Fishing boats docked at the marina along the Humboldt Bay shoreline in Eureka on June 6, 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local
The California Energy Commissiontoday unanimously approved a sweeping plan to develop a massive floating offshore wind industry in ocean waters — a first-of-its-kind undertaking that will require billions in public and private investments and could transform parts of the coast.
The new state plan sets the path for harnessing wind power from hundreds of giant turbines, each as tall as a 70-story building, floating in the ocean about 20 miles off Humboldt Bay and Morro Bay. The untapped energy is expected to become a major power source as California electrifies vehicles and switches to clean energy.
California’s wind farms represent a giant experiment: No other place in the world has floating wind operations in such deep waters — more than a half-mile deep — so far from shore.
The commission’s vote today came after representatives of various industries, environmentalists, community leaders and others expressed mostly support, along with some concerns.
“I feel the urgency to move forward swiftly,’ said energy commissioner Patty Monahan. “The climate crisis is upon us. Offshore wind is a real opportunity for us to move forward with clean energy.”
She added, though, that the plan “is a starting point…There are a lot of uncertainties about environmental impacts. We need to be clear-eyed and engage the right scientific interests and move carefully.”
The five energy companies are now assessing sites within the 583 square miles, which is expected to take five years. That will be followed by about two years of design, construction and environmental and technical reviews.
Energy Commission Chairman David Hochschild recently called it “one of the single most complex processes I’ve been involved with.”
That complexity was reflected in the heft of the strategic plan, which includes three volumes and 500 pages of public comment. The breadth of the document — which involved coordination among nine state agencies — reflects the sheer size and scope of what’s being envisioned. State officials said offshore wind requires an unprecedented level of planning and policy development in California.
The offshore wind industry must be created almost from scratch: a new manufacturing base for the still-evolving technology; a robust and reliable supply chain; transportation networks on land and sea; specially configured ports to make, assemble and maintain the gargantuan seagoing platforms; finding and training a highly specialized workforce; building a large transmission network where none exists and beefing up those that operate now.
The Energy Commission’s plan estimates that just the work to upgrade California’s ports will cost $11-$12 billion, much of it publicly funded. The plan identifies the large ports of Humboldt, Long Beach and Los Angeles as viable for storing, staging and assembling parts needed for offshore wind operations.
By 2045, 16 large and 10 small ports will be needed along California’s coast for various aspects of development and support, according to the plan. “Funding and permitting for these projects are a critical challenge to address,” the plan says. An estimated $475 million would be set aside for port infrastructure in a climate bond measure that will be on the November ballot.
Another pressing challenge is transmission — the complex job of getting the power onshore and distributing it to users. The Humboldt area presents the biggest challenge, the report says, given the rural region’s already sparse transmission network.
Capturing wind energy from giant floating ocean platforms is considered essential to achieving California’s ambitious goal of electrifying its grid with 100% zero-carbon energy. The state’s blueprint envisions offshore wind farms producing 25 gigawatts by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13% of California’s electricity.
Powering an expansive economy free of fossil fuels by 2045 means the state must triple its power generation capacity and deploy new solar and wind energy at almost five times the pace of the past decade.
The endeavor will require coordination with multiple state and federal agencies, as well as local and tribal governments, with overlapping jurisdictions and sometimes conflicting priorities.
That heavy lift, said Adam Stern, executive director of Offshore Wind California, an industry group, made it all the more remarkable that the strategic plan was finalized.
“This is tangible progress. It’s a remarkable record of intent and determination,” he said. “None of these things was happening a year ago. The plan mobilized the ecosystem of state agencies, industry, organized labor, environmental groups and tribes. There are lots of challenges ahead, but this is a great start.”
The plan “is tangible progress. It’s a remarkable record of intent and determination. None of these things was happening a year ago.” — Adam Stern, Offshore Wind California
The Energy Commission missed its March deadline included in state law to approve the plan. Then the agency postponed a scheduled vote two weeks ago to give interested parties enough time to digest the dense package of documents.
The shipping industry is concerned that the plan doesn’t “address and ensure navigational safety and efficiency” for the commercial ships that serve California’s seaports. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the nation’s busiest.
“The plan lacks any effective identification and analysis of potential impacts to the commercial shipping industry,” the Pacific Marine Shipping Association wrote in a letter to the Energy Commission. “It is frankly confounding that there is resistance to include the maritime industry in this vital Plan; to be clear, the industry is not opposed to offshore wind development in practice.”
