California Climate Change Board Obsessed With ‘Racial Equity’

California spends billions annually on a fool’s errand: trying to unilaterally change the Earth’s temperature. “Global warming”—now called “climate change” to explain both heat waves and cold snaps—has been used by the Left for decades now to implement its radical agenda, primarily the redistribution of wealth. 

It should come as no surprise therefore that California’s climate change fighting agency, the Air Resources Board (CARB), has managed to include another top leftist priority into its agenda: ”racial equity.” The program is so conspicuous that it has caught the attention of the Civil Rights Division of President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon this week informed California’s EPA that it is commencing an investigation into its and CARB’s discriminatory hiring practices which emphasize “equity,” aka affirmative action. 

CARB was created by Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1960s. It was implemented to fight the severe smog experienced in large California cities, primarily Los Angeles. It sought to control the emissions causing the smog, primarily coming from cars.  

It proved to be tremendously successful, reducing the amount of carbon monoxide emitted from cars by 99% due to new fuel and engine standards. When I first moved to LA in the 1980s, most days in the summer you could not even see LA’s beautiful mountains. I had high school football practices canceled due to smog and could not take a deep breath without coughing after playing a set of tennis. 

Now the view of the mountains is clear year-round, and the number of “Stage I” smog alert days has gone from as many as 100 per year down to zero. Mission accomplished. Reagan’s CARB implemented the kind of common sense, “clean air and clean water” environmental regulations supported by Trump today.   

The Left then hijacked CARB and turned it into one no longer focused on clean air, but “developing programs and actions to fight climate change.” Its website boasts that by “adopting innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, California has pioneered a range of effective approaches that have set the standard for effective air and climate programs for the nation, and the world.” 

Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 announced the state was making a $53.9 billion commitment to fight climate change in order to “lead the world in fighting climate change.” In so doing he has crippled California’s economy without any corresponding commitments from other states or countries. Obviously, California cannot solve climate change on its own. Case in point, the U.S. has been producing fewer carbon emissions, yet levels are rising in the West due to pollution from China and India drifting over the Pacific Ocean.  

CARB’s secondary mission, according to its website, is to create “racial equity” and “social change.” It has developed what it calls its “Racial Equity Lens,” which is “rooted in the philosophy of cultural humility, a process of self-reflection and discovery to understand oneself and then others in order to build honest and trustworthy relationships.” It was implemented in order to comply with Gov. Newsom’s executive order on racial equity in government.  

It is quite ironic that the board that has driven up electricity prices to the highest in the continental U.S., which has a disproportionate impact on minority groups that can least afford it, claims to be concerned about racial equity. I doubt this is the CARB Reagan envisioned when he first sought to curb smog. 

The DOJ is now accusing the board of utilizing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI” aka affirmative action) in its hiring practices. In Dhillon’s notice of investigation, she cites the board’s “Racial Equity Framework” designed to “shift the culture at CARB from one of white privilege to an actively anti-racist and more inclusive culture that values and affirms Black lives.”  

This is the new Civil Rights Department, under Trump, in action. It aims to systematically investigate and take down illegal practices designed to benefit certain so-called “minority” groups. As Dhillon notes in her letter, “Title VII [of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964) prohibits an employer from discriminating against an individual based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”  

The law was put in place at a time when such discrimination was more prevalent against minority groups. However, that was over 60 years ago, and times have changed. In my near decade-long practice defending companies against employment discrimination claims, one thing became clear: discrimination in employment was rare. Simply put, employers do not fire good employees absent a business necessitated lay off. But today there exists a new, more pernicious form of discrimination in hiring and promotions. It is called DEI, whereby companies and governments bend over backward to ensure that minority groups are given special consideration in the hiring and promotion process. 

Until now, the DOJ’s civil rights office was continuing to search for discrimination even where it no longer existed. It failed to identify and pivot to the most prevalent form of discrimination today—DEI/affirmative action—which discriminates primarily against whites, Asians, and men. Nothing in Title VII indicates that such discrimination is not just as illegal and abhorrent in a civil society. 

The Civil Rights Division’s new mandate is a noble one. It is no less than the restoration of the American Dream, based on the concept that no matter your background or upbringing, you can achieve at the highest levels in America by working hard. Our Founders ensured that America broke from the European monarchial system wherein the class you were born into determined your fate in life. 

Dhillon knows California’s problems well, having practiced law in the Bay Area since 2000, worked with the American Civil Liberties Union, and formed the legal aid group Center for American Liberty. Taking down the state’s illegal DEI policies will help restore meritocracy in California. The Trump administration is also poised to dismantle the state’s disastrous climate change policies. These moves will put the Golden State on the path to becoming great again. 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

The post California Climate Change Board Obsessed With ‘Racial Equity’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.