The Brief

California regulators, responding to the Trump administration’s attacks on the state’s climate policy, propose to fight back in part by asking lawmakers to backfill electric vehicle incentives, recommending more private investment, and beginning to write clean car rules — again.

“Clean air efforts are under siege, putting the health of every American at risk,” said Air Resources Board chairperson Liane Randolph. “California is continuing to fight back and will not give up on cleaner air and better public health. We have a legal and moral obligation.”

Several state agencies jointly made the recommendations in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s June executive order calling for California to double down on efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.

Proposals unveiled Tuesday also include replacing expiring federal EV tax credits — a tough ask in a tight budget year — and restoring carpool lane access, which would require federal approval. One recommendation seeks to expand vehicle charging access by streamlining utility hookups and simplifying permits for new stations.

The air board is advancing just a few regulatory ideas: one to enact stronger consumer protections for clean car owners, and another to curb diesel pollution from freight hubs such as ports and warehouses. Randolph also said the board would begin work on a new clean cars rule.

A spokesman for the governor said he would review the agencies’ report.

The recommendations reflect the hard shift the state has experienced from a supportive Biden administration toward a hostile one under President Donald Trump, said Guillermo Ortiz, senior clean vehicles advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“When you have your federal government using every tool at its disposal to attack its own state …how are you able to see every attack angle, every vector, everything that this administration is willing to do to harm California?” he said. “That's difficult.”

Other experts also said they expected more. “Folks familiar with this kind of policy will read it and feel...underwhelmed,” wrote Earthjustice lawyer Adrian Martinez in an analysis of the plan.

“Nothing jumps out at me as being particularly aggressive,” said Daniel Sperling, a former Air Resources Board member who is the director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis. “I'm puzzled, actually, because they had acted like they were really going to do something significant.”

Trucking deal collapses

California offered the remedies as a fallback after the Trump Administration announced it would cancel federal waivers issued under the Clean Air Act that have long allowed the state to set more aggressive car and truck standards.

Attacks on the state’s climate policies escalated last week, centered on the Clean Truck Partnership, a voluntary deal between major truck manufacturers and the state that would continue advancing zero emission truck technology even if the waiver programs fell through.

Last week, four manufacturers filed a lawsuit, seeking to dissolve their commitments under the partnership. The Federal Trade Commission, after launching an investigation into California’s program, declared the partnership unenforceable.

Days later, Trump’s Justice Department intervened in two lawsuits, arguing that the decision whether to ban internal-combustion engines in heavy-duty trucks rests ultimately with the federal government.

California’s climate policies matter most in communities near ports, warehouses and railyards, where diesel pollution chokes the air, said Ortiz of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Truck exhaust is a major source of cancer risk and drives respiratory and heart disease.

Without authority to make aggressive rules or strong voluntary measures like the Clean Truck Partnership, experts say the transition to less-polluting trucks could slow down.

A call for bolder action 

Experts who called for bolder action said the state has more power than its executive and legislative branches are using.

Sperling said the state could better disincentivize gas-powered cars with a “feebate program,” which could charge fees on high-polluting vehicles in order to pay for clean-car rebates.

“If you really want to put your money where your mouth is, I think really supercharging those programs to advance transportation electrification could be a massively successful strategy,” said Martinez, who directs Earthjustice’s campaign toward that goal.

Martinez said that the state could better structure existing state programs including the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the state’s Cap and Trade program to pay for electric cars and trucks.

“California shouldn't blink” as the Trump Administration moves “aggressively,” he added.

Ethan Elkind, who directs the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, said a statewide rule tightening controls at warehouses and other pollution magnets could achieve similar aims to the truck mandates.

Elkind previously has pushed to go further. If the federal government is getting out of the business of regulating tailpipe emissions and making climate policy, he added, California could fill that vacuum in the future.

“The state could take a pretty aggressive approach here,” he added.

Air Resources Board chair Randolph said that California is not backing down, though she admitted that developing a new clean car rule aimed at phasing out gas-powered cars could take time.

“Because these rulemakings take two, three, sometimes even four years, we decided that it would be good to start that process now, and have it … be ready, ideally for a more receptive U.S. EPA,” Randolph said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

On Thursday morning, L.A. Councilmember Eunisse Hernandez stood at Lacy Street Neighborhood Park in the shadow of the 5 and 110 freeway interchange. Just last year, she said, the Lincoln Heights park and the areas near the freeway were filled with unhoused people. But now, thanks to a $6 million state grant awarded last fall, the park is clear and dozens of people are in temporary and permanent housing.

