Updated 1/4/2024
California’s hostile energy policies have led to the highest prices at the pump in the nation, rolling blackouts, increased foreign imports to keep the state running, and as seen in news this week, made investments in oil and gas production and refining increasingly risky.
Just last month California Attorney General Rob Bonta traveled to COP28 in Dubai to push the state’s climate lawsuit and position the state as a global leader for its policies, but the reality is that while California’s oil and gas industry plans to “continue operating the oil fields and related assets for years to come,” according to E&E News, these policies have made it harder to produce and caused in-state supply to fall woefully short of demand. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote this week, California’s relentless assault on oil and natural gas is costing consumers by making the state “uninvestable” for energy producers:
“California policies have made it ‘riskier than investing in other states, with projects being lower in quality and higher in cost,’ Chevron’s Americas Products business president Andy Walz wrote last month in a filing with the California Energy Commission. ‘Chevron alone has reduced spending in California by hundreds of millions of dollars since 2022.’
“’We have rejected capital projects’ and canceled some ‘due to permitting challenges,’ Mr. Walz noted, adding that California’s ‘arbitrary attacks on a disfavored industry . . . signal to every industry, entrepreneur, manufacturer, and employer that California is closed for business.’” (emphasis added)
Kevin O’Leary of ABC’s Shark Tank similarly blasted the state of California amid increasing warning signs from the state’s top energy producers, telling Fox Business it’s “time to wake up and smell the hydrocarbons.”
“The management at the state level and the municipal level is the worst of every state in the union. Gavin Newsom… I wouldn’t let him manage a candy store. He is so clueless to the competition going on between states. I’m an energy investor. I don’t put money in California. I go to North Dakota. I go to Virginia. I go to Oklahoma. I go to Texas…We can’t let a state like California become so uncompetitive, with such weak policy so that capital leaves that place where it needs energy the most.”
Add to that the fact Californians continue to face high energy prices and constant uncertainty about their power grid, and it’s no surprise that AG Bonta decided to leave the Golden State to travel to the other side of the world to encourage activists to “[take] to the streets” to hold fossil fuel allies accountable and promote the state’s meritless litigation against energy producers.
At a COP28 Side Event hosted by Center for Biological Diversity titled “Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels,” Bonta promoted the state’s lawsuit, fielded softball questions, and delivered remarks that sounded less like an exposition on climate policy and more like a campaign rally.
Little Daylight Between the Newsom Administration and Climate Activists
While there remain lingering uncertainties about certain aspects of this lawsuit, Bonta made one thing clear at COP28: there’s little daylight between the administration of California Governor Gavin Newsom and the most progressive climate activists.
In fact, Bonta played right into growing activist rage against American natural gas production and fuel exports. When discussing the suit’s allegation that the energy industry is still engaged in “deception,” Bonta pinned this on its support for the cleaner-burning fuel.
In reality, America’s increased natural gas consumption has led to the greatest greening of a major economy in history. Countless politicians on both sides of the aisle dating back to the Obama years have taken credit for emission reductions associated with increased natural gas use, including now-President Joe Biden.
While many bipartisan politicians have demonstrated a preference to take a collaborative approach, Bonta’s ideological diatribe against natural gas at COP28 made it clear the Newsom administration remains politically wedded to the most extreme anti-fossil fuel activists.
It Depends on What the Meaning of Policy Is
In addition to regurgitating the suit’s discredited attacks on natural gas, at COP28 Bonta was careful to argue that climate policy really has “nothing to do” with the state’s landmark climate lawsuit against big energy companies. In reality, that distinction without a difference betrays how flimsy the state of California’s case actually is.
Bonta contended climate litigation and climate policy are both “pathways” to climate “accountability,” yet also, somehow, “have nothing to do” with one another:
“Legal action is not the only pathway here of course. There’s activism, there’s taking to the streets and protesting. There’s raising awareness. There’s certainly policy by policymakers, by legislators and Congress and states, executive action. That has nothing to do with litigation.
“But litigation is an important pathway. We are pursuing that now, it has nothing to do with the policy lane, or some of those other lanes. They are in their own silos and lanes and will help us get to potentially where we need to go as well.” (Emphasis added)
Bonta is likely walking this fine line because courts have already found lawsuits similar to the California case are political questions and do not belong in court, as George Mason University Law Professor Donald Kochan recently pointed out in the Orange County Register:
“Zealous government actors often have a short-term memory on the limits of their constitutional authority. Just over seventeen years ago the Attorney General of California tried to sue six major automakers for ‘public nuisance’ seeking damages for alleged contributions to climate change. The California AG’s novel claims were roundly rejected in 2007.”
Delivering a polemic on the distinctions between legal action and politics in a room full of activists at COP28 is one thing, but if precedent is any guide, Bonta and Newsom’s suit will face an uphill climb before a judge.
More Attacks on American Energy to Come
During a question and answer session at the COP28 event, Bonta made it clear this lawsuit isn’t the end. When asked whether other entities are responsible for climate change, Bonta mentioned the companies that California sued are “the main culprits,” but “there might be a time where we go after other fossil fuel companies.”
Does this mean Bonta is going after small mom and pop producers next? Or will he attribute any responsibility to foreign producers like Iran and Russia that are subject to fewer environment regulations and control a significant portion of the world’s oil reserves?
Regardless, Bonta made it clear he sees the California lawsuit as a starting point to expand their campaign of frivolous litigation across the world:
“We are the biggest geographic entity, the biggest economy, and we have the most broad sweeping set of claims, and we invite others to join us in our effort to the question about other lawsuits and actions.”
Bottom line: With the state of California facing the highest gas prices in the country, it’s hardly surprising Bonta is promoting this frivolous suit anywhere but the Golden State. By touting litigation aimed at putting the future of natural gas on trial at COP28, Bonta once again demonstrated the California is oblivious to the needs of hundreds of millions of Americans – not to mention our allies in Europe – and will stop at nothing to bring producers down.
