How Do We Feel About Prop 23? We are Philosophically Opposed.

There's been some confusion on how Surfrider Foundation feels about Proposition 23. Some previous posts were a bit more strongly worded than we would have liked and we felt that there was a need to clarify our position. Surfrider Foundation agrees that this is very important statewide legislation and we are philosophically opposed to Prop 23 (as you can see from our Global Warming Policy linked here: http://www.surfrider.org/policy_gw.asp). However, Surfrider Foundation is also required to make a concerted effort to limit the amount of legislative advocacy that we do in the State of California. For IRS tax purposes of being a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, we must limit our legislative advocacy to an "insubstantial" amount.

This year, we have chosen to support very few bills that fit directly in line with our coastal advocacy programs, such as AB 1998 to ban single-use plastic bags. This bill directly addressed a primary source of marine debris found on our beaches. We also supported AB 1834, which is a bill that affirmed people's right to collect rainwater, consistent with the water runoff and conservation measures of our Know Your H2O program. For more information on these programs, visit www.riseaboveplastics.blogspot.com and http://www.knowyourh2o.org/