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California recall: Environmentalists fear a one-time climate change denier could oust Newsom

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has garnered national headlines for ordering California to phase out gas-powered cars and new fracking. But as he faces a shockingly tough recall challenge, some veteran state officials say his cautious approach on tackling big polluters and environmental justice issues could cost him sorely needed votes.  

That could help trigger a political earthquake: a "yes" vote to oust the Democratic governor and an upset victory by a conservative who could upend California's landmark environmental policies. 

A recent photo opportunity by the governor picking up trash under a freeway for an anti-litter work program was, for some voters, emblematic of how Newsom has avoided taking bold policy steps.

"It was a publicity stunt," said Elliot Gonzales, 34. An intern for a Long Beach city councilwoman and self-proclaimed "revolutionary Democrat," Gonzales loves Bernie Sanders, belongs to local and national climate change groups, and like grassroots environmentalists across the state, wants an end to its oil and gas operations now.

As for the recall, he's not exactly energized.  "I mean, of course, we're going to support Newsom, he's mostly OK," Gonzales said.

In a state where less than a quarter of registered voters are Republican and Democrats have a supermajority in the Legislature, that kind of lukewarm enthusiasm, combined with a confusing ballot, raging wildfires, drought and possible power outages worries some environmentalists ahead of the Sept. 14 recall election.

"Gavin's style is not something that gets Democrats off the couch to vote," said Terry Tamminen, who helped Hummer-driving GOP movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger oust Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in the 2003 recall with a bold environmental platform. To gain traction with voters, Tamminen said, "if you really give a damn about something, and (banning all fracking) is an example, then being governor means saying, "Hey, this may not be easy, but damn it, it's the right thing to do, and here's why.'"

But he strongly opposes the recall, saying Newsom's opponents are far worse.

"Voting for any of the current Republican candidates on environmental grounds ... would be like voting for the Nazis because they kept the trains running on time," he said.

More than 40 candidates are vying to replace Newsom. Some of his top challengers have denied or downplayed climate change, are vowing to roll back a tough law loathed by builders, and even proposed slant oil drilling in the Pacific Ocean or piping in water from the Mississippi River to combat ongoing drought.

"Everybody likes to be dramatic all the time in politics, but this time it's completely well-founded," said Mary Creasman, CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV). "Every candidate running against Newsom is an extremist in terms of the environment and economic justice."

Should California keep or scrap environmental regulations?

If Newsom is booted from office, many policies could be overturned, including a decades-old moratorium on offshore oil drilling, Newsom's executive orders phasing out fracking and gasoline-powered cars, and plans to preserve large swaths of open space. Other initiatives, like moving the state faster toward zero greenhouse gas emissions, could stall.

"The choice before California is stark," said Nathan Click, senior campaign adviser to Newsom. "You have a governor who has been a national leader on climate change, fighting for the environment and clean energy, versus Larry Elder, who has consolidated the Republican base, and said that climate change is a crock." 

Newsom's top challengers say the state's environmental policies are at the root of some of its biggest problems, driving up housing costs with lengthy reviews and worsening massive blazes. Although some of their promises to roll back environmental regulations could be tough to achieve legally, the challengers hope their stances will earn them votes from farmers, oil businesses and workers, and others in the state's rural, inland Republican zones.

Polls show a tight race. A CBS News poll released Sunday found just 52% of likely voters said they would reject the recall, with a margin of error of four percentage points.

Larry Elder, who has emerged as the Republican frontunner in recent polling and fundraising for the Sept. 14 recall election of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, rallies with supporters on July 13 in Norwalk.

In Los Angeles, GOP frontrunner and conservative talk show host Elder ducked interview requests from USA Today, but he has a long history of anti-environmental rhetoric. In a 2008 CNN interview, he called global warming “a crock” and disparaged leading Republicans who disagreed.

