ACTION ALERTS
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Together, we have the strength to resist. THANK YOU for being part of our growing community of medical and public health professionals, scientists, health and community advocates, staff and consultants.
ACTIONS & UPDATES
- SIGN: Make Polluters Pay Health Professional and Advocate letter
- April 18: Make Polluters Pay Rally, Palo Alto
- April 21: Make Polluters Pay Lobby Day, Sacramento
- 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: Recent articles to help you keep up with the news
- READ our response to the current attacks by the new administration: Standing Together for Justice and Health for All
ONGOING!
- UPDATE: Air District Advocacy for Zero-Emission Water and Space Heater Rules
- UPDATE: No More Money for Nukes Week, by Intern Navreet Purewal
- Keep Coal Out of Oakland!
- Save Rooftop Solar in CA
- Ask San Francisco to fund their Climate Plan
- Close Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
- Demand the Cleanup of Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco
- And more below
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.
ACTION
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.
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.
The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund bill requires the state to carry out a study to quantify the costs of climate damages in California and establishes a fund into which fossil fuel polluters must pay to cover their fair share of those costs.
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!
Make Polluters Pay Action Events
Hosted by Fossil Free CA and others
Palo Alto Polluters Pay Rally
Friday, April 18, 5:00-6:30pm, King Plaza, Palo Alto
Here is a MAP
Join the Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition and co-sponsors for a student-led Earth Day rally featuring speakers, live music, and local climate organizations. Come to uplift support for SB 684 / AB 1243 and demand justice from the polluters who’ve profited off planetary destruction.
Make Polluters Pay Lobby Day
Monday, April 21, 1:45pm, Capitol lawn, Sacramento
MORE info and REGISTER
After passing out of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee earlier this month, the Climate Superfund Act of 2025 (SB 684 / AB 1243) is set for its first Assembly Committee hearings: The Assembly Natural Resources Committee hearing is scheduled for 2:30pm on Monday, April 21. Rally on the Capitol lawn at 1:45pm, then we’ll head inside to affirm public comments about the bill.
UPDATE!
Trump’s Recent 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.
KQED Forum Radio: How Countries Fall into Autocracy with Anne Applebaum and Steven Levitsky
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
The Trump administration is descending into authoritarianism
‘The authoritarian playbook’: Trump targets judges, lawyers … and law itself
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
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
How Fascism Works by Jason Stanely
More articles:
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
Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile
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!
Update: No Money for Nuclear Weapons Week of Action
Hosted by ICAN
Nuclear weapons programs divert public funds from health care, education, disaster relief and other vital services. The nuclear-armed countries spend more than $173,000 per minute on their nuclear bombs, over $90 billion each year. Meanwhile, the companies producing these weapons of mass destruction and their investors make billions in profit each year.
SF Bay PSR Nuclear Weapons Abolition Intern Navreet Purewal researched what we could do with some of those funds and wrote to her representative. Here is an excerpt from her letter:
“Over the course of 2023 (FY 2024), Sacramento County wasted $430,732,262 on nuclear weapons. That is equivalent to $49,170 per hour. $49,170 is wasted on weapons of indiscriminate harm and mass destruction every hour.
As a member of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility (SF Bay PSR), we know this money can be better spent. Nuclear weapons cost our communities with the resources they take up and the threat they pose to our security. We need to stop banking on weapons which could lead to our destruction and instead start investing in a healthier community and country.
With every passing hour, our Sacramento County loses $49,170 on nuclear weapons, which instead could fund the following programs:
~5 Public Housing Units for 1 Year: Calculated as $8,953.85 per unit per year.
~19 Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for 1 Year: Calculated as $2,544 per child per year.
~200 Households with Solar Electricity for 1 Year: Calculated as $246.32 per household per year.
Just one hour without nuclear weapons could fund these projects. Imagine what we could do if we stopped wasting our money on these unnecessary weapons altogether. Our community needs these funds to be invested in our future, not our demise. Spending this exorbitant amount on nuclear weapons doesn’t serve the interests of our community or country.”
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 Breed 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 Breed 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: Please call your Supervisors
Connie Chan (chair) 415-554-7410, ChanStaff@sfgov.org
Rafael Mandelman 415-554-6968, MandelmanStaff@sfgov.org
Hilary Ronen 415-554-5144, hillary.ronen@sfgov.org
Shamann Walton 415-554-7670, shamann.walton@sfgov.org
Ahsha Safai 415-554-6975, ahsha.safai@sfgov.org
President Aaron Peskin 415-554-7450, aaron.peskin@sfgov.org
2. WRITE: Or write a short email to the Supervisors.
Email Clerk of the Committee brent.jalipa@sfgov.org with File #230265 in the subject line.
Copy President Peskin on the letter for sure, and the other 5 Supervisors if you wish.
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, in the past two city budget cycles, she funded it at $0. The city is in danger of missing its climate goals without serious efforts to fund and implement the CAP.
After years of inaction, the passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act means the US finally has a fighting chance at meeting our climate goals. But the IRA is just the start — now we have to do the hard work of implementation, everywhere. Cities, including San Francisco, have a critical role to play to ensure we get to net-zero carbon emissions as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, San Francisco is already behind. This year, the San Francisco Environment Department (SFE) is requesting $7 million for staffing and programs essential for achieving the CAP on schedule. This is a minuscule amount in the city’s overall $14 BILLION budget.
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 Breed to show that she is a serious leader who recognizes that climate action is the path to a livable, equitable, and rejuvenated San Francisco, by committing to funding $7 million for SFE in her 2023-2024 budget and to a city bond that would help fund building electrification and other climate friendly projects.
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 Breed & 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.