
Guardian: A ruthless agenda: charting 100 days of Trump’s onslaught on the environment
IPPNW: Do not let the nuclear armed states lead us down the path to death: by Dr. Ira Helfand, IPPNW Board Member, at the Third Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, 30 April 2025.
Guardian: The Rise of End Times Fascism
KQED Forum Radio: Tech Oligarchy aka The Nerd Reich
KQED Forum Radio: How Countries Fall into Autocracy with Anne Applebaum and Steven Levitsky
The authoritarian playbook’: Trump targets judges, lawyers … and law itself
More than 1,900 scientists write letter in ‘SOS’ over Trump’s attacks on science
Americans are beginning to fear dissent. That’s exactly what Trump wants
Why Trump’s brutal crackdown on free speech is unprecedented in the US
Economic Policy Institute: Cutting Medicaid to pay for low taxes on the rich is a terrible trade for American families
Here are all the ways people are disappearing from government websites
Books:
Autocracy Rules for Survival by Masha Gessen
How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa, PBS News Hour Interview
How Fascism Works by Jason Stanely
More articles:
The Trump administration is descending into authoritarianism
Donald Trump is seeking to erase the United States as we know it
Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship
Trump’s shocking purge of public health data, explained
Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions climate
First Trump threatened to nuke hurricanes. Now he’s waging war on weather forecasters.
Outrage as Trump cites ‘emergency’ to fast-track fossil fuel projects
Trump administration yanks CDC flu vaccine campaign
CDC cuts expected to devastate Epidemic Intelligence Service, a ‘crown jewel’ of public health
US federal websites scrub vaccine data and LGBT references
Killing PEPFAR means killing millions of people: All to save 0.08 percent of the budget.
‘Will I be safe’? Transgender California youth feel threatened by Trump’s executive orders
Health care workers are rushing to learn about immigration law in case of ICE raids
UPDATE: Air District Advocacy for Zero-Emission Water and Space Heater Rules
On Dec 4, 2024, we organized a striking turn-out of white coats, health professionals, to make public comments at the Bay Area Air District in support of the first-in-the-nation rules to phase in zero-emission water and space heaters. An Air District board member told us that our health professionals had a big impact!
These rules are expected to help prevent 15,000 asthma symptom incidents and avoid up to 85 premature deaths every year, and save an estimated $890 million annually in ER visits skipped, lost days of work and school avoided, and family members’ lives extended. These rules would greatly improve health equity and of course, help to protect our climate. Above: Drs. Mary Williams, Bret Andrews, Margie Chen, and CHN colleague Dr. Wendy Bernstein.
In the coming year, we will be laser-focused on the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to encourage their timely implementation of similar ZE appliance rules, and to support the creation of indoor air pollution standards; our work includes a new partnership with UCLA to study indoor air pollution in lower-income homes.
We are looking for more health professional volunteers to join our Building Electrification Speakers Bureau. We will train you and provide all the slides and materials. Give talks or table at community fairs and health events. It is impactful and inspiring work! Our Building Electrification program created and distributed health- and equity-focused information to educate about the benefits of electrification. In 2025, we will expand our community outreach through our collaboration with the San Francisco Environment Climate Equity Hub and a series of workshops developed in partnership with the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, ensuring that environmental justice communities benefit from the transition to electric buildings. Left: Bailey Ward, Julie Lindow, Crystal Loucel, and Bret Andrews.
ONGOING ACTIONS BELOW!
Keep Coal Out of Oakland!
Sponsored by No Coal in Oakland
Help prevent the construction of a major coal export terminal on the San Francisco Bay. A recent peer-reviewed Health Impact Study quantifies expected increases in Bay Area negative health outcomes due to emissions from trains that would carry 7.5 million tons of coal per year to the terminal.
ACTION
Please sign your name—including any health credentials—to the attached open letter calling for a binding commitment against handling coal at a marine terminal planned for the Oakland waterfront. The letter is co-sponsored by SF Bay PSR.
ADD YOUR NAME
If you are a member of another organization that could sign on, the attached letter also contains a link to the Organizational Sign-On Form!
Live in Oakland? No Coal in Oakland yard signs are available!
REQUEST FORM
If the property is developed as a coal terminal, it could handle from 4 to 15 million tons of coal per year. Each day, one or more uncovered coal trains, each more than a mile long, would spew toxic coal dust and diesel exhaust from Utah to Oakland, including through densely populated environmental justice communities in the East Bay. After a fossil-fueled trip across the Pacific, the coal would be burned, polluting Asian power plant communities and emitting substantial greenhouse gasses. We cannot allow it.
The coalition coordinating this campaign includes: No Coal in Oakland, 350 East Bay, Youth vs. Apocalypse, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, SF Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, SF Baykeeper, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, West Oakland Neighbors, Interfaith Council of Alameda County, Faith in Action
LEARN MORE at No Coal in Oakland.
Below: Image credit: “Fig. 1. Study Area with Estimated PM2.5 Concentrations associated with 2.1 μg/m3 Increase in the Peak of the Annual Average Increment,” from Health impact assessment of PM2.5 from uncovered coal trains in the San Francisco Bay Area: Implications for global exposures, Environmental Research v252 Part 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2024.118787
Save Rooftop Solar in CA, an ongoing battle!
Sponsored by Solar Rights Alliance
BACKGROUND
Rooftop solar has been jeopardized in California because of a string of reckless decisions made by the CA Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) at the behest of the utilities. They are working to end net metering, charge solar taxes and other penalties for having solar panels, and even take control of your panels and the electricity they generate. The new solar-user rules, net metering 3 (NEM 3.0), went into effect in April of 2023, and by December, year-over-year sales were down 77-85% and 17,000 solar workers lost their jobs.
