As an ecologist and a constituent of both Senate District 24 and Assembly District 51, I have long appreciated being represented by environmental leaders. Yet, both Senator Ben Allen and Assemblymember Rick Zbur have traded their environmental credentials for political cowardice in the face of wealthy NIMBYs.
Both state legislators have opposed Senate Bill 79, a consequential environmental bill that would legalize modest, walkable apartment buildings within a half mile of major transit stops. This is not a radical bill. It is the most basic, evidence-based reform necessary to ease California’s housing shortage while also slowing biodiversity loss, slashing carbon emissions, and tackling climate change. Scientists and our own state government agree: California cannot reach carbon neutrality by 2045 unless we build far more dense, transit-adjacent housing in our cities.
Where and how we build housing is profoundly important for the environment. It dictates how much we drive, how much untouched habitat we pave over, and how much energy we consume. Denser, walkable housing near jobs and transit gives people real alternatives to car dependence, while sparing open space from sprawl and allowing working families to live closer to jobs, schools, and opportunity. Transit-adjacent infill housing is one of the most effective tools we have for cutting emissions and protecting the Californian landscapes we cherish.
Given their careers, SB 79 should be a slam dunk. Zbur, an environmental lawyer who led California Environmental Voters, made climate justice a centerpiece of his career. Allen, also an environmental lawyer, chaired the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and the Legislative Environmental Caucus.
Yet both blinked. When SB 79 came before the State Senate, Allen gave a speech citing vague, undisclosed “concerns” and then registered a ‘No Vote Recorded (NVR)’, effectively a silent No since non-votes are treated as opposition. Although the Assembly has not yet voted, Zbur has already come out against the bill, decrying it could allow “a six or seven-story building in the middle of a single-family neighborhood” and insisting it “doesn’t respect the land use patterns in Southern California.”
The irony is staggering: Southern California’s land use patterns are exactly why we are in this environmental predicament. Decades of exclusionary zoning and car-centric planning have locked our region into fossil fuel dependence and ever-longer commutes. By refusing to allow anything denser than sprawling single-family homes, policymakers pushed ever more Californians into high-fire risk areas and steadily chipped away at wild habitats. The tragic death of LA’s most loved mountain lion, P-22, was the predictable outcome of sprawl that trapped him in a lonely corner of the Santa Monica Mountains. To defend these patterns is to defend the status quo of climate inaction, habitat destruction, and unaffordable housing.
Opposing SB 79 is not environmental stewardship but abdication of leadership. In effect, they are saying that preserving the look of neighborhoods near transit matters more than safeguarding California’s climate, ecosystems, and future.
Worse yet, Zbur is trying to have his cake and eat it too. His campaign website declares that addressing the housing and climate crises “demands urgent action to invest in…sustainable and affordable housing near transportation and work hubs.” Yet he now opposes the very bill that would deliver that campaign promise.
Let’s be clear: voting no against the most important housing and climate reform our state has seen in a decade will tarnish both Allen and Zbur in the annals of history. No other accomplishment will outweigh a retreat from necessary and effective climate action.
Perhaps both legislators feel too politically vulnerable to risk a potentially unpopular vote. But that misunderstands the point of political capital: it exists to be spent on the votes that matter most. If Allen and Zbur are unwilling to risk their seats on a bill as vital as SB 79—one that addresses climate goals as well as the housing costs burdening their constituents—then why hold office at all? They can risk angering a handful of loud voices in wealthy enclaves, or they can abandon their reputations and fail to deliver on housing and climate.
Senator Allen and Assemblymember Zbur still have time to prove their mettle as environmental stewards. When SB 79 comes before the Assembly and, after amendments, returns to the Senate, their choice will be clear: vote Yes for climate action, affordable housing, and a livable future—or vote No and be remembered for surrendering to political fear. A Yes vote will cement them as true environmental leaders willing to take the tough votes. A No vote will simply allow their environmental legacies to collapse.
History will not remember the careful, nuanced speeches hedging against SB 79. It will remember whether California’s so-called environmental leaders had the courage to act when the decision was in their hands. Assemblymember Zbur and Senator Allen: if you will not support SB 79 for the sake of your own legacy, then do it for our children who must live with the world you leave behind.
Chris Tokita is a data scientist based in Sawtelle Japantown in West Los Angeles and a regular at Santa Monica’s surf breaks. He sits on the board of directors for Abundant Housing LA and is a member of Urban Environmentalists LA and the LA New Liberals. He can be reached at christopher.tokita@gmail.com.
