Prop 23 Reverses Clean Energy Policy While Debilitating California’s Biotech Industry
California
is a leader in environmental practices and most importantly, innovative
thinking. When our state — in bipartisan fashion — put into place the
nation’s most aggressive policies to spur the development of clean
energy and reduce air pollution as a means of preserving our resources
and increasing our ability to create alternative fuels to apply to our
work four years ago, it was a giant step in economic development.
In part because of these policies, our state is home to the largest
collection of life science companies in the United States with over
1,377 companies and over 100,000 employees. More than 6,000 new jobs
were created in our sector in just in the past 12 months, many of them
in the development of alternative bio-fuels that are the direct result
of California’s leadership.
Yet this bright spot in California’s economy is being threatened. Texas
oil companies are heavily financing Proposition 23, which would
essentially reverse our new clean energy policy while debilitating
California’s biotech industry. To justify their positions, these big
oil companies are polluting the air with rhetoric.