California’s $10 billion Prop. 4 favors politics over sound policy

Proposition 4 on California’s November ballot calls for borrowing $10 billion to fund scores of environmental proposals that unfortunately are more the product of politics than good policy.

Voters should reject the measure. After this year’s state budget debacle, elected leaders should not be eyeing new bonds and more debt for an unfocused spending plan.

Less than three months ago, to close a $47 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers agreed to withdraw $12 billion over two years from the state’s rainy-day fund. That’s roughly 35% of the money in the state’s reserves.

That money was supposed to be set aside for a major economic downturn, not a gross miscalculation of state revenues. The state now is in a weaker position to navigate a future recession.

With that in mind, the last thing California should do is run up the credit card and increase installment payments, especially not for a hodgepodge of programs.

There’s nothing wrong with most of Proposition 4’s individual proposals to ensure safe drinking water, strengthen drought, flood and water “resilience,” increase clean energy production, address sea level rise, create parks and outdoor access, provide heat mitigation or fund wildfire prevention programs.

But the measure reads like a shopping list more than a sound policy proposal. Proposition 4 would dole out money to nearly 100 different programs. There’s no sense of priorities or analysis of what would deliver the biggest bang for the buck.

As it is, during the past decade, the state has spent an average of $13 billion each year on natural resources and climate activities, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. About 15% of that has come from borrowing money through bond offerings.

Since 2000, California voters have approved eight other measures granting permission for the state to issue a total of $29 billion in bonds for environmental projects. But that’s not free money. The state’s annual payment for environment-related bonds is now roughly $1.4 billion.

Proposition 4 would add about another $400 million to those payments for each of the next 40 years. Those would be locked-in expenditures that come from the already tight state budget, squeezing out funding for other programs.

To be sure, as climate change intensifies, we need to smartly address environmental issues. If Proposition 4 were wisely crafted to pay for key long-range projects that justify long-term borrowing, we would be the first in line to support it, as we have backed environmental bond programs in the past.