Yet after Newsom\u2019s almost eight years in office, millions of Californians have been forced to contend with power blackouts, refinery closures and surging gasoline prices. At the same time, the Trump administration has sought to dismantle the state\u2019s boldest climate initiatives, calling Newsom\u2019s policies a disaster. <\/p>\n
Now, as Newsom prepares to leave office in January and eyes a potential run at the White House, critics and supporters alike are reexamining his climate record, and its evolution from idealistic ambition to a politics more aligned with consumer affordability. Experts say Newsom\u2019s environmental legacy won\u2019t just define what\u2019s next for California\u2019s new governor; it could potentially shape the national agenda.<\/p>\n
Aggressive and impactful reporting on climate change, the environment, health and science.<\/p>\n The ZEV governor<\/p>\n When Newsom took office in January 2019, he inherited major environmental programs from his predecessors, Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those initiatives included bold greenhouse gas reduction targets<\/a> and the nation-leading cap-and-invest program, which forces large polluters to pay for their share of planet-warming emissions.<\/p>\n But many experts said where Newsom made his mark is in green transportation. <\/p>\n The downtown Los Angeles skyline shimmers in the smog as a plane taking off from Long Beach Airport climbs out of the haze after another hot day across Southern California. <\/p>\n (Luis Sinco)<\/p>\n Under his administration, California invested heavily in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, sales incentive programs and advanced fleet requirements. In 2022, state officials passed a groundbreaking sales target for zero-emission vehicles, or ZEVs, essentially banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is \u201cprobably the most consequential thing he did for the climate as governor,\u201d said Barry Vesser, chief program officer at the Climate Center, a nonprofit think tank based in California.<\/p>\n The move stimulated the private sector and accelerated the deployment of EV infrastructure, Vesser said. The share of ZEV sales jumped from about 8% in 2020 to 23% in 2025, and California now has twice as many EV chargers as gasoline nozzles.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not where we need to be, but you still have to give the state a lot of credit for the amount of EV infrastructure we have available compared to where we were when he came into office, which was virtually nil,\u201d Vesser said.<\/p>\n In a different federal landscape, this may have been the defining act of Newsom\u2019s administration. But President Trump \u2014 against whom Newsom has positioned himself as an adversary \u2014 acted quickly to revoke<\/a> California\u2019s long-held authority to set stricter tailpipe emissions standards than the federal government, unraveling the foundation for the gas-car ban. The state is now suing the federal government over the move. <\/p>\n The ban \u201cwas a serious and important action,\u201d said Mary Nichols, former chair of the California Air Resources Board. But it \u201cgot tangled up in another hostile agenda that the administration had, which rendered it less meaningful than it would have been otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n President Trump talks with Gavin Newsom, then California\u2019s governor-elect, during a visit to a neighborhood affected by a wildfire in Paradise, Calif. <\/p>\n (Evan Vucci \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n The Trump tango<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of many ways Newsom\u2019s track record will at least in part be tied to Trump, whose first and second terms bookended the governor\u2019s. <\/p>\n In addition to his action on cars, the president also moved to open California\u2019s coast to offshore oil drilling<\/a> for the first time in decades and invested millions in a coal export terminal in Oakland<\/a> that would be the first on the U.S. West Coast, despite the fact that California has eliminated its use of coal.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the White House struck a series of deals<\/a> with offshore wind developers to abandon projects off the coast and invest instead in fossil fuel infrastructure. The deals effectively killed three of the state\u2019s five offshore wind projects, which would have produced about six gigawatts of clean electricity \u2014 a substantial piece of the 25-gigawatt goal<\/a> established under the Newsom administration in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cThe foundation of all [federal climate] policies is under attack, and that matters a lot,\u201d said Kate Gordon, chief executive of the nonprofit California Forward and a former senior climate policy advisor to Newsom. \u201cAll of the states \u2014 and all of the \u2018climate leader\u2019 governors in this era \u2014 are to some extent defined by that.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, Newsom has increasingly positioned himself as a national and international leader on the environment. While Trump withdrew<\/a> the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and skipped last year\u2019s United Nations climate policy conference, Newsom attended the summit and touted California as a proxy<\/a> for the country. He has also signed dozens of subnational agreements with other countries on issues such as emissions reductions, green ports, groundwater and clean energy development.