There were nine measures on the statewide November ballot and NRDC took positions on four of them: we supported Propositions 21 and 25, and opposed Propositions 23 and 26.

Proposition 23 was the largest public referendum in history on climate and clean energy policy, with
almost 10 million voters, and is a decisive victory for California’s clean energy future. The measure was rejected by almost a two to one margin, with over 61 percent voting against Proposition 23. NRDC and a broad bipartisan coalition of environmental and public health advocates, businesses, labor unions, the NAACP, Latino organizations, community groups, utilities, consumers – and yes, even some oil companies – fought Proposition 23 together. This coalition represents the new face of the environmental movement and promises a clean energy future for California. We will continue to work together to foster policies that provide multiple benefits, including a prosperous economy and improved public health.

Voters also passed Proposition 25, which will help end budget gridlock by allowing passage of a state budget with a simple majority vote rather than the two-thirds vote currently required. Budget gridlock and the supermajority budget vote requirement was threatening the very foundation of state government; in recent years, a handful of legislators have been able to hold the entire state budget hostage as they pushed to weaken or repeal critical environmental policies in exchange for their budget votes.

Then voters turned around and voted for Proposition 26, a measure funded by oil, alcohol and tobacco interests that will make the budget harder to balance, again. It will shift the cost of public health and environmental damages caused by companies from those responsible to taxpayers and create another $1
billion hole in the state budget. This was a short sighted measure, but this vote will not stop California’s path breaking climate program. Mary Nichols, Chair of the State Air Resources Board which is responsible for
carrying out AB 32 said this morning that “Prop 26 does not impair the scoping plan adopted in 2008 or any regulations developed under that plan. AB 32 is on track, with renewed vigor thanks to the resounding defeat of Prop 23 by the voters.”

Proposition 21, went down to a surprising defeat given the popularity of our state parks. This measure would have helped keep our state parks accessible to all and fund sorely needed maintenance.

The defeat of Proposition 23 is much more far-reaching in its significance and impact than any setbacks on Propositions 21 and 26. This victory on climate and clean energy was particularly significant for the Golden
State and the rest of the nation. In an election when the economy trumped all other issues, including two wars, it is no surprise why. Jobs in California’s clean energy sector have grown 10 times faster than the statewide average over the past five years, and the clean tech sector attracted $9 billion cumulative venture capital investment from 2005 through 2009.

We hope that this campaign will inspire the nation in another way. Proposition 23 was defeated because Californians are devoted to pragmatism and compromise rather than inflexible ideology. We’ve done it in the
past by passing the nation’s most progressive air and water quality laws – regulations that consequently served as models for other states and the federal government.

As we celebrate a victory for common sense, it’s more clear than ever that working together is what makes us stronger. We need the great technical expertise, brain power and vast capital resources of businesses, the
workforce of unions, the reach of diverse community groups and the wide sweep of public and private partners to make an efficient transition to the coming clean energy economy. And sooner or later, we will all work together for the common good. We have no other choice.

Patricia and I participated in this nascent celebration in Greenwich Village with a small group of very committed individuals including Richard Ottinger, a New York Congressman, who had spoken at our founding conference a month before.

NRDC has been open all of four months when the first Earth Day occurred. We had launched it on January 1, 1970 because a small group of us–including respected conservationists who had blocked a power plant on Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River, a handful of determined students from Yale Law School, and myself had decided it was time to stop the environmental assaults that were spreading across America’s cities and landscapes.

You have to remember those were different times.

January 1969 brought the massive Santa Barbara oil spill, just off the coast of California. In June, an oil and garbage slick on the Cuyahoga River in Ohio had caught fire. I remember traveling to Gary, Indiana, seeing the city’s fire-spewing smokestacks, and thinking it literally looked like Hell.

Back in New York, I ate my lunch outside everyday in Battery Park, and I would see raw sewage bobbing in the Hudson. If Patricia and I put our young children to sleep by an open window in our apartment, they would wake with soot on their foreheads. Patricia read that a New Yorker breathed as much poison each day as someone who smoked a pack of cigarettes. She said; “It’s one thing for me to choose to breathe such air—but what about our children?”

These were the concerns that gave birth to Earth Day and to organizations like NRDC and Friends of the Earth.

Granted, we were making it up as we went along. NRDC was the first public interest law firm dedicated to the environment, and there was no roadmap for where we would go. And in those early days, we barely had office space or payroll. We were living dollar to dollar, and some of the first staff members had to stay on couches at our apartment.

One month before Earth Day, NRDC held our founding conference in Princeton. Thanks to support from the Ford Foundation and the guidance of Storm King champions David Sive and Beatrice and Stephen Duggan, we put together a stellar lineup of speakers. We had legendary David Brower; New York Congressman Richard Ottinger; Princeton biologist Dr. Robert Faulk; John Oakes, editor of the New York Times editorial page; and theater critic Brooks Atkinson.

The group from Yale came as well, including Gus Speth, Dick Ayres, John Bryson, and Ed Strohbehn. So did a third-year student at Columbia Law School named David Hawkins. Dave came to the conference to lobby John Oakes to have the New York Times demand that Fifth Avenue be closed for the first Earth Day. But then Dave got another idea: he asked Dick Ayres how he could get a job with NRDC.

“Are you kidding?” Dick responded. “We don’t even have money for our own salaries yet.” David did eventually get that job, and he is still with us today as head of our climate center.

The conference was a great success. People grasped what needed to be done to protect the Earth, and we felt energized to get started.

That same spirit was catching on across America. A month later, Earth Day celebration erupted in cities and campuses. Over the course of the next several months, Congress introduced more than 1,000 new bills aimed at protecting the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency opened its doors, and the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act become law. It was the start of so much we cared about, so much we built our work upon.

Now NRDC is 40 years old. We have more than 350 staff members and six offices, including on in Beijing. I am extremely proud of all that we have accomplished.

Earth Day has also matured. I have come to realize that every generation has to learn to fight for themselves. Everything has to be reborn, and Earth Day helps do that. It draws new generations in and keeps alive the spirit of environmental protection.

This is critical, because memory is short. Back when Newt Gingrich’s 104th Congress came in, they had already forgotten who horribly polluted the nation had been just 30 years before. They said we don’t need environmental laws; the companies will take care of themselves. That is total baloney, but we had to fight their short-term memory.

That is why we keep rebuilding the environmental movement, rebuilding the leadership–so that the value of safeguarding the Earth is carried on. That is why we have so many young people at NRDC. Each generation has new energy and new skills to bring to bear.

This year, I will spend Earth Day in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York, where Patricia and I live. We will be putting the finishing touches to our book, A Force for Nature, a 40-year history of NRDC which Chronicle Books will publish in the fall.  We love this region, and we work hard to protect its forests and streams.

I hope the coming Earth Day will inspire other people–and especially young people–to do the same for places they love too.