Going green is really about affordability, according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
That’s the message from the California governor, who has totally never thought about becoming president until recently, at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil on Tuesday.
“It’s about economic power. I think we have to reframe it as a cost-of-living issue,” Newsom said while predicably lashing out at President Donald Trump who didn’t attend the conference.
Newsom made his COP30 comments as he pledged defiance to the Trump administration’s plan to begin oil drilling off California’s coastline.
Many in the media praised Newsom for his appearance at the conference. But I’d like to pause for a moment here and just consider the hilarious thought of the governor of California trying to peddle his climate policies as some kind of way to help with the cost of living and affordability.
Green policies are a “cost-of-living” issue, but in nearly the opposite way that Newsom suggests.
California, for all its natural beauty and inherited advantages, is among the least affordable states in the union, in large part because of Democrat climate policies. In fact, for years Californians have been leaving the state or looking to leave the state because of how expensive it is. Basic necessities like housing, food, and energy are at some of the highest prices in the nation.
“California’s residential and commercial electricity rates are the highest in the nation’s lower 48 states, according to a monthly compilation by the California Center for Jobs & the Economy, an adjunct to the California Business Roundtable,” wrote columnist Dan Walters in CalMatters.
The only thing that slightly lessened this blow is California’s mild climate, which means that the average Californian’s energy bills are only the ninth highest in the country according to the report Walters cited.
This is absolutely true. I grew up in the Bay Area and we didn’t have air conditioning. It would have been a nice luxury, but we didn’t need it. So, it’s the natural advantages of the state, not the policies, that softened the blow.
But many California residents, especially middle- and working-class ones, live inland where temperatures are often sky high in the summer. The energy cost burden falls disproportionally on the people who can afford it the least. How progressive.
Gas prices, of course, remain outrageous in California due to the state’s oppressive taxes and regulations.
“California currently has the highest average gas prices in the nation, at an average of $4.67 per gallon, followed by a list of other states, including Hawaii, Washington, Nevada and Oregon,” Fox News reported on Friday.
Fox reported that Californians “pay an extra $0.90 per gallon in local, state, and federal taxes as of March 2025, while the California Energy Commission estimated that residents pay an additional $0.54 a gallon in environmental compliance costs.
And the fuel and energy costs could get even worse for residents of the Golden State who will get hit with a slew of new green policies that Newsom was happy to sign off on.
A Pacific Research Institute study, covered by my colleague Jacob Adams, found that California’s law to effectively ban all gas-powered vehicles by 2035 would be monumentally expensive for the people living in the state.
A new Pacific Research Institute study authored by [researchers] Kerry Jackson and [Wayne] Winegarden found that California’s so-called green transition policies could cost up to $20,000 per household in the state between 2025 and 2050. The study reinforces the conclusion that an emphasis on solar and wind power sources do not actually lower energy costs. Past research conducted by the Pacific Research Institute predicted that California could find itself 21.2% below its needed daily power supply by 2045.
This crisis may be averted in California not by a sudden change of heart from Newsom, but Congress and Trump blocking the Golden State’s insane rule that would have a huge impact on the whole nation.
California is suing to keep the awful law in place, of course.
What’s perhaps even more obnoxious about California’s green energy obsession is how reliant the state is on imported fossil fuels. Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton pointed this out on Newsmax Friday, noting that much of the oil imported to the state actually comes from drilling in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
It turns out if you don’t drill, baby, drill, you have to buy, baby, buy fossil fuels from global competitors and less scrupulous regimes.
Over the past decade, the cost of living has spun out of control in California. Newsom even said it was a problem back in 2018.
What’s happened since that time? The problem has only grown. If you think Newsom will admit that failure then I have a bridge to sell you in San Francisco. It’s near all those homeless encampments that were supposed to be gone a decade ago.
Newsom and his fellow Democrats who rule the now one-party state have done nothing to address the problem and have in many cases exacerbated it.
In so many cases, green policies quickly turn brown. Some Californians are learning that the hard way. Some saw it coming but could do nothing to stop it. It should be a lesson to the country to pay attention to what Newsom does and not just what he says.
