Jenny Miyasaki – Page 24 – Public Policy Institute of California

California Millennials and Climate Change

In our most recent PPIC Statewide Survey, we found a record-high share of adults (58%) saying that global warming is a very serious threat to the state’s economy and quality of life. This view is strongly related to Californians’ broad support for state climate change policies, and it is most commonly held among millennials—adults age 35 and younger. Millennials also stand out in their support for state actions to address climate change:

Seventy-five percent of millennials favor the state making its own policies, separate from the federal government, to address global warming.
Eighty percent support the new greenhouse gas emission reduction goal (SB 32) that updates California’s landmark climate change legislation, and 84% support a new target of 100% renewable electricity by 2045.
Seventy percent favor the state’s cap and trade system after hearing a brief description of it. In contrast, fewer than half of baby boomers (ages 53 to 71) favor the cap and trade system, in which the state enforces “caps” on greenhouse gas emissions by issuing permits that can be traded among companies.

California millennials are about as likely as older adults to expect higher gas prices as a result of state climate change policies (52% millennials, 53% generation X, 55% baby boomers). But among those who expect higher gas prices, millennials are more likely than older adults to support the policies named above. Indeed, 73% of millennials expecting higher gas prices support SB 32, compared to 63% of gen Xers and 59% of baby boomers.

Also of note, majorities of younger adults support these policies, regardless of whether they call themselves liberals, moderates, or conservatives. For example, 61% of conservative millennials support cap and trade, compared to 25% of conservative baby boomers. Similarly, at least 7 in 10 millennials support SB 32, whether they are white or Latino, whether they have a college degree or not, and regardless of their income group.

Such broad support for the state’s climate change policies among younger Californians suggests that, if these opinions hold, Californians’ desire for state action on climate change is not likely to diminish in the years ahead.

Learn more
Read PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and the Environment.

Find out more about the PPIC Statewide Survey.

Video: Reforms Challenge County Probation Departments

Changes in criminal justice policy have significantly altered the role of probation in the state and, as documented in a new PPIC report, have put considerable demands on counties.

The report, California Probation in the Era of Reform, is based on data from 12 counties and describes the changing characteristics of individuals under probation supervision. Viet Nguyen, report coauthor and PPIC research associate, presented the findings at a briefing in Sacramento. Among them:

Reforms shifted probation caseloads toward more serious offenders. Public safety realignment—implemented in 2011 and designed to address prison overcrowding—shifted the management of lower-level felons from the state prison and parole systems to county jails and probation departments. After realignment, the number of new probation cases increased steadily because of counties’ new responsibilities in managing two types of offenders: those released from state prison on post-release community supervision and those given “split sentences,” who serve part of their sentence in county jail and then are placed under mandatory supervision. In 2014, Proposition 47—which required that certain drug and property offenses be charged as misdemeanors—resulted in a dramatic decline in new felony and misdemeanor probation cases. But it also further concentrated the probation caseload on individuals who have committed more serious offenses.
Jail bookings are common among the probation population, especially for realigned offenders. Nearly half of people placed under probation supervision were booked into county jail within their first year. Realigned offenders had the highest booking rates, were more likely to enter jail multiple times in their first year, and stayed in jail longer than traditional felony and misdemeanor probation cases.
African Americans are overrepresented among people under probation supervision. African Americans make up 7.9% of the general population but 22.9% of those entering probation supervision. Overall, the shares of Latinos and whites under probation supervision were similar to their shares in the population, while Asian Americans made up a much smaller proportion of new probation cases.

Learn moreRead the report California Probation in the Era of Reform

Leon Panetta Joins PPIC Board

I am pleased to welcome Leon Panetta, a distinguished leader with decades of experience at the highest levels of government, to the PPIC Board of Directors. His leadership talent and exceptional knowledge of public policy will be an invaluable asset to PPIC as we work to shape a better future for California.

Panetta, who is chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, has had a 50-year career in public service at the national and state levels of government. He most recently served as US secretary of defense, from 2011–13. Before that, he was director of the CIA, where he successfully led the operation that brought Osama bin Laden to justice.

A Monterey native and graduate of the Santa Clara University School of Law, Panetta began his public service career in 1964 as a first lieutenant in the US Army and received the Army Commendation Medal. He then served as a legislative assistant to US Senator Tom Kuchel. In 1969, he was appointed director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, responsible for enforcing equal education laws. Elected to Congress in 1976, he represented the California central coast for sixteen years. In 1993, he was sworn in as director of the US Office of Management and Budget, where he was instrumental in developing the policies that led to achieving a balanced federal budget. A year later, President Clinton appointed him White House chief of staff.

After leaving the Clinton administration in 1997, he and Sylvia Panetta established the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit study center to inspire men and women to lives of public service. He chronicles his life in public service in his best-selling memoir Worthy Fights.

