California Alliance for Children’s Environmental Health (CACEH)

The California Alliance for Children’s Environmental Health (CACEH) is working to coordinate groups across sectors for urgent action to radically improve state policy on children’s environmental health and justice.

This effort is based on the findings of a landscape analysis showing the incredible strength of California’s environmental health & justice leaders and pointing to the valuable strategy of framing environmental issues as children’s health issues.

CACEH is a network of local, regional, and statewide organizations that collaborate to raise awareness of environmental health issues affecting children in California, identify and build momentum behind focused policy priorities to improve environmental conditions for children, and lift youth leaders in the development of a children’s environmental health policy agenda and efforts to promote that agenda.

Children’s Environmental Health Month (October)

October is recognized by the EPA and by the California legislature as Children’s Environmental Health Month. Environmental health is a health, racial equity, and social justice issue. Every child deserves a safe and clean world to play, learn, and grow up in, but that reality doesn’t exist in many of California’s most marginalized communities.

For example, asthma is the most common childhood health condition in California, making it difficult for children to exercise, play and attend school. African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Latino children, have the highest asthma prevalence and hospitalization rates in California in part because of environmental racism that concentrates highways, industrial plants, toxic chemicals, neglected soil, corroded plumbing, and pesticide use in communities of color.

This month and every month, California must do more to address environmental health disparities and the lifelong effects of environmental toxins and climate change on our children through state-based investments and policy that center the needs of kids. There will be local and state events throughout the month to highlight key issues of importance for children’s health, as well as corresponding resources and factsheets.

2024 Issue Brief “In Defense of Children and the Planet”
2023 Children’s Environmental Health Policymaker Briefing Slides

Policy Factsheets

Advocacy Opportunities

  • Key 2022–2023 bills:
    • AB 418 (Gabriel & Wicks) – The California Food Safety Act (PASSED)
    • AB 579 (Ting) – Zero-emission schoolbuses (PASSED)
    • AB 652 (Lee) – Department of Pesticide Regulation Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (PASSED)
    • SB 253 (Wiener) – Climate Corporate Leadership and Accountability Act (PASSED)
    • SB 252 (Gonzalez, Stern, & Wiener) – Public retirement systems divestment form fossil fuels (2 YEAR BILL)
    • AB 1000 (Reyes) – Warehouse Good Neighbor Policy (ON PAUSE)
    • SB 394 (Gonzalez) – Master Plan for Healthy, Sustainable, and Climate-Resilient Schools (VETOED)
    • AB 249 (Holden) – Lead testing of drinking water at schools (VETOED)
  • Other sign-on’s, advocacy opportunities, and events:
    • Tell OSHA to protect workers from extreme heat and submit comments by December 30th
    • Letter: Climate Bond Principles to Maximize Benefits
    • EPA CA Clean Air Waivers action alert
    • Tell the EPA to greenlight air quality improvements
    • Tell the EPA to approve the Commercial Harbor Craft Rule amendment
    • New Wildfire Smoke Mitigation Coalition: Breathe Southern California is establishing a coalition to develop policy solutions to better understand and mitigate the impacts of wildfire smoke. Attached is an info sheet with more information about these efforts. To join this coalition, or for more information, please contact Tigran Agdaian, Breathe Southern California’s Manager of Advocacy of Public Policy, at [email protected].
    • Please sign on: Tell DPR to follow the science and protect ALL Californians equally from the cancer-causing fumigant pesticide 1,3-dichloropropene! (1,3-D, or Telone). Scientists at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) established a safe level for 1,3-D in 2022. However, DPR ignored OEHHA’s standard and finalized a regulation for residents that uses the cancer risk target recommended by the manufacturer of 1,3-D, Dow Chemical. Now, DPR is proposing a second regulation just for worker-bystanders that uses OEHHA’s level, but leaves children and other residents exposed to the much higher levels preferred by Dow. 
    • The American Lung Association is calling for the state transportation agency (CalSTA) to better review previously proposed transportation projects for alignment with CAPTI framework goals, expand the scope of two programs to better account for vehicle travel, as well as to review projects for additional health outcomes. To add your health group to this letter, please complete the following online form by this Thursday, December 12th: https://forms.office.com/r/3pD2j2LyjF
    • Bay Area Youth Climate Summit: In the face of all of this devastation– hurricanes Helene and Milton leaving unprecedented destruction and Trump naming Lee Zeldin to head the EPA, who has received nearly $300,000 from big oil, BAYCS is organizing a youth-led, coalition-backed mobilization. It will be on January 20th in San Francisco, Trump’s inauguration day and centered around building community, solidarity, and reminding us of our collective voice in a time of uncertainty.

      Beyond Trump’s destruction, we are fighting against what his administration represents—policies that will dismantle progress, criminalize immigrants and Queer + Trans folks, and sell out our future to corporate polluters. Fill out this form to sign-up.

Children’s Environmental Health Resources

Select 2024 Policy Priorities

(Note: These priorities are derived from various groups that are a part of CACEH, do not constitute a CACEH policy platform, and will evolve over time.)

  • Bringing greater awareness of environmental health and climate change to pediatricians and health providers in California, mobilizing health professionals for EH work
  • Preventing childhood exposure to toxins and environmental hazards (e.g., lead in drinking water, toxic food chemicals, fiberglass, cleaners, beauty products)
  • Greater funding and better infrastructure for electric vehicle (EV) buses
  • Public education around gas stoves and childhood asthma
  • Strengthening climate education, greater accountability around fossil fuel emitting businesses near schools, accessibility to healthy resources, mitigating food waste and carbon footprint of schools
  • Improved enforcement of pesticide school buffer zones and prioritizing EJ policies for pesticide use and regulation
  • Decarbonization of school environments and pensions, including climate resilience infrastructure changes
  • Supporting implementation of Senate Bill 1137 by ensuring that the 2024 referendum to reverse restrictions on neighborhood oil drilling fails
  • Ensuring equitable distribution of school facility modernization funds, especially through the 2024 education bond
  • Weighing in on California Climate Resilience Bond and Education Infrastructure Bond funding distribution
  • Continued oversight of Department of Pesticide Regulation and Environmental Justice Committee
  • Supporting youth activism and direct action campaigns
  • Children’s Environmental Health Month (October)

Get in Touch

For more info, please contact Kelly Hardy at [email protected] or Colleen Corrigan at [email protected]

To submit resources, advocacy opportunities, or sign-on requests for the next CACEH email, please fill out this form.

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