For a self-appointed climate warrior, California Gov. Gavin Newsom sure loves cars

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s determination to directly subsidize automobile ownership and gasoline consumption may be glaringly at odds with his displays of climate consciousness, but he appears as committed to his course as a speeding sport utility vehicle.

Newsom’s fellow Democrats in the Legislature have made repeated efforts to flag him down, floating more environmentally and fiscally defensible inflation relief plans that would decouple the aid from cars and really rich people, two resources of which California has no shortage. But the governor’s plan to send money to drivers remained, to use a Newsomism, iterative: In presenting a revised and newly flush state budget proposal Friday, he repeated his intention of providing $400 for each vehicle registered in California, up to two cars per person, which is supposed to cover about a year’s worth of gas taxes.

This is the same governor who vowed to phase out the internal combustion engine — though, you know, later.

Since Newsom first emitted roughly the same $11 billion proposal in March, Democratic legislative leaders have rightly questioned limiting relief to gas prices, providing it regardless of income and tying it to vehicles. The governor’s latest iteration of his proposal didn’t seem to have changed their thinking. State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, observed coolly that while some of Newsom’s proposals are “parallel to ours,” others “will require negotiation.”

The California Budget & Policy Center’s Chris Hoene was more blunt, noting that “moving forward with the proposal to provide rebates to households based on vehicle registration — knowing it will exclude many Californians who need help and include wealthy Californians who do not need the aid — only reinforces California’s widening income and wealth gap.” The same inequality is evident in the massive budget surplus Newsom and lawmakers are preparing to spend, reflecting the prosperity of the wealthy in a state with the nation’s highest poverty rate.

The governor and lawmakers appear to be in the same jam they were in two months ago, which could keep any checks from arriving until as late as the fall. That would make this look even less like an urgent response to the immediate needs of struggling families. But it could be perfectly timed for Newsom to run up his reelection numbers in November.