A Common-Sense Plan for Natural Carbon Sequestration

California’s Climate Policy Is Failing Working People

California politicians have spent years making life more expensive in the name of climate policy while failing at one of the most basic environmental responsibilities of all: properly managing California’s forests, watersheds, and natural lands.

Working people are paying more for gas, electricity, housing, and transportation. Bureaucrats regulate how Californians drive, build, travel, and live. Politicians lecture families about reducing their carbon footprint while millions of acres of forest remain dangerously unmanaged.

And every year, catastrophic wildfires tear through California, destroying communities, polluting the air, and releasing enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

California already acknowledges that carbon sequestration will be necessary to achieve its long-term climate goals. Even under current state projections, tens of millions of metric tons of residual emissions will remain by 2045.

The question is not whether California needs carbon sequestration. The question is whether California pursues those goals by making everyday life harder for working people, or by restoring the natural environment itself.

How Politicians and Bureaucrats Got It Wrong

For too long, California’s climate debate has been dominated by politicians and bureaucrats who treat higher costs and more restrictions as the solution to every problem.

Instead of restoring forests or improving land management, politicians and bureaucrats focus on restricting how people live: drive less, use less energy, pay more for gas and electricity, and accept a lower standard of living in the name of climate policy.

Meanwhile, forests burn. Watersheds deteriorate. Fuel loads build up year after year. Basic land management is neglected while politicians argue about mandates and bureaucrats produce endless regulations.

California politicians measure vehicle miles traveled while millions of acres of forest remain dangerously unmanaged.

That is backwards.

Steve Hilton’s Plan for Natural Carbon Sequestration

If you want to remove carbon from the atmosphere, the obvious place to start is with trees, forests, wetlands, healthy soils, and proper land management. Healthy natural landscapes remove carbon naturally while also reducing wildfire risk, improving water systems, protecting communities, and making California cleaner and safer.

This is not an argument against environmental stewardship. It is an argument for practical environmental stewardship instead of ideological environmental policy.

As Governor, Steve Hilton will rebalance California’s climate strategy around natural carbon sequestration, wildfire prevention, forest restoration, watershed recovery, and practical land stewardship.

At the center of the plan will be the California Conservation Corps Alliance, a large-scale voluntary service initiative focused on restoring California’s natural carbon sinks and improving the state’s forests and landscapes.

The program will recruit and employ up to 100,000 young Californians over time in paid conservation and restoration work across the state.

The initiative will focus on:

• planting fire-resilient native trees
• forest thinning and fuel reduction
• strategic firebreak construction
• wetland and watershed restoration
• soil and habitat recovery
• long-term forest maintenance
• restoring California’s natural ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere

This is environmental policy people will actually be able to see: healthier forests, cleaner watersheds, reduced wildfire danger, restored open space, and safer communities.

The plan will also treat wildfire prevention as a central environmental priority. Catastrophic wildfires release enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere while destroying the very forests that should function as natural carbon sinks. Proper forest management is environmental policy. Wildfire prevention is environmental policy. Restoring forests is environmental policy.

Steve Hilton will appoint Tom Woodard, founder of Plant With Purpose, as California’s first Director of Natural Climate Restoration.

The Director will coordinate statewide efforts related to forest restoration, wildfire prevention, watershed recovery, land stewardship, and nature-based carbon removal.

The position will operate within the California Natural Resources Agency, which will be led by former Congressman John Duarte as Secretary of Natural Resources.

The California Conservation Corps Alliance will also create meaningful opportunities for young Californians to serve their communities and gain valuable skills in forestry, conservation, wildfire mitigation, watershed restoration, and land management.

Instead of telling young people that the future requires sacrifice and decline, California should give them the opportunity to help restore and improve the state itself.

The program will be funded through regulatory reform savings, streamlined permitting, public-private partnerships, philanthropic partnerships, and reprioritizing existing climate and land management spending.

No new taxes.

California already spends billions on climate programs, wildfire response, overlapping bureaucracies, and regulatory systems that produce little visible improvement in the environment itself. This plan redirects resources toward practical, measurable environmental improvements that Californians will actually see and experience in their daily lives.

A Better Environmental Future for California

California should lead the nation in environmental stewardship. But real environmental leadership means improving the environment itself, not simply making life more expensive for working people.

For too long, politicians and bureaucrats have approached climate policy through restrictions, mandates, and economic pressure while neglecting forests, watersheds, and natural lands.

California can take a better path.

By focusing on natural carbon sequestration, forest restoration, wildfire prevention, and practical land management, California can reduce carbon emissions while making the state cleaner, safer, healthier, and more beautiful for future generations.

That is what practical environmental stewardship looks like.