Don't mess with high-speed rail
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With help from Camille von Kaenel
THIRD RAIL: Katie Porter is quickly learning a lesson Gov. Gavin Newsom knows all too well — cross high-speed rail at your peril.
The former congresswoman and gubernatorial hopeful bashed the project in a TV appearance last week.
'I don't think we should BS California voters,' she told KTLA on May 7. 'They have noticed that we don't have a high-speed rail. And they have noticed we've spent money on it.'
On Monday, after being greeted with chants of 'high-speed rail' at a labor event — and after she and the other six gubernatorial hopefuls voiced their support for the project — she told our Jeremy B. White that she wants to 'put people to work, and I want to get it done for Californians.'
It makes sense that Porter, known for her fiscal prudence, would criticize a project with a price tag that's ballooned from $33 billion to as much as $128 billion.
But her recalibration highlights an important reality of California politics: Labor unions can still make or break a statewide campaign.
'The fact that Katie Porter stepped in it and then had to walk it back in front of labor just shows Democrats have to figure out how to message this issue,' said Andrew Acosta, a veteran Democratic consultant. 'They're all trying to make these calculated decisions about how to put a campaign together.'
The project has employed nearly 15,000 union workers since construction started in 2015, more than any other infrastructure undertaking in the country.
'It creates thousands upon thousands of great union jobs, jobs that you can buy a home and build your family on,' said Chris Hannan, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, after Newsom came through for the project in yesterday's budget proposal.
The episode mirrors Newsom's own trajectory. The governor set off alarms among high-speed rail supporters during his 2019 State of the State speech, saying 'there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.'
Newsom put the project front and center Wednesday in his long-awaited plan to extend the state's landmark emissions trading program, highlighting a proposal to guarantee the project at least $1 billion in funding annually alongside money for fighting wildfires and lowering utility bills.
'We're moving forward with high-speed rail,' he said. 'We're finally actually building this system out.'
Threats from Trump aside, the move to convert the money from a 25 percent revenue carve-out to a minimum dollar amount gives the project stable funding that it's planning to offer bonds on.
'We worked very hard to get to a place where we have stable funding to securitize and monetize and invite some of you private sector people here to come and invest in California high-speed rail,' High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri told attendees at a rail conference Wednesday. 'So that's great news for us.'
The good news for high-speed rail will also ratchet up tensions for everyone else fighting in a shrinking pool of cap-and-trade revenues as negotiations kick off. Lawmakers are looking to Newsom's move as a gauntlet.
'You'd really have to pry his fingers open,' said Senate Transportation Chair Dave Cortese. 'That would take the kind of a throwdown versus the governor that we haven't seen during his administration.' — AN
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MCNERNEY'S TIME: Sen. Jerry McNerney told us last month he was gearing up for a big fight against the proposed 45-mile-long tunnel rerouting water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that makes up the heart of his district.
Now, with Newsom asking lawmakers Wednesday to fast-track the tunnel, it's his time to shine. He and 14 other lawmakers representing the Delta region have already written to Assembly and Senate leadership today urging them to reject the trailer bill.
AND ANOTHER THING: The tunnel isn't the only thing Newsom wants to fast-track. Another trailer bill would exempt pending water quality rules for the Delta region from CEQA, preemptively eliminating litigation under the law.
For more context: Newsom is pushing for the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt a series of agreements he brokered with water agencies in 2022 to limit water use and pay for habitat conservation as an alternative to the more traditional flow limits that make up the water quality rules. The board is going through the plan now and could make a final decision this year. — CvK
EVERYTHING'S BIGGER THERE: Texas is now beating California on almost every metric in renewable energy development.
In 2024, Texas surpassed California in total utility-scale solar for the first time, according to the annual market report from American Clean Power, a trade group. That's a result of its eighth year leading the nation in renewable energy development; in 2024 alone, Texas added 14 gigawatts in solar, wind and storage, more than second-place California at 6 GW and third-place Florida at 3 GW.
California does have Texas, and the rest of the country, beat in one area: renewable energy jobs. It had 340,900 of them last year, primarily in solar but also in wind and storage, far more than second-place Texas at 126,000 jobs. — CvK
STUCK ON THE DOCKS: California commercial salmon fishing season is officially history.
NOAA Fisheries announced this week that it will close salmon fishing off the California and southern Oregon coasts for the 2025-26 season, Daniel Cusick reports for POLITICO's E&E News.
The decision comes after the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted last month to recommend a complete commercial salmon fishing closure and 7,000 Chinook salmon quota for recreational fishing.
The decision is a blow for one of California's most lucrative commercial fisheries, which has been sidelined for two years already amid declining salmon populations linked to low water levels in rivers and streams where they spawn.
NOAA's closure starts Friday and will be in place until mid-May of next year. — AN
ON CAP-AND-TRADE: The California Chamber of Commerce is staking out a 'don't rock the boat' position as state officials kick off negotiations on the future of the state's cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases in earnest.
In a letter to legislative leaders Thursday, the business group urged lawmakers to quickly pass an extension to the program to avoid market uncertainty that could cost the state 'billions' of dollars — and to avoid changes to the program some environmental groups are pushing in the name of further emissions reductions, like a decrease in the number of free allowances to businesses.
'Stable rules keep allowance prices predictable, predictable prices keep capital cheap, and cheap capital drives the scale and speed of emissions-cutting innovation California needs to cost-effectively hit its climate goals while protecting businesses and consumers and maintaining global competitiveness,' wrote CalChamber policy advocate Jonathan Kendrick.
The letter follows Newsom's proposal Wednesday to reauthorize the landmark climate program, in which he avoided reforms and rebranded the program 'cap and invest' in line with his focus on its revenues. — CvK
— The Trump administration slashed grants to study the Moss Landing battery facility, which caught fire in January.
— California should nix its carbon offset trading system and instead require polluters to buy credits directly from the state, University of California, Berkeley, carbon trading researchers write in an op-ed.
— Tesla told customers they had to return leased Model 3 sedans that would be turned into robotaxis — and instead sold them to new buyers.
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