“Today we’re here to celebrate that 59 of our neighbors, human beings, finally have a roof over their heads,” she said.

The funds were secured by Hernandez from California’s Encampment Resolution Funds, which targeted a 4-mile stretch of the 110 Freeway.

A long to-do list before housing is secured

The grant helped pay health and social workers from public and private agencies and nonprofits, including employees with USC’s California Street Collaborative.

These workers helped people straighten things out before they moved into housing, like finding IDs, matching housing with disability needs and space for pets.

That kind of help requires building trust between the worker and the unhoused person, said Caitlin Schwan, director of the California Street Collaborative.

“And it takes an investment of resources and a lot of coalitions, a lot of partnerships across street medicine, housing providers, service providers,” she said.

Los Angeles Global Care has been as the primary interim housing provider. It also provides daily meals to those transitioning to housing, help with pets and case management.

Rigo Vega was unhoused and lived near the 110 Freeway for four years.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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“I used to live right here under the bridge for like, four years,” said Rigo Vega, who attended the announcement at the park.

Outreach workers, he said, helped him get food and clothes, and the paperwork needed to get into housing last November. Now that’s settled him enough for him to set a goal for himself, “to work, to get a job,” he said.

Hernandez’s office said the goal is to house 11 more people with the grant funds.

Topline:

What's on offer: The temple's Thai food court is a must-visit for many during regular weekends, when a large collection of food vendors set up stalls around the temple, similar to what you'd see in Bangkok. Expect this and more at the festival. We're told you should try the Thai gelato. The temple itself is also beautiful.

When and where: The temple is at 8225 Coldwater Canyon Ave., North Hollywood. There's additional parking at the Kaiser Permanente in Panorama City with a free shuttle to the festival. The temple is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. The opening ceremony starts at 1 p.m. Saturday.

A union-backed proposal to tax California’s billionaires to fund health care has put some progressive lawmakers — and their labor allies — in a quandary.

Taxing the rich to backfill Trump-induced federal funding cuts might sound like a no-brainer policy for the party’s left flank, which counts wealth inequality among its top issues.

But despite a strong show of support from prominent national figures, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and liberal economist Robert Reich, the “2026 California Billionaire Tax Act” has become a hot potato for labor leaders.

The proposed initiative would levy a one-time tax of 5% on any resident of California whose net worth exceeds $1 billion, which applies to around 200 people, according to Forbes. That money would plug an estimated $100 billion hole left by federal cuts to Medi-Cal and other social service programs.

Publicly, prominent labor and progressive players have largely kept quiet, unlike Gov. Gavin Newsom who has aired his disdain loud and clear. Yet in private, some union leaders and their allies in the Legislature rail against the measure. Of the critics who spoke with CalMatters for this story — three union leaders and five members of the Legislative Progressive Caucus — only one lawmaker would criticize the measure openly.

Critics question its feasibility and whether the state even knows how to accurately appraise a billionaire’s total wealth, a crucial step to evaluating how much tax they would owe. They fear long-term revenue loss by driving wealthy people out of California. And some resent that the union sponsoring the initiative, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, designed the measure to predominantly benefit its members rather than boost the state’s general fund, where it could go to all budget needs.

“It's not that taxing billionaires in itself is wrong,” said Keely Martin Bosler, formerly the top state budget officer to Newsom and former Gov. Jerry Brown. She is now a Democratic consultant who has advised several of California’s most powerful labor groups, including the Service Employees International Union of California, the parent union of SEIU-UHW. “The way in which this tax specifically is constructed is problematic.”

Many progressive state lawmakers and Capitol heavyweights, such as Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and the powerful California Labor Federation, have sidestepped the question of whether they’d support it, declining for now to take a position on an initiative that has yet to officially qualify for the ballot.

“The Labor Federation won’t take it up for an endorsement until July,” said Lorena Gonzalez, the organization’s president, in a text message.

Yet if the tax lands on the November ballot, as it appears on track to do, progressive critics will be saddled with the tricky optics of opposing — or at least not supporting — a measure that embodies one of their base’s core tenets: taxing the rich.

Even the mere threat the measure could qualify for the ballot has already spurred a torrent of opposition spending — more than $50 million in total so far — from billionaires such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin and cryptocurrency mogul Chris Larsen. Brin’s group, known as “Building a Better California,” has also spawned three new competing ballot measures designed to undermine the billionaires’ tax.

