Gov. Gavin Newsom’s climate change orders reflect panic, will cost California families

When you impose rushed changes in energy policy, as Gov. Gavin Newsom did this week, you will drive up the cost of living in a state that already has the highest energy costs in the nation and put even more people out of work. This is a fact.

Electricity bills and gas prices will increase. Groceries will get more expensive because supply chains become more costly. Those who must drive to work or school will find fuel more expensive.

Gov. Newsom made it clear he expects every single Californian to make big economic changes, shoulder more of the global climate burden and take even more action at their own expense to make almost insignificant tangible change to the world’s climate. His executive orders don’t increase the state’s resiliency against wildfires, but they do attack every Californian who drives to work or relies on a fire truck being able to make it to an emergency.

The women and men of our industry share the governor’s values in protecting California’s environment and Californians’ anxiety over extreme weather and blackouts. We feel the same sense of urgency as all Californians and we are working on these challenges every day.

It’s why we’re focused on innovative ideas like carbon capture projects that have the ability to eliminate emissions equivalent to removing more than 250,000 passenger vehicles from the road every year that are based on sound science and facts — not on fears, hopes and policies that count on murky, aspirational expectations of non-existent or new technology being cheaper and more reliable in the future.

While the governor prioritizes anxieties over localized diverse energy solutions and innovation, he ignores a realistic view of the impact government actions have on our jobs in 2020. Not enough is being said about how many more people will be put out of work because of these changes. We need leaders to speak boldly about how rushed energy policies further destabilize our economy at exactly the same time that we’re trying to come back from the economic devastation caused by COVID-19.

Forcing Californians — no matter their income or where they live — into expensive electric vehicles whose subsidies are a wealth transfer in the wrong direction is not the answer. Proudly speaking of vehicles affordable only to California’s wealthiest citizens without speaking openly of the pain California families feel right now demonstrates a complete lack of awareness. When you refuse to speak of the real cost of current electric cars — they cost about $18,000 more than a gas-fueled new car – or acknowledge that they’re out of reach for most middle-income Californians, you’re missing the realities most Californians face daily.

Californians need affordable energy, transportation and infrastructure. Beverly Hills and San Francisco will, of course, have plenty of battery stations. But will communities like Delano and Bellflower have enough of them? When we read in the orders that the state is “making sure the lower income communities have more bike paths, buses and pedestrian lanes,” it’s the state picking winners and losers in terms of who deserves to drive cars. These promises don’t help guarantee Californians can get to work – if they can find work.

When we rush flawed energy policy, we lose energy independence and give foreign nations control over our basic needs. California will effectively be delegating global environmental leadership to these countries under these orders.

When government issues any mandate that Californians purchase only electric cars and trucks, even though the infrastructure to support them is nowhere near ready and many Californians can’t afford them, it denies reality. A diverse energy supply is needed to increase resiliency when you have extreme weather events. Making us 100% dependent on electricity a few weeks after unplanned and planned rolling blackouts doesn’t put the best interest of Californians first.

Finally, when you completely surrender to panic, and dismiss the science and data that have long governed our approach to environmental and energy policy, it only does one thing: it sets California back, increases income inequality and damages an already fragile economy. The economy and our climate-centric environmental policies can work in harmony, but not with one-off executive orders that fail to meet the current reality.

Our industry and the energy we provide will be a part of any solution for years to come. Californians can depend on us.

This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Gov. Gavin Newsom’s climate change orders reflect panic, will cost California families."