With help from Alex Nieves and Noah Baustin
SUMMER BREAK’S OVER: Lawmakers are back in Sacramento on Monday for a four-week cram session — think finals week but with lobbyists. On the syllabus: extending California’s cap-and-trade program, refilling the state’s wildfire liability fund for utilities and, of course, redrawing congressional maps to give Democrats more seats.
Lawmakers have been busy coming up with their asks for the end of session — but also stepping out of the Sacramento bubble with community meetings at home and policy-inspiring trips.
Senate Energy Committee Chair Josh Becker went big in Europe, meeting with Formula One officials in the United Kingdom, where he learned about the racing organization’s plans to wean the famous cars off fossil fuels. He also met with European Union climate officials and noted that California, France and the United Kingdom have about the same level of greenhouse gas emissions. His takeaway: It’s a three-way race to cut emissions.
“They’ve got some great plans, and it’s good for them to hear that we are committed, and good for us to hear that they’re committed,” Becker said.
His energy counterpart in the Assembly, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, also crossed the pond for a trip to the United Kingdom organized by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ Office of Protocol. The agenda included a meeting with Lloyds of London on insurance and mounting climate risks. But it mostly focused on artificial intelligence — never mind the energy costs — and the U.K.’s attempts to attract investment.
“They look at California and our world-class technology sector with so much both envy as well as as respect, and I think it’s good for us as California policymakers to to hear that, because we’ve got to make sure that we are intentional about the ways that we continue to be the birthplace for the next generation of big breakthroughs,” Petrie-Norris said.
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan and Sens. Ben Allen, Catherine Blakespear, John Laird and Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, meanwhile, visited Vancouver on a California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy trip focused on recycling.
Allen (who noted some centers were “rather stinky” but most were clean) said he was impressed at the public participation in recycling, observing that Vancouver has a small but very diverse population. “It really makes you wonder why we can’t be more ambitious,” he said.
Bryan, meanwhile, said he felt like Canada was a “step ahead” of California on recycling, and noted that a lot of the efforts were led by businesses. “We are way more prescriptive sometimes, and I think that sometimes hurts us,” he said. One specific policy idea he took away: a recycling program for old motor oil cans that can also capture and refine any oil left over.
There was also some personal travel. Assemblymember Steve Bennett went full John Muir, backpacking with his family on both sides of the Sierra Nevada range. Wildfires were top of mind: “The Eastern Sierra struck me as much healthier,” he said. “We’ve got a tremendous dead tree problem on the Western Sierra.”
And Assemblymember Gregg Hart embarked on a 1,600-mile road trip exploring the geographic diversity of Eastern Oregon, from the Wallowa Mountains — known as the Oregon Alps — to the Alvord Desert. “It was really just a get-back-to-nature trip,” he said. “It was a wonderful reset.”
What did you do on your summer vacation? Email us — and include a fun picture. — CvK
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EMISSIONS MISSION: Lawmakers are feeling the heat on cap-and-trade reauthorization ahead of Wednesday’s scheduled quarterly carbon auction and the looming end-of-session deadline.
On Monday, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus — 21 Assemblymembers and five senators — released their four principles for extending the state’s cornerstone climate program: retain and expand free emissions permits, require a full cost analysis, build in regular legislative review and secure broad support to provide market certainty (they’ll have to, since it requires a two-thirds vote).
“A clean extension of California’s cap-and-trade program isn’t good enough — we need changes that reduce Californians’ cost of living,” said co-chair Assemblymember David Alvarez.
The group of lawmakers hammered out the principles after dozens of meetings this year, staking out the moderate stance in the cap-and-trade debate and adding pressure on the legislature’s chief cap-and-trade negotiators to figure out a proposal. Progressive lawmakers have floated trims to permits in order to curb emissions further; Gov. Gavin Newsom has pushed for a “clean extension,” reauthorizing the program largely as-is.
At stake is not only the future of California’s signature climate program but also its billions of dollars in annual revenue. The pot of money is already one of Sacramento’s hottest commodities — and it’s only getting hotter. Lawmakers have already agreed with Newsom to set aside some cap-and-trade revenues to fund Cal Fire, and auction revenues have been declining as traders worry about the program’s future after its 2030 expiration — leaving less money for a growing set of asks.
Environmental groups ramped up the pressure on Monday, urging lawmakers at a press conference and in a series of meetings to continue funding programs like community resilience centers and clean drinking water with the revenues.
Abraham Mendoza, senior policy advocate at the Community Water Center, said some of the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience program’s services, including bottled water for communities without clean drinking water, can’t be funded through other sources like Proposition 4, last year’s $10 billion climate bond.
