Californians continue to face skyrocketing housing costs, the highest gas prices, and the second-highest utility costs in the nation. Along with the rising cost of food and other basic living essentials, hardworking families need our lawmakers and government agencies to make affordability a top priority.

Somewhere between the sunbaked oil fields of the San Joaquin Valley and the cracked sidewalks of East Los Angeles, where my mother once waited in the dark to catch a ride to work, lies a truth that Sacramento too often refuses to say out loud: you can’t fight climate change on the backs of the poor.