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Retrospective on the California SB 1308 Campaign
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G_Klw
Credibility Rating
3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum
Relevant to AI safety practitioners interested in biosecurity governance and advocacy strategy; demonstrates how EA-aligned orgs can engage state-level policy to protect emerging risk-reduction technologies.
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128
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7
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eaforum
Forum Tags
BiosecurityPolicyFar-UVCPostmortems & retrospectivesUS policy
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Importance: 45/100blog postanalysis
Summary
A detailed first-person account of a 2024 legislative advocacy campaign by 1Day Sooner to oppose California SB 1308, which would have banned far-UV air cleaners and potentially crushed a promising pandemic-risk-reduction technology. The post functions as a practical playbook for biosecurity policy advocacy, documenting strategies including lobbying, stakeholder coordination, public comments, and amendment negotiations. It offers candid lessons on working within state legislative processes to protect emerging biosecurity-relevant technologies.
Key Points
- •SB 1308 sought to ban ozone-emitting air cleaners in California, threatening far-UV technology critical for reducing pathogen transmission and pandemic risk.
- •1Day Sooner led the opposition as the only nonprofit willing to take a public stance; many partner orgs supported privately but avoided public association with political action.
- •Tactics included Sacramento lobbying visits, stakeholder meetings, public statements, amendment negotiations, and grassroots mobilization via EA/coworking Slack networks.
- •California's large market size made the bill particularly consequential, as a ban could have crushed the nascent far-UV industry nationally and globally.
- •The retrospective is explicitly framed as a replicable playbook for future biosecurity policy advocacy campaigns at the state level.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| 1Day Sooner | Organization | 60.0 |
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Retrospective on the California SB 1308 Campaign — EA Forum
This website requires javascript to properly function. Consider activating javascript to get access to all site functionality. Hide table of contents Retrospective on the California SB 1308 Campaign
by G_Klw Jan 15 2025 19 min read 7 128
Biosecurity Policy Far-UVC Postmortems & retrospectives US policy Frontpage Retrospective on the California SB 1308 Campaign History of SB 1308 Advocacy Effort Key Takeaways Personal Reflections 7 comments This is a linkpost for https://strainhardening.substack.com/p/retrospective-on-the-california-sb I am no prophet, and here’s no great matter.
— T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
This post is a personal account of a California legislative campaign I worked on March-June 2024, in my capacity as the indoor air quality program lead at 1Day Sooner. It’s very long—I included as many details as possible to illustrate a playbook of everything we tried, what the surprises and challenges were, and how someone might spend their time during a policy advocacy project.
History of SB 1308 Advocacy Effort
SB 1308 was introduced in the California Senate by Senator Lena Gonzalez, the Senate (Floor) Majority Leader, and was sponsored by Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP). The bill was based on a report written by researchers at UC Davis and commissioned by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The bill sought to ban the sale of ozone-emitting air cleaners in California, which would have included far-UV, an extremely promising tool for fighting pathogen transmission and reducing pandemic risk. Because California is such a large market and so influential for policy, and the far-UV industry is struggling, we were seriously concerned that the bill would crush the industry.
A partner organization first notified us on March 21 about SB 1308 entering its comment period before it would be heard in the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, but said that their organization would not be able to be publicly involved. Very shortly after that, a researcher from Ushio America, a leading far-UV manufacturer, sent out a mass email to professors whose support he anticipated, requesting comments from them. I checked with my boss, Josh Morrison, [1] as to whether it was acceptable for 1Day Sooner to get involved if the partner organization was reluctant, and Josh gave me the go-ahead to submit a public comment to the committee. Aware that the letters alone might not do much, Josh reached out to a friend of his to ask about lobbyists with expertise in California politics, and arranged a call with a lobbyist that his friend recommended. During this period, I made a list of possible amendment strategies and ranked them by preference, and discussed possible amendments with two partner organizations. I also sent a call script to a friend at her request to disseminate to her Berkeley network, encouraging Berkeleyites to call Senat
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