2023 California Code › Public Contract Code - PCC › DIVISION 2 - GENERAL PROVISIONS › PART 1 - ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS › CHAPTER 6.8 - High Road Jobs in Transportation-Related Public Contracts and Grants Pilot Program › Section 6981.

6981. (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) In a time of uncertainty with so many Americans out of work, employment stability and equity are a primary concern.
(2) Spending on green investments creates more jobs per dollar than other infrastructure investments and these jobs are accessible and well paying. Every one million dollars ($1,000,000) in spending on renewable energy creates 7.5 full-time jobs.
(3) Historically vulnerable groups have been disproportionately impacted by economic downturns. For example, for every one percentage point increase in the overall unemployment rate, there is a 1.8-percent increase in African American unemployment.
(4) It is essential that the state, in cooperation with the federal government, use all practical and commercially feasible means to promote the prompt and efficient development of energy sources that are renewable or that more efficiently use and conserve scarce energy resources.
(5) It is in the public interest to do all of the following:
(A) Prioritize reversing factors that have resulted in disproportionate health impacts and economic suffering due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic among California’s low-income communities, communities of color, and immigrant communities that have historically faced underinvestment and discriminatory policies.
(B) Promote sustainable and renewable energy sources, implement measures that increase efficient energy use, advance transportation technologies that reduce the degradation of the environment, lessen the state’s dependence of fossil fuels, and protect the health, welfare, and safety of the people of this state.
(C) Spend resources to avoid recreating historical patterns of injustice by allocating resources in a manner that will create a just transition to a green, regenerative economy, founded on climate, racial, and economic justice, that puts an end to extreme inequality and systemic racial injustice, and ensures all Californians have a clean and safe environment in which to live, work, and play.
(D) Support a just recovery where workers from all sectors who have lost wages or jobs as a direct result of the pandemic will be prioritized for new employment opportunities that guarantee family-sustaining incomes, pensions, benefit training, retraining, and early retirement assistance.
(E) Require recovery spending to include a mandate for a robust, fully funded public sector that includes significant investments in job creation and community development with a particular focus on a just transition for affected workers.
(F) Expend resources in a broadly inclusive economic and democratic process that ensures robust, accessible opportunities for all Californians to determine the future of our government and economy.
(G) Allocate state funds to programs, businesses, organizations, agencies, and institutions that provide the greatest opportunities for good green jobs, strong labor provisions, and climate-based solutions in a manner that is consistent with the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to make rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gases and statewide emissions reduction targets and recommendations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
(H) Ensure that recovery funds reach communities most impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and prioritize high road employers, as identified by the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, to enhance labor standards, workers’ rights, career pathways, and community benefits.
(I) Restore frontline communities and rapidly accelerate achievements in environmental justice and climate goals, including, but not limited to, climate, environmental, and biodiversity protection and stimulating growth.
(b) It is therefore the intent of the Legislature to support the creation of equitable high-quality transportation and related manufacturing and infrastructure jobs in California through the enactment and implementation of this chapter.
(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 875, Sec. 1. (SB 674) Effective January 1, 2023. Repealed as of January 1, 2028, pursuant to Section 6986.)