SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s top climate adviser acknowledged Wednesday that President Donald Trump has been more effective than she anticipated at attacking California’s core climate policies.
“We thought it would look more like Trump 1.0, and they have a completely different playbook,” Lauren Sanchez said during a panel at POLITICO’s “The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit.” “They had four years to study what they did wrong in the first administration and employ new tactics.”
Since returning to office in January, Trump has persuaded Congress to revoke federal waivers that give California authority to set vehicle emission rules and electric vehicle mandates, and gotten truck manufacturers to abandon a voluntary agreement to work with the state. Earlier Wednesday, the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into California environmental agencies’ efforts to advance racial equity in the workplace.
Sanchez said the Newsom administration is determined to fight back, including by filing dozens of lawsuits. Both she and the state Senate’s top climate adviser, Kip Lipper, also said they’re still on track to finalize a 15-year extension of the state’s signature carbon market by the end of the legislative session Sept. 12. Sanchez cast the program, under which high-polluting businesses buy emissions allowances from air regulators, as one of California’s core remaining climate planks. Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi in April to block the law, but the threat has yet to materialize.
“Why would state leaders abdicate the opportunity to demonstrate real political leadership around this program that, from the perspective of the administration, has worked?” she said. “It is one of our most effective, not only cost-effective climate programs, but effective ways of addressing affordability.”
Not everyone on stage was ruffled by the Trump administration’s hostile stance toward California climate policy.
“The pressure that the federal government is putting on California, I think, actually, from my perspective, is healthy,” said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President and CEO of the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents Chevron, ExxonMobil, Valero and other oil companies. “I’m encouraged by the fact that I am having the best conversations that I have heard in a very long time relative to affordability [and] the ability of our members to supply affordable, reliable energy to the market every single day.”
Reheis-Boyd’s comment comes against the backdrop of negotiations around Newsom’s plan to boost in-state oil drilling, sparked by the planned closures of Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery and Valero’s Bay Area facility, which some experts estimate could increase average gas prices by $1.21 per gallon by next August.
That threat has forced Newsom to pivot after years of aggressive rhetoric that has accused the industry of price gouging and steps to rein in refiners’ market power, including a 2023 special session bill that gave state energy officials the authority to enforce a profit margin cap on refiners. The California Energy Commission is scheduled to vote Friday on a proposal to pause that rule.