California goes after corporate carbon

Jan 31, 2023

By Lara Korte, Jeremy B. White, Matthew Brown and Ramon Castanos

THE BUZZ: California lawmakers are again going after an elusive climate goal — corporate accountability.

A group of Senate Democrats Monday unveiled new versions of climate bills that died in the Legislature last year, hoping to put a tighter leash on a sector of the population that environmental advocates have long complained pumps an outsized amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The bill package championed by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) is three-fold and attempts to crack down on corporate “greenwashing,” require climate risk disclosures, and — this is a big one — force the state pension funds to divest from fossil fuels.

Senate Bill 253, co-sponsored by EnviroVoters, requires big corporations doing business in California to disclose their carbon footprint, including from their supply chain. Wiener argued it would cut down on “greenwashing,” or the practice of marketing a company as environmentally conscious while it actually does very little to fight climate change.

It would be a first-in-the-nation measure, but not first-in-the-world. The European Union recently proposed a similar tactic, with plans to require companies to back up green claims about their products with evidence. Greenwashing was also a target of United Nations experts when they convened in Egypt for COP27 last year.

Wiener has proposed this bill before without success. Last year’s Senate Bill 260 made it out of the Senate, but was killed by a group of abstaining moderate Democrats in the Assembly. Let’s not forget — this was also around the time Gov. Gavin Newsom was pressuring lawmakers to make some tough votes on his climate agenda.

Stern is also leading the charge on a new bill requiring strong corporate disclosure of financial risk. A similar piece of Legislation he put forth last year failed to make it out of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Then there’s the pension funds.

Climate advocacy groups for years have been urging the Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) to offload billions in oil and gas holdings. Gonzalez last year tried to take the fight to the state Legislature. Her bill made it out of the Senate, but was pulled from the docket in the Assembly’s Public Employment and Retirement Committee, chaired by then-Assemblymember Jim Cooper (D-Sacramento).

Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood) now chairs that committee — and at a press conference, Gonzalez said she feels bullish about passage.

‘I’m hopeful that this year, with a new makeup in the Assembly, with more in our coalition and more emphasis on this crisis, we can actually get this done,” she said.

BUENOS DÍAS, good Tuesday morning. Today is the deadline for states in the Colorado River basin to come to an agreement on federally-\ mandated usage cuts. As of last night, six out of the seven states are pushing a new “Consensus-Based Modeling Alternative." The outlier? California.

Plus — First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and her organization, California Partners Project, today launch the Board Diversity Playbook to help increase the number of women on corporate boards of directors. Check it out here.

Got a tip or story idea for California Playbook? Hit us up at jwhite@politico.com and lkorte@politico.com or follow us on Twitter @JeremyBWhite and @Lara_Korte.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “My entire life I was desperate not to be laughed at and embarrassed…You’re trying to always overcompensate because you’re always that kid. You’re always that 10-year-old kid everyone’s laughing at because you can’t read.” Gov. Gavin Newsom tells Warriors GM Bob Myers what drives him in a newly released podcast.

TWEET OF THE DAY:

Jeopardamy

WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.

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TOP TALKERS

— “Brandon Tsay, who disarmed mass shooter, is cheered and honored in Alhambra,” by Anissa Rivera in the Los Angeles Daily News: “The situation still feels so surreal to me,” said Tsay, who on January 21 was helping out at the Lai Lai Ballroom, a dance hall his grandparents founded in Alhambra, when he spotted and disarmed the gunman. He described his bravery on Sunday, Jan. 29 by saying, “I didn’t think I would do what I did.”

CAMPAIGN MODE

PORTANTINO IS IN — Democratic state senator and longtime appropriations chair Anthony Portantino officially announced his bid for CA-30 on Monday, hoping to beat out other ambitious LA-based Democrats for Rep. Adam Schiff’s seat. His challengers include Assemblymember Laura Friedman, LAUSD board member Nick Melvoin, actor Ben Savage, and activist and 2022 challenger Maebe A. Girl.

GUESS WHO’S BACK, BACK AGAIN — “Marianne Williamson eyeing another run for president,” by NBC News’ Micki Fahner: “The author and spiritual adviser, who ran as a Democrat in 2020, told NBC News she is ‘gathering information’ and ‘working on putting a machine together’ with the goal of ‘making an informed decision,’ as it relates to a potential 2024 presidential campaign. If she runs, she says she will do so as a Democrat.”

CALIFORNIA AND THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR

UH OH — “Congressional panel investigating 'the state of California's unemployment insurance system,” by The Sacramento Bee’s David Lightman: “California’s unemployment system, plagued by multibillion-dollar fraud schemes involving COVID-related benefits, is being investigated by the Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee.”