Environmental groups scoured the documents for answers to what have been unanswerable questions about offshore wind’s potential effects on marine life, migrating whales and birds, and the onshore environment.
Even state scientists have publicly noted a “data gap” when it came to understanding the impact of platforms in the sea, electrified underwater cables, huge spinning blades and increased boat traffic.
To answer those questions, the commission’s plan calls for a broad-based science consortium and a bird and bat conservation strategy, among other topics. Recreational and commercial fishing will be affected, the report says, and that will require continued research, officials say.
Some environmental groups have come to terms with the uneasy tradeoff between the need to address climate change with cleaner energy and the potential harmful impacts that come with any energy development.
Understanding that climate change is contributing to the rapid decline of bird populations means accepting some development, said Mike Lynes, director of public policy for Audubon California. “We want these projects to be successful. But we want to avoid impacts first and mitigate where we can.”
Dan Jacobson, senior adviser to the advocacy group Environment California, said he is becoming comfortable with the unknowns. “But we can’t slow down on the science and information that we need. We have to do things quickly, inexpensively and very smartly. You usually get two out of three of those things. How do we do this so that we cause the least harm and get the most good out of it?”
Assemblymember Dawn Addis, whose district includes 200 miles of the Central Coast, said it is clear to her that her constituents don’t have enough information to understand the implications of the new industry. Her 2023 bill to fund offshore wind scientific research was folded into the budget, with $3.6 million going to the state Ocean Protection Council to organize the research effort.
“Everyone’s hungry to understand the science,” said Addis, a Democrat from San Luis Obispo. “There’s still work to do to get that science into the world. This is a tremendous opportunity to study the deep ocean.”
Addis, who chairs the Legislature’s select committee on offshore wind energy, said lawmakers will analyze the strategic plan and “uncover needs that we just don’t know about yet. Getting this right is not just a slogan for me.”
Generally, the plan acknowledges environmental impacts but says that so-called “adaptive management” — flexibility to change an approach if it proves unexpectedly damaging — can address most concerns.
The projects will industrialize sections of the California coast with an indelible footprint, and could usher employment and revitalized economies to neglected regions. Nearly a fifth of Humboldt County households live in poverty.
Community groups and tribes along the North Coast, in particular, have been participating in formulating the state’s strategic plan to make sure that wind development doesn’t follow the boom-and-bust cycle of so many extractive industries, such as mining and timber. that have come and gone from the Humboldt region.
“We need to be part of the decision-making structure, to make sure that this industry delivers local community protection and investment, through legally binding and enforceable mechanism,” said Katerina Oskarsson, the executive-in-residence at CORE Hub and the Humboldt Area Foundation, part of a coalition of community groups and tribes.
“If this industry moves forward, host communities need to benefit.This is not just about jobs and economic benefit. It’s about justice beyond jobs. This needs to be transformational in a meaningful way,” she said.
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Gov. Gavin Newsom leaves the stage after addressing attendees at his inauguration for a second term at the Plaza de California in Sacramento on Jan. 6, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters
In the nearly two weeks since President Joe Biden’s catastrophic performance in a televised debate, the Democratic freakout over whether he can continue as their presumptive presidential nominee has not abated.
Even as Biden insists that he is committed to finishing out the race, speculation continues among the party faithful and political observers over who might be best positioned to defeat Republican former President Donald Trump instead. Among those frequently cited is California’s own Gov. Gavin Newsom, a dedicated Biden surrogate who recently completed a tour on the president’s behalf through Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
CalMatters spoke with political consultants and experts — veterans of California elections, swing state organizing and national campaigns — about Newsom’s prospects as a presidential contender. They largely agreed that he was extremely unlikely to become the Democratic nominee this year even if Biden ultimately withdraws, with Vice President Kamala Harris waiting in the wings, but that Newsom could be a strong candidate in the 2028 primary because of his progressive bona fides and extensive political network.
The biggest question mark: Can a California Democrat, the liberal caricature that has been a political punching bag for decades, win a presidential election? If the last eight years have taught us anything, it’s that the conventional wisdom may no longer apply.
💪 NEWSOM ASSETS
1. He’s a dynamic campaigner
Newsom’s classic good looks and charisma have always bolstered his political star power. (Never forget the infamous “New Kennedys” profile in Harper’s Bazaar in 2004, shortly after he became mayor of San Francisco.) But several observers said they were particularly impressed by how he has navigated a tough situation as a Biden surrogate over the past two weeks, defending the president on television immediately after the debate and then rallying Democratic crowds on the campaign trail.
