“Nature is not a place to visit, it is home”

Angelo Resayo is a recent USF alum and passionate in contributing to spaces that deserve inclusivity and community advocacy. Eager to learn more, he contributes to environmental legislation, drawing on his love for nature and commitment to positive change for communities at the California Department of Conservation’s Office of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs. 

In the final weeks of the fall semester of my senior year, I had concluded a spectacular 16 weeks with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development with the McCarthy Fellows in San Francisco program. My work had comprised of looking at the city’s understanding and feelings towards the future of housing and the dynamics of the community within the city of San Francisco’s vision of producing a more equitable and inclusive space for all to have a place to call home. The bountiful community meetings held in various parts of the city gave me ample opportunities to hear from members of the community that surrounds our USF campus. Each voice had contributed to my project which was to inform Mayor London Breed as well as the Board of Supervisors on the present state of the city and county, with each district offering their comfortability with tackling the ongoing housing crisis and calls for support. What the San Francisco Program showed me was my passion for contributing to causes that are set to positively impact the communities that deserve equity and inclusion.

Now as a graduate of USF, I can now say that I have left the academic world with an eagerness to continue my efforts in helping our communities through advocacy, outreach, and legislation. This has come to be through my internship with the California Department of Conservation (DOC), in their Office of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs (OLRA), which may sound boring, but represents such a crucial piece in the state’s plan to uphold environmental protection and justice. The function of OLRA is to work with the state Legislature to produce official legislation that gives the state capabilities to regulate industries like mining, oil and gas production, and protect our most precious natural resources. The McCarthy Fellows in Sacramento program has been a extrodinary opportunity for me as was my previous internship in San Francisco. What I have been able to accomplish in Sacramento at the state level has been something I had not previously imagined during my online freshman year just four years ago.

The work that I have been doing within the DOC has been dedicated towards the department’s efforts to tackle oil and gas production that has taken place in our state for the past three centuries. This work has leaned heavily on my experience with the environment as an Eagle Scout, given my extensive treks throughout the state’s trails, lakes, and shorelines. What I have come to appreciate is my passion for the environment has many connections with the work that I am doing in the DOC, which is dedicated to keeping the state’s environment beautiful and protected. The nuances of oil and gas production in the state of California is very complex and pours into all aspects of the state, especially in its legislative regulation, public health, and economic aspects.

Despite my strengths of being well-versed in the state’s environmental dynamics and resources, some challenges also came up. Some of these challenges included understanding the plethora of acronyms that exist within the legislature, which are meant to define legislation, programs, or other state functionalities. Additionally, the more niche topic of oil and gas production, which was my main area of focus, was something that required a lot of reading and context both for the state of California and for the country. Despite these challenges, I was able to maneuver through them and reach a point where I could contribute to the progress of regulation and legislative development for oil and gas production in California.

One of my favorite parts of the internship has been the opportunities to sit in on state Senate and Assembly Committee hearings on the bills that my office helps create. These sessions have been very interesting to witness, as it was my first time seeing real time discernment and debate on the legislation that is being presented. Seeing the functioning of the legislative body has been an eye-opening experience, especially in the timeframe where the state Legislative Branch had to meet its deadlines to either pass or veto bills to be posted on the upcoming ballots this coming November.

While the work that I am involved in may not be directly benefitting the community immediately, it will over time restore and maintain a standard for the state of California to take seriously the responsibility of stewardship of the environment. At the California Natural Resources Agency Headquarters that I have the privilege to work in, there is a resonating quote written by poet Gary Snyder that reads, “Nature is not a place to visit, it is home.” This quote perfectly represents everything that the Department of Conservation, as well as all of the other state departments that operate in the same Headquarters to uphold the commitment of stewardship to protect the environment, with hopes of framing ourselves into the picture as part of the vision to maintain our state’s resources and set a standard for the rest of our country to follow.

*Quote by Gary Snyder*

Learn more about the McCarthy Fellows in Sacramento