Senate President Pro Tem Atkins Reflects On The Year In Bills

Speaker 1: 00:00 This is KPBS mid day edition. I'm Maureen Cavanagh. This state legislative session, left governor Newson with a hefty stack of bills on his desk. Newsome has until October 13th to sign them into law senate president pro tem Tony Atkins is now back home in San Diego. After this busy and sometimes contentious legislative session, she joins us in studio. Tony Atkins. Welcome. Thank you. It's so good to be here. Now I want to ask you first about the protests over SB two 76 the bill to tighten the process for vaccine exemptions that provoked an assault on one member of the legislature and an incident where blood was thrown on the Senate floor. This country is seeing such intense political disputes. Do you expect to see more of that kind of disruption in Sacramento? Well, I certainly hope not. I know that this was a a pretty emotional and contentious issue. I think the legislature handled it appropriately. Speaker 1: 01:00 We had to of course adjust that night. It cost us about two hours, three hours to get reestablished in another hearing room to continue to finish the work of the legislature of the Senate. I hope not, but you know, uh, we, we will be prepared. We will handle it the best we can with, uh, the appropriateness of the work that we have to do for the people of California. Now, uh, Bill you authored SB one is aimed at stopping Trump administration rollbacks of environmental laws and protections for endangered species, but it's come up against criticism that it may impact water supplies for southern California and the governor says he's not going to sign it. So why did you move forward with it anyway? Well, my hope was that what we were saying about SB one was that it would not affect the biological opinions. That was one of the criticisms you heard concerned that it would not let us advance the best available science. Speaker 1: 01:59 The bill specifically spoke to that and said that through regulations and agencies, we would address that secondarily, the bill also stated very clearly that it would not impact the voluntary water settlement agreements that had been worked on by the Brown administration that now governor Newsome would have to proceed with the bill made reference to that, that it wouldn't impact those agreements. Nevertheless, a water, uh, interest in particular, uh, were concerned that it would impact their ability to continue to negotiate. And frankly, bottom line, they want to change the endangered species act in a way that doesn't protect salmon, the smelt and others still had trout. Uh, those waterflows impact those endangered species. So in fact, they want those protections rolled back in those cases. And that became the crux of a bill that was about clean air, clean water worker protections and endangered species. But since the governor said he won't sign it, why did you move it forward to his desk? Speaker 1: 03:07 Well, I felt like there was an opportunity that he would rethink this. We had worked all year, uh, with the stakeholders on both sides. I took 75 amendments to the bill. It went through basically eight hearings if you count the two appropriations committees. And then to the floor of each house. We had done the work we needed to do. I felt like a, this would not impact, uh, the concerns, uh, of the water users in terms of the protections, the endangered species act and rolling back those protections was really the key. And um, you know, I felt like we had made our best case. We should make that case with the governor. A, this is one of the first times you've clashed with the governor over a major piece of legislation. Do you think this is going to affect your relationship with the governor going forward? Speaker 1: 03:59 I expect we'll have a fond relationship. We've had a good relationship. I endorsed him early. Uh, we've been long time friends. We can disagree and still do our jobs, uh, as the governor and as the legislature and I anticipate that our relationship going forward will be as good as it has been. Now speaking of water, you and San Diego, Assemblyman Todd, Gloria pushed a last minute bill ab 1290, that does an end run around a lawsuit and requires union labor agreements for San Diego's pure water project that bill will probably get signed. Why not just let that lawsuit though by city contractors move forward? Because we were in jeopardy of losing about $650 million to San Diego to our pure water project. Those are state funds that basically say if you disallow the opportunity for a project labor agreement, you're not eligible for those funds. So this would translate into increased costs to get the pure rodder project done that we have worked on for decades. Speaker 1: 05:04 It would enable San Diego to be more self reliant. It would produce more water, uh, basically through a project, uh, that takes a water and reuses it, purifies it, and reuses it for potable drinking water. President Atkins, what do you see as your biggest wins this past legislative? Wow. Well, I think you have to look at education funding. A lot of the issues that we dealt with housing, public safety as it relates to use of force and law enforcement education, clean water, SB 200 to deal with polluted groundwater, fire protection, all of those came with budget actions during the budget cycle and then attached to legislation. So I would have to say the big winner is education, highest budget amount ever to k through 12 education, 15,000 new slots for undergraduate, uh, CSU UC 15,000 new cal grants. And legislatively we approved a bond for March that would bring $15 billion to, uh, the CSU system, the UC system community colleges and k through 12. Speaker 1: 06:16 So that is a huge investment in the infrastructure and the deferred maintenance in our school. Something we have not been able to do for more than a decade. Uh, I think housing was a big winner, two point $5 billion during the budget cycle. But you saw us pass a, B 1482, which was the tenant protection just cause and rent stabilization capping, uh, increases annually a 5% plus inflation with a cap at 10% to prevent rent gouging, which we have seen. So I think in addition to the, uh, Adu legislation legislation to help streamline a little bit more development because our issue is production, it was a hugely busy legislative session that tied right into what we did during the budget year for supporters. One of the biggest disappointments on housing was the shelving of SB 50. Now that's legislation that would require cities to allow denser and taller housing near transit. Speaker 1: 07:16 Transit stops. You are criticized for not resurrecting that bill this session. You said it needs more work. What kinds of changes do you think it needs? Well, I think we have spent the time, uh, you know, I'll compare this to not moving forward a year ago