Communities for a Better Environment

Communities for a Better Environment has made significant progress in preventing increased global warming and smog-forming pollution in Los Angeles through a multiyear campaign for clean alternatives for a proposed widening of the I-710 Freeway to accommodate growing port traffic. This goods-movement campaign will be ramped down over the next year, while a new focus on clean electricity is ramped up. The Program will promote clean energy policies within several state regulatory agencies and at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Program will lend a much-needed community-based voice to counter utilities in several proceedings that will set renewable energy policy in the state for years to come.

Communities for a Better Environment is one of a few environmental justice organizations in California to publicly support the state's cap and trade program and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard--two essential components of the state's global warming emission reduction program (AB 32). This $20,000 grant supplements CBE's existing $100,000 grant, which supported CBE's work on renewable energy policies, to include additional work on defense of broader range of AB 32 policies.

Communities for a Better Environment conducts state and local grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, and legal work in support of cleaner electricity and transportation. Its Program will lend a much-needed community-based voice to promote increased renewable energy; it will also counter utilities seeking to build new fossil fuel plants in California and oil companies trying to dismantle the state’s global warming programs.