As a new board member, Panetta has been elected to a three-year term and is eligible for a maximum of three three-year terms. The PPIC board is chaired by author and farmer Mas Masumoto. It is made up of myself; Ruben Barrales, president and CEO of GROW Elect; María Blanco, executive director of the University of California Immigrant Legal Services Center; Louise Henry Bryson, chair emerita of the Board of Trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust; A. Marisa Chun, partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP; Chet Hewett, president and CEO of the Sierra Health Foundation; Phil Isenberg, former chair of the Delta Stewardship Council; Donna Lucas, chief executive officer of Lucas Public Affairs; Steven A. Merksamer, senior partner of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Gross & Leoni, LLP; Gerald L. Parsky, chairman of the Aurora Capital Group; Kim Polese, chairman of ClearStreet, Inc.; and Gaddi H. Vasquez, senior vice president of government affairs for Edison International and Southern California Edison.

PPIC Polling and the Immigration Debate

This post is excerpted from a presentation to the PPIC Board of Directors and guests on September 12, 2017, in Los Angeles.

One of the most important issues for Californians in the first year of the Trump administration is changing federal immigration policy. Immigrants are a significant presence in California, and even more so in Los Angeles County. Los Angeles, the state’s most populous county, is home to more than 10 million people, including more immigrants than any other California county. Twenty-seven percent of California’s population is foreign born—about twice the US percentage—while 35% of Los Angeles County population is foreign born. Moreover, about 2.6 million undocumented immigrants—about a quarter of the total number in the US—live in California. More than 800,000 of these undocumented immigrants live in Los Angeles. Major shifts in federal immigration policy that are under way thus have profound impacts on California and Los Angeles.

Since January, PPIC has been monitoring state and local responses to changing federal immigration policy through our public opinion polling. We have asked 11 questions about federal immigration policy in four monthly surveys, each involving 1,700 California adults, including more than 400 adults from Los Angeles County, interviewed by landline and cellphone in English or Spanish. The margin of error is +/-3% for California and +/-6% for Los Angeles. While the country is politically divided on immigration issues, we have found some bipartisan agreement in California. Here’s a sampling of our findings this year:

Undocumented immigrants living in the US: In our January PPIC Statewide Survey, 85% of Californians and 89% of Los Angeles residents agreed that undocumented immigrants who are living in the US should be allowed to stay legally. These results are consistent with earlier PPIC surveys. Moreover, solid majorities were in favor of state and local governments making their own policies and taking actions, separate from the federal government, to protect the legal rights of undocumented immigrants in California (65% California, 73% Los Angeles).
Border wall, travel ban on residents of six Muslim-majority nations: In our March PPIC survey, when asked about building a wall along the entire Mexico border, more than 7 in 10 were opposed (72% Californians, 76% Los Angeles). In the same survey, about 6 in 10 (58% California, 63% Los Angeles) opposed the president’s revised travel ban involving six Muslim countries.
Immigration enforcement and schools: In our April survey, 46% of Californians and 55% of Los Angeles residents said they are very concerned that increased federal immigration enforcement efforts will impact undocumented students and their families in their local public school districts. More than 6 in 10 (65% Californians, 73% Los Angeles) favored having their local public school district designated as a sanctuary safe zone in order to protect its undocumented students and their families from federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Worries about deportation, impact of enforcement on business and jobs: In our May PPIC survey, 30% of Californians and 34% of Los Angeles residents said they worry a lot that someone they know could be deported as a result of increased federal immigration enforcement. About half said that increased federal immigration enforcement will have a negative impact on businesses, jobs, and the economy in their part of California (49% California, 53% Los Angeles).

As the federal policy landscape shifted this year, PPIC Statewide Surveys continued to find majority support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are living in the US: in our March survey, 68% of Californians and 71% of Los Angeles residents remained supportive. In contrast to the political divide in the rest of the nation, strong majorities across parties in California continue to agree that undocumented immigrants who are living in the US should be allowed to stay legally.

California’s path forward on immigration is a work in progress, as is the case in other areas that are undergoing federal and state policy changes. Moreover, there are uncertainties about federal actions such as the fate of the DACA program—which protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation—the imposition of fiscal sanctions on sanctuary states and cities, the ban on travel from Muslim countries, and the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border. As we have seen, California’s immigration policymaking is occurring in the context of strong public opposition to federal shifts, high levels of public concern about how these shifts are affecting undocumented immigrants and our regional economies, and strong support for actions by state and local governments to protect the legal rights of undocumented immigrants. At PPIC, we hope to foster conversations about immigration that lead to a better future for all Californians.

Learn more
Find out more about the PPIC Statewide Survey.

