28 May California Should Invest In Us. We’ve Paid Big Oil Enough
By Celeste Monderin
California became the fourth-largest economy in the world by consistently investing in innovation, entrepreneurship, and the industries of the future. We achieved this milestone with support from small businesses like mine, who serve as the backbone of our state’s economy and benefit from the growth of new industries. Taking money from programs that invest in this progress and handing it over to legacy industries, rewarding companies already posting massive profits, will hamper economic growth that lifts all boats.
That is why the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Greater Los Angeles County joined chambers of commerce, small business organizations, and community business leaders across the state in urging the California Air Resources Board to protect the California Cap-and-Invest program and reject efforts to turn a successful market-based pollution program into another giveaway for Big Oil.
We are speaking up because fossil fuel interests are trying to redefine what “business” means in California. They are pushing for billions in new handouts and loopholes under the guise of economic protection. But oil companies do not represent California’s business community.
We do.
Our members are the small businesses, family-owned companies, entrepreneurs, contractors, restaurants, logistics operators, healthcare providers, retailers, and service businesses that make California’s economy work every single day. We employ Californians. We serve working families. We invest in our communities. Many of us operate on thin margins while dealing directly with the rising costs of fuel, the impact of extreme heat, wildfire smoke, insurance spikes, supply chain disruptions, and higher utility bills caused by climate instability.
We know what economic pressure looks like. And we also know that giving billions more to oil companies that are already reaping massive profits is not the answer. We’ve paid enough.
Cap-and-Invest works because it follows a basic principle: polluters should pay, and California should reinvest those resources into the state’s future.
For years, the program has helped fund cleaner transportation, utility bill relief, wildfire prevention, public health improvements, and investments in communities that bear the greatest pollution burdens. Those investments matter deeply to the communities we represent across Los Angeles County and throughout California.
The proposed handouts being pushed by fossil fuel interests would move the program in the wrong direction — away from investing in California’s future economy and toward subsidizing the industries of the past.
That is not sound economic policy.
Every dollar redirected to oil companies is a dollar not invested in infrastructure, clean energy, innovation, and small business growth. California’s economy depends on clear market signals and long-term certainty — and Cap-and-Invest has helped provide both.
Clean energy, technology, and advanced industries are already among the fastest-growing parts of California’s economy, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs statewide. The question now is whether California continues investing in that future — or diverts billions back to profitable fossil fuel companies.
For Filipino-owned businesses and many immigrant entrepreneurs, this issue is personal. Our communities are often among the first to feel the impacts of pollution, rising energy costs, poor air quality, and climate-related disasters. Small businesses do not have the luxury of absorbing endless disruption. We need policies that create stability, lower long-term costs, strengthen infrastructure, and help communities become more resilient.
That is exactly what a strong Cap-and-Invest program is supposed to do.
California should not allow a handful of oil companies to define what is good for business. The backbone of this state’s economy is not multinational fossil fuel corporations. It is the millions of small businesses, workers, and local employers building California’s future every day.
State leaders have always led by investing in what comes next. This is another moment for them to choose the future over the past.
Celeste Monderin is the President of the Filipino American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Los Angeles.
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