“I don’t want to hurt him by saying this, but he’s a natural politician,” said Bob Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future and an adviser on numerous presidential campaigns, including Democratic nominees Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
“The reason Gavin gets talked about is how dynamic he is, how polished he is in terms of talking about politics and policy,” said Roger Salazar, a Democratic communications consultant who served as a spokesperson on Gore’s 2000 campaign and is a Newsom appointee to a California commission for off-road vehicle recreation. “He’s very strong on the stump and he doesn’t back down.”
It also carries potential benefits behind the scenes, ingratiating Newsom to the Democratic establishment that could clear a path for his future plans.
“Being the loyal lieutenant and not appearing too ambitious will serve him to maybe buy some goodwill and become a legitimate heir apparent,” said Jason Cabel Roe, a longtime GOP strategist in Michigan and former deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney’s presidential bid in 2007.
2. He has a growing national fundraising base
Newsom is a prolific fundraiser with experience building a war chest to boost himself and other Democrats nationally. It is one of his greatest strengths, rivaling any senator or governor who may be considering their own campaign for president, said Rose Kapolczynski, a longtime Democratic strategist working with Close the Gap California to elect more women legislators.
“He’s raised tens of millions of dollars for his own campaigns and ballot measures. He’s been an effective fundraising surrogate for Biden and others. And that’s given him the opportunity to build a national fundraising network,” Kapolczynski said. “He has a strong small donor network and he’s certainly well-known to major donors across the country.”
Newsom’s three federal committees, branded as the Campaign for Democracy, have raised $24 million for direct contributions to candidates, ad spending and more since launching in March last year, according to data from the Federal Elections Committee. Slightly more than half of that was transferred from his 2022 gubernatorial campaign.
“The more that Republicans say California is a liberal hellhole, that helps him. He wants that.” — Mike Madrid, Republican political consultant
Most of the cash comes from donors in California, the wealthiest state in the nation and the beating heart of its lucrative tech and entertainment industries, a CalMatters analysis found. But Newsom — who regularly travels the country to elevate Democrats in red states — has also expanded his reach from coast to coast.
For example, the Campaign for Democracy PAC, Newsom’s political action committee contributing to Democratic parties and candidates, raised more than $10 million by March, about $6 million of which came from his gubernatorial account. An analysis of itemized contributions from donors who gave $200 or more suggests that more than 40% of the remaining funds came from outside California, across 46 other states.
Establishing the network now also shrewdly lays the groundwork for a potential future presidential campaign, giving Newsom a financial reserve to run ads and curry favor with other Democrats, said Bud Jackson, a longtime Democratic strategist in Washington, D.C., who spearheaded TV advertising efforts to recruit Wesley Clark and Barack Obama for president.
“It sounds like they’ve got their shit together,” Jackson said.
3. He’s appealing to Democratic base voters
If Biden sticks around, the next Democratic presidential nominee will be chosen through the 2028 primaries. Those are decided by a more liberal subset of the electorate that may be drawn to a candidate like Newsom with a history of bold progressive governance — from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as mayor of San Francisco in 2004 to declaring a moratorium on executions in California not long after he entered the governor’s office in 2019.
Rather than the pocketbook appeal to the working class that propelled Bill Clinton, Democratic voters in the Trump era are searching for a leader with the proper worldview, said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant who worked on the anti-Trump Lincoln Project during the 2020 presidential campaign. Madrid believes Newsom is the frontrunner for the 2028 nomination because he has shown Democrats how to win with the cultural issues, such as abortion rights, that are most important to the party’s core supporters.
“He understands the Democratic base better than almost any Democrat of his generation, and that they are driven almost exclusively by cultural issues,” said Madrid, who worked on the campaign for one of Newsom’s gubernatorial rivals in 2018. “I think he’s a generational talent.”
And while candidates generally try to broaden their message during the general election, Madrid said the calculus for how to win has changed. In an increasingly divided electorate, where miniscule margins will decide the presidential race, energizing the base is just as important as winning over the ever-narrower slice of swing voters.
The constant attacks against Newsom and his “California values” by Trump, DeSantis and other Republicans actually benefit Newsom with the people who hate what those conservative politicians stand for, Madrid said.
