Wind turbines are pictured on the first French offshore wind farm off the coasts of La Turballe, western France on September 30, 2022. California wants to add as much as 5,000 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2030. (Photo by DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images)
California is set to take major swings at boosting renewable energy, reining in corporate emissions, safeguarding wild places and ensuring livability amid worsening climate change after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed most of the environment-related legislation lawmakers sent his way this session.
Among two dozen major climate and environment bills that landed on Newsom’s desk this year, he approved three quarters of them by the Saturday, Oct. 14 deadline.
That “cements California’s climate leadership,” said Laura Deehan, executive director of the advocacy group Environment California. But it also matters “beyond our borders,” she said, with action by one of the biggest economies in the world likely to spur similar laws in other places.
Newsom did veto six significant environment bills in recent weeks. These included proposals to make it easier for utilities to install power lines, require lead testing in some school water fountains, and prevent “forever” chemicals — known as PFAS — from spreading through the environment.
In statements explaining his vetoes the governor cited implementation and enforcement problems with several of these bills. But he also noted concerns over costs, after a summer budget session during which his office worked with lawmakers to close a $30 billion budget gap.
“The legislature sent me bills outside of this budget process that, if all enacted, would add nearly $19 billion of unaccounted costs in the budget, of which $11 billion would be ongoing,” Newsom wrote. “With our state facing continuing economic risk and revenue uncertainty, it is important to remain disciplined when considering bills with significant fiscal implications.”
Many of the bills Newsom did sign will take effect Jan. 1, with new safeguards against abandoned oil wells, harmful pesticides, water waste and more set to be in place for the new year.
Accountability for businesses
The most high-profile climate bills Newsom signed into law this year will require more transparency and accountability from businesses when it comes to how their operations affect our planet.
Under Senate Bill 253, California will become the first state with sweeping policies that require companies with annual revenues of more than $1 billion to publicly report how much greenhouse gas they generate by 2025 and how much their entire supply chains create by 2027.
“Carbon disclosures are a simple but powerful tool in the fight to tackle climate change,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, who authored the bill. “When corporations are transparent about the full scope of their emissions, they have the tools and incentives to tackle them.”
Newsom also signed related S.B. 261, from state Sen. Henry Stern, D-Los Angeles, which will require companies with annual revenues of $500 million or more to disclose climate-related financial risks and the measures they’ve adopted to reduce those risks under this bill.
One measure companies have used to balance carbon emissions is buying carbon offsets, where, for example, an airline might donate to an organization that plants trees to help offset emissions from its flights. But climate advocates have raised flags about the effectiveness of the unregulated $2 billion carbon offset market for years, and newly signed A.B. 1305 establishes first-in-the-nation regulations, with new transparency and disclosure requirements for buyers and sellers of carbon offsets.
However, Newsom vetoed another law that would have gone even further by opening companies up to legal penalties if they buy or sell “junk offsets” that don’t produce the climate benefits they claim. The governor expressed concerns about “unintended consequences,” including well-intentioned companies unknowingly buying junk offsets and “creating significant turmoil in the market for carbon offsets, potentially even beyond California.”
Newsom did sign the Right to Repair Act, which will make it easier and more affordable for consumers to repair hardware on electronic devices and appliances. The law requires manufacturers to offer access, with limits, to the tools, parts and manuals needed to fix those products. Supporters say that should reduce the amount of hazardous electronic waste that ends up in landfills while saving consumers some money.
Support for clean energy
Newsom signed a number of bills aimed at making it easier for renewable energy projects to advance in California while making it harder for oil and gas companies to practice business as usual.
Under the Orphan Well Prevention Act, oil companies will be required to take out bonds to pay the full cost of plugging oil wells and remediating the area whenever ownership is transferred. The goal of the bill from Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, D-Los Angeles, is to prevent costs for so-called orphan wells from falling to the state and ultimately to taxpayers.
