How Green is Gavin? (Pt. 2)
Hydrocarbons, nuclear energy, and "forever chemical"-coated pots and pans. About-face, toward November 2028 march!
“Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.” - Winston Churchill
In the midst of another heat wave, on Thursday, August 25th, 2022, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed the state’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate, making good on Governor Newsom’s 2020 Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate Executive Order. Newsom took a victory lap (emphasis ours):
“California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading plan to achieve 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035. It’s ambitious, it’s innovative, it’s the action we must take if we’re serious about leaving this planet better off for future generations.”
But the same grid problems from more than a decade of increasing reliance on “renewables” that plagued California in the summers of 2019 and 2020 had not gone away. Six days after CARB codified Newsom’s EV mandate, the state’s electricity grid operator (CAISO) issued an electricity crisis “Flex Alert” that including pleading with EV owners not to charge their cars between 4-9 p.m.
California approved a plan last week to end the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, making it the first state to try to switch exclusively to electric and other zero-emission vehicles.
But now state officials are telling drivers not to charge their electric cars during the upcoming Labor Day weekend, when temperatures are expected to hit triple digits for millions of residents, putting a strain on the power grid.
This week, the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s flow of electricity, urged residents to avoid charging their electric vehicles over the long weekend, particularly from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. That’s when the state’s power grid experiences the highest demand as residents turn on their air conditioning and solar energy production declines as the sun goes down.
Newsom’s X post carefully avoided mentioning the CAISO plea not to charge EV’s during peak evening consumption hours so soon after CARB’s EV mandate, leaving that inconvenient detail to the “Flex Alert” linked in his post. But presiding over a state whose electric grid operator begged residents not to charge their EV’s in the evenings - 6 days after his mandate to rely on electric vehicles came to fruition - was a movie that could not be unseen.
An electricity grid on the brink in August for the second time in three years might have been the “tipping point” where Newsom realized his policies and rhetoric had finally crashed into the laws of physics at significant political peril. That week, Newsom did an about face in his 6+ year battle to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. On September 2, 2022 (emphasis added):
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation [Friday] intended to open the way for the state’s last operating nuclear power plant to run an additional five years, a move that he said was needed to ward off possible blackouts as the state transitions to solar and other renewable sources.
His endorsement came one day after the plan was approved in a lopsided vote in the state Assembly and Senate, and despite criticism from environmentalists that the plant was dangerous and should be shut down as scheduled by 2025.
By March of 2023, Gavin Newsom was a completely new man with respect to Diablo Canyon. The day before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted PG&E an exemption allowing the state’s last nuclear power plant to continue operating while considering its license renewal application, he visited the plant for a photo op.
“As we experienced during the record heat wave last September, climate change-driven extreme events are causing unprecedented stress on our power grid – the Diablo Canyon Power Plant is important to support energy reliability as we accelerate progress towards achieving our clean energy and climate goals.”
Three years appear to have had a remarkable impact on Newsom’s point of view. Once the inevitable consequences of more than a decade of California Democrat energy and environmental policies finally came home to roost in ways so obvious they were no longer capable of being hidden, Gavin’s political ambitions took priority over his environmental purity.
The man seen by some as the Greenest Governor in California history was not done reversing his prior positions on oil, natural gas, and nuclear energy yet. He was just beginning.
Readers of Part 1 will recall that when fuel prices in California hit nosebleed levels in late 2022, Newsom called a special session of the legislature and threatened Big Oil refineries with penalties for price gouging. Senate Bill X1-2 (SB X1-2), the California Gas Price Gouging and Transparency Law, emerged from that special session. It passed the Assembly that December, and the Senate in March 2023 and one day later Newsom signed it into law.
Then on October 14, 2024, Newsom signed into law a bill approved during another special legislative session giving the California Energy Commission the authority to set the amount of inventory required for each refinery, for each fuel, and for each blending component. For two of the state’s remaining oil refiners, that was the final straw.