- Before NEM 3.0, rooftop solar was growing fastest in middle and working class neighborhoods.
- Now, everyday people have fewer options to control skyrocketing utility bills. And rooftop solar is no longer financially viable for most apartment buildings, farmers, schools, hospitals, etc.
- Also, the state says rooftop solar must triple in order to meet the CA’s goal of getting 100% of our electricity from clean energy. That won’t happen unless rooftop solar becomes more affordable.
text for space
WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? Utility profits!
- Utilities make profits by spending more money – your money – building and maintaining long-distance power lines.
- Because rooftop solar reduces the need to spend as much money on giant wind farms and power lines, utilities make less profit if rooftop solar keeps growing.
- However, utilities still stand to make tons of profit in the years to come, even with rooftop solar. Yet, they are still trying to kill rooftop solar.
text for space
ACTIONS
Tell Governor Newsom and your state legislators to protect rooftop solar in CA.
EMAIL them here using Solar Rights Alliance’s easy tool.
Thank you!
MORE READING
Solar Rights Alliance Blog: CPUC blocks rooftop solar for farms, schools, and many renters. Will state lawmakers overrule them?
KQED CA Morning Report: Solar Industry Battered by New California Rule
LA Times: California needs to get its act together on rooftop solar
READ MORE at Solar Rights Alliance
UPDATED: Tell Mayor Lurie and Supervisors to Fund San Francisco’s Climate Plan
Sponsored by SF Climate Emergency Coalition, including SF Bay PSR
A UC Berkeley Center for Law Energy and the Environment (CLEE) report recommended that the first step toward funding SF’s Climate plan should be a general obligation bond. See page nine of the Executive Summary.
ACTIONS
Make your health voice heard! Tell Mayor Lurie and the Supervisors that the City of San Francisco must do its part to address climate change by incorporating climate goals and actions into every aspect of city planning and to ensure the Climate Plan is fully funded.
1. CALL and EMAIL: Please call your Supervisors and Mayor Lurie’s office.
“Hello my name is ___, and I am a resident of ____ and a _____ (physician, nurse, public health expert, scientist, health advocates, etc.). I am calling to urge [Mayor Lurie / Supervisor _____] to fully fund San Francisco’s Climate Plan and the SF Environmental Department. Thank you.”
MORE INFO about the battle to gain funding for SF’s Climate Plan:
The San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition has been actively meeting with the mayor’s budget staff and supervisors.
San Francisco has an ambitious Climate Action Plan (CAP), which Mayor London Breed proudly introduced in 2021. Confusingly, the plan is still not properly funded and the city is in danger of missing its climate goals without serious efforts to fund and implement the CAP.
The climate crisis impacts the city in countless ways. It is a public health crisis, and funding climate initiatives will improve residents’ and the planet’s health. Such initiatives are also critical to address environmental justice and equity issues in San Francisco and improve the lives of underserved, low-income, and BIPOC communities. Climate initiatives will attract more businesses and tourists, create jobs, and elevate the status of San Francisco as a world-class city.
Mayors around the world are leading on aggressive climate policies in their cities. It’s time for Mayor Lurie to show that he is a serious leader who recognizes that climate action is the path to a livable, equitable, and rejuvenated San Francisco.
Prevent California from a Nuclear Disaster
UPDATE: SB 846 passed. This is bad news!
The aging Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant that is near four earthquake faults will remain active for at least five more years.
We remain OPPOSED to the continued operation of the Diablo Nuclear Power Plant for these reasons:
- It was built on the presumption of no active earthquake faults within 30 kilometers, it is now known there are 4 nearby active faults capable of larger quakes than the plant was designed for. One fault comes within 600 meters of the plant.
- The reactors are aging, with critical upgrades having been avoided because of the presumed shutdown in 2025.
- The attacks on the Zaporizhzhia reactor complex in Ukraine remind the world of the vulnerability of such plants to attack by adversaries / hackers, whether governments or terrorists, and the potential for massive radiation release.
- Spending billions of dollars on the aging Diablo nuclear plant would steal resources that should be used for far more cost-effective renewables and storage, essential for dealing with climate change.
SF Bay PSR Board Member Dr. Aude Bouagnon spoke at a rally on Earth Day 2021 to support Bayview Hunters Point community efforts to advocate for the clean up of toxic wastes harming the health of residents. Photo by Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai.
Demand the Cleanup of Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco
Contact San Francisco Mayor Lurie & Board of Supervisors to ask them to ACT NOW:
● Declare a Public Health Emergency in Bayview Hunters Point and Treasure Island!
● Declare a moratorium on shipyard development and Lennar’s unsafe soil excavation!
● Conduct full retesting, safe cleanup and removal of all radioactive and toxic contamination at Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund Site & Treasure Island!
The San Francisco Hunters Point Naval Shipyard site was home to a Naval shipyard repair facility from 1945 to 1974 and the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL) from 1948 to 1960. These facilities contaminated soil, dust, sediments, surface water and groundwater with toxic chemicals, heavy metals, PCBs, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and radionuclides.
We are honored to support the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates in their efforts to fight for environmental justice.
READINGS & RESOURCES can be found HERE.
Please join SF Bay PSR to support Bayview Hunters Point Mothers and Fathers Committee, Marie Harrison Community Foundation, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Literacy for Environmental Justice, Youth Vs. Apocalypse and other allies to demand a FULL cleanup of ALL contamination at the Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund Site and adjacent areas.