CA push for EVs could hit farmworker safety

It’s one solution to fix a flaw in a California law designed to stop farmworkers from being killed in crashes on the way to the fields.

But another state mandate — more electric vehicles to slow climate change — could undermine the CalVans program, explains CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang.

Established in 2012, CalVans provides thousands of farmworkers a safe way to get to vineyards, orchards and fields. The vans are driven by fellow laborers and are an alternative for farmworkers who may otherwise have to ride in unregulated vans managed by contractors (as Jeanne reported recently, crashes involving these unregulated vehicles are deadlier for commuting farmworkers). 

But CalVans says it is subject to a requirement for local government agencies to replace all fleets with zero-emission vehicles by 2035. Not only do rural areas lack enough chargers, but also electric vans cost more than $90,000 — nearly double their gas counterparts. CalVans has acquired a handful through agreements with several affordable housing projects under development. But whether the agency can secure future state funding is unclear, as Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed major cuts to electric vehicle programs in his latest budget plan.

Learn more about CalVans’ challenges in Jeanne’s story.

In other climate news, from CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo:

Of course, California’s efforts to tackle climate change extend well beyond the fields, and a Wednesday event in Berkeley demonstrated how far that reach extends.

U.S. and Chinese officials, including Gov. Newsom and former Gov. Jerry Brown, met at the swanky Claremont Club & Spa to discuss how cities and states in both countries can better cooperate to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. Newsom took a climate-themed trip to China last year.

Speaking to a mostly Chinese audience, he touted California’s policies and industries, which he credited with helping drive progress on reducing greenhouse emissions (though, in reality, the state is in danger of not meeting its goals). And Newsom depicted California as a place where the U.S. and China can find common ground. 

Newsom: “This transition to low-carbon green growth — radically changing the way we produce and consume energy — we want to dominate that space economically in California. We will never cede that ground, regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C. We are a stable and trusted partner to China and to the rest of the globe.”

The meeting is a result of an agreement last year in San Francisco between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to continue cooperation on climate policies, but comes as competition between the U.S. and China remains fierce during the U.S. presidential election.

Biden, who criticized former President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, earlier this month said he was planning to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., in a speech via teleconference, implicitly criticized the policies of both Biden and Trump, referencing the latter’s decision in 2017 to pull out of the Paris climate accord. 

Feng: “Over the past decade or more, China-U.S. climate cooperation has gone through ups and downs. We worked closely to bring the international community to be able to adopt the milestone Paris Agreement, later though, such cooperation was stalled for reasons known to all.”

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Alexei Koseff:

Amid ongoing budget negotiations, legislative leaders on Wednesday released their counter proposal to a recent plan by Gov. Newsom to close California’s projected multibillion-dollar deficit.

The legislative proposal rejects some of the major spending cuts that Newsom is seeking, including to college scholarships for middle-income students, public health programs, subsidized child care slots and housing development, while pushing for more substantial reductions to prison funding.

But it aligns with the governor’s approach of minimizing the use of reserve accounts next year, as California faces a revenue shortfall that is expected to continue for several more years beyond that, and suggests doubling the size of the state’s rainy-day fund over time. 

The legislative plan, an agreement between Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly, also endorses Newsom’s ideas of creating a temporary holding account for future projected budget surpluses until the money actually materializes.

The Legislature has a few weeks left to reach a deal with Newsom, as it approaches a June 15 deadline to pass a balanced budget or lose its pay and the July 1 start of the fiscal year. After lawmakers and the governor took early action last month, finance officials project the remaining shortfall to be more than $27 billion next year.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat, said in a statement that the Legislature’s proposal is “focused on preserving programs that matter most to Californians: lowering the cost of living, expanding affordable housing access and sustaining public services.”

To ease California’s home insurance crisis, Gov. Newsom disclosed late Tuesday a proposal to require the state’s insurance department to speed up its reviews of rate increase requests from insurers, writes CalMatters economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay.

The proposal is in a budget trailer bill, which would give the Insurance Department as long as 120 days to respond to a review request. If the department disagrees, it must offer its own estimated rate. Unless a consumer or consumer representative objects, the companies can then charge the new rate to consumers. The department says homeowner rate requests now take more than six months.  

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and Senate insurance committee chairperson Sen. Susan Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, support the bill, and insurance companies are optimistic the measure will help quicken rate requests. But critics say the bill undercuts the insurance department’s authority and will result in many rate hikes for consumers.

Learn more about the proposal in Levi’s story.

In other Capitol happenings:

Shoplifting bill: Last week, the Assembly passed a controversial bill that would allow police officers to make warrantless arrests for misdemeanor shoplifting offenses, even if the officer was not present when the crime occurred. The measure has divided Democratic legislators, but when it came down to the floor vote, only one lawmaker, Democratic Assemblymember Ash Kalra of San Jose, voted against it, explains CalMatters Digital Democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow. In an all-too-common occurrence, 32 of the 62 Democratic Assemblymembers did not vote. Learn more about the possible reasons why in Ryan’s story.

Wage theft: A state audit of the California Labor Commissioner’s Office says understaffing, low pay and poor training is causing drawn-out delays in wage theft investigations, reports CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang. The audit follows an award-winning CalMatters series on wage theft. To clear the current backlog of 47,000 claims, the audit estimates the department would need 900 employees — triple the positions it currently has. Learn more about the audit in Jeanne’s story.

Happiness hearing: The Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes, established by former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon of Lakewood, convened Wednesday for its second hearing. Legislators heard from several academics and researchers discussing happiness at different ages. “Experts have noted an alarming and dramatic drop in youth happiness — one we as legislators should be aware of and take seriously,” Rendon said.

Asian American advocacy: A coalition of more than 50 groups representing Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities gathered in Sacramento Wednesday for its inaugural advocacy day. The coalition promoted priority bills, including a measure to establish the Office of Language Access, with members of the California Asian America & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.

California has some of the nation’s strongest abortion protections and Gov. Newsom signed a law last week allowing Arizona doctors to temporarily provide abortion services for their patients in California. But battles over reproductive rights continue to play out at the local level.

As CalMatters San Diego and Inland Empire issues reporter Deborah Brennan explains, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties is suing the city of Fontana, accusing its mayor and city council of using a spurious zoning restriction to halt a proposed downtown clinic.

According to the lawsuit, scheduled for a June hearing, the clinic was on track for approval last year, but the city council approved an “urgency ordinance” temporarily banning “service based, non-entertainment uses” in the downtown area. That moratorium remains in place until this July and can be extended.

Planned Parenthood argues that the ordinance illegally prevents it from offering abortion services, violating its residents’ state constitutional right to access reproductive services. City officials deny this, saying the carve-out has impacted 70 applicants (though they did not respond to a CalMatters request for the names of those applicants).

For more on the Fontana lawsuit, read Deborah’s story.

Fontana is not the only example of local officials being accused of limiting abortion rights. In Beverly Hills, an abortion provider lost its lease at a medical center last year and is suing the city and the landlord.

CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff and producer Robert Meeks have a new video version of that story, part of our new partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal and is available online at PBS SoCal and CalMatters. Read more about this new venture from our engagement team.