California’s Democratic legislators are redefining climate denialism with their inaction

As Gov. Gavin Newsom signs or vetoes hundreds of bills that emerged from the Legislature this year, one proposal is notably absent: the California Climate Crisis Act. It’s not an anomaly, either. This year, at least 16 climate-related bills were either killed or pushed back to 2022.

California has failed to pass a meaningful climate bill since 2018, when the Legislature committed to achieving 100% renewable energy by the middle of the century. Since then, industry interests have consistently gutted climate ambitions while intensifying megafires, extreme heat and the far-reaching impacts of a historic drought ravage the state.

Assembly Bill 1395, authored by Los Angeles area Assembly members Al Muratsuchi and Cristina Garcia, should not have been controversial. It would have codified greenhouse gas reduction goals established under former Gov. Jerry Brown and made them an enforceable law to help California achieve carbon neutrality before 2045.

It was the sort of environmental action bill that California brags about proposing but rarely passes anymore. Granted, it was not perfect, and there was a sharp divide over the role of carbon capture in reaching net zero emissions. But our warming planet is well past the point where we can keep holding out for perfection at the expense of progress.

Unfortunately, like dozens of others, AB 1395 fell victim to powerful lobbyists, influential trade groups and legislators who only pay lip service to fighting climate change.

In a 40-member state Senate with 31 supposedly environmentalist Democrats, AB 1395 somehow garnered only 14 votes. Industry-friendly Senate Republicans voted in lockstep against it, and three Democrats — Anna Caballero of Salinas, Bill Dodd of Napa and Melissa Hurtado of Fresno — joined them. Fourteen others, including Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg of Los Angeles and Sacramento’s own Dr. Richard Pan, outrageously failed to vote at all.

The state Legislature is full of climate cowards — elected leaders who feign empathy for victims of global-warming-worsened natural disasters and make empty promises to act. Yet when the opportunity arises, they bend to the will of groups like the Western States Petroleum Association, the California State Council of Laborers and a litany of trade, building and agriculture councils.

The state’s elected representatives are so widely swayed by interest groups that they repeatedly bog down bills in opaque legislative procedures — or kill them brazenly and openly, as they did in this case.

Is this really how the party that claims to believe in science operates? The latest international pledges to cut emissions aren’t enough to avert the most catastrophic climate change, the United Nations said Friday. We need bold action and fast, ahead of the already outdated 2045 goals, yet California Democrats are showing little sense of urgency.

Of course, the corrosive influence of corporate dollars cannot be overlooked. In an unflinching op-ed published in The Bee last month, California League of Conservation Voters CEO Mary Creasman wrote that Hertzberg, Energy Committee Chair Ben Hueso and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins of San Diego have collectively “raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from oil and gas interests over their careers” and protected the fossil fuel industry.

“Atkins failed to make the climate crisis a priority as the chamber’s leader, and her committee assignments gave Big Oil a bigger voice in policy making, appointing Hueso, Hertzberg and other oil allies to influential positions in the Senate,” Creasman wrote. “Hueso and Hertzberg then used this power to obstruct crucial legislation to keep drilling pollution away from marginalized neighborhoods and to phase out production of oil and gas.”

Even though Atkins was one of the 14 supporting votes for AB 1395, by that point it was little more than a symbolic gesture.

Rather than taking a step forward on legislation that could be revisited and adjusted, the Legislature has developed a habit of forgoing climate action altogether.

If it were not for Newsom’s executive actions, including phasing out oil extraction, expediting clean energy projects and promising to shift to zero-emission cars in less than 15 years, California would have little to show for its ostensible concern about the climate. And despite such positive steps, Newsom has also deepened our reliance on fossil fuels to manage the state’s increased energy demands during record-breaking heat waves.

The UN secretary general called the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report a “code red for humanity.” California needs leadership in the Senate and Assembly that takes that seriously and forces industries to take the necessary steps to adapt, not protect their bottom lines.

When California committed to 100% renewable energy by 2045, 24 states and Washington D.C. followed. When California started requiring car companies to sell more zero-emission vehicles, at least 13 states enacted the same mandate.

California used to set the national example for protecting the environment, but this generation of Capitol leadership seems more interested in lining their pockets at the expense of younger generations. Democratic legislators are redefining climate denialism with their inaction.