California’s governor wants to have it both ways. Gavin Newsom wants to be the face of West Coast Democratic resistance to federal minority rule, yet his policy practices — particularly on climate issues — are often devoid of the leadership and progressive action he pretends to represent.
Consider the most recent juxtaposition. Last week, minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted vital Environmental Protection Agency authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate power plants and increase clean energy production, Newsom’s office tweeted a video of the governor’s response from a fire-torn hillside.
“The idea that the U.S. Supreme Court moved to take away one of the most significant and historically powerful tools to address the ravages of climate change is incomprehensible,” Newsom said. “We’ve got to wake up to what’s going on in the Supreme Court. We’ve got to double down — quadruple down — here in California and in blue states all across America.”
Yet hours earlier, Newsom had persuaded the Legislature to approve two sweeping energy proposals, garnering reluctant support from climate-conscious legislators and environmentalists who want to break California’s addiction to planet-warming fossil fuels but ultimately capitulated. The governor’s policies, aimed at fortifying the power grid and averting future blackouts, make it easier to build solar, wind and geothermal projects, but with an awful trade-off, giving the state Department of Water Resources essentially a blank check to backfill energy supply with dirtier sources.
Rather than breaking the harmful cycles of energy production that underpin the climate crisis, Newsom’s solution to make the grid more reliable is to further increase our reliance on them and empower state agencies to do things they weren’t designed for.
Newsom’s approach to these proposals was so abysmal, in fact, that he inspired bipartisan resistance. Republican lawmakers chided state leaders for brokering such consequential legislation exclusively among Democrats and behind closed doors. Some progressives complained that they were forced to vote on the so-called budget trailer bills five days after they were introduced, offering little time for the public to get involved.
Los Angeles area Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi described Newsom’s bills as “crappy,” calling them “a rushed, unvetted and fossil fuel heavy-response.” Hayward Assemblyman Bill Quirk said the legislative package was “lousy” but “the best hope we have for keeping the lights on,” which is a comically low standard.
To convince skeptics that they should back the proposals, Newsom issued statements assuring them that the legislation “does not facilitate the renewal or extension of any permit for expiring power plants.” But such promises do not carry the force of law or make the billions headed to nonrenewable sources and failing old power plants any easier to stomach.
The problem, however, has been years in the making on Newsom’s watch — including his time as lieutenant governor, when he led the charge to decommission the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, a move California is now reversing.
Newsom has had ample time to deal with power supply constraints and influence regulators and oversight agencies to march in the same direction. Instead, California willfully remains in a paradox, furthering public spending on fossil fuels in a state marred by some of the most harmful effects of their consumption. Private utilities continue to hold sway over the troubled Public Utilities Commission as they push to undercut rooftop solar, and the California Air Resources Board, the state’s air quality regulator, is considering debunked, oil-friendly strategies for its long-term plan to address climate change.
Renewable sources accounted for one-third of California’s supply in 2020, according to the state Energy Commission, and likely were lower in 2021 given the increases in natural gas production to keep the lights on during last summer’s record heat waves. California’s attempts to influence the energy sector have largely failed to create any momentum for a transition to renewable sources, making the Department of Water Resources’ new carte blanche power regrettably necessary. For Newsom, the cost of such change means saying yes to more oil and gas.
So it hardly can be considered leadership when the best policy prescription Newsom could muster was two “crappy” bills, rich with complexities and long-term consequences that necessitate prudence but were unveiled and passed within a single workweek. Lawmakers are already promising cleanup legislation, which is a remarkable admission when the ink from the governor’s signature has barely dried.
If this is how Newsom wants blue states to “quadruple down” in response to a right-wing Supreme Court, he’s going to need a lot more than stagecraft to convince others to follow along.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Yousef Baig is The Bee’s assistant opinion editor and covers a variety of local and state issues for the editorial board.
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