“The average Democratic voter across the country is not that different from the average California Democratic voter,” he said. “The more that Republicans say California is a liberal hellhole, that helps him. He wants that.”
😬 NEWSOM LIABILITIES
1. He’s not particularly popular
The challenge for Newsom is to reach beyond that Democratic base. While only a snapshot in time, recent trends in California are not encouraging.
After surging during the pandemic and then holding a steady majority, Newsom’s approval rating among California voters has cratered over the past year. The Public Policy Institute of California found in a June survey that just 47% of likely voters in the state approved of the job the governor is doing, down from 59% a year prior.
Pollsters did not track why Newsom is underwater. He’s spent most of the year dealing with a historic budget deficit and the threat of massive cuts to important public programs.
But survey director Mark Baldassare noted that the governor’s approval has shrunk notably with independents, less a third of whom approve of him. Among independent likely voters, his approval is down to 35% from 50% a year ago. During that time, Newsom has leaned into his role as a prominent national surrogate for Democrats and come under increasing criticism from Republicans.
In a breakout of survey respondents from the most competitive California congressional districts, only 42% of likely voters approved of the job Newsom is doing. That’s lower than California voters overall — a potentially bad sign for his appeal in swing states.
“Gavin Newsom has become a more politically polarized candidate in a more politically polarized time,” Baldassare said. “That’s one thing that a governor experiences when they put themselves in the national spotlight.”
2. He’s got a tough record to defend
Nearly all the experts CalMatters spoke to agreed that California’s rising crime rates, homelessness crisis and massive budget shortfall provide potent ammunition for conservatives — and even fellow Democrats — to target Newsom during a presidential campaign.
“There’s just so many things that are going wrong in the state, and he owns all of them. He is identified with all of them,” said Roe, the GOP strategist from Michigan.
Voters in California are increasingly frustrated with the state’s rising violent and property crime rates in recent years, although they remain lower than in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
The sentiment fueled support for a ballot measure this November to partially undo Proposition 47 — a decade-old state law approved by voters — by toughening penalties for retail thefts and drug offenses. Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders balked at the measure but eventually backed down amid broken negotiations and failed attempts to put a rival proposal on the ballot.
“His entire career, he just kind of walks into each office. So he’s got a glass jaw.” — Jason Cabel Roe, deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney’s 2007 presidential bid
To change the narrative, Jackson said Newsom must “sidestep” these weaknesses while pointing to other accomplishments.
“He can say, ‘The economy has been in a rough spot, inflation is very high, these are things that I can’t completely control,’” Jackson said.
Iin part to dampen public concerns about homelessness, Newsom championed Proposition 1 — a mental health bond measure he said would help tackle homelessness — which passed by razor-thin margins in the March primary. And in a friend-of-the-court brief, he also asked the Supreme Court to grant cities more authority to clear encampments. The court’s conservative majority last month obliged, to the outrage of the court’s liberal justices.
When it comes to crime and homelessness, Salazar said, Newsom could point to “major cities in red states” with “the exact same issues.”
3. His appeal to swing state voters is unknown
California Democrats brag about being on the political cutting edge, but their proudly progressive values also make them an object of ridicule. When Rep. Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, Republicans used her San Francisco hometown as a cudgel in ads against members of her caucus. Former Gov. Jerry Brown earned the nickname “Governor Moonbeam” on the way to one of three unsuccessful presidential bids.
California’s luster appears to be dimming even further as Newsom’s star rises. A Los Angeles Times poll in February found that half of American adults believe California is in decline, and nearly half of Republicans said California was not American.
“For better or worse, that’s not something that’s going to play all too well in other parts of the country,” said Dan Schnur, who served as the national communications director for John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign and now teaches politics courses at UC Berkeley, Pepperdine University and the University of Southern California.
“If he were the smart, personable, aggressive and mediagenic governor of Wisconsin, he’d be unstoppable.”
Jonathan Kinloch, a Michigan Democratic Party official in Detroit and a Biden delegate, saidmany voters outside of California perceive the state as the “socialist center” of America and Newsom would have to answer their concerns about its tax and environmental policies.
“When you talk about left, California is far left and…is willing to tax itself out of existence,” Kinloch said.
Newsom would also need to figure out a stronger message with nonwhite working-class voters who could carry him over the top in swing states, said Madrid, the GOP consultant. These voters care more about economic issues and have consequently been drifting away from the Democratic Party in recent elections.
