California Legislature Closes Session With New Measures to Advance Climate Leadership and Achieve Ambitious Goals

(Sacramento, CA – September 15, 2023) Last evening, the California State Legislature wrapped up the 2023 session, during which they advanced both nation-leading climate policy and essential, targeted measures to make California’s vision of a clean and equitable climate future a reality. While this work is not finished, California’s leaders have taken meaningful steps forward to decarbonize the economy and improve public health of California residents.

“The California Legislature is sending Governor Newsom bills that deepen California’s role as a national and global climate leader,” said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California State Director at Environmental Defense Fund.

“At the same time, our elected leaders also advanced measures to address some of the ongoing, practical challenges of decarbonizing the world’s fourth-largest economy. These bills will make it easier to charge electric vehicles, increase the supply of clean electricity, and improve air quality and public health. EDF looks forward to Governor Newsom’s signature on each of these pieces of legislation.

“We are deeply grateful to each of these legislative champions, their co-authors, and bill supporters for their work advancing strong climate policy. Their commitment helps California both maintain its leadership status and do the challenging work of meeting the state’s ambitious climate goals.”

Background on the bills:

• SB 253 (Weiner), the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, requires large corporations to disclose their full emissions impact, known as scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. This transparency is important to understand a corporation’s climate impact and sends a strong signal to the federal government as it considers its own emissions disclosure rules. 
• SB 261 (Stern) requires large corporations to disclose their climate-related financial risk, which provides essential information for investors to make informed decisions in the face of climate change. This bill, together with SB 253, puts California at the forefront of global climate leadership.
• SB 410 (Becker), the Powering Up Californians Act, will help to address long delays in connecting vehicle charging infrastructure to the electrical grid so California can decarbonize its transportation sector. This is essential to realize the climate and health benefits of rules like Advanced Clean Fleets and Advanced Clean Trucks.
• AB 1167 (Carrillo) requires financial assurances to prevent older oil wells from becoming abandoned. Wells which lack an operator create a public health and climate hazard and place a burden on taxpayers to clean them up.
• AB 1373 (Garcia) creates a central procurement entity to purchase large quantities of clean, renewable electricity, which helps ensure California can build out its nascent offshore wind industry and meet our clean energy goals.
• AB 126 (Reyes) reauthorizes existing vehicle fees to continue funding essential air quality and clean transportation programs, with targeted investments in disadvantaged and low-income communities.