Capitol Spotlight: Kim Delfino, Earth Advocacy

Kim Delfino, an environmental attorney and consultant, is known for her vast knowledge of land use law, wildlife law, water law and energy law.

She is founder and president of her own one-person consulting firm Earth Advocacy and formerly led the conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife for 19 years.

“There is not an environmental advocate with more knowledge and more clout than Kim,” said Jennifer Fearing, a lobbyist who has worked with Delfino nearly 20 years on environmental projects. “If she has an opinion, she is listened to.”

Delfino and Fearing recently celebrated a victory by helping get a $10 billion climate bond placed on the November ballot. The two helped coordinate 180 environmental, environmental justice, and sustainable agriculture organizations that are backing the measure, titled Proposition 4.

“Kim deserves a ton of credit for conceiving that, co-leading that, and devising a ton of strategy,” Fearing said.

The bond will pay for projects to protect the water supply, increase wildfire resilience, and protect the coast from sea level rise. Environmental groups had pushed for a climate bond unsuccessfully for the last five years. Last fall, when it didn’t happen again, Delfino pushed for building a coalition.

“That caught steam and we did it,” Fearing said. “I don’t think there would have been a climate bond had that initiative not been taken.”

Delfino has led her advocacy campaigns while balancing the needs of her family (she and her husband have two adult children) and surviving breast cancer.

She gets her motivation from her “stubborn” optimism and her colleagues in environmental work.

“There is not an environmental advocate with more knowledge and more clout than Kim.”

“You always have to think you can make things better,” she said. “It’s very inspiring to see people who work so hard who don’t see recognition for work they do. They do it because they care deeply about what happens to our state and our world.”

Looking back at her career, Delfino said some of her proudest accomplishments include advocating for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which sets aside 388,000 acres of public land in the California desert for potential solar, wind and geothermal energy development.

Other wins include helping to preserve 4.4 million acres of roadless forest lands in California and supporting the effort to phase out lead ammunition in hunting in the state.

But she is quick to say that she can’t claim too much credit for the wins. “Everything I work on is such a collaborative effort,” she said. “It takes so many people to achieve the outcomes we can achieve.”

Delfino said her interest in the environment came from her father, an avid outdoorsman who loved to fish, hike and explore nature near where they lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. She joined him watching nature TV programs like “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and Marty Stouffer’s “Wild America.”

But she didn’t see environmental advocacy as a possible career route until she attended University of California at Davis and heard a presentation by Sharon Negri, founding director of the Mountain Lion Foundation. Delfino was inspired by Negri’s passion for ending sport hunting of mountain lions (then allowed) and her desire to gain data about the native wild cats.

“It resonated with me,” she said. “I went up to her after the class was over and said, ‘If you’re looking for interns, I would love to intern.’”

Delfino’s work with the foundation led her to eventually enroll at University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law with the idea of becoming an environmental attorney.

When she graduated, she worked for a while at a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C., but soon knew she should find something else.

“I loved policy, but I was not that excited about 50-page summary judgment motions,” she said.

Next came a stint at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group working on campaign to preserve roadless lands nationally. She then returned to California to work at Defenders of Wildlife.

Through the ups and downs of her work, Delfino is grateful for the support of her husband and two children – a daughter who works in data analytics for the Columbus Blue Jackets ice hockey team in Ohio and a son who is studying international relations at the University of Southern California. Delfino recharges by doing the things she loves like cooking, gardening and traveling. She and her husband love to visit the central coast in their free time and enjoy kayaking when they can.

At Defenders of Wildlife, she led the organization’s work statewide, determining priorities in wildlife, land use and water and energy issues.

Delfino’s deep knowledge of environmental policy is valued by other environmental advocates, Fearing said. When a new bill is proposed, people turn to Delfino for advice, she said. “She analyzes fast, and she analyzes with context,” Fearing said. “We all really rely on her knowledge and instincts to figure out where to land. Groups have a lot of confidence in following Kim. She’s a pied piper.”

Kip Lipper, the chief policy advisor for the state senate president pro tempore, called Delfino one of the “brightest, most committed and principled advocates on environmental law and policy, an increasing rarity in the Third House these days.”

Lipper, who has known Delfino 30 years, added that she “intuitively knows the sweet spot” where compromises on law and politics can come together.

“You always have to think you can make things better,” she said. “It’s very inspiring to see people who work so hard who don’t see recognition for work they do. They do it because they care deeply about what happens to our state and our world.”

Delfino made the leap to go into business for herself in February 2020 at what turned out to be one of the most turbulent periods of her life. Not long after making the move, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and then COVID hit.

“2020 was a dumpster fire,” she said.

Dealing with cancer during the pandemic was hard because there were so many unknowns. “I was worried about getting COVID with a suppressed immune system,” she said. “It was very hard on my family. They were rock stars through the whole ordeal.”

She is grateful that she was able to beat the disease.

“I’m fine now,” she said. “I went through all the treatments and am in remission.”

The hardest challenge about her work has been convincing people of the importance of biodiversity conservation. “It seems to be a ‘nice to have,’ not a ‘must have,’” she said, explaining that it is like climate change was 20 years ago with most people not making it a priority.

“There’s not a sense or urgency around it,” she said. “By the time we feel the impacts of it, it will be too late.”

Overall, she finds herself with a calmer perspective in recent years than she did in the past. Facing her own mortality with her cancer experience changed her perspective.

“It taught me how to appreciate things more,” she said. “It also taught me to not get so worked up about little things either. You only have one life – you can choose to be happy in it or you can choose to deal with the things that are annoying or upsetting. It taught me to own that power more.”