California’s Fossil Fuel Industry Had It Relatively Easy Under Jerry Brown. That’s Going to Change After November.

But will fighting climate change be a priority for Gavin Newsom?

Jeff Chiu\AP

This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. 

In California’s primary election Tuesday, voters all but picked statewide politicians and decided who would face off in the races that might flip the House of Representatives. But the environment was also on the ballot, and the results look like a win for the type of green who thinks a 100-percent renewable path is the best bet.

Xavier Becerra, the attorney general who has filed at least 17 environmental lawsuits against President Donald Trump, placed first. An effort to give state Republicans some say over cap-and-trade money failed. Democrats like the environmental lawyer Mike Levin, who campaigned with a clean energy platform, emerged as legitimate challengers for traditionally safe Republican seats in Congress. But when it comes to climate policy, California’s most important decision might have been its choice of gubernatorial candidates.

The election cued up the former mayor of San Francisco (and hair gel power user) Gavin Newsom for a leisurely stroll to the governor’s mansion. Newsom will face a Republican whose odds in deep-blue California are so long that we’re not even going to mention his name at this point.

After the election of Trump, California gained a special salience. With its cap-and-trade laws, its Gov. Jerry Brown conducting international climate negotiations, and its France-sized economy churning out new innovations, California has been a leading force for climate action at a time when the federal government is actively fighting against it.

Newsom could easily slide into current governor Brown’s shoes in a couple of ways. He talks a lot about climate change and likes renewable energy as a fix. And like Brown, he wants to shut down California’s last nuclear plant—a major source of low-carbon electricity.

In other ways, Newsom is likely to change course. Brown didn’t have any time for the activists telling him to kill California’s fossil fuel industry. He figured the state might as well profit from petroleum while its residents were still pulling cars up to a gas pump instead of a battery charger. And Brown worked closely with petroleum companies to shape carbon regulations that industry lobbyists helped push through the Legislature. Newsom, on the other hand, has made aggressive noises toward the fossil fuel industry and said he wouldn’t take contributions from oil companies.

Newsom has also been dubious of Brown’s big projects: the high-speed rail line and the massive pipes to carry water from wet northern California to the parched south. The public tends to sour on big infrastructure projects as they inevitably seem to go over budget, but California will need to build a lot of big things — new transmission lines, new forms of housing, new transit systems, new power plants — to get to a carbon-free future.

Finally, it’s unclear if climate change is a top priority for Newsom in the way it is for Brown. Will he be willing to call in political favors and twist arms to advance climate legislation? Pundits think he may have his eyes elsewhere, like Washington, DC.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate