Environmentalists Win Prop 23 Battle

Nov. 8, 2010 /EIN Presswire/ -- Proposition 23, the oil industry supported initiative to end California's greenhouse gas law, failed 61 percent to 39 percent to the surprise of environmental leaders who saw the Prop 23 dispute as a David vs. Goliath battle.

The defeat of Prop 23 symbolized the political arrival of new proponents of the environment: high-tech entrepreneurs, mainly in Silicon Valley, who see green energy as a sound economic investment.

The Prop 23 initiative was pushed by wealthy Texas-based oil refiners Valero Energy and Tesoro, who spent approximately $10 million during the campaign. However, they were outspent 3-to-1 by venture capitalists, like Intel's Gordon Moore, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Google's Sergey Brin, who opposed the proposition.

With more than 3,200 volunteers, 2.8 million phone calls and nearly 400,000 on-campus contacts with college students, the campaign was touted by political analysts as the most sophisticated campaign ever conducted over an environmental issue.

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