Two days later, Phillips 66 announced they would close their Wilmington refinery by the end of 2025. Six months later, in April 2025, Valero announced the company would close its Benicia (Bay Area) refinery in early 2026.
Of the state’s eight large refineries (each with capacity >100,000 barrels per day), the owners of two decided their capital was better deployed elsewhere. Governor Newsom and the Democrat-stuffed California legislature chased off almost 20% of the state’s refining capacity in the space of six months.
Doomberg’s April 2025 post Moonwalker did the best job capturing the essence of what happened next (emphasis ours):
This brings us to the true “chef’s kiss” moment of this piece—one that beggars belief and explains why most people never entertain the prospect of becoming a politician. Few among us are as capable as Newsom of brazenly ignoring past actions and statements while assuming that few will remember them. In a most remarkable letter dated April 21 to Siva Gunda, vice chair of the CEC, Newsom directs his appointee to make a hard pivot:
“I write to direct you to redouble the State’s efforts to work closely with refiners on short- and long-term planning, including through high-level, immediate engagement, to help ensure that Californians continue to have access to a safe, affordable, and reliable supply of transportation fuels, and that refiners continue to see the value in serving the California market, even as demand for fossil fuels continues its gradual decline over the coming decades.
Further, I am directing you, as my Administration’s lead representative on this issue, to reinforce the State’s openness to a collaborative relationship and our firm belief that Californians can be protected from price spikes and refiners can profitably operate in California – a market where demand for gasoline will still exist for years to come.”
By this August, the evidence of just how much Gavin Newsom had changed his tune on the affordable, reliable, abundant forms of energy that built the California economy and keep it afloat today was clear. As Politico wrote (emphasis added):
California Gov. Gavin Newsom spent the last four years provoking the Big Oil boogeyman. Now, it’s haunting him.
Newsom’s casting of Big Oil as the villain behind the state’s perpetually high fuel prices signaled the industry’s waning influence in Sacramento. But the plot took a dramatic turn for the governor and his party when two refineries in the state announced closure plans.
“Refineries all across the globe are struggling,” Newsom said last month in unveiling a suite of proposals to keep refineries solvent, including holding talks with potential buyers and offering incentives to boost in-state oil drilling. “We’ve got some challenges, and so just require some new considerations.”
The about-face is emblematic of Democrats’ course correction on cost-of-living issues in the wake of the presidential election — and provides a real-time demonstration of the political risks of pursuing an aggressive transition away from fossil fuels.
Six weeks ago, in a last-minute measure at the end of the legislative session, the California Assembly passed Senate Bill 237 approving up to 2,000 new oil drilling permits in Kern County per year through 2036. Between an energy rock and a hard place, largely of his and his party’s own making, Governor Newsom raised the white flag and signed the bill on September 19th.
Days before SB237 passed, Newsom had the following to say at a press conference:
“We are all the beneficiaries of oil and gas. No one’s naive about that. So it’s always been about finding a just transition, a pragmatism in terms of that process.”
Newsom’s signing of SB237 is a fitting punctuation mark that memorializes the dichotomy between his curated verdant profile, with “tough on Big Oil” and “existential climate crisis” rhetoric vs. the reality of his acts and political aspirations.
With these acts of fear-driven, flip-flopping hypocrisy, Gavin Newsom has made the depth of his commitment to “environmentalism,” “climate change,” “net zero,” and “eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear energy” evident. That record is important to understand for a U.S. electorate that will be choosing a new President in 2028. Newsom’s final term as California governor ends in January of 2027, and we have little doubt he aspires to be on the 2028 ticket.
Assuming he does declare as a 2028 Presidential candidate, the consequences of Gavin Newsom’s energy, environmental and economic policies during his tenure as governor are inescapable. They will remain - and haunt him - if he becomes the Democrat nominee for President.
The chart below shows how electricity prices in California compare to the national average since Newsome became governor. Today, California residential electricity rates are 86% above the national average.
The chart below compares California regular gasoline prices to the U.S. regular average over Gavin Newsom’s term as Governor. As of October 20th, the California price was almost 53% higher than the national average.