QUIRK OF THE BOARD — Former Assemblymember Bill Quirk has been appointed to the California Air Resources Board, where the Democrat will implement policies he helped pass as a lawmaker representing the East Bay. He also has a physics PhD and experience modeling climate for NASA. The compensation is $54,114. Quirk is a Democrat.

— “After a tragic workplace mass shooting, one Bay Area city got tougher on guns. Did it work?” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Shwanika Narayan: “A month after the railyard shooting, San Jose became the first city in the nation to adopt a policy requiring gun owners to carry liability insurance and to pay an annual gun harm reduction fee. Due to the pandemic, the liability insurance requirement took effect on Jan. 1, 2023, and the gun harm reduction fee will be implemented sometime this year, said Carolina Camarena, a spokeswoman for the city.”

— “First hate crimes, now mass shootings. For some Asian Americans, feeling safe means owning a gun,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Jeong Park, Hailey Branson-Potts and Anh Do: “Research shows that Asian Americans, who have some of the lowest gun ownership rates in the country, have been buying more firearms in the last few years — as have other racial groups.”

— “In the West, pressure to count water lost to evaporation,” by The Associated Press’ Suman Naishadham: “The Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates that roughly 1.5 million acre-feet of water are lost to evaporation, transportation and inefficiencies each year in Arizona, Nevada and California. That’s 50 percent more than Utah uses in a whole year.”

‘WORSE THAN I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED’ — “Scientists are worried about a new risk to California’s snowpack: Wildfires,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jack Lee: “The findings mesh with a 2022 study, which reported that 70 percent of high-elevation snow regions across the West saw a significant increase in the acres of land burned by wildfires from 1984 through 2020.”

— “California reparations task force zeroes in on who’d be eligible for compensation,” by CalMatter’s Wendy Fry: “The Reparations Task Force has been meeting throughout California to help state officials examine how slavery and systemic racism have harmed African Americans and how the state should respond. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the 2020 law creating the task force, which is expected to develop reparations proposals for the Legislature by July.”

— “These Sacramento County levees have serious damage. Why FEMA hasn't paid for them,” by The Sacramento Bee’s Gillian Brassil, Ariane Lange and Cathie Anderson: “A single Cosumnes River levee sustained $1.5 million in damage after recent winter storms tore out a hole the size of a football field. But the federal government’s emergency management has not yet agreed to give local officials the money to fix that embankment.”

— “As California’s climate heats up, Valley fever spikes — especially on Central Coast,” by The Mercury News’ Sean Cummings: “Amid a deepening climate crisis, rates of Valley fever will likely rise as hotter, drier conditions plague the state, according to a recent UC Berkeley study. And there is concern that wet weather following long dry periods — the pattern California has experienced in recent weeks — may trigger the disease to spread even more.”

BIDEN, HARRIS AND THE HILL

— “President Biden to end COVID-19 emergencies on May 11,” by The Associated Press’ Zeke Miller and Amanda Seitz: “The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal coronavirus response to treat the virus as an endemic threat to public health that can be managed through agencies’ normal authorities.”

— “Some Democrats are worried about Harris’s political prospects,” by The Washington Post’s Cleve R. Wootson Jr.: “Such concerns about Harris’s political strength were repeated often by more than a dozen Democratic leaders in key states interviewed for this story, some speaking on the condition of anonymity to convey candid thoughts.”

— “DOJ declines to release communication on Biden docs to House Judiciary,” by The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch: “‘Your letter also requests non-public information that is central to the ongoing Special Counsel investigation. The Department’s longstanding policy is to maintain the confidentiality of such information regarding open matters,’ the DOJ says in the letter obtained by The Hill.”

SILICON VALLEYLAND

— “Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents used their house to bail him out. But they rent the land from Stanford,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Kiera Feldman: “Although the couple told the court that the five-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot home is worth $3.55 million, the restrictions that come with owning a home on Stanford property make it difficult to gauge its market value via conventional means.”

MIXTAPE

— “Sheriff asks Gavin Newsom to lift death penalty ban for Goshen massacre. Arrest may be close,” by The Fresno Bee’s Thaddeus Miller.

PANDA PATROL — “Red panda climbs tree, spends six hours just outside her San Diego Zoo habitat,” by The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Karen Kucher.

— “Contraband cellphones, coded messages help Mexican Mafia operate in California prisons,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Matthew Ormseth.

— “In the city where Tyre Nichols was killed, some refuse to watch beating video that 'exploits' Black grief,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Libor Jany.

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