Senator Steven Glazer remarks on Senate Floor regarding Assembly Bill 134

Senator Steven Glazer remarks on Senate Floor regarding Assembly Bill 134

Senator Steven Glazer made remarks on the Senate floor regarding Assembly Bill 134. The following is a full transcript of those remarks.


STEVEN GLAZER, Senator from the 7th Senate District: There are many valuable projects in this bill but the measure also includes two provisions that while well-intentioned are in my view short-sighted. Both were inserted into this bill at the last minute with no policy hearings, no chance for members to amend the bill without killing everything else in the proposal.

One of the provisions would subject Tesla and other makers of zero emission vehicles to an uncertain process that would assess their labor practices. The proposed reviews could deny consumer rebates if the state bureaucracy decided that the companies are not treating their workers “fairly and responsibly.”

Tesla has created 10,000 good-paying jobs in Fremont with competitive benefits. As far as I know, no other California company has created more jobs in this decade. The state already has extensive laws and regulations spelling out exactly how the company is to treat its workers. If those rules are not strong enough we can and should improve them, but we shouldn't be holding our environmental projects hostage to a fight with one progressive employer.

Another last minute proposal in this bill asked the Senate for the second time this summer to exclude projects that involve automation from state funding for zero admissions projects. I understand the impulse. On the surface it might appear that automation costs jobs. But in the long run automation is good for the economy, good for the environment, and good for workers. It makes our industries more efficient and productive, it allows our ports to move far more goods through their facilities, and this ultimately adds more jobs to the economy then it disrupts.

Now the logic behind this bill would have stopped the automobile to save the horse and buggy because we want to preserve the jobs of the buggy driver. It would have stopped the airlines to save the trains because of the jobs of the engineers and the conductors. It would have stopped the computer to save the typewriter and the jobs of typists. In so doing so it would have ignored the potential for millions of middle-class jobs in the automobile, aerospace, and computer industries.

We cannot stop time, and we shouldn't try to stop technology at West Coast ports that make our lives richer and more productive. This is a very interesting fact. Even with unprecedented technological change, employment at West Coast ports has grown 38 percent since 2002. The electrification and automation currently underway at the Long Beach Container Terminal is expected to create 14,000 new jobs throughout the region while cutting air pollution in half.

If automation disrupts an industry, we can and should help those who are displaced with aid and retraining. Extensive assistance already exists for port workers whose jobs might be changed or lost by automation. But hindering the ability of our ports to compete with other facilities and other modes of freight movement will cost far more jobs than automation inside and outside of the ports.

Both of these proposals are bad for workers, bad for California, and neither one helps the environment. I know that we can do better. Finally members it is possible for us to set aside these many good benefits of this bill until we can get it right with very little impact. We've done that on cap and trade funding in the past. As you recall we spent money in that area that included money that we had set aside and saved because the work had not been done. I think that's the prudent course today and that's why unfortunately I won't be supporting this bill.