Your guide to the hottest climate action in Sacramento - POLITICO

Your guide to the hottest climate action in Sacramento - POLITICO

Your guide to the hottest climate action in Sacramento

With help from Camille von Kaenel, Blanca Begert and Wes Venteicher

CLOSING TIME: We’ve made it past the Friday deadline for lawmakers to introduce new bills this session, and as expected, their staffers were busy until the final buzzer.

By our count, there were 532 bills introduced Friday alone, bringing the total to more than 1,400 over last week.

We’re not expecting all of our readers to be as obsessive as we are, so we’ve undertaken the task of reading through each bill to pull out the highlights (but please email us if you think we’re missing anything).

(One important note: Hundreds of these bills are so-called “spot” measures, which are missing policy details and could be fleshed out at any time.)

Here’s our breakdown of this session’s major emerging themes:

Solar: What’s old is new again when it comes to California solar. Lawmakers have introduced proposals to intercede in long-running fights between investor-owned utilities and rooftop solar companies.

The biggest swing comes from Assemblymember Damon Connolly, whose AB 2619 would direct the California Public Utilities Commission to reconsider the rooftop solar reimbursements it slashed by about 75 percent last spring. The bill would direct the agency to make sure reimbursements are big enough to drive a doubling of rooftop generation by 2045 in accord with state renewable energy goals.

On Friday, Sen. Henry Stern introduced a placeholder bill expressing his intent to take on solar incentives for apartment complexes, which the CPUC also reduced.

Assemblymember Laura Friedman has said she plans to amend her AB 2256 to boost rooftop solar by including environmental and societal benefits in the way the CPUC calculates its value.

And Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis is in with a curious proposal to declare solar power California’s “official state energy” à la the state’s bird (California quail) or flower (California poppy).

Hydrogen: The element’s role in California’s climate transition is very TBD, and the session began with the flameout of last year’s most ambitious hydrogen bill, AB 1550, which would have imposed strict rules on how and where hydrogen production facilities get their molecules.

Many more have cropped up to take its place. A few:

SB 1420, introduced Friday by Sen. Anna Caballero and three co-authors, would treat hydrogen more like wind and solar on the state grid by qualifying it to count toward utilities’ renewable energy buying requirements. It would also qualify hydrogen for the permit streamlining that Gov. Gavin Newsom created for wind, solar and other resources last year.

SB 993, from Sen. Josh Becker, aims to bolster clean hydrogen production in California and protect the grid at the same time by adjusting the price of electricity for hydrogen producers throughout the day. It would be cheaper for hydrogen producers when it’s abundant during the day and more expensive when the grid is most stressed in the early evening hours.

SB 1018, also from Becker, would free up companies and people to start generating and using their own energy to produce hydrogen rather than purchasing it through the electrical grid.

Oil: One of the highest-profile oil and gas bills that failed to advance last year is back. AB 3155, from Friedman, would hold oil and gas companies legally responsible for certain illnesses contracted within 3,200 feet of a well.

The bill factors into lawmakers’ effort to ban drilling near homes, businesses and other buildings. They passed SB 1137 in 2022 to institute a 3,200-foot buffer zone, but the California Independent Petroleum Association halted the law by qualifying it for a referendum this November.

At least four new proposals seek to change how oil companies treat idle and abandoned wells, including Assemblymember Gregg Hart’s AB 1866, which would require oil companies to submit plans for closing all idle wells and accelerate the clip at which the companies must do so.

Plastics: Just two years ago, lawmakers were striking a landmark deal with the packaging and petroleum industries to cut plastic pollution. Now, they’re gearing up for a fierce fight with the industry with a bevy of new proposals meant to reclaim California’s lost leadership on recycling.

Sens. Ben Allen and Catherine Blakespear and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan want to ban single-use plastic bags once and for all after a loophole in the state’s original, nation-leading ban in 2014 allowed thicker bags to proliferate.

Blakespear also has a bill to require chain restaurants in California to provide reusable cups for customers dining in. And Assemblymember Steve Bennett wants to ban state agencies from buying single-use plastic bottles for internal use or resale starting next January.

GGRF: In a harbinger of tight budget talks to come, several bills would tap the state’s greenhouse gas auction proceeds for new or expanded programs or repurpose them within existing programs.

Bennett’s AB 2311 would increase a grant program to prevent food waste and promote the recovery of edible food. Sen. Monique Limón’s SB 1135 would transfer 1 percent of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to create a tax credit for farmers and ranchers who apply compost on their lands.

AB 2776, from Assemblymembers Freddie Rodriguez and James Gallagher would require that affordable housing money from the fund prioritize communities recovering from major federal disasters.

Good news for all GGRF-hungry lawmakers: The fund keeps growing as carbon prices rise. This quarter’s auction results will be out tomorrow. Veteran GGRF watcher Katelyn Roedner Sutter, Environmental Defense Fund’s California director, is anticipating “record high settlement prices.”

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THE SWEDEN CONNECTION: The White House may be planning to ease up on the nation’s electric vehicle goals, allowing longer timelines for car companies to comply with sales targets. In California, EV sales were down last quarter for the first time in over a decade.

But Newsom isn’t worried about a rocky news week for electric cars.

“Do I worry about one quarter? No,” he said at Tuesday’s signing of an agreement to collaborate on climate with Sweden. “That’s frankly a talking point coming from the fossil fuel lobby.”

Newsom said he expected the market winds to keep blowing in the direction of electric vehicles despite any changes on the federal level — including a potential second Trump presidency.

“I just think the dollars and cents of this, where consumers are going, where the markets are going globally, that in so many ways, California has accelerated the policy, but the policy will continue to accelerate on the basis of consumer choice,” said Newsom, who also noted Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s role. “It’s also interesting that one of [Trump’s] biggest supporters and suitors is Elon Musk,” he said. “He’s led this innovation.”

Swedish officials agreed.

“Five or 10 years ago in Sweden, the green transition was basically something that we need to do,” said Johan Forssell, Sweden’s minister for international development, cooperation and foreign trade. “Today is slightly different. It’s still something that we need to do, but it’s also something that we want to do because we see all the economic opportunities here.”

Accompanying Forssell were Swedish Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel as well as Oscar Stenström, senior adviser to industry scion Marcus Wallenberg. Also in town this week: Peter Carlson, former procurement head at Tesla who went on to start his own EV battery empire called Northvolt in Sweden.

Spotted on the California side: Tesla’s head of policy and business development, Rohan Patel; Dee Dee Myers, director of Newsom’s office of business and economic development; climate adviser Lauren Sanchez; California Chamber of Commerce President Jennifer Barrera; and CARB Chair Liane Randolph. — BB

PORTER’S PLAN: Rep. Adam Schiff was the first California Senate candidate out of the gate with a detailed climate platform, two weeks before the primary. Now it’s Rep. Katie Porter‘s turn.

The “Planet for Our Future” platform she unveiled Tuesday is similar but streamlined, Emma Dumain and Timothy Cama report for POLITICO’s E&E News.

It includes plans for “holding polluters accountable,” “protecting our public lands,” “fighting for California’s fair share of water,” “making California resilient from future climate disasters,” “investing in clean and renewable energy” and “upgrading our national electric grid.”

— A newly rebuilt portion of the Friant-Kern canal is still sinking from farmers overpumping; the Friant Water Authority filed a lawsuit last week.

— One car company has won more federal infrastructure dollars than any other to build charging networks: It’s Tesla.

— On the recent exodus of firms from Climate Action 100+ and why Wall Street is flip-flopping on climate.

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