In a recent local TV interview, he backpedaled from those statements, though he still questions climate change's link to the massive wildfires raging in Northern California. Last week, a dire United Nations report explicitly connected human-caused global warming to more extreme wildfires, heatwaves and other disasters.

Elder said he might declare a state of emergency to “suspend” the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires comprehensive reviews of building projects. He called it part of a bureaucracy, “treating contractors and developers like they are criminals.”

A more moderate Republican, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, believes in man-made climate change and says his policies would be based on science. That would include a drought-fighting plan centered on new reservoirs and water recycling infrastructure, and an annual $1 billion wildfire prevention program, including streamlining environmental rules on clearing dead vegetation. But Faulconer's climate plan for San Diego has been criticized for grossly overstating greenhouse gas reductions, and records show early in his career he worked for a major automotive group that denied climate change.

Faulconer's campaign did not respond to requests for comment. 

Democratic recall contender Kevin Paffrath of Ventura, at a Gov. Gavin Newsom event on Aug. 13, 2021.

Democratic upstart Kevin Paffrath, a YouTube personality and real estate broker leading in one poll to replace Newsom, told USA Today he wants to increase natural gas, solar, and wind energy to reduce greenhouse gases and favors speeding up building permit reviews to two weeks in exchange for developer fees. He also has big ideas for fixing the state's water shortage.

"We would start with emergency measures," he said. "That would include canceling the high-speed rail" and using the funds to pay for a pipeline to pump water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River. He excoriated Newsom for failing to help control devastating wildfires and overestimating forest-thinning efforts. 

Newsom adviser Click dismissed the validity of the poll showing Paffrath in the lead and said the real race was between the governor and Elder or possibly one of the other pro-Trump Republican candidates.

The two-question recall ballot has created some confusion among voters. The first question asks if Newsom should be removed from office; the second asks who should replace him. If more than half of voters vote "yes" on Question 1, whoever gets the most votes on Question 2 would be the next governor.

Newsom's campaign is strongly urging a no vote on the recall question and is telling voters who support him to leave the second question about a replacement blank. 

Paffrath says that's bad advice. He's is trying to convince moderate voters that if Newsom is recalled, he's a more palatable replacement than a Republican.

Former California Congressman Doug Ose, Republican candidate in the Sept. 2021 recall election.

In Northern California, former Republican Rep. Doug Ose, a rice farmer and home developer, told USA Today he would also tackle CEQA reform and wants new water storage projects such as the Sites Reservoir, a long-proposed $5.2-billion project in the Sacramento Valley, built now. He is outraged by recent state cuts to allocations for those with historic water rights, including himself. While opposed to offshore oil drilling, he thinks horizontal drilling into the Pacific from the coast near Monterey could work. 

With mail-in ballots already arriving in voters' mailboxes and the election just a month away, many environmental groups are falling in line behind the governor. About 50 green groups convened virtually on Wednesday to strategize on get-out-the-vote efforts. The Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and other mainstream groups are backing him.

Walking a fine line

Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor and county supervisor who began his political career with backing from the Getty family, whose oil trust fund his father managed, has tried to walk a moderate middle ground as governor, sometimes displeasing both sides.

Experts note the state as a whole is more diverse and complex than most outsiders realize, including on issues such as fossil fuels, groundwater extraction, and wildfire management. That has opponents walking a tightrope too. 

“California’s progressive image on the environment is in some ways overstated,” said Thomas Holyoke, Fresno State political science professor whose expertise includes western water policy and politics.

Firefighters monitor a firing operation, where crews set ground fire to stop a wildfire from spreading, while battling the Dixie Fire in Lassen National Forest, Calif., on Monday, July 26, 2021.

The top environment-related issues for voters are wildfire, drought, and climate change, according to a late July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. The poll also found while 6 in 10 voters saw Newsom as doing a good job on those issues overall, they are sharply divided on some of his policies. For instance, 49% favor his executive order banning the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, while 49% oppose it.

