Jared Blumenfeld is already one of the nation’s most powerful figures on climate — and with $3.5 billion at his disposal, he’s arguably about to become even more influential.

As secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency under Gov. Gavin Newsom, Blumenfeld has played a key role in efforts to bring clean drinking water to low-income homes, end the sale of gasoline-fueled cars and defend the state’s vehicle pollution rules against the Trump administration. He has also faced criticism from some environmentalists for allegedly supporting desalination and for negotiating a controversial deal with Boeing to clean up a radioactive site just outside Los Angeles.

Wednesday was Blumenfeld’s last day on the job. He’s leaving government to become the first president of the Waverley Street Foundation, a nonprofit set up by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs to support climate action and community health.

Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, has seeded Waverley Street with $3.5 billion. That is a heck of a lot of money to be parceled out by Blumenfeld and the foundation’s board, which is led by former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and includes several relatives of Powell Jobs and her late husband.

The Times spoke with Blumenfeld about how he’ll determine which groups can best use those funds and what he sees as the ideal role for climate philanthropy, given the growing number of billionaires — including Jeff Bezos — pledging huge sums to save the planet.

The interview has been condensed for clarity.

You’ve got a pretty important job right now. Why leave CalEPA to run this foundation?

It really started because of Lisa Jackson.

We were taking a hike in San Francisco, and she was like, have you ever thought about working in philanthropy? At that point, I wasn’t looking for a job. I love the job I am doing, although it’s pretty all-out and sometimes exhausting.

I ended up sitting down with Lisa and Laurene. They’re quite a force of nature. We talked about how we can focus not just on policy but on culture, how we can bring artists and innovators together. I got super excited about that.

Philanthropy people will probably hate me for saying this, but I don’t usually think about philanthropy and urgency in the same sentence. And foundations haven’t traditionally been the best listeners. They can even re-create some of the colonialist patterns they’re trying to undo. You’ve got these really rich people who are telling folks what to do.

And so hearing Lisa and Laurene just completely turn that on its head and start with a focus on listening to communities and being guided by community-centered voices was really appealing.

You talk about listening to communities and responding to their needs. What does that look like in practice?

Part of the question is who you’re listening to.

I think in the environmental and climate world, we often listen just to the people doing environmental work, as opposed to social workers and health workers and community organizers and labor leaders.

Climate is not just an environmental issue. It’s a societywide issue, deeply integrated with capitalism, deeply integrated with religion, with consumerism.

For instance, how do we make sure health promotoras [Latina community health workers] are as equally heard as innovators who are trained to put solar on community rooftops but just can’t do it?

I think part of my first year will be working out methods that we can employ to listen and make sure we’re getting voices from a broad spectrum of society, not just professional environmentalists.

What types of initiatives do you see yourself funding?

Part of the challenge of community-led initiatives is that most of the people working on them have day jobs. They have no ability to raise resources. So how do we help them do the jobs they’re already doing?

That can be as simple as funding a high-powered law firm to help them with their work, when they might otherwise struggle to afford any law firm at all.

Communications expertise is another area. There’s so much sophisticated communications that we can help communities deploy on their own.

Often foundations come in and say, “We want you to do something completely new that you’re not thinking of.” At a fundamental level, we’ll be bolstering and empowering community groups to do the jobs they’re already doing.

Will you do any direct funding of infrastructure, such as installing solar panels or building community health centers or facilities to protect people from extreme heat?

That exists as a potential. The foundation has more than $3 billion, so it can invest as a partner in some of those projects.

Looking at how we can be an investment partner and provide equity to some of these large-scale projects in communities that wouldn’t otherwise have them is definitely something we would be interested in.

There’s this whole bizarre concept of “de-risking” investment.

Normally, it means cutting out all the community safeguards and protections to make sure the community isn’t a problem. We’re looking it from the other side of the telescope: We want to make sure the community is involved, because by having them involved, the project is going to be more successful.

Will you have any ability to fund political campaigns?

It’s fairly out for foundations. But there are other folks who do that, and thinking about how we could collaborate or partner with them is something I’d be interested in.

Some people make the argument that the best way for the wealthy to promote climate action is to fund political campaigns and help elect candidates who take climate seriously.

Good candidates come from communities. If you support the work of educating and building up the capacity of communities, those leaders will emerge.

I think of Eduardo Garcia. He was a city councilperson in Coachella, then mayor, then he became the state Assemblymember — and a climate champion. He won approval of that fee on lithium production to support communities near the Salton Sea.

What we want to figure out is, who are the other Eduardo Garcias that we can support? Not politically, but to help them with the work they’re doing, creating funding for communities who have been forgotten, and then hopefully creating jobs for those same community residents.

Talk a bit more about job creation. How can the funds at your disposal help with that?

Lithium is a great example. Another one I’ve been spending a bunch of time on is installing electric heat pumps for heating and cooling, instead of fossil fuels. We all need to stay cool, and heat pumps also help the person who puts them in reduce their utility bill, compared to an old air conditioning or swamp cooler.

With California putting $1 billion in this year’s budget into building decarbonization, that’s enough that most of these heat pump manufacturers could build a heat pump facility in California. But how are we making sure that low-income community residents get those jobs? If you’re not prescribing it, companies are hiring people from out of state, which is ridiculous.

Government is really good at saying, “We’re going to put $54 billion into climate change.”

But it’s not as good at delivering the programs and making sure they’re actually getting to the people who need them.

We can provide a lot of the wraparound services that often government does not. We could work with community colleges or labor organizations to make sure that we train folks to have the skills to build the heat pumps and install them in homes.

Will you announce publicly which organizations you fund?

Yes. We want to have a strategy that other people can critique and adapt and make their own. Only by sharing this stuff are we going to have a chance of beating the climate future that we’re already seeing.

The greatest thing I feel is a sense of urgency. I want to bring that sense of urgency to philanthropy and look at what we can do to accelerate our timelines across the board, and how a grass-roots, community-driven focus can do that.

If wealthy individuals and big corporations paid higher taxes, would there be less of a need for climate philanthropy? I’ve heard the argument that rich people who want to drive climate action should really support a more progressive tax system, to give government the resources it needs.

I think there’s an incredibly important role for government. The majority of the climate battle will probably land on the shoulders of government.

There’s also a really important role that corporations play. And I think philanthropy plays a role in between both of those, to help create strategic direction for the entire enterprise.

This article was originally published in Boiling Point, a email newsletter about the environment. Go to latimes.

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