<\/p>\n In fact, while Trump has taken steps to slow the clean energy transition, California has continued to progress: The state now has more than 23,000 megawatts of battery energy storage \u2014 up from about 700 megawatts when Newsom took office \u2014 and its grid runs on about 67% clean energy. The state hasn\u2019t seen rolling blackouts<\/a> since 2020. <\/p>\n \u201cThe dramatic growth in battery storage has happened under Newsom\u2019s watch, and he should absolutely get credit for it,\u201d said Ann Carlson, founding director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA.<\/p>\n The sun sets over Cymric oil field in McKittrick, Calif. <\/p>\n (Irfan Khan \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The oil and gas backslide<\/p>\n Though Newsom furthered California\u2019s role as a leader on renewables, some said he also struggled when it comes to fossil fuels.<\/p>\n During his first term, the governor was ambitious about weaning off them. He announced plans to phase out oil extraction statewide by 2045, established a 3,200-foot buffer zone<\/a> between oil wells and communities, and pledged to shut down Aliso Canyon, the site of the worst natural-gas blowout in U.S. history. In 2022, California sued five major oil companies<\/a> over their \u201cdecades-long campaign of deception\u201d about their role in climate change.<\/p>\n But as the years wore on, his ambition began to collide with the more practical challenges of decarbonization. California saw two major refinery closures, which tightened in-state gasoline supplies, and increased dependence on imported fuel. <\/p>\n Amid mounting consumer anxiety over rising fuel costs, Newsom in 2025 signed a law to boost oil production in Kern County<\/a>, fast-tracking permitting for up to 2,000 new wells annually through 2036. Environmentalists were stunned.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that he just stood still \u2014 it\u2019s that he actually went the opposite direction,\u201d said Leah Stokes, a political scientist at UC Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n Stokes said it\u2019s part of a larger pattern for Newsom, such as when he announced a historic $54-billion investment<\/a> in climate projects and programs in 2022, only to have it whittled down amid budget problems in the years that followed. \u201cHe kind of loves the announcement and lacks the follow-through,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Other environmentalists were equally disappointed by this year\u2019s creation of a $4-billion incentive program<\/a> for large polluters that invest in decarbonization projects \u2014 part of the broader cap-and-invest extension \u2014 as well as last year\u2019s overhaul<\/a> of the California Environmental Quality Act to expedite new construction.<\/p>\n These kinds of broad climate and economic moves don\u2019t always translate into benefits or protections for communities most affected by air pollution, drinking water issues<\/a> and environmental health burdens, said Nile Malloy, climate justice director at the California Environmental Justice Alliance. He chalked some of it up to Newsom\u2019s presidential ambitions, which he said have pushed the governor to be more moderate. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re thinking about a managed transition and really putting a lot of energy toward that, while the governor is just trying to get through until his term is over,\u201d Malloy said. \u201cThose are two different priorities.\u201d <\/p>\n Top administration officials said these moves were less \u201cpivots\u201d than acts of adaptation \u2014 efforts to balance the state\u2019s climate goals with growing concerns about affordability and reliability. Newsom is at least partly responding to global market disruptions, higher prices at the pump, and the fact that most people are still dependent on cars that run on gasoline.<\/p>\n Water levels at Lake Shasta are lower as drought conditions persist in June 2021. <\/p>\n (Brian van der Brug \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Trial by fire<\/p>\n Newsom\u2019s time in office will also be marked by the climate change-fueled disasters that have befallen California in recent years. The state dried up<\/a> and then flooded<\/a>, heated<\/a> and caught fire<\/a>, with a record 4.4 million acres burned in 2020. The wildfires also took lives and communities, such as the Eaton and Palisades fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, respectively, in 2025.<\/p>\n The result was a cascade of challenges, including the state\u2019s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, declaring bankruptcy over its role in the deadly Camp fire in Paradise in 2018, and a worsening home insurance crisis<\/a> that is still taking shape.<\/p>\n Some said the wildfire problem only made Newsom cozier with utilities, whose profits have continued to soar. He negotiated a deal<\/a> to help PG&E emerge from bankruptcy while preserving its position as a privately owned entity, and just this year, tried to pass legislation to shield utilities from liability over wildfires sparked by their equipment. (The package ultimately fell apart<\/a> amid outrage from insurance companies and wildfire survivors.)