Gov. Gavin Newsom is at a crossroads on climate action and environmental justice

When it comes to environmental and climate justice, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s grades are slipping. After some promising steps in his first year as governor, the governor is backsliding on climate and environmental justice, despite record-shattering heatwaves, a historic wildfire season and a pandemic even more deadly to those living in polluted and historically redlined neighborhoods.

As he prepares to unveil his 2021 priorities during his annual State of the State address, Newsom is at a critical juncture to demonstrate the leadership we require in the face of intersecting crises. But instead of building his climate and environmental justice reputation, Newsom’s administration has sided with fossil fuel interests over protecting the public health of Californians.

Greenpeace USA recently released an evaluation of Newsom’s actions on climate and environmental justice during 2020 — a year marked by delays in public health rules, an increase in new oil and gas drilling permits and the systemic dysfunction of a critical regulatory agency. We concluded that not only did the governor earn low marks, but his grades have gotten markedly worse in the past year.

In 2020, our governor remained silent as his regulatory agency, CalGEM, lifted his own temporary fracking moratorium and issued more fracking permits at the behest of fossil fuel lobbyists like Jason Kinney. It also doubled new oil and gas drilling permits, locking in future production for oil we can’t afford to burn.

Simultaneously, Newsom failed to direct his administration to take swift action on public health protections for communities living near drilling — something he could have achieved by mandating a 2,500-foot buffer zone between cancer-causing oil and gas extraction sites and homes, schools and hospitals. For Black, brown, Indigenous and working class communities living in the shadows of oil fields from Los Angeles to Kern County, these changes cannot come fast enough. The compounding COVID-19 crisis makes this threat all the more real and dangerous.

Yet Newsom has stood by while administrative agencies continue to drag their feet on a public health rule-making process that has taken more than 400 days and failed to produce even a draft plan.

On New Year’s Eve, Newsom’s administration ended a year of inaction and delay by issuing a round of new fracking permits and pushing back the deadline on the already-delayed rule-making process to protect frontline communities from harmful oil extraction — walking back his own executive order which committed to producing a draft plan by the end of 2020.

Make no mistake: Newsom has the authority to take immediate steps to repair the harms of the fossil fuel industry and build a more just and healthy future from our intersecting crises. He has the authority to stop his administration from issuing new drilling permits, to direct his agency to require a 2,500-foot public health setback and begin a just transition for workers and communities impacted by the oil and gas industry. The responsibility to do so is ultimately his. And as he moves into the second half of his gubernatorial term, he can seize this moment to commit to all of these actions.

After all, Newsom will no longer be battling a hostile presidential administration, but instead working together with an administration that has promised to advance environmental justice.

In December, then President-elect Joe Biden made the executive decision to pass over former California Air Resources Board chairperson Mary Nichols for the EPA administrator role after a groundswell of climate and environmental justice organizations including Greenpeace expressed our concerns over Nichols’ problematic track record with disregarding the environmental justice impacts of her policies. President Biden subsequently announced an important first step toward ending the expansion of fossil fuels by halting new fossil fuel leasing on public lands. With these promising early actions, Biden has demonstrated a readiness to prioritize climate and environmental justice during his term in office. Is Newsom willing to do the same?

California is at a crossroads and as we enter 2021 the governor must decide whose priorities he will serve. Now more than ever, he would do well to listen to the climate and environmental justice movement rather than doing favors for his lobbyist and industry friends at the expense of communities, public health and the planet.

Newsom must confront the growing climate emergency which, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, disproportionately impacts working class communities of color already suffering from harmful air pollution. Scientists are telling us we need to stop fossil fuel production now in order to stop the worst effects of this crisis in the next ten years. With the shrinking time frame we have left before the next great ecological catastrophe, we cannot afford for Newsom’s actions — or lack thereof — to continue to fuel the problem.

2020 was a monumentally difficult year for many Californians. From heat waves and historic wildfires, to a global pandemic and the loss of loved ones and livelihoods, to fighting to protect Black lives from police violence, it’s reminded us that we can’t afford more delay. It’s also a year that has forced us to choose the kind of people we want to be and the kind of future we’ll build together.

We must demand the same of our leaders, and Newsom is no exception.