Newsom must do a balancing act to ensure both labor and environmental voting blocs turn out to oppose the recall.  

After firing the state’s oil regulator in 2019, he won praise from environmentalists for visiting a massive oil spill, allocating clean drinking water funds to poor areas, and ordering staff at the oil agency to prepare a public health buffer between drilling operations and neighborhoods that still endure the nation's worst air pollution. 

But the agency has repeatedly missed deadlines to release the safety zone proposal, after an outcry from powerful oil lobbyists and from pipefitters and others with high-paying, often union jobs in Kern County oil fields.

"He's taken baby steps," said Gustavo Aguirre, Jr., Kern County director for the Central California Environmental Justice Network. 

Aguirre said he'll vote for Newsom over the alternatives, and because his wife would be mad if he skipped any election. But he said he knows interfaith groups and others who are sitting out active vote-gathering efforts.

Gladys Limon, head of the statewide California Environmental Justice Alliance, said while criticism of the pace of Newsom's actions is fair, "we need to be very sober" and recognize the recall "is a dangerous effort by extremists" that could "undermine the health and well-being of vulnerable communities of color."

The alliance is strongly urging its members statewide to vote no on the recall.

Get-out-the-vote efforts 

Despite rankling some green voters, Newsom's caution could pay off. His campaign is ramping up get-out-the-vote operations at the Sacramento offices of the Building Construction and Trades Council, a coalition of unions representing 450,000 workers statewide whose leader has dismissed environmentalists as “extremists.”

Council President Robbie Hunter declined an interview request but has said that he will fight for all types of jobs for his members, whether in fossil fuels or renewables. 

The Building Trades Council has come out against the recall. In an e-mailed statement, Hunter did not mention Newsom by name and seemed more concerned about California losing the ear of the Biden administration if a Republican took over. But he’s not throwing the group’s weight behind any opponents.

“The disruption of a recall could very well translate to the loss of thousands of jobs in construction and billions of (federal) dollars of desperately needed infrastructure improvements in California,” said Hunter. “We need to be at the table when the decisions are made as to where in the country this funding will go.”

Friant-Kern Canal delivers 1 million acre-feet of water to farmers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. It is sinking at a dramatic rate, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have repaired the canal.

Farmers help GOP harvest votes

In central California's Tulare County, farmer Eric Bream said he's seen his costs soar since 2012 due to state mandates on pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation, and other critical parts of his business. 

“We can talk about all of the policy shortcomings of our current governor (there’s plenty), but his inability to create even a decent relationship with the majority of food producers in our state tells me everything I need to know,” said Bream, who will vote yes for the recall and Elder.

"While I can’t guarantee that Mr. Elder can fix problems that have developed over decades in the next year, what I can tell you is that those problems will persist and get worse under the current administration’s watch," he said. 

Farmers in Tulare County have faced cutbacks in water deliveries because of a severe drought in California.

The California Water for Food and People Movement, a group of San Joaquin Valley growers, workers, and producers critical of state water curtailments and slow progress on the Sites Reservoir, also recently urged a yes vote on the recall and endorsed Elder. 

Tricia Stever Blattler, executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau, took a more cautious stance, saying the recall will affect the agriculture industry regardless of whether Newsom stays or goes.

 "Our industry relies on working with both sides of the aisle, and regardless of who emerges as the next governor, we will work to solidify our role in California’s economy," she said. 

However, many of the promises Elder, Ose and other GOP recall candidates have made to roll back environmental regulations would be difficult to impossible to achieve for legal and legislative reasons, said Holyoke, the political scientist who teaches in the heart of California's multi-billion dollar agricultural industry. 

“A left-leaning Democrat Legislature and a Republican in the governor’s office would lead to a stalemate in Sacramento bigger than we’ve ever seen,” Holyoke said.

Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for the USA Today Network-California and authors USA Today Climate Point. James Ward is a senior reporter for the USA TODAY Network-California.

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