As California wrangles with a projected $22 billion budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed cutting most heavily from programs designed to help the state confront the worsening effects of climate change.
Newsom’s proposed budget, which he released Tuesday, would cut a net $6 billion from the state’s climate efforts. Among the cuts: subsidies for electric vehicles; funding for clean energy programs, such as battery storage and solar panels; and money for programs to help low-income people deal with extreme heatwaves.
Climate activists and some progressive legislators said they were wary of the move, particularly as another atmospheric river drowned much of the state and brought flooding to communities from Santa Cruz to San Diego. They said the state cannot afford to cut short its plans to prepare for extreme weather events that have been made more frequent and severe due to planet-warming emissions.
“These storms are really showing how important those investments in resilience are,” said David Weiskopf, a senior adviser for climate issues at NextGen Policy, a progressive advocacy group. He called such proposed cuts “short-term savings at the expense of medium- and long-term damages.”
Newsom is, however, proposing adding an additional $202 million in new spending to build levies and protect urban areas from flooding.
Newsom stressed, during a press conference in Sacramento, that while he’s proposing to trim spending, the state will preserve $48 billion of a record $54 billion that it set aside for climate programs in the budget that legislators approved last year. He said California’s investment is still one of the most significant made by any state or sub-national government in the world.
As part of the proposed climate cuts, Newsom is seeking to trim $2.2 billion for environmentally friendly transportation projects, including local and regional rail systems and improvements to make cities more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly.
“Why climate and transportation? Because of the magnitude of those budgets: unprecedented,” Newsom said.
The governor, who repeatedly touted the climate spending package when it was approved last year, said he’s hopeful that a significant portion of those cuts could be restored if California receives funding from federal inflation-relief and infrastructure spending bills approved last year.
Moreover, $3.1 billion in cuts to climate and transportation programs are part of a series of “trigger” reductions that could be restored in early 2024, if more funding becomes available.
Newsom’s budget proposal is effectively a rough draft as he kicks off budget negotiations with state legislators for the next fiscal year that starts July 1. He’s expected to release a revised budget plan in May, and legislators have a June 15 deadline to approve a budget or forgo their pay.
Democratic legislators and some environmentalists noted that the $48 billion investment in climate programs is still unprecedented in state history. That said, some legislators expressed hesitation about focusing cuts on climate and transportation.
“Maintaining about 90% of the money for environmental and climate change programs is terrific news,” state Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo, said in a statement. “On the other hand, if federal money isn’t available to backfill some of those proposed cuts, pulling back on these climate and environmentally sensitive investments now is going to make progress that much harder.”
Newsom largest proposed cut to a climate-related program is a $1.1 billion slash to electric-vehicle subsidies and infrastructure. His plan would leave intact $8.9 billion of the record $10 billion that legislators have set aside for electric vehicles over five years.
The potential cuts include funding to build electric-car charging stations in low-income neighborhoods and to buy electric school and transit buses.
Some environmentalists said they’re concerned that cuts to such programs could undermine California’s goal, which Newsom spearheaded via executive order, to ban the sale of most new gas-powered cars by 2035. Newsom, however, said rapid growth in the electric-vehicle sector means the free market will help fill the gaps.
“I expect the private sector to step up and build the infrastructure, it’s not just the state of California,” he said. “We will see extraordinary sums of private sector money moving in behind it.”
Among the other proposed cuts to climate programs and projects in Newsom’s budget:
• • $897 million for programs to transition the power grid to more renewable sources, such as solar and wind
• • $77 million for wildfire prevention and response
• • $194 million for drought preparation and response
• • $485 million for extreme-heat relief and other programs to make low-income communities more resilient to climate change
• • $779 million for wildlands and coastal conservation
• • $128 million for agricultural programs to help farmers adapt to climate change.
• • $24 for recycling and waste-reduction programs
Dustin Gardiner (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
