SACRAMENTO, California — California state senators voted Thursday to reject Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed spending plan for the state’s carbon auction revenues. The vote was widely seen as a protest against controversial changes that could cut billions of dollars from the state’s climate funding pot.
What happened: The Senate’s Budget Subcommittee 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy voted Thursday morning to reject Newsom’s proposed spending plan for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
That fund, also known as GGRF, receives roughly $3 billion to $4 billion a year from the sale of pollution permits, which helps pay for high-speed rail, Cal Fire and a long list of clean transportation, water, energy and environmental justice programs.
The vote comes as the California Air Resources Board is weighing major changes to the state’s cap-and-invest program, the carbon market that generates the revenue. Those changes are meant to ease costs for oil refineries and other industries, but legislative analysts and advocates warn they could also reduce auction revenue by up to $2 billion a year in future years.
