California Climate Change Bill AB 32: Case Study of Policy Advocacy

Chapter 4 showed how early activist tactics and strategies played out in Kettleman City, and how activism there changed over the years as the broader political context facilitated movement institutionalization into nonprofits and the state. Here, I describe a series of fights led by the more recent style of California environmental justice activism: the battle to shape the state’s landmark climate change bill, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). This case study traces the workings of scaled-up, state-level, professionalized policy advocacy and describes both the risks and benefits of this approach. It highlights tensions between oppositional