Oil lobby stalls another CA climate change bill

An ambitious proposal that would require fossil fuel polluters to pay for climate disasters caused by the greenhouse gases they emit appears to have stalled in the face of strong opposition from those same fossil fuel polluters.

As CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo explains, a bill by Assemblymember Dawn Addis would require multinational oil and gas companies to pay for emissions from “the extraction, production, refining, sale, or combustion … of fossil fuels” or other petroleum products such as oil and gas. Though it’s unclear how much these companies would pay, the money would be set aside to fund disaster preparedness and climate efforts, including evacuation planning, building climate-resistant communities, electrifying school buses and more.

• Addis, a San Luis Obispo Democrat: “Oil caused the climate crisis, in large part … they lied about it, as they caused the damages, and it’s time for them to come to the table and create more affordability for the very people that they’ve harmed.”

But despite the Los Angeles County wildfires in January mobilizing bill proponents, the measure has sat idle since clearing its most recent committee hearing in April. That same month, another bill that would have allowed victims of wildfires and other climate disasters to sue oil companies for damages died in the Legislature.

Oil and gas companies lobbied strongly against both proposals. Jim Stanley, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said Addis’ bill and its twin measure in the Senate are “misguided” and punishes companies “for providing a legal product that was, and remains, critical to our state’s economy.”

Because the bill includes “urgency” provisions, it’s exempted from certain legislative deadlines, including today’s house-of-origin deadline (more on that below). The measure sits before the Legislature as Gov. Gavin Newsom also proposes to reroute money from California’s landmark cap and trade program to pay for Cal Fire operations and the High-Speed Rail project.

Read more here.

To keep bills alive for this session, state legislators have until today to advance bills through the house where they were introduced. For some bills related to labor and wage theft, it’s been a mixed bag this week:

• Pausing one wage theft bill: Sen. Scott Wiener said Thursday that he is shelving his wage theft bill until January “for further work.” The measure would have enabled workers to recover more money from lost wages through private lawsuits, rather than filing claims through the Labor Commissioner’s Office, which has a severe backlog. The San Francisco Democrat’s proposal stemmed from a CalMatters series probing the state’s wage theft issues.

• Penalties for stealing wages: Another bill to hold employers that commit wage theft accountable passed through the Assembly Tuesday. The proposal would require state agencies to deny renewing licenses or permits for employers that have outstanding wage theft claims. Though most Democrats (and two Republicans) approved the measure, Assemblymember Anamarie Ávila Farías of Concord was the only Democrat to vote against it, along with six other Republicans.

• Workers’ rights outreach: The Senate on Monday approved a bill that would expand and make permanent an outreach program to educate employees on labor rights and workplace protections. The measure passed along party lines, with all 10 Republicans voting against — though two Democrats abstained from voting, which is the same as voting no.

A safety net for struggling California community colleges is set to expire at the end of June, leaving many campuses — particularly in the Bay Area — grappling with difficult cost-cutting measures, write Desmond Meagley and Lylah Schmedel-Permanna of CalMatters’ College Journalism Network.

Since 2018, most community college districts began receiving incremental cost-of-living adjustments to help pay for the rising costs of maintaining buildings, employee benefits and other expenses.

But these adjustments are slated to end on June 30 — and without it, districts must find other ways to close their budget gaps. Some are already feeling the squeeze: Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, for example, is facing a $5.9 million shortfall and said it would cut 5% of its course offerings and impose a hiring freeze for vacant positions.

Read more here.

Despite voters in November rejecting a measure that would have ended forced prison labor, one state lawmaker is pushing two bills to raise wages for workers behind bars, including incarcerated firefighters. CalMatters’ Joe Garcia and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment about the proposals as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

And check out another video by CalMatters’ Levi Sumagaysay and Robert about how President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are already slowing cargo at California’s ports. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.