Fellow to Explore Central Valley Groundwater Problems

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Josué Medellín-Azuara, a member of the PPIC Water Policy Center’s research network, as the 2017 Steyer-Taylor Fellow. This is the second year of a three-year fellowship―supported with funding from the TomKat Foundation, established by Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor―to explore solutions to some of California’s toughest groundwater policy challenges.

Medellín-Azuara is associate professor at the UC Merced School of Engineering. He focuses on water resources economics with expertise in water management for agricultural, environmental and urban uses, and farm adaptation to drought and climate change, among other topics.

This fellowship not only advances the water center’s work, it also adds to the state’s body of knowledge on how to address many of the challenges of sustainable groundwater management.

Medellín-Azuara will explore how California agriculture can adapt to future challenges of managing groundwater—especially in the stressed groundwater basins of the San Joaquin Valley, which is the state’s most important agricultural region and largest water user.

“We’ll be looking at future scenarios involving a changing climate, urbanization, technological advancement, and water scarcity, which will shape California’s agricultural mosaic,” said Medellín-Azuara.

The state’s groundwater law requires the valley’s water users to develop sustainable groundwater management plans by 2020. Medellín-Azuara is part of a team of PPIC Water Policy Center researchers working on a comprehensive analysis of possible sustainable water management solutions for the region.

Learn more
Read the report Water Stress and a Changing San Joaquin Valley (March 2017)
Read “Groundwater in California” (PPIC fact sheet, May 2017)
Visit the PPIC Water Policy Center

California’s Dream Act

As the federal government moves to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, California is continuing to support the higher education aspirations of undocumented students. California’s Dream Act is a set of laws intended to lower the cost of higher education for certain undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children and raised in California. Thousands of California students have benefited from the program so far.

College can be especially expensive for undocumented students. For tuition purposes they are not technically California residents and therefore are not eligible for in-state tuition. Public colleges and universities charge extra tuition for nonresidents: currently an additional $28,000 per year at UC and $6,000 per year at CSU. In addition, undocumented students are not eligible for federal financial aid, such as Pell Grants or federal loans, leaving college out of reach for many who are low-income.

California passed AB 540 in 2001, which waives the nonresident portion of tuition for undocumented childhood arrivals as long as they meet certain criteria, including spending three or more years in California K‒12 schools, graduating from a California high school, and promising to apply for legalizing their immigration status as soon as they are eligible to do so. In addition, the state passed AB 130 and AB 131 in 2011, which allows state and institutional financial aid to be given to students eligible under AB 540.

Undocumented students cannot file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to apply for federal and state financial aid for college. This means that many do not have access to Cal Grants, one of the state’s main forms of financial aid. Instead, those who are eligible can apply for Cal Grants using the California Dream Act application.

Of all Cal Grant offers in 2014‒15, about 3% have been made to California Dream Act applicants. Of those eligible for the awards, both FAFSA filers and Dream Act filers have similar GPAs. However, those obtaining a Cal Grant through the state Dream Act application were more likely to come from families with parents without college degrees and with lower family incomes.

A student’s DACA status has no bearing on the California’s Dream Act, so AB 540 students will continue to pay in-state tuition rates and can apply for and receive state and institutional aid to help lower the cost of college, even if the federal DACA program ends. However, without a work permit these undocumented students still cannot work legally in the US, even if they obtain a degree from a California college or university. The approximately quarter of a million Californians covered by DACA will still be subject to deportation without further federal legislative or executive action. That uncertainty could keep otherwise qualified students from earning a college degree.

Learn more

Read “DACA and California’s Future” on the PPIC Blog.

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

DACA and California’s Future

President Trump’s administration has announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to avoid deportation, obtain work permits, and continue their schooling. California is home to about 223,000 “Dreamers,” as DACA recipients are known, more than one-fourth of the national total. According to estimates cited by EdSource, about 70,000 Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants attend public colleges in California. The president gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative solution to address the issue before the decision takes full effect. Because California is home to a large share of the nation’s immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, changes in federal immigration policies are particularly important in the state.

In California, as in the rest of the nation, a central economic challenge over the next couple decades will be to ensure an adequately sized and skilled workforce to meet the demands of a growing economy. This challenge is especially daunting in the face of unprecedented increases in the number of retirees. As the baby boomers—a large group that is highly educated—exit the labor market, California and the nation will be hard pressed to find an adequate supply of workers to replace them and help provide for their healthcare and other needs. According to the California Department of Finance, over the next 15 years, the number of people age 65 and over will increase by 3.4 million, while the number of young adults age 20 to 34 will decline by almost 200,000. Requiring the Dreamers to leave the country will deepen this decline. Many of the older adults, about one-third, have a bachelor’s or graduate degree. Largely as a consequence of this demographic certainty, PPIC has projected that the state will see a shortfall of 1.1 million workers with at least a bachelor’s degree by 2030. Were it not for highly educated immigrants, the skills gap would be even larger.