The highest excise taxes on fuel in the U.S. and the state’s “low carbon fuel” regulation add upwards of $1/gallon to the price of gas and diesel in California. But the reduction in refining capacity for which Newsom and California Democrats rightly take “credit” also partly explains the high cost of gas and diesel in the state. After 6 years, the state’s refining capacity has dropped by about 15% and with two closures announced that we noted, it is about to lose ~18% more.
Despite the refinery capacity wreckage achieved by Governor Newsom and the California Assembly, some help for California drivers may be on the way. Just over ten days ago, Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan announced the proposed Western Gateway Pipeline. The ~1,300-mile project would combine a new pipeline from Borger, Texas to Phoenix, Arizona with reversing the flow of Kinder Morgan’s SFPP pipeline from Colton, California to Phoenix, bringing Midwest refinery products (gas/diesel) in to California.
Completion is targeted for 2029. The announcement came almost a year to the day after Phillips 66 told state energy officials it planned to close its Wilmington refinery.
Our final, and latest example of Gavin Newsom’s situationally flexible greenness occurred earlier this month. Interestingly, it had nothing to do with oil and gas, CO2 emissions or “climate change.”
By now, most readers are familiar with the nationwide panic associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) more commonly described as “forever chemicals.” In April 2024, the Biden administration EPA added a few of the thousands of PFAS compounds commonly used in hundreds of products globally to the list of hazardous substances under Superfund (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act aka CERCLA), which triggers remediation obligations for responsible parties. The same month, it set national primary drinking water standards for six PFAS compounds.
As an interesting side note, five weeks ago, the Trump administration EPA announced that it would retain the Biden-era designation of two of the compounds (PFOA and PFOS) as hazardous substances under Superfund, signaling it would hold responsible parties liable for investigation and cleanup. (Do not expect Lee Zeldin and Orange Man Bad to win any awards from “environmentalists” for doing so.)
A number of “progressive” states led by Democrat governors and Democrat-controlled legislatures took action on PFAS before U.S. EPA. Several have since established cleanup and drinking water standards significantly more stringent than levels set not only by the Biden EPA in 2024, and stricter standards than California. With minor exceptions, California’s Governor and environmental regulators have generally adopted EPA primary drinking water standards and soil and groundwater cleanup target levels, rather than the more stringent standards set by other Democrat-controlled states.
The California Assembly recently passed a bill (SB 632) with broad bans for products with intentionally added PFAS compounds in things like cleaning products, dental floss, juvenile products, food packaging, and ski wax (2028) and cookware (2030). But guess what happened when the bill was presented to the governor for signature and enactment? To the horror of “environmentalists,” rather than signing into law legislation designed to protect Californians from “forever chemicals,” Newsom vetoed it!
What reason could one of the nation’s most admired Green Governors have given to justify his veto? We’ll let the words he wrote back to the California Senate about SB682 speak for themselves (emphasis added):
I share the author’s goal to protect human health and the environment by phasing out the use of PFAS in consumer products. However, the broad range of products that would be impacted by this bill would result in a sizable and rapid shift in cooking products available to Californians. I appreciate efforts to protect the health and safety of consumers, and while this bill is well-intentioned, I am deeply concerned about the impact this bill would have on the availability of affordable options in cooking products.
Remember our earlier charts showing the differences between California and national average fuel prices and electricity rates. Consider the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars consumers and businesses in the state have spent because of the policies that led to those price differences.
Perennially high fuel and electricity costs have hammered California citizens for more than a decade. But now Governor Newsom is more “deeply concerned” about the affordability of pots and pans than the potential health risks from PFAS for his constituents. This is a new shade of political green, even for Gavin.
Newsom’s veto is made no less absurd by the fact that two PFAS compounds (PFOS and PFOA) are, in fact, already on the Proposition 65 list. If you’ve ever spent any time in California, Prop 65 is how you know what products and buildings are toxic, carcinogenic and reproductive-harming enough to require California’s nanny-state warning label.