“The pathway to the middle class in California is among the least attainable,” Madrid argued. “The record in California is not great. Is it fixable? It is. But he’s going to need time to get there.”
Schnur said running in a presidential primary — when Newsom can lean on liberal issues that play to his strengths, such as abortion rights and climate change — would give voters more time to get to know him and become comfortable with him.
“In a general election, the landscape is going to be much less hospitable,” Schnur said. “But in a primary, it’s easier for him to change the subject.”
But being from a blue state, Newsom lacks experience in competitive races. That could put him at a disadvantage compared to other politicians — such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — who have also been floated as future presidential contenders.
“His entire career, he just kind of walks into each office,” Roe, the Michigan Republican consultant, said. “So he’s got a glass jaw.”
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
California’s report on the state’s own financial health is tardy again. The state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters
California — a state whose officials love to tout it as the world’s fifth largest economy — is a year late in producing a report on its own financial health for the sixth year in a row.
The most recently available such report, from 2022, blamed the chronic lateness of the reports on, among other things, a state software changeover that started in 2005, the year the first YouTube video was uploaded.
The state’s annual comprehensive financial report, which aims to provide insight into California’s financial health, is significant because it helps maintainthe state’s credit rating, which is important in situations where the state might need to borrow money.
While there isn’t a specific deadline for the reports under state law, bond certificates and federal funding require reporting by April 1 and March 31, respectively. State Controller Malia Cohen’s office said it typically tries to meet the March 31 deadline.
This is the sixth consecutive year that the report missed those deadlines. The last available report is for the fiscal year that ended in 2022, published this past March.
Cohen’s office attributed the delay of the 2021-2022 report to the “unanticipated” extension of personal and corporate income taxes by both the federal government and California in 2023, as well as to ongoing challenges with agencies’ transition to FI$Cal, the state’s replacement budgeting and finance platform.California launched the FI$Cal overhaul in 2005 to bring all of its budgeting and finance systems under one umbrella. If FI$Cal were a person, it would now be old enough to vote. The Legislature passed a bill to deem the project complete as of July 2022, but the state auditor noted that state agencies struggle to use the system.In the 2022 report, the state auditor raised concerns that continued delays could affect California’s ability to maintain a high credit rating and borrow money at low interest.
But the controller’s office told CalMatters via email that the reporting delays haven’t harmed California’s bond ratings yet due to the “availability of data from a number of other sources describing California’s financial position and ability to meet its bond obligations.”
Cohen, who took the helm as controller last year, pledged in the 2022 report published in March of this year to get the reports on track by March 2026.
The statement from her office said she “has taken substantial measures to mitigate the root causes” of delays, including streamlining processes and optimizing technology.
The state also allocated more resources to the controller’s office in the 2023-24 budget to address workload and provide state departments with technical assistance.
“These efforts are part of a comprehensive plan to return the State to timely reporting over the next several reporting cycles,” the email from the controller’s office said.
In April, a report from the Illinois-based government transparency group Truth in Accounting ranked California 48th in financial transparency, based on a mix of factors including the state auditor’s opinion and the timeliness of reports.
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Tucked between headline-grabbing opinions on presidential immunity, Jan. 6 rioters and homeless encampments, the U.S. Supreme Court closed out a momentous session late last month with a series of body blows to the federal bureaucracy.
Under three back-to-back rulings, regulations that touch nearly every aspect of the American economy and American life (see: rules on food safety, water quality, overtime pay, medical billing, carbon emissions, fisheries monitoring and housing discrimination, to name a few) may soon be harder to enforce, more convenient to challenge in court and easier to strike down once challenged. For the conservative legal movement and for major business interests who bristle under what they see as an overreaching federal regulatory apparatus, the rulings mark a once-in-a-generation victory against the “administrative state.”
But in California, the effects of those rulings may be a bit more muted, legal experts say. California has an administrative state of its own.
From worker safeguards to water regulations to LGBTQ-protections on college campuses, the rules enforced by California state agencies often meet and exceed the stringency of their federal counterparts. If judges begin swatting down federal regulations as a result of the recent decisions, California’s own rules could serve as a regulatory backup.
For critics of the court’s recent decisions, that’s some consolation.
“California is, in a way, better situated than some other states because it is big enough and it has enough expertise in state government to actually provide state law protections that can kind of compensate for weakened federal ones,” said Sean Donahue, a lawyer who represents the Environmental Defense Fund. “That may not be true in some smaller states.”