The solution to this demographic, economic, and educational challenge is to make sure that more young Californians acquire the skills necessary to replace those exiting the labor market and to ensure that California’s economy can continue to grow with high-skilled and high-wage jobs. Increasing the number of young Californians going to and graduating from college is essential to closing this workforce skills gap. Because DACA recipients must be high school graduates or attending school, the program helps increase the number of Californians who are on the educational trajectory we need. The large number of Dreamers in college is evidence that they hold promise for helping the state meet its future need for educated workers.

Learn more

Read Higher Education in California: Addressing California’s Skills Gap

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

New CSU Admissions Policy Could Increase Access, Enrollment

Overcrowding at some California State University (CSU) campuses has had a serious effect on the system’s ability to increase the number of students graduating with bachelor’s degrees. This is an issue with broad implications for the state and for young Californians: PPIC research has shown that the CSU system will need to produce nearly half a million additional college graduates by the year 2030 to meet economic demand in California.

The state’s most recent budget aims to alleviate overcrowding at CSU, a problem that stems from an enrollment policy dating back to 2000. Under this policy, campuses established local admissions criteria that went beyond systemwide requirements for high-demand academic programs like nursing, business, and psychology. Currently, 6 of the 23 campuses are what CSU calls “fully impacted,” meaning that admissions requirements for local students in every major are significantly higher than those required systemwide. At Fresno State, 32 of its 33 programs are impacted. With higher admissions requirements, impacted programs often turn CSU-eligible students away. However, the rest of CSU campuses have fewer than half of their academic programs impacted. Six campuses—Bakersfield, Channel Islands, Stanislaus, East Bay, Chico, and Dominguez Hills—have less than 10% of their academic programs impacted. Unfortunately, unlike the University of California system where eligible applicants to an oversubscribed campus are referred to open campuses, CSU applicants who were eligible systemwide but did not meet the admissions criteria of their chosen impacted major or campus were denied admissions and not referred to a non-impacted campus.

In 2015–16 alone, CSU estimates that the system turned away nearly 30,000 eligible applicants due to overcrowding. While this did not necessarily prevent all of these students from attending college (many are likely to have attended other four-year colleges or community colleges), the practice of denying admissions to eligible students creates an unnecessary barrier in the education pipeline. Students who begin their higher education at a community college, for example, are less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree.

The 2017–18 state budget requires that CSU change its admissions process. Under the new policy, campuses must give first priority to local students applying to impacted programs and must automatically redirect eligible applicants who are denied admission to similar programs at other CSU campuses that have space. Given that a recent study commissioned by the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research found that nearly 41% of high school students are eligible for CSU systemwide admission—an increase of nearly 10 percentage points since 2007—the creation of a referral pool could provide students with additional information about nearby campuses that are not impacted, allow them to attend those campuses, and give them a chance to pursue the major of their choice. Furthermore, the creation of this referral pool could more efficiently disperse enrollments across the system’s campuses, increase capacity, and improve bachelor’s-degree attainment in California as a whole.

Learn more

Read center director Hans Johnson’s testimony about the workforce skills gap and CSU’s role in filling in.

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

Testimony: Managing California’s Headwater Forests

Van Butsic, a forestry expert with UC Berkeley’s cooperative extension and a member of the PPIC Water Policy Center’s research network, testified before the Little Hoover Commission in Sacramento today (August 24, 2017).

The hearing focused on California forest management and was held in response to the sharp increase in the number of trees dying in headwater forests. Butsic drew his prepared remarks from the PPIC policy brief California’s Water: Protecting Headwaters. Here is a summary.

The committee asked Butsic to explain the risks to the state’s forested upper watersheds and ways to improve forest health. He described a number of risks, including:

Policies aimed at extinguishing fires as quickly as possible—combined with reduced timber harvesting—have resulted in exceptionally dense vegetation in many California forests, increasing the risk of extreme wildfires;
The expansion of rural communities into wildland areas has complicated efforts to manage fire risk, and;
Stress from drought and a changing climate.

Butsic said California stands to lose timber production, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, and water supply if this natural infrastructure continues to decline. He noted that the bulk of forestry funding is spent on putting out fires rather than managing forests for long-term resilience.

Butsic explained that to improve health of headwater forests, California must increase the pace and scale of management tools such as fire and forest thinning. This will require management, regulatory, and legal reforms. He described ongoing research being undertaken by PPIC into ways to improve forest management. And he noted that due to a diverse mix of land ownership in the headwaters area, collaborative approaches will be critical.

Learn more
PPIC is preparing a report on California’s headwater forests. Register to attend the related event, Improving the Health of California’s Headwater Forests.