UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation

​​The ubiquity of plastic in the modern economy has created a global crisis. Plastic pollution is now found everywhere, and increasingly poses grave risks to human health and the environment. Recycling has proven ineffective to address the plastic crisis, with only a small fraction of global plastic ever being recycled. However, while the plastic pollution burden is widespread, lower-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately exposed. In response, California's Senate Bill 54 seeks establishes a state investment fund to address plastic-related impacts within communities. This policy brief informs decision-makers on how to prioritize SB 54 platic pollution mitigation funds, equitably.

This brief highlights some, but not all, of what may be needed to address heat in schools. It is not intended to be fully comprehensive. For example, it is outside the scope of this document to focus on labor-related actions. Additionally, we focus on actions that can be taken at the state level. Yet we recognize the critical role of school districts and schools to address heat. A focus on the local level, involving interviews with school employees, could be the subject of a separate paper on heat and schools. Addressing extreme heat is only one piece of making schools more climate resilient. Our heat-specific action areas fit into a broader landscape of work for climate-resilient schools. To illustrate, the Climate Ready Schools Coalition calls for increased funding and a “Master Plan for Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Schools” to identify and guide a wider set of investments to promote equity, health and climate mitigation alike in schools.

Community water systems serve as the local water provider for 98% or more of Los Angeles County’s population and have the responsibility to collect, report, and share data regarding water quality to the state and to their customers under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and associated state law.

Public water systems’ technical, managerial, and financial capacities vary greatly throughout the state, as does their ability to comply with existing standards. For instance, larger public water systems may be better able to comply because they can more easily staff and pay for required maintenance and water testing, while “at-risk” water systems likely need to pass off costs to their customers. Additionally, many water systems face aging infrastructure and underinvestment that cause challenges in providing safe drinking water.

Although water systems are publicly regulated (unlike private wells) and residents commonly expect that water systems are responsible for their tap water quality, water systems are not responsible for on-site or private premise plumbing. Instead, as other briefs cover, property owners are responsible for on-site plumbing. Thus, water systems are not fully responsible for the quality of water coming out of the tap.

In the middle of a heat wave, schools have to decide how they will keep students safe — the state does not require any specific planning or actions.

Heat exposure is a problem for California school children — but we don’t have the data to understand how big a problem.

Reliance on local funding for school facilities limits heat action and privileges wealthier districts with greater administrative capacity.

In the face of climate change and ongoing environmental racism,1 the federal government and the State of California are engaged in parallel missions to invest in reducing environmental harms while uplifting pollution-burdened communities. At the federal level, the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative mandates that disadvantaged communities receive at least forty percent of the benefits of certain federal investments.2 Executive branch agencies are now working to meet Justice40 goals through their programs and investments. This work comes as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 have provided over $500 billion in funding for environment- and climate-related programs, providing an unprecedented opportunity to advance environmental justice.3 As the federal government works to ensure that benefits are more equitably distributed throughout the country, it can learn from many state-level strategies and actions— especially from California, which has made significant progress in focusing investments in disadvantaged communities over the past decade.4 Our client, the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC), administers the Transformative Climate Communities program (TCC), a competitive grant program that invests in climate, economic, and health benefits for communities facing environmental and economic burdens.5 SGC is working to help federal agencies achieve more equitable investment outcomes, in part by incorporating design features of TCC into climate equity investments throughout the country. To inform SGC’s federal engagement efforts, we explore how agencies with Justice40- covered programs can adopt SGC’s equity-focused practices for place-based, community-driven climate programs to achieve more just investment outcomes. We identify opportunities for SGC to support federal agencies’ Justice40 goals, highlighting where there is potential to incorporate TCC features. We use several methods to address our research question, including interviews with federal government officials and SGC staff; a survey of federal employees; and an analysis of department websites, strategic plans, and other materials concerning Justice40 and environmental justice efforts.

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) serves local member agencies which in turn supply water to nearly half of California’s population. The MWD’s Local Resources Program (LRP) helps fund projects designed and proposed by its member agencies to produce more locally-sourced water in Southern California, to bolster the region’s self-resiliency and reduce reliance on imported water sources. As of 2022, MWD states that its LRP supports close to half of the recycled water and groundwater recovery production in the district’s service area (MWD CAP, 2022). Southern California has been in a state of water crisis since patterns of record-breaking drought began in the early 1990s.Southern California’s reliance upon imported water supplied from the State Water Project (SWP) and the Colorado River has come under threat. Faced with expanding cuts in water supplies delivered via the SWP, the region has needed to draw more and more water from the Colorado River to meet residential needs, putting water sources at risk of drying up or being unable to produce hydroelectric power. Hence, programs like the LRP which stand to help reduce water demand from member agencies have only grown in importance. Before our study, an independent, public analysis of LRP funding distribution and an in-depth survey concerning the perspectives of receiving member agencies had not yet been conducted. Accordingly, in this study, in cooperation with MWD and many of its member agencies, our research team assessed existing documents, conducted interviews, and performed statistical analyses on funding trends from the program’s inception in 1984 to today. In our evaluation of the LRP, the overarching question we are aiming to address is: “What has been the effectiveness of MWD’s Local Resources Program in terms of water resilience and equity, and can it be improved?” This research seeks to inform how the LRP fits into a comprehensive vision for Southern California of a long-term transition to local water resources.

(TCC) is an innovative investment in community-scale climate action with potentially broad implications. Launched in 2017 by the California State Legislature, TCC funds the implementation of neighborhood-level transformative plans that include multiple coordinated projects to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The program is also designed to provide an array of local economic, environmental, and health benefits to disadvantaged communities, while minimizing the risk of displacement. TCC empowers the communities most impacted by pollution to choose their own goals, strategies, and projects to enact transformational change — all with data-driven milestones and measurable outcomes. The California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) serves as the lead administrator of TCC. At the time of this report, SGC has awarded 11 TCC implementation grants to 11 communities across the state (ranging from $9.1 million to $66.5 million per site). Additionally, SGC has awarded 25 TCC planning grants to communities that are in the early stages of forming a coalition to address local climate action goals (ranging from $94,000 to $300,000 per site). The state legislature has allocated funding to distribute two additional rounds of TCC grants.1 The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI) serves as the lead evaluator in five communities that have received TCC implementation grants: all three Round 1 sites (Fresno, Ontario, and Watts), one Round 2 site (Northeast San Fernando Valley), and one Round 3 site (Stockton). LCI researchers are working with these communities to document their progress and evaluate the impacts of TCC investments. This progress report is the fourth in a series of five that will provide an overview of the key accomplishments and estimated benefits of TCC-funded activities in Watts, collectively referred to as Watts Rising.2 This specific report documents progress through the end of FY 2021-2022, which overlaps with about 14 months of post-award planning (January 2018 to March 2019), and 38 months of grant implementation (April 2019 through June 2022). The majority of implementation has occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, so project partners’ responses to the pandemic are also highlighted throughout.