The temperature is rising around the most contested and perhaps far-reaching climate action bill of the current legislative session in California. Having failed to block in committee the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act — which would require large corporations to disclose most of their greenhouse gas emissions — business lobbyists who oppose the measure are lighting up the phones of the dozen or so Democratic members of the state Assembly whose votes will decide the fate of Senate Bill 253. As the end of the legislative session on Sept. 14 nears, supporters of the bill that would force companies to reveal their complete carbon footprint and potentially inspire other states to take similar action say there is no way to predict its final outcome. Especially not in a house with 25 new members who are enduring the pressure-packed end of session for the first time in their political careers.
“There are a lot of new members we’re really excited about,” said Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters, which has listed SB 253 as its top legislative priority for the year. “At the same time, there are a lot of new members who have never been through the end of session and have not experienced industry tricks and lies. They’re still trying to figure out the dynamic, who they can trust and who they can’t. New members tend to be more susceptible to the deceptive practices of industry.”
The bill would require companies that generate annual revenues of at least $1 billion and that do business in California to keep data not only on the greenhouse gas emissions they produce, but also on the climate-damaging pollution that results from what they consume, and even to account for the discharges that are created downstream in their supply, production and distribution chains. Companies would pay for the administrative costs of the bill, which initially had been set at $1,000 per “reporting entity,” before the Assembly Appropriations Committee eliminated the cap at its Sept. 1 meeting, much to the irritation of SB 253’s business opponents. The bill, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), has already cleared the Legislature’s upper house.
Last year, an almost identical bill was defeated due to a group of centrist Democrats in the Assembly, 14 of whom sat out the vote that fell four tallies short of approval, 37-25, with 41 needed for passage. Four other Democrats voted outright against the climate accountability measure. This year, however, the math is different. Three of the four Democrats who voted against the previous bill last year are gone, as are two influential moderates who sat out the vote — Jim Cooper of Elk Grove, who is now the Sacramento County sheriff, and Adam Gray of Merced, who ran for Congress and lost. The Democrats, meanwhile, upped their majority in the Assembly to 62-18, with a number of new progressives who included climate themes in their winning campaigns. One of the newly seated Democrats is Rick Zbur, who even served six years as president of California Environmental Voters, under the group’s previous name, the California League of Conservation Voters.
“It is a different type of Legislature than it was last year and the year before,” said Marva Diaz, a former aide to Adam Gray and now a political consultant who is representing a business client that is opposed to SB 253, in agreeing that the bill’s proponents may be operating in a more favorable environment this year. “But I think that there’s a couple things to keep in mind. One, just because a bill may have moved through a policy committee doesn’t mean it will be successful on the floor. Some members give courtesy votes in committee and may switch. Now that they’ve heard from local businesses and local voices, they may have understood the [lifting of the fee cap] amendment better than they did in committee.”
Neither Diaz nor Creasman would identify legislators that they thought would be decisive on the bill’s outcome. Rather than single-out any individual members, Creasman said, “We can see through our history of doing climate policies, we don’t get any policies, any big policies passed, unless leadership is involved and supports it. On any issue. These bills are not going to get through without significant leadership support.”
Along with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Hollister now finds himself in the triumvirate of Sacramento’s controlling Democratic Party leadership and right in the middle of the SB 253 fight.
Rivas, now in his third term as an assemblymember, has accepted $46,200 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to Courage Score, a website that tracks California legislators’ contributions and expenditures. The district he represents, in Santa Cruz County, has experienced the direct impacts of climate change in recent years, with extreme heat, poor air quality and wildfires that have burned over 80,000 acres and winter storms that have caused over $100 million in damage to local roads.
Creasman blasted the messaging that industry is pushing on assemblymembers in a high-powered lobbying campaign that includes digital advertisements in the Sacramento Bee. She said that members have called her side with stories that opponents are hitting them with “myth after myth after myth – just goofy.” Creasman cited one assertion reported to her by lawmakers that opposition lobbyists have told them that some big companies targeted in SB 253 would be forced to account for items such as barbecues in their emission calculations. “Not true,” Creasman said. “A straight-up lie. Ridiculous.”
Not all big business interests are opposed to the bill. Multibillion-dollar firms such as Microsoft, IKEA, Adobe, Dignity Health, Patagonia, Levi Strauss and Salesforce are all supporting the measure.
“Businesses are uniquely positioned to have an outsize impact given their access to capital, global reach, and ability to move quickly and innovate,” Salesforce Senior Manager of Government Affairs Zach Carstensen said in a letter to the Appropriations Committee. “This moment, while challenging, also offers significant opportunities for companies that are ready to adapt their business models and ways of operating to prepare for the realities of a net zero and nature-positive world.”
This story was updated on Sept. 7 to clarify a quote from Mary Creasman