A cynical person might surmise that Newsom had gotten an earful from some well-heeled restaurant owners in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and San Francisco, celebrity chefs on Hollywood cable TV shows, and their industry friends who were strongly against the bill. This description in The New Lede article (linked above) would only feed that cynicism (emphasis ours):
“The Cookware Sustainability Alliance (CSA) is grateful to Governor Newsom for his concern about the impact this bill would have had on the availability of affordable options in cooking products for millions of Californians,” said Steve Burns, president of the organization, which has been actively opposing proposed bans on PFAS in cookware across the US.
CSA launched last year as a partnership between four major cookware companies, including the Meyer Corporation, which has a long-standing partnership with celebrity chef and television host Rachael Ray.”
At California restaurants like French Laundry, where Newsom was busted communing maskless during Covid-19(84) in 2020 in violation of his own rules, “affordability” of cookware is an afterthought compared to wrecking the Governor’s $140 per plate special creation because it stuck to the pan. That would be “uncivilized.”
We close by noting that for those dying on the hill of CO2 emissions, Newsom’s green shine was already starting to wear off after the August 2020 course correction noted earlier. The subtitle of this story from Capital and Main (co-published in Salon) from September 2020 pulled no punches.
In Greenpeace USA’s 2020 Climate Progress Report: California Governor Gavin Newsom, the organization noted (emphasis added):
Research by FracTracker and Consumer Watchdog found that, over the first half of 2019, Governor Newsom’s administration approved 35% more drilling permits, 28% more total permits, and 103% more well-stimulation permits compared with a similar period in 2018, the final year of Gov. Brown’s administration.
In its 2021 update, the world’s most well-known environmental organization put it this way:
“How Green is Gavin?” Newsom sounds high and mighty green with his policy commitments to “climate change,” “eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear energy,” reliance on “renewable energy,” and “net-zero CO2 emissions plans.” But when faced with fleeing refineries, nosebleed fuel prices, the nation’s highest electricity prices and other inevitable consequences of energy and environmental policies gone awry, our examples show that Newsom’s political ambitions helped him find the pragmatic limits of his “greenness.”
In the meantime, in anticipation of his 2028 run, we believe the U.S. electorate should be clear about Newsom’s shade of green, and how it explains his actions. Democrat blue in ideology, mixed with yellow born of fear for his political ambition, are the colors that explain his giant green flip flops.
Is Gavin Newsom’s newfound pragmatism a treat or a trick? Actions speak louder than words. Meanwhile, keep an eye on Polymarket.
“Like” this post for no other reason than you liked this post.
Leave us a comment. We read and reply to virtually all of them. Helps refuel the team here.
Subscribe to environMENTAL for free below.
Share this post. Helps us grow. We’re grateful for the assist!
Progressive energy policy seems to run parallel with the progressive's infatuation with socialism. Once implemented, there is an inevitable turn back to capitalism as a means to pay for what becomes a veneer of socialism.
Part of the reason Gavin Gruesome can preen, posture, and pivot on a dime is simple: California isn’t an island—it just plays one on TV. In reality, it’s a ward of the Union, a semi-detached energy island tethered to the U.S. grid and fiscal system by a few thick federal cables. When Sacramento’s grand experiments crash into the wall of physics or finance, Washington quietly props up the rubble. The federal balance sheet and interstate power lines act like shock absorbers, blunting the consequences of bad policy. Gruesome knows it.
Take the offshore field sitting just beyond California’s jurisdiction. It’s in federal waters—outside the reach of Sacramento’s climate commissars—where Washington is reportedly preparing to approve a floating production system that can shuttle crude directly to market. No pipelines, no onshore terminals, no state permits. It’s a clever bit of energy federalism: production resumes, revenue flows, and Gruesome gets to feign outrage while secretly sighing in relief.
The optics will be immaculate. California keeps its climate halo, the feds keep the oil flowing, and the lights stay on—proof that even an “energy island” still needs a mainland to survive.