California has plenty of practice playing the role of Blue State bulwark against federal regulatory shifts to the right. During the Trump administration, the state’s Democratic leaders beefed up many state rules in the face of real or anticipated rollbacks out of Washington.
But as the state discovered then, there is a limit to how far California can go its own way. Many federal statutes explicitly prohibit states from overriding them. Such federal preemption has been decreed by the courts in other cases.
“Sometimes yes, California can go on its own,” said Ashutosh Bhagwat, an administrative law professor at UC Davis. “Sometimes it absolutely can’t, and sometimes it’s complicated.”
Three rulings against the bureaucracy
In what may be the most consequential of the session’s three regulatory rulings, the court’s conservative majority swept aside a 40-year-old judicial rule of thumb, known as “Chevron deference.”
The concept, named for the 1984 case that spawned it, required judges to defer to a federal regulator’s interpretation of how to implement a Congressional statute. In a high school civics class version of government, Congress passes the laws and the executive branch, with the President sitting at the top, simply enforces them. But enforcement is rarely simple. Congressional laws can be vague or fail to anticipate every eventuality, technological development or unforeseen problem. Since the New Deal, the federal government’s powers and responsibilities have expanded and grown more complex.
Chevron deference is the notion that if a statute is ambiguous and an agency’s interpretation is reasonable on its face, courts should let the bureaucracy call the shots.
No more.
In his opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that courts may “respect” federal agency expertise, but cannot automatically defer to it. “Agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do,” he wrote. The upshot: Regulated industries now have a better shot at successfully challenging the federal rules that govern them.
Building on the theme of putting a leash on federal bureaucrats, the majority also ruled against the Securities and Exchange Commission and put new limits on when agencies can use in-house administrative courts to levy fines, instead requiring agencies to take alleged rulebreakers to court.
In a third opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that the six-year statute of limitations for when an aggrieved business can challenge a federal regulation starts ticking whenever that suing party is first affected by the rule. Financial regulators in that case had argued that the shot clock starts when the rule itself is enacted, giving regulations a degree of finality once that time expires.
All three rulings were decided 6-3, with the court’s conservatives in the majority.
Climate change regulations especially vulnerable
In her dissent in the statute of limitations case, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, warned that together with the end of Chevron deference, the court’s rulings would unleash a “tsunami of lawsuits against agencies” with the “potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.”
Legal experts are still debating just how consequential these rulings will be. Granting less flexibility to federal regulators and opening them up to the threat of indefinite legal challenge from regulated industries implicates an unknowably vast universe of rules. But no one knows which rules are most vulnerable until they wind up in court.
“We’ll probably see now a wave of litigation challenging regulations that many had thought of as being long-settled, and how that shakes out in terms of its application to California businesses and California residents and consumers, we just don’t know,” said Julia Stein, an environmental law professor at UCLA.
Climate change regulations may be especially ripe for challenge. Lacking much actual legislation on the subject from Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency has resorted to creative interpretations of old environmental statutes, like the 1970 Clean Air Act, to justify its rules governing greenhouse gas emissions.
Such creativity may no longer fly, at least with conservative judges.
“Agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.” — John Roberts, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
Federal regulators are “kind of hamstrung in the ability to take innovative approaches,” Stein said, now that the Chevron decision is history. “States, like California, are going to try to make up for that on the back end through their own authority and regulatory power, but it won’t be nearly as effective as if both those entities were working together.”
When a state can set its own rules isn’t always clear. Almost 60 years ago, Congress granted California the authority to set its own emission standards for vehicles. But a California mandate requiring major truck manufacturers to ramp up the sale of zero-emission vehicles might be an early test case, since experts are divided as to whether an interpretation of the Clean Air Act properly allows for such a law.
California, above and beyond
There are areas of the regulatory universe where California law clearly can, and often does, go far above what the feds require.
Labor law is one example.
Most California workplace laws are more protective of employees than federal rules. Not only is the state’s $16 minimum wage more than double that required nationwide, the state also maintains and enforces its own rules on overtime pay, independent contractor status, workplace discrimination and workplace safety.
Most recently, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a rule requiring employers to protect workers from heat illness. California’s own workplace safety agency has had such a rule in place since 2005 for outdoor workers and is expanding it to those working indoors this year.
Those rules will stand regardless of legal challenges at the federal level.