Oil and gas developments also will no longer benefit from carveouts from a nearly 50-year-old law that requires projects along the coast to get special development permits that aim to protect the sensitive coastal ecosystem after Newsom signed S.B. 704 from state Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine.
As for boosting clean energy, state regulators will have to create a plan by July 1, 2026 to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in large buildings. They also must create a plan to make ports ready for offshore energy and study the potential for making offshore wind power equipment in California. And under another bill signed by Newsom, regulators also have to study the potential of offshore wave power along California’s coast and make a plan to harness it. Regulators also have to evaluate the potential for installing solar power infrastructure in right-of-ways along California’s highways.
Thanks to A.B. 1373, California also will soon be able to act as a centralized buyer for both offshore wind and geothermal energy. That will help give developers an assured market, which should speed up projects in both sectors.
But two of the bills Newsom vetoed were aimed at speeding up installation of more power lines to carry energy from such projects. In statements on his vetoes, Newsom wrote that he feared both bills would make a complex permitting process more confusing and possibly end up making those projects take longer.
Transportation boost
In the transportation space, Newsom approved bills that will advance clean transportation while also helping public transportation cope with the effects of climate change.
The governor signed A.B. 126 to reauthorize more than $170 million per year in clean transportation funding over the next decade.
California now also has an official goal to make all new school buses purchased in California be zero-emission by 2035 after Newsom signed A.B. 579. It’s a laudable goal, school districts say, but one that will require lots of financial support to be feasible.
In the wake of rail services through San Clemente being closed for months due to hillside erosion, Newsom signed a bill from state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, that will require the rail agency overseeing a 351-mile corridor in Southern California to include projects that increase climate resiliency in its annual business plans.
Conservation and protection
To help protect wildlife and lands in California, Newsom signed Min’s S.B. 337, which codifies an executive order the governor issued three years ago to make California a so-called 30×30 state, committed to conserving at least 30% of its lands and coastal waters by 2030.
Newsom also approved A.B. 363, which gives the Department of Pesticide Regulation until July of 2024 to wrap up a comprehensive study on how consumer use of pesticides known as neonics affect pollinators, water systems and human health. The bill also requires the department to adopt rules for using those products by July 2026.
A kind of rat poison called diphacinone will now be included in a statewide ban, after Newsom signed A.B. 1322 from Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Glendale. Friedman introduced the bill after the death of the mountain lion known as P-22, who was found to have rat poison in his system.
Mixed signals on water
Despite the “miracle” water year that just ended, Newsom signed a significant piece of legislation that will make water conservation a way of life in California.
Under Friedman’s A.B. 1572, most businesses and public agencies won’t be able to use potable water to maintain ornamental lawns in landscaping. Such uses were temporarily banned during the most recent drought, but this law — which doesn’t apply to houses, apartments, sports facilities or cemeteries — makes those rules permanent.
The governor vetoed three other bills aimed at finding and preventing contaminants in water.
All schools built before 2010 would have had to test for lead in water fountains and faucets if Newsom had signed A.B. 249 from Assemblymember Chris Holden, D-Pasadena. While Newsom said he supported the concept, he wrote that there were too many problems with implementation, cost and timelines to make the bill feasible as written.
Newsom also shot down two bills that could have helped keep toxic “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, from getting into water sources.
One, A.B. 727, would have banned PFAS from cleaning and floor sealing products sold in the state within a few years. But Newsom said single-product chemical bans like this one haven’t been successful in the past because they “lack oversight” and cause confusion among manufacturers.
Another bill, A.B. 1628, from Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, D-Inglewood, would have required all washing machines sold in California after Jan. 1, 2029 to use fine microfiber filtration systems, to prevent microplastics from getting into the water supply. Newsom said he’s concerned the bill would have increased costs to consumers before we have solid research to justify those spikes.
For now, Newsom said he encourages incentivizing, rather than mandating, filters or other technologies that could keep microfibers out of wastewater.
