Oil companies are making a cash splash to back Xavier Becerra in the final stretch of California\u2019s race for governor. And Tom Steyer wants you to know it.<\/p>\n
Chevron\u2019s contribution early in the campaign to Steyer\u2019s top primary opponent, Becerra, was already a controversial wedge issue<\/a>. Then this month, California Resources Corporation, the state\u2019s largest oil and gas producer, contributed $500,000 to an independent committee backing Becerra. Chevron did the same last week.<\/p>\n That gave Steyer, a billionaire climate activist who has pledged not to accept fossil fuel industry cash, a fresh opening to hammer the issue.<\/p>\n In the past week, his campaign has dispatched trucks mounted with billboards describing Becerra as being \u201cfueled by Chevron,\u201d labeled the former Biden administration cabinet secretary as \u201cBig Oil Becerra\u201d in press releases and run a new ad<\/a> criticizing Becerra for receiving oil money support.<\/p>\n The messaging underscores Steyer\u2019s increasingly fervent efforts, as he confronts public polling showing Becerra opening a lead<\/a>, to yank the conversation back to the environmental issues he\u2019s built his reputation on over the past decade. Never mind the fact that the oil cash represents a small share of the monumental spending in the race.<\/p>\n Becerra said in an interview that he sees Steyer\u2019s criticisms as hypocritical, given that the former financier has self-funded his campaign<\/a> using the enormous fortune that he accumulated, in-part, via investments in fossil fuel companies<\/a>. And he bristles at the suggestion that he\u2019s an oil industry ally.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not only an environmentalist, but I\u2019ve been one of the most aggressive and one of the most productive environmentalists in the country,\u201d Becerra said.<\/p>\n During his tenure as California Attorney General amid President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, Becerra sued the Trump administration over rollbacks to clean car standards<\/a>, successfully challenged an oil company acquisition<\/a> on antitrust grounds and established a Bureau of Environmental Justice.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m a far better environmentalist and champion against the fossil fuel industry than [Steyer],\u201d Becerra said.<\/p>\n Many California environmentalists don\u2019t share that conviction, illustrated by the fact that influential green groups including the Sierra Club, NRDC Action Fund and the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund endorsed Steyer over Becerra.<\/p>\n \u201cBecerra\u2019s record is mixed,\u201d Karuna Jaggar, CBD Action Fund\u2019s California political director, said in an interview, adding that she wishes he had more aggressively pursued oil companies during his tenure as attorney general.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a perception that Steyer has been trying to stoke in the final days of the primary campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that California in 2026 could elect a governor who\u2019s supported by oil companies \u2026 seems to me to be hard to believe,\u201d Steyer said Wednesday during a press conference. \u201cGoing backwards to the 1950s, and to fossil fuels, and to pollution, and to ignoring the climate crisis, that doesn\u2019t make any sense for the state of California.\u201d<\/p>\n Fossil fuel companies have made it clear with their spending that they fear a Steyer governorship more than a Becerra victory.<\/p>\n One leader from the oil and gas industry, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, highlighted an early-May debate during which the candidates were asked if they would sign a bill to increase oil production in Kern County and the Central Valley.<\/p>\n Steyer said no.<\/p>\n \u201cVersus importing? Yes,\u201d Becerra said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s really kind of the threshold issue for [our] industry,\u201d the source said in an interview. \u201cIs your campaign looking to push workers out of Kern County and [send] those jobs 9,000 miles away, or are you going to help retain industry?\u201d<\/p>\n Becerra is also signalling flexibility on the guillotine hanging over California oil firms: the state\u2019s 2045 goal to phase out fossil fuels.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should absolutely have ambitious goals to phase out fossil fuels \u2026 it\u2019s just, what will our pace be?\u201d Becerra said in an interview. \u201cCan we make the 2045 goal? Sure would like to, but I\u2019m not going to hang up our economy and families\u2019 cost of living if we find that we\u2019re not able to meet that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n As primary day approaches, Steyer has leveraged his track record of green advocacy and objection to new oil drilling in the state to consolidate support from climate groups. But in the end, both candidates are angling to win over a broad swath of the electorate, not just climate-focused voters.<\/p>\n And polling from the California Democratic Party<\/a> shows that since Becerra made his semi-viral comment during an April interview<\/a> that \u201cyou need Chevron, I need Chevron,\u201d emphasizing the state\u2019s continued reliance on gasoline vehicles, he has risen from a tie with Steyer to become the Democratic frontrunner.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that you\u2019re seeing Becerra continue to lead, if not grow his lead \u2026 I think is arguably evidence that Californians are concerned about affordability and they do understand where their fuel comes from that they rely upon,\u201d Rob Stutzman, a veteran conservative strategist who has worked with the oil industry, said in an interview. \u201cCompanies like Chevron and CRC are not black hats, but essential to daily lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oil companies are making a cash splash to back Xavier Becerra in the final stretch of California\u2019s race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3720,110289,139261,101216,25299,3707],"class_list":["post-337514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chevron","tag-fossil-fuel-industry","tag-oil-becerra","tag-oil-companies","tag-tom-steyer","tag-xavier-becerra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}