RESTON, Va. — The National Wildlife Federation honored former California State Senator Fran Pavley with its National Conservation Special Achievement Award. This award is given in recognition of Pavley’s pioneering work on environmental and climate change legislation. As chair of the California Senate’s Natural Resources and Water Committee, she successfully championed the state’s first sustainable Groundwater Management Act, promoted policies to protect our ocean and watersheds, and adopted measures to create more sustainable local water supplies. Her work helped clean up our air, grow the economy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She has authored landmark climate policies that have created markets for innovation and investment in clean energy and vehicles.

“Senator Pavely is a conservation legend who led the global fight for legislative action against climate change far before it was fashionable,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “From reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enacting fuel economy standards to conserving the Santa Monica mountains and helping build the world’s largest wildlife crossing, Fran Pavley is among an absolute shining example of conservation leadership that achieves real results.”

"I would like to thank Collin O'Mara and [NWF’s] California's Director Beth Pratt for this special award.  Thank you for recognizing California's and my role in being a leader on clean energy, climate, and natural resource policies,” said Pavely. “We are proud to be the future home of the nation's largest wildlife crossing. Construction is now underway because of NWF's amazing leadership and ongoing commitment to wildlife." 

Of her 29 years in elected office, Pavley served 14 years as a legislator, where she authored major climate change bills to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California. She was an author of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which created a multisector emissions reduction target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a cap and trade system. In 2016, she cemented her legacy by authoring and passing SB 32, which extended California's emissions reduction goals to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

In 2010, former California State Senator Fran Pavely, was recognized by president Barack Obama during a special ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Surrounded by CEO's of both foreign and domestic automobile manufacturers, President Obama announced that Pavley’s 2002 vehicle emission law (AB 1493,) was going to be implemented as part of a new national policy by the EPA. After years of lawsuits and a Supreme Court Decision (Mass. vs EPA), California and other states could regulate automobile tailpipes emissions under the Clean Air Act. Vehicle emissions, the main source of air pollution in California have been regulated under California's AB 32.

In addition, Pavley was instrumental in the successful groundbreaking on Earth Day last year of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, named one most influential projects of 2022, alongside the Webb Space Telescope and the Human Genome Project. For over two decades she advocated for the crossing, first in her capacity as State Senator, and then after her retirement, when she worked with the National Wildlife Federation’s California team to make the visionary crossing—the largest of its kind in the world, a reality. Currently, Fran Pavley is working as the Environmental Policy Director for the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, and serves on many boards, commissions, and advisory councils. 

The National Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Awards began in 1966. Since then, the National Wildlife Federation has celebrated individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to protecting wildlife through education, advocacy, communication and on-the-ground conservation. Previous honorees have included former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Michelle Obama, and other national leaders, including U.S. Senator John McCain and filmmaker Robert Redford.