“If we’re trying to move SAFER around to make room for these other priorities in cap and trade reauthorization, you run into a bind where you’re essentially looking at running out of resources for the existing work,” he said.
Adding to the pile-on: Consumer Watchdog is urging lawmakers to avoid uplifting carbon capture technologies as part of the reauthorization. In a Monday letter to Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, consumer advocate Liza Tucker mapped out the paths of top California Air Resources Board officials-turned lobbyists and advocates for carbon capture. — CvK
SPEAKING OF CAP-AND-TRADE: State carbon markets have rebounded from President Donald Trump’s threat to investigate emissions trading programs after Attorney General Pam Bondi missed the president’s June 7 deadline to issue a report, according to a new market analysis.
The report from KraneShares, a financial services firm, found that carbon market prices in California and Washington jumped immediately after Bondi missed the deadline, Anne C. Mulkern reports for POLITICO’s E&E News.
Credit prices on California’s secondary market dropped from $30.79 at the start of the second quarter to $26.70 after Trump’s April 8 executive order, which directed Bondi to look for ways to “stop the enforcement” of state climate laws. Prices rallied after the June 7 report deadline passed and closed the second quarter at $28.39. — AN
ON FIRE: California’s investor-owned utilities kicked off a seven-figure advocacy campaign Monday to push Newsom’s proposal to refill the state’s wildfire liability fund for utilities before the legislative session ends Sept. 12 — and before potential liabilities from January’s Eaton Fire drain it.
Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric are backing the plan with television and digital ads, mailers and messaging support from the California Professional Firefighters and electrical worker unions.
Newsom proposed last month injecting $18 billion into the fund — $9 billion from utility shareholders and $9 billion from ratepayers through a 10-year extension of an existing wildfire charge on bills.
But the plan is politically fraught: Lawmakers are already under pressure to address Californians’ rising electricity costs, while insurers are blasting Newsom’s proposal to cap their payouts at 40 percent of claims. — CvK
SETTING THE AGENDA: On Wednesday, Aug. 27, POLITICO is hosting its inaugural California policy summit: The California Agenda. Come see the Golden State’s most prominent political figures — including Sen. Alex Padilla and gubernatorial candidates Katie Porter and Xavier Becerra — share the stage with influential voices in tech, energy, housing and other areas at the forefront of the state’s most critical policy debates. The live event is currently at capacity, but will be streamed. Advance registration is required. Stay tuned for more on speakers and discussion topics, and request an online invite here.
OIL CHIEF: The Western States Petroleum Association named Jodie Muller its incoming president and CEO, after longtime leader Catherine Reheis-Boyd announced her retirement from the role earlier this year. Muller is a 25-year veteran at WSPA, most recently serving as the association’s senior vice president of government affairs and chief operating officer. She’ll start her new role on Sept. 1 and Reheis-Boyd, who’s led the powerful group since 2010, will stay on in an advisory role through the end of the year.
TALKING TRAINS: Newsom appointed Kate Folmar chief of strategic communications at the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Folmar has run her own communications firm since 2021 and was previously deputy secretary for external affairs at the California Health and Human Services Agency. — AN
IN MEMORY: Andrew Meredith, former president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, has died, the labor group announced on Monday.
Meredith served in the National Guard and as a local politician in the city of Galt before becoming president of the trades council in January 2022, according to his Linkedin. He left in 2023 to become director of labor relations at energy developer RWE, leading the company’s strategy on U.S. offshore wind development.
At the 2023 California Democratic Party Convention, while still with the trades, Meredith made it clear that he envisioned a close alliance between the labor and renewable energy movements, including touting a labor agreement for offshore wind.
“Our members are the pathway to building a new energy portfolio in California, one that embraces all available technologies to address climate change,” he said.
As a vegan and an environmentalist, Meredith cut against the grain of the stereotype of a construction trades leader, according to California Federation of Labor Unions President Lorena Gonzalez. But he still carried the ethos of the traditional labor movement.
“He felt passionately about trying to help working people get into and stay in the middle class,” Gonzalez said in an interview. “He was an exceptionally kind person.”
He is survived by his wife and three children, according to the announcement. — NB
— The American Lung Association and ICF Inc. found that replacing fossil-fueled industrial boilers with heat pumps across the U.S. could result in over $1 trillion in public health benefits by 2050.
— UC Berkeley economist Severin Borenstein sees gas imports as California’s best strategy for winding down in-state refineries.
— Mercury Insurance folded in future-looking climate costs in its request for a 6.9 percent increase in property insurance rates, the first insurer to do so under a new set of rules aimed at enticing insurers to do business in the state.
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