“California is, in a way, better situated than some other states.” — Sean Donahue , Lawyer, Environmental Defense Fund
Such challenges are already on the way elsewhere. The same day the high court snagged final say over rulemaking from federal agencies, a Texas judge cited the Chevron-ending decision in putting a new Biden administration overtime rule on hold for state employees.
A long established stereotype of California would suggest that lawmakers here are already ideologically predisposed to out-red tape Washington. But many of California’s supercharged state rules are of recent vintage, born out of resistance to the Trump administration.
In 2019, then-California state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson authored a handful of laws to put the federal rules that govern gender discrimination in schools and universities into state statute. That was in anticipation of controversial changes to Title IX, a 1972 civil rights law, proposed by the Trump administration.
Federal education regulators have mined Title IX’s mere 37 words to justify regulations on everything from school sports to sexual assault reporting standards to scholarships.
But that blue state playbook didn’t always go as planned.
In 2019, San Diego Sen. Toni Atkins, then the top Democrat in the state Senate, authored a bill to anti-Trump “backstop, essentially copy-and-pasting the more stringent federal environmental and workplace rules from the Obama era onto the state’s books. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed that bill, calling it “a solution in search of a problem.”
California: A vision of life after Chevron?
The raft of rulings were momentous, but not especially surprising to many court watchers. The Supreme Court had been either ignoring or actively chipping away at Chevron deference for years.
That has some legal experts, even self-described liberals, skeptical that the final effect will be as dramatic as the Supreme Court’s liberal dissenters and many alarmed commentators have suggested.
“The major clean water and clean air acts were passed in the ‘70s, long before Chevron,” said Bhagwat at UC Davis. “There was administrative law before that. So, the idea that you can’t have administrative law without Chevron is stupid.”
Ironically, anyone looking to see what a post-Chevron world might look like could turn to California. State courts never adopted a Chevron-like rule in reviewing regulations. Instead, they’ve taken a more holistic approach, in which agency interpretations might be granted more weight when they’ve been consistent over time and are based on its own area of expertise. That, in effect, is pretty similar to the new rules of the federal road laid out last month by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“So when people say, ‘Oh, this is kind of the end of the world, abolishing Chevron,’ it’s like, well, it hasn’t been the end of the world in California,” said Keith Bishop, a partner with the law firm Allen Matkins who used to work as a California state financial regulator. “At least, not yet.”
“The law doesn’t matter that much anymore.” — Ashutosh Bhagwat, law professor, UC Davis
Still, there are reasons to believe that certain courts outside of California will be keener to uproot regulations than they have been in California. That isn’t a result of differences in legal doctrine between courts, but of political philosophy, said David Carpenter, an appellate lawyer and partner at the law firm Sidley.
“In California, there would be a view that courts are going to be relatively more inclined to abide by or to follow or consider or give weight or respect to agency interpretations,” he said. “Depending on what jurisdiction the challenge is raised in, you might expect more hostility between the federal court and whichever administration is in power.”
Bhagwat shares the view that the outcome of a regulatory challenge will depend largely on the ideology of a given judge or court. That has led him to offer a less dramatic forecast of the law after this year’s spate of anti-regulatory rulings. “They were ignoring Chevron anyway,” he said. But it has led him to a much more dramatic and darker view of the law in general.
“We’re seeing the judiciary starting to reflect the polarization generally in American society,” he said. “There’s this sort of brutal reality on the ground, which is that the law doesn’t matter that much anymore.”
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Rachel Becker and Jeanne Kuang contributed reporting to this story.
CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Aaron Abbott went
onto his spiritual journey on June 30, 2024, in Eureka at the age of
32. Aaron was born in Nevada to Aaron and Nancy Abbott, and
eventually the family relocated to Humboldt County. Aaron was a
Yurok tribal member and the grandson of Charles “Bill” Abbott,
who was the original member and creator of the transition team that
helped establish the Yurok Tribe.
Throughout
highschool, he enjoyed sports, especially football. Shortly after
high school, Aaron began working for UPS, where he maintained his
career and enjoyed his financial stability to care for his son and
enjoy his extracurricular activities with friends and family.
Aaron was a
wonderful and loving father to his son, Weston Abbott.
He is survived by
his grandmother Sue Henderson, father, Aaron Abbott Sr.; his brother,
Warren; his sister, Jessica; and his beloved nieces and nephews,
aunts Charlene Abbott-White, Bonnie Zinda, Karen Marshall, Karen
Blake~Reed, uncles Charles and Kyle Abbott and several cousins and
relatives and of course his girlfriend Jenia, whom he adored and cared
for. Aaron was preceded in death by his mother, Nancy Abbott, grandpa
Charles “Bill” Abbott, great-grandmother Mae Abbott, grandfather
Jerry Henderson.
