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| Photo Credit: AP. |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping package of bills Friday to expand California’s reliance on clean energy and reduce carbon emissions, moves he said further establish the state as a global climate leader.
The new laws
include proposals aimed at reducing exposure to gas and oil pollution in
communities of color, expanding clean energy jobs and accelerating the state’s
timeline for getting most of its electricity from renewable energy sources.
Newsom signed them following a record-breaking heat wave that forced California
to rely more heavily on natural gas for its electricity production.
“We could
talk about the way the world should be and protest it,” Newsom said while
standing underneath an array of solar panels. “Or we can actually make
demonstrable progress.”
State Sen.
Lena Gonzalez, a Democrat, was an author of one bill aimed at protecting
vulnerable communities from pollution coming from oil and gas production sites.
It bans the drilling of any new oil and gas wells with 3,200 feet (975 meters)
of homes, schools and other neighborhood sites and requires wells in those
zones to enact stricter safety measures. Neighborhood oil drilling is prominent
around Los Angeles and oil-rich parts of the Central Valley.
“The reason why we do this, first and
foremost, is because some of us are parents,” said Gonzalez, who represents the
southern part of Los Angeles County.
Another bill
Newsom signed requires California to reach carbon neutrality by 2045, meaning
it will remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as what it emits.
The state’s
accelerated carbon reduction targets are a “big win for California,” Kassie
Siegel, of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in a
statement.
The oil
industry has broadly criticized Newsom’s climate package, saying it will harm an
industry that still provides many jobs throughout the state. California is the
seventh-largest oil producing state.
Some
environmental groups were critical as well, though for different reasons. Food
and Water Watch California, a nonprofit aimed at addressing climate and water
issues, opposed a bill in the package that creates a permitting system for
carbon capture projects. Such efforts rely on technology to remove carbon from
the atmosphere to store underground.
Critics of
the technology say it’s dangerous, unproven and a means for oil companies to
keep emitting.
“Carbon
capture is a smokescreen for fossil fuel industry players to protect their
bottom lines at the expense of our climate and communities,” Food and Water
Watch California Director Chirag G. Bhakta said in a statement.
Newsom, a
Democrat, also took the opportunity to swipe at Republican political leaders in
Texas. He compared California’s energy production to that of Texas, another
major producer, where a winter storm in February 2021 left millions without
power.
“And they’re
talking to us about keeping our lights on?” Newsom said of Texas.
Sophie
Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse
News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program
that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Follow her
on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sophieadanna.