Critics fear that if billionaires like Brin become even bigger perennial spenders in California politics, they could neuter the progressive agenda by bankrolling more business-friendly candidates and ousting left-leaning, labor-aligned legislators.

But the measure’s proponents say they are undeterred by the secretive detractors and challenge their critics to put their names behind their words.

Dave Regan speaks to the SEIU-UHW Leadership Assembly in 2013.

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Steve Yeater

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Courtesy of SEIU-UHW

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“What we have is a group of so-called leaders who are not reflecting the attitudes of their own constituents,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW and the de facto leader of the billionaire tax measure. “That’s why they want to be anonymous.”

Regan said he’s confident the initiative will amass enough signatures to qualify for the ballot before the end of April. Then, he said, “We believe a lot of those people are going to come around and change because this makes sense, because the public is supportive, because their own members are supportive.”

The case for, and against, the billionaires’ tax

So far, polling has shown the billionaire tax is relatively popular with voters. Recent surveys show just over half of Californians surveyed said they’re inclined to vote for it.

Critics point out that California’s existing state tax structure is entirely based on income, rather than net worth. The state would have to appraise each person’s assets, including real estate, art, automobiles and private and public businesses. The billionaires could pay in installments, handing over 1% of their wealth annually for five years.

Bosler said that with income tax filings, the Franchise Tax Board can use data from federal tax returns to verify its own analysis. Since there’s no federal wealth tax, California would be forging uncharted territory with no tax compliance support from any other source or agency — a risky move that could invite legal challenges.

“The state is not a miracle worker, like, they're not going to suddenly be able to do all of this like perfectly,” said Bosler. “I mean they will do their best, but I just think this is expertise that they have built up over 50-plus years. Like, none of this is in their wheelhouse at this point.”

But champions of the tax argue it is the only real solution on the table so far to save hospitals, health care jobs and, ultimately, patient lives they say are at risk due to federal funding cuts to Medi-Cal and food assistance programs.

Supporters note that the tax is not intended to solve California’s structural budget problems.

“It’s one-time funding to fill what we hope is a one-time hole,” said Brian Galle, a tax law professor at UC Berkeley who helped craft the measure. Galle said only around 200 people would be subjected to the tax, so the extra burden on the Franchise Tax Board wouldn’t be too great.

“It's not like FTB is going to get a blizzard of tens of thousands of new returns that they're going to have to figure out a whole new data system for cracking,” said Galle.

Why some progressives aren’t on board

Those who have qualms with the initiative have largely kept their criticisms private.

One liberal state legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the infighting among the unions puts progressive lawmakers in a difficult position. While he empathizes with the urgency that health care workers feel, he and other Democrats are not convinced the policy could withstand legal challenges and worry about the wealthy employing savvy accounting maneuvers to skirt the tax altogether.

Some organizations that are synonymous with progressive politics in California, such as the Working Families Party, also haven’t taken a position, even as other unions such as the Teamsters and AFSCME California support it.

Even the powerhouse labor union SEIU California is choosing not to take a position on the measure, which is spearheaded by one of its local affiliates, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, right, speaks with Assemblymember Chris Ward at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Sept. 12, 2025.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Assemblymember Chris Ward, a member of the progressive caucus, called the measure a “well-meaning effort by UHW,” but criticized the proposal for being just a one-time tax primarily benefiting the health care sector rather than boosting the state’s overall revenues. Regan said SEIU-UHW made the tax one-time to nullify the argument that it would push billionaires out of the state.

Ward noted that he and his colleagues are considering “superior” bills, such as one that would close a corporate tax loop to generate $3 billion per year, and another that would create a new tax on corporations that pay workers so little that they qualify for Medi-Cal and nutrition assistance.

Regan argued these measures would only make California more unaffordable, since businesses would pass their increased costs along to consumers.

Ward, the sole state lawmaker who would candidly share his concerns about the initiative with CalMatters, said he and his colleagues have heard pushback from “a number of other labor organizations that don't support that initiative,” primarily because its members would not directly benefit from any of the revenue. Uniting labor, he said, is the key to any successful revenue solution.

“There's a need to look at a wealth tax for a more broad range, including health care workers but other purposes that are state priorities,” Ward said, “and that will be left off of the table if this is the only question we're seeing.”

CalMatters' Nadia Lathan contributed to this story.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.