<\/p>\n But others said the problem spurred the governor, and the state, to reconsider its approach to fire, including new emphasis on prescribed burns<\/a> and forest management, beefed-up budgets for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and the establishment of the state\u2019s wildfire task force. <\/p>\n These are complemented by other policies that evolved around the state\u2019s landscape, experts and officials said. That includes the 30×30 program<\/a> to conserve 30% of California\u2019s land and coastal waters by 2030, advanced protections for wetlands and new efforts to rein in the use of harmful pesticides<\/a> and single-use plastic<\/a>.<\/p>\n California has also made progress on safe drinking water under Newsom, reducing the number of people served by failing systems from about 1.6 million in 2019 to 425,000 today<\/a>, though there is still work to do. And in 2024, Indigenous leaders and activists celebrated as the state completed the largest dam removal effort in U.S. history<\/a> along the Klamath River.<\/p>\n The abundance era<\/p>\n As affordability has risen to the forefront of American discourse, the politics of environmentalism have shifted, and Newsom has shifted with them. <\/p>\n In their 2025 book, \u201cAbundance,\u201d journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that red tape and overly complicated rules are obstructing climate progress and the clean energy transition, and they make the case for a \u201cbuild more\u201d approach that has been embraced by Newsom and many other Democrats.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to just move things,\u201d Newsom said at a recent economic summit in Los Angeles. \u201cIt is an \u2018abundance\u2019 mindset. It\u2019s a liberalism that builds.\u201d <\/p>\n This shift has been most visible in his recent decisions around oil refineries and drilling, CEQA reform and housing affordability, experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you start thinking of yourself as a national candidate for president, you start thinking about, \u2018Where am I vulnerable being the governor of California?\u2019\u201d Carlson said. \u201cAm I going to be painted as an \u2018environmental crazy\u2019? Am I going to be painted as somebody who\u2019s responsible for the high cost of living? And I think the answer is those are places that he views himself as vulnerable, and so we see those pretty pronounced shifts.\u201d<\/p>\n But Newsom will also be leaving Sacramento halfway through Trump\u2019s second term, when many battles \u2014 and projects \u2014 remain unfinished. That\u2019s allowed him to punt some vexing issues to the next governor, such as whether to extend the life of the state\u2019s last remaining nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon<\/a>, to 2045.<\/p>\n Also unfinished are the high-speed rail and the Delta tunnel, major environmental infrastructure projects that have been seized upon by right-wing media as evidence of Newsom\u2019s failures.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the next governor is going to have to really do is lean in on real, successful implementation that creates tangible benefits for people, because I do think we\u2019re in danger of losing our political will on these issues in California,\u201d said Gordon of Climate Forward. \u201cNewsom did some really important things around the edges of that, but that\u2019s going to have to be a central thesis for the next administration.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Newsom, the next governor will also face unforeseen challenges \u2014 such as how to handle the growth of artificial-intelligence data centers on an aging electric grid, or how the Golden State will fare through more wildfires, coastal erosion, heat waves and storms as the global climate becomes ever more unstable.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wish the next person a lot of strength and fortitude, because there\u2019s a lot to do,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n Toward a more sustainable California <\/p>\n Get Boiling Point, our newsletter exploring climate change, energy and the environment, and become part of the conversation \u2014 and the solution.<\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Extreme drought, destructive flooding, deadly wildfires. As California\u2019s 40th governor, Gavin Newsom has confronted the impacts and causes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[195506,7,9,8,443,6709,31475,9614,3802,115314,4261,3290,346,6049,225,1695,72],"class_list":["post-505745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-40th-governor","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-climate-change","tag-deal","tag-ev","tag-fact","tag-fire","tag-large-utility","tag-move","tag-newsom","tag-office","tag-role","tag-state","tag-trump-administration","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505745","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=505745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Climate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792788730_237_.png\")
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