Aaron was an
amazing human being, full of charisma and positive energy, who
impacted many lives. He loved to dance and was a highly motivated
individual. He was a friend to many, a loving father, a wonderful
brother, son, grandson, nephew, and cousin. Aaron will be greatly
missed by all who knew and loved him.
The service will
be held tomorrow, July 10, 2024, at 12 noon at the Awok Bonny Green
Facility, located at 3400 Erie St, Eureka, CA 95501.
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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Aaron Abbot’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.
The Eureka Symphony’s new 2024-2025 season will present not just an exciting new lineup of musical performances and special guests, but also a new general manager.
Nancy Stephenson, a long-time local community organizer, brings 45 years of experience collaborating with Humboldt County artists, musicians, businesses, nonprofits and local government agencies. Most recently with the Redwood Coast Energy Authority for six years as their Community Strategies Manager, Stephenson also coordinated the Arcata Bay Oyster Festival and all of Arcata Main Street’s programs.
Her passion for event planning, fundraising, marketing and outreach earned her a Humboldt Heroes Award in 2006. Others know her as a goldsmith, jewelry designer, graphic artist and photographer. Her enthusiasm, diverse skills, community relationships, and willingness to accept new challenges make her a good match for the Eureka Symphony and its future.
The Board of Directors conducted an extensive search and was impressed by Nancy’s diverse skill set, history of community engagement and passion for promoting the arts,” said Board President Keenan Pool. “With Nancy’s capacity for leading an organization and Carol’s artistic vision, we could not be more excited for the future of the Eureka Symphony.”
Please reach out to Nancy if you would like to chat, have a question, or perhaps volunteer or donate.
“Listening to live symphonic music immerses us in a personal journey that’s shaped by our individual perspectives and frame of mind, but we experience it alongside hundreds of others in the audience that we don’t even know. These experiences can have a bonding effect and may bring us closer as a community - enriched, inspired, and full of hope,” said Stephenson. “I want to nourish that potential. I’m honored to be able to work with Carol Jacobson, Eureka Symphony’s Artistic Director and Conductor, the distinguished Board of Directors, the experienced and devoted staff, volunteers, donors and sponsors and of course the musicians who make this all possible. We’ll be exploring new ways to bring this local treasure to a broader audience and be a catalyst for future generations.”
Both Stephenson and Jacobson feel they have struck a chord together. “We are so thrilled to have Nancy on board with the Symphony. I am personally looking forward to working on exciting new ideas and projects with her,” Jacobson said.
The Eureka Symphony holds two major fundraising events each year. The next one, “Prelude to the Season Gala,” will take place on September 29 to kick off the 2024-2025 season. Ticket holders will enjoy the Temporary Resonance Trio (Terrie Baune, violin; John Chernoff, piano; and Carol Jacobson, cello), hors d’oeuvres by Brett Shuler Fine Catering, wine, and Claire Bent with her ukulele. Mike McGuire will host a live auction.
The Eureka Symphony, a community orchestra founded in 1991, performs five concert sets each season, with music performed by hundreds of community members, often joined by special guest artists from around the world.
For information about performances, events, tickets, or financial support, go to eurekasymphony.org.
The Shelly Fire in Siskiyou County has nearly doubled in size since yesterday, spreading north and east over 6,216 acres as of this morning’s report. It is still zero percent contained.
Smoke forecasts today predict that areas in Humboldt might see air quality impacts from the fire. The government website AirNow fire and smoke map reports moderate air quality in eastern Humboldt, while a National Weather Service forecast shows smoke blowing across the county.
Reached by phone, Debra Harris, Burn Program & Wildfire Response Coordinator at the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District, said that smoke is most likely to reach the Highway 96 corridor and nearby river drainages, based on current weather conditions and the fire’s activity and proximity.
“At this point I don’t anticipate smoke impact making it to the coast,” Harris said. The North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District is keeping a close eye on the situation and will likely issue a general info advisory soon, she added.
In the meantime, it’s not a bad idea to prepare for smoke, Harris said. She suggested designating a clean air room in your house, setting aside water and making a plan for pets.
“[It’s] always a plus when you can prepare ahead,” Harris said.
