California Governor Gavin Newsom has been prominent in the new cycle this past week — first as the Joe Biden surrogate at the second GOP presidential primary debate and today as he swiftly named Laphonza Butler to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated after the death of legislative branch icon Dianne Feinstein at age 90.
But a quieter move in California is poised to have more far-reaching impact than either Newsom’s selection of Butler or the ripostes he aimed at the Republican nomination hopefuls — and that’s the historic climate impact bill that’s landing on Newsom’s desk for his signature.
As reported at Yale Climate Connections, California “Senate Bill 253, which would force companies that generate revenues of more than $1 billion a year to fully disclose their total greenhouse gas impact, cleared the Capitol’s lower house on a 49-20 vote. The state Senate, which had already approved the measure, concurred on a few minor amendments, and the bill now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has until Oct. 14 to sign it.”
Newsom intends to sign the bill, widely expected to have national effect. SB 253 requires businesses to report their own direct and indirect emissions and the emissions of their “upstream suppliers and downstream customers.” Yale reports that Salesforce, IKEA, Apple, Patagonia, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co all supported the bill.
Next step is to make them disclose their political spending and lobbying on climate, particularly through trade associations. It’s a dirty story.https://t.co/0Br4JNRmhu
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) October 2, 2023
Climate-concerned Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) reveals that even this historic, legally-mandated transparency about greenhouse gas impact is just a start in creating complete corporate climate impact transparency. Whitehouse wants to track narrative-shaping and legislation-shaping political contributions too, to hunt sources of disinformation and influence that can be as damaging as methane.
Whitehouse, as he does with his vocal and unrelenting criticism of the Supreme Court, subscribes to the old Watergate wisdom: “Follow the money.” Accordingly Whitehouse says Newsom’s “next step is to make them disclose their political spending and lobbying on climate, particularly through trade associations.”
“It’s a dirty story,” Whitehouse asserts of the spending to influence climate policy in favor of Big Oil profit and to the detriment of the planet and its inhabitants.
[NOTE: Yale Climate Connections is an initiative of the Yale Center for Environmental Communication (YCEC), directed by Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz of the Yale School of the Environment, Yale University.]
