In summary California voters approved Prop. 4’s $10 billion in bonds for environmental projects, with about $2 billion going toward protecting drinking water.

California will spend $10 billion to fund water, climate, wildfire and natural resource projects after voters approved a bond measure in Tuesday’s election.

Proposition 4 will fund projects across the state to safeguard drinking water, combat wildfires, protect natural lands, and improve resilience against floods and extreme heat, but some of the money is also directed toward shorter-term items like job training.

At least 40% of the funds will be spent to benefit communities considered most harmed by climate change and environmental fallout — prioritizing support for populations that might lack the resources to cope with those impacts.

Alfredo Gonzalez, an environmentalist who headed the campaign backing the measure, described the financing as a strategic response to the state’s growing environmental threats. The bond measure will be a down payment aimed at water security, wildfire management, and resilience against intense heat waves, floods and even rising sea levels, he said.

“Voters have yet again made it clear that they believe in the need to prepare California for the ever-growing impacts of climate change,” Gonzalez said today in a statement after the measure passed. “This bond enables the state to invest in climate solutions at scale, and we urge our leaders to continue to deliver results that protect our communities and economy.”

Water projects will get the bulk of the money, about $3.8 billion. Half of that portion, $1.9 billion, will be spent on improving water quality, while the rest will be spent on protecting the state from floods and droughts, as well as other activities, including restoring rivers and lakes.

Despite improvements, safe drinking water remains a severe problem across California. Nearly 730,000 people are still served by the 380 water systems that fail to meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water. Latino farm communities struggling with poverty and pollution are especially hard-hit.

Funds also will be directed toward wildfire risk reduction, coastal protection, clean energy initiatives and sustainable agricultural practices.

“We are inspired and grateful to see voters back the largest climate and natural resources bond in state history,” said Liz Forsburg Pardi, California policy director at the Nature Conservancy. “Voters sent a powerful signal that climate resilience is a priority.”

The drawback, opponents said, is that bonds are an expensive way to pay for projects and should only be used on long-term, durable infrastructure.

Paying off the bonds will cost the state about $400 million a year, for a total of $16 billion, according to the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst. Taking inflation into account, that’s about 10% more than if the state paid for the projects without using debt.

The bond measure will saddle taxpayers with long-term debt for short-term projects, said State Sen. Brian Jones, the Republican minority leader from San Diego, one of the authors of the official argument against the measure.

Jones said today that he would seek to “ensure the funds are used responsibly and efficiently.”

“Prop. 4 places a significant financial burden on California taxpayers,” Jones said in a statement. “While I’m disappointed it ultimately passed, I respect the will of the voters and am committed to fulfilling it.”

While acknowledging the importance of environmental stewardship, Jones said some of the short-lived items in the measure include things such as funding for farmers’ markets, job programs and van pools — in other words, projects that aren’t intended to last.

California voters have a history of approving environmental initiatives on the ballot, though not all have succeeded.

In 2018, voters passed a $4 billion bond for state and local parks, environmental protection, water infrastructure and flood protection projects. Four years earlier, voters approved $7.12 billion in bonds for building reservoirs, recycling and groundwater projects and other water supply infrastructure.

But voters rejected a 2022 measure that would have raised taxes on high-income individuals and spent that money on electric car programs and wildfire prevention initiatives. Newsom campaigned against that measure, helping secure its defeat.

Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story. Brian Jones Republican, State Senate, District 40 (San Diego)

Prop. 4 made it onto the ballot after an extended legislative debate, with proponents arguing that the measure was essential to maintain and expand environmental investments.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature initially approved a $54.3 billion spending package called the “California Climate Commitment” in 2022, only to have to scale it back to $44.6 billion this year amid a budget deficit.

California voters had shown some recent reluctance to fund increased spending via bond measures. California primary voters, for instance, passed Newsom’s $6.4 billion mental health bond on March 5 by the slimmest of margins, 50.2%. That experience, Newsom said during a press conference earlier this year, “sobered, I think, a lot of the conversation up here,” and indicated that he was wary of backing another bond measure after suffering that near setback.

“The public wants to see results,” the governor told reporters during that May conference, before Prop. 4 was put on the ballot. Newsom has not endorsed the measure, and a spokesperson for him declined to say how the governor would vote on it.

A poll last month showed likely California voters supported the measure, though that support fell from an earlier survey. The Public Policy Institute of California’s October poll showed 60% would vote yes, 38% would vote no and 2% of voters were undecided. That was a slight decline from late August and early September, when the same nonpartisan think tank found 65% of likely voters would vote yes, 33% no and 2% undecided.

Overwhelmingly Californians rate the intertwined issues of housing supply, living costs and homelessness as the state’s most pressing issues, as a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California confirms.

The terrible trio, as one might term it, also draws constant verbal acknowledgement from the state’s politicians, from Gov. Gavin Newsom down, and he and legislators have enacted dozens, perhaps hundreds, of measures to address it.

Nevertheless there’s little evidence that their efforts have had material impact. Either the three situations are beyond the capacity of politics to address — a distinct possibility — or the political efforts to date have not been vigorous enough.

Why, one must wonder, is California plagued while residents of other states enjoy lower housing and living costs and experience much lower rates of homelessness? Shouldn’t our political and civic leaders be examining what these other states are doing right, or are they so afflicted with self-righteous hubris that they cannot entertain such a thought?

A new and very detailed study of housing policies in the nation’s 250 largest metropolitan areas confirms that California is an outlier when it comes to increasing housing supply and moderating its costs.

Titled “BUILD HOMES, EXPAND OPPORTUNITY,” the report is a product of the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University.

“America’s fastest-growing cities offer lessons on how America can address its housing affordability crisis,” the report declares. “Based on our analysis of the 250 largest metropolitan areas and a deep dive into 25 large metros in the Sun Belt and Mountain states, places scoring best for pro-growth housing and land-use policies are mostly large Sun Belt metros from the Carolinas through Texas to Utah.”

The metros doing the best job of meeting their housing demands, the report says, have policies that make it easy for developers to build. That includes allowing higher-density housing in “substantial fractions of every city,” reducing minimum lot sizes, allowing residential construction in commercial areas, reducing or eliminating parking requirements and embracing innovative technologies such as modular construction and 3D printing.

In addition to adopting specific housing policies that spur development, the report continues, metros that are meeting demand also pursue complementary policies, such as having enough educational and medical services, allowing “fine-grained mixing of land uses and human activities in as many places as possible,” allowing “dynamic changes in land use rather than trying to freeze neighborhoods,” and providing amenities such as “walkability, revitalized live-work-play downtowns” and “great parks and trails.”

So, one might ask, which metro areas are hitting all the right buttons and which are not, as determined in the study?

The 25 top pro-housing metros are all either in the Sun Belt — particularly Texas, California’s arch-rival — or in the mountain states such as Utah and Idaho. No. 1 is Charlotte, NC. and No. 2 is Austin, the Texas capital which is becoming a powerful competitor with California’s Silicon Valley.

Not surprisingly, California metros are heavily represented on the list of the nation’s 25 “most restrictive” metros. While Honolulu is the least accommodating, Oxnard is No. 2.

Nine of the 25 are in California. They include, in order after Oxnard, San Jose, San Diego, Riverside-San Bernardino, San Francisco, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Fresno and Stockton.

It would be tempting to dismiss the Bush Institute’s report as biased because it comes from Texas, but it contains a wealth of detail and explains how the data were evaluated.

A better response from California politicians would be to read the report and determine what more California could do to make the state housing-friendly. The state’s current path on housing, other living costs and homelessness is going in the wrong direction.