with use of force that bill didn't exactly have the votes in either house. We took the year, we negotiated with a stakeholders, ACO, Yiu advocates, law enforcement, and we got it done this year. In addition to funding to support police officer training SB 50, which is the housing bill and development that you're talking about. It is my assessment. And, and people disagree that the votes weren't actually there. Uh, for that bill. I am committed to this housing affordability and development, particularly low income housing for struggling Californians is one of my top priorities. We need to make sure this bill is going to be, uh, able to do what it needs to do and has the support to get approved. Speaker 1: 08:16 And I think the issues, a lot of smaller cities have real concerns. And so I've spent the last several months, uh, meeting, uh, with a lot of these entities that don't support the bill. I don't think one size fits all. I do think we need to figure out how to get development done and we do need to develop more housing. That is the crux of our problem. Not enough production, but we've got to do it in a way that preserves the character of cities and communities and puts money to use around planning. My SB too, which is permanent source of funding for housing, just released money for updates of community plans. We saw quite a few grants come to the county, the cities, uh, for them to be able to work on their general plans and talk about how they are going to grow. But what I would say is we've got to continue to work on this. Speaker 1: 09:08 We've done more work on housing in the last three years than in the last two to three decades in California. Money streamlining. We did pass SB three 30, that was Nancy Skinner's bill that talks about not reducing, uh, the density that, that cities and communities cannot reduce density. It respects local government in allowing local community plans and general plans to be in place. You just can't down zone, but so it protects local control but allows for some trying to make development go faster that you can't slow down or delay and you can't down zone. So we did get some legislation done. I'm committed to this. This is a key issue, but we've got to do it right and we've got to have people who support us moving forward. So to the listeners, I would say you really need to be looking at your communities for how we can do this in the right way to protect character, but increase the density. Speaker 1: 10:04 And we did that also through passing a number of Adu, uh, assessory dwelling unit bills, which is the easiest and quickest way to add density in single family neighborhoods while also giving homeowners, uh, the opportunity to have an investment to have a unit that they can rent out. Uh, many times it becomes a family member with, you know, the dwelling units. So we've reduced the cost, uh, and made it easier. We had at least three or four bills on a to use this year, so we're going to continue to work very hard. I see SB 50, uh, we have in January, February, the ability to let that bill out there will be changes to it, uh, obviously, and I'll be really involved in helping make that happen. Let me change the subject for a moment. Uh, the Trump administration is revoking California's ability to set its own auto emission standards. Speaker 1: 10:56 Right. Governor Newsome says that move is all about the president taking revenge on California for defying him on so many issues from emissions to immigration. Do you agree with that? Well, it certainly feels like we're being targeted. Uh, but you know, I try to remain focused, uh, even as I did SB one and many people were calling it Trump insurance. You know, I focused on that bill and I think the governor is focused on, uh, we, we have more than 60 lawsuits against the federal government right now and it has everything to do with, um, regulations, policies and programs that California has put into place over the last 40 and 50 years. The emission standards is a key example, a 50 year program. Governor Reagan developed the California Air Resources Board precisely to address that issue. When you see the work that you've done over four or five decades, undermined rolled, you have to do something to try and protect the values of the California voters. Speaker 1: 12:00 Uh, this has been, uh, lots of bureaucracy in progress really over years to put goals in place to advance these, these causes, whether it's worker protection, clean air, clean water, endangered species, our emissions goals, which is tied to pollution and climate change. Frankly, we have to stand our ground. So if you want to call it a fight with the administration, some people are doing that. I say it's all about protecting California values. Now, one big shakeup in San Diego politics is that longtime congresswoman Susan Davis says she's not running for reelection. Many people thought you might want to get into the race for the 53rd district, but you say, no, you're running for reelection in the state senate. Why is that? I have the ability to negotiate budgets with the governor and the speaker in the fifth largest economy in the world. I am committed to the work that I am doing. Speaker 1: 12:56 I see direct impact every single day. I love my job. I get to work on all of these issues. We've talked about education, housing, clean water. We didn't even talk about fire recovery and, and uh, preparedness. I love this work. I might have thought differently three years ago, but I feel good about my decision. And uh, I thank Susan Davis for her two decades of really good work on behalf of, of Californians. And she was my, she's my representative, so I thank her for her work. Do you ever anticipate running for National Office? I, you know, I don't, I don't look at the world that way. I, um, I didn't go to Sacramento to become the speaker of the assembly or the pro tem necessarily. But when those opportunities arose and I saw what it enabled me to do to be able to work directly with the governor, I have been able to negotiate for budgets with Governor Brown and now governor Newsome. Speaker 1: 13:50 Our relationships are strong despite dis disagreements. Every now and then I know that we're acting in the best interest as we believe it, believe it and see it for California. I am just honored to have this job and I'm going to let it play out. Uh, I'm running for reelection. I don't take that lightly. I have to convince my constituents that I am still up for the job and ready to serve them and for, uh, to serve the state of California. So I'm going to be focused on my reelection on continuing to be the pro tem and working with the governor to advance all it's important to us here in San Diego County. And I've been speaking with California Senate president pro tem Tony Atkins. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Thank you. It's always good to see you.