At a San Jose State town hall meeting April 9, environmental activist and billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer demanded oil companies agree to pay a severance tax on the extraction of oil in California.

Steyer has opposed oil companies in the past with Propositions 23 and 39, and won on both occasions. Steyer is taking the companies on for a third time as he speaks in favor of the severance tax movement led by UC Berkeley student Jack Tibbetts.

Moderated by former Obama administration White House Adviser Van Jones, participants discussed the benefits California would enjoy from the $2 billion revenue from the tax. Steyer, founder and president of NextGen Climate, hosted the Fair Shake event to explain how oil companies need to pay their fair share and the need for additional revenue.

“While corporations are making millions of dollars, millions of Californians are still hurting,” Steyer said in a press release. “Six years after the Great Recession, we still have income inequality, underfunded schools and protected special interests.”

Big Oil, a term used to describe the six largest publicly owned gas and oil companies, spent millions to lobby against the tax, claiming that if passed, will be passed onto consumers.

Freshman international relations student Wyatt Mimce said money should not be spent to oppose the bill.

“Oil companies have more than enough money to lobby against anything they want,” Mimce said. “Personally, I’d like to see those millions put into public good (with) funds like public transit, schools, parks, rather than be wasted on stopping a bill that would generate a significant amount of money for the state.”

Different people from San Jose State and other groups gathered at Steyer’s Fair Shake event to present ideas on how to use the money, such as improving the infrastructure on older buildings.

“One of the things Tom Steyer successfully did was bringing everyone together and have the discussion on where should the money go and invest in,” Tibbetts said. “That was the real takeaway from the whole day.”

Mimce said Sacramento State has the money to supply its students with a minimum of resources when it comes to individual needs, and the advising department could use extra funding for helping out students.

Tibbetts said having Steyer in favor of the tax will add another player to the ring and generate momentum, with the legislature knowing of his experience of opposing Big Oil in the past.

Senator Leland Yee and two other senators were arrested in March for involvement in a gun-related scandal, making Democrats lose the supermajority they had in the state legislature. The impact of this meant a drop in partisan support in favor of the oil severance tax.

Sac State College Democratic President De’Anthony Jones said a loss of majority support was a hit, with a decrease of voting power when the bill went to the floor. He said the seats should be filled temporarily, not just in favor of any particular legislature, but so there are people who can vote.

Tibbetts said the missing senators will cause a loss of momentum, but not enough for stop the bill because there are other ways for it to pass, like with a ballot initiative.

The Sac State College Democrats will be attending the hearing at the Capitol April 23 in support of oil severance. The club will involved in presentations from 9-11 a.m.

“We’ve been very engaged in this issue because it’s a bill that we definitely support,” Jones said. “(We support) anything that would benefit higher education.”

Proposition 30 is a temporary bill passed fall 2012 that raises sales and income tax on people who make above $250,000 a year and it increases funding for higher education. Jones expects the oil severance tax as the likely successor to the proposition as a source of funding.

Jones said the Fair Shake meeting brought heavy hitters Jones, a well-known for adviser for President Obama on green jobs, green energy.

Tibbets said the bill will require bipartisan cooperation in California in order to move forward and increase the likelihood of passing and explained how other states that have oil severance taxes received support from both parties.

“This tax is used by Democratic and Republican legislators in other states throughout the nation,” Tibbetts said. “At the very least though, we need to keep pushing this issue, because every time we push it, more and more people learn about it.”