Newsom signs numerous bills over the weekend backed by environmental groups
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New environmental laws coming to California
Newsom signs numerous bills over the weekend backed by environmental groups
Gov. Gavin Newsom gained widespread attention Saturday for signing a first-in-the-nation law to require corporations doing business in California to add up how many tons of greenhouse gases they emit each year, and make the information public.
The new law will affect roughly 5,300 businesses with more than $1 billion a year in sales — including companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Chevron and Home Depot. The law is expected to put pressure on businesses to reduce pollution when researchers, advocacy groups, media outlets and others issue “biggest polluter” lists showing which companies emit the most chemicals that are warming the planet.
But with less fanfare, Newsom also signed more than a dozen other significant environmental bills over the weekend that lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled Legislature had sent to his desk. In doing so, he won accolades from environmental groups, and disappointment from some industries, including oil and agriculture.
The main new environmental laws coming to California:
1) Electric school buses: (AB 579, Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco). Starting in 2035, all of California’s public school districts will be required to choose zero-emission school buses when purchasing new ones. The majority of school buses in California currently run on diesel fuel, which emits significant amounts of black soot, greenhouse gases and other pollution, particularly from older models.
Electric buses cost roughly twice as much as new diesel school buses. But supporters of the measure say the price tag is coming down, and they note that studies show districts save money over the life of the vehicles on maintenance and fuel costs.
Newsom already had approved rules last year requiring all new passenger vehicles sold in California starting in 2035 to be zero-emission.
Newsom also signed several other noteworthy environmental bills into law, including a measure to require public school science classes to include lessons about the causes and solutions to climate change (AB 285); a measure requiring all coastal counties and Bay Area counties to prepare a sea level rise plan by 2034 (SB 272); and a measure that requires Caltrans to study the feasibility of using state-owned land along highways for solar arrays and electric transmission lines (SB49).