The California Air Resources Board is getting a new leader at a pivotal moment, as it battles President Donald Trump's administration in court and contends with growing scrutiny from Democrats and voters questioning the price of the state’s climate principles.
Liane Randolph has chaired the board of the state’s top air and climate regulator since 2020. She oversaw a range of policies including landmark clean-car and truck rules, a fuel standard with implications for gas prices and the state’s signature carbon trading program, cap-and-trade. This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom nominated his senior climate advisor, Lauren Sanchez, to replace her.
Randolph, in an interview, told CalMatters her departure was part of her “personal journey,” something she began considering earlier this year.
“I've worked really hard over the last almost five years, and I'm ready for a break,” she said. “I am confident that the transition will go incredibly smoothly.”
Observers say the handover highlights the air board’s key role at a time of political pushback and consumer resistance.
“Pretty much all of the major areas in climate that [the air board] touches are going to be in really significant periods of challenge,” said Danny Cullenward, a climate expert and vice chair of an independent committee that analyzes the cap-and-trade program. “This is not an easy time to take over an agency. It’s a time when sound strategy — and not just autopilot — is going to be required.”
California’s climate ambition meets Trump opposition
Newsom’s 2020 order to phase out gas-car sales by 2035 was a watershed moment for California climate policy. His executive order was a headline-grabbing strike at the oil industry, meant to accelerate not only the state’s adoption of electric cars, but the nation’s.
Newsom said Randolph would be the champion of that effort as his pick to lead the air board just a few months later, calling her “the kind of bold, innovative leader that will lead in our fight against climate change with equity and all California’s communities at heart.”
But Randolph faced a larger challenge than her predecessors: a Trump administration bent on thwarting California’s authority. The White House immediately criticized Newsom’s order as an example of how “extreme the left has become,” evidence that liberal policymakers wanted to “dictate every aspect of every American’s life.”
While Randolph's air board made significant policy during the years of the Biden administration, Trump attacked those efforts once he returned to office.
“Liane didn't have the time or the circumstances to pivot toward a new, adjusted strategy,” said Daniel Sperling, a former member of the board, now the director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis. “She inherited the trajectory that California was on, and that the governor was articulating, and then she got undermined by the Trump administration.”
For the gasoline car ban, the air board held months of marathon hearings filled with car owners, environmentalists and industry lobbyists. In 2022, the board approved the measure that Newsom wanted. More rules soon followed, targeting diesel trucks, locomotives and other major polluters.
Ethan Elkind, a climate law expert at UC Berkeley, said Randolph steered the board through a difficult time.
In disputes involving environmental justice groups, he said, “she really listened to people,” building consensus and lowering tensions.
“She's always very diplomatic,” Elkind said. “She was mild-mannered, she wasn’t polemical, she didn’t use it as a perch to pontificate. She seemed very measured and steady and took her role as the public face, and the need for outreach, very seriously.”
Policies moving the state toward zero emissions vehicles have struggled, as federal and state regulators have pulled industry in opposing directions.
The Biden administration signed off on California’s clean-car rules last year. But the state air board withdrew one of its most aggressive measures on diesel trucks, as well as rules on locomotives, harbor craft and other polluters, in anticipation of Trump’s return.
“There's not a full understanding of how aggressive the administration's attacks on all of California's efforts to achieve climate action have been,” Randolph said at a CalMatters event in San Francisco. She pointed to the Trump administration’s withdrawl of a rule aimed at cleaning up nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks.
“That has nothing to do with electric vehicles,” Randolph said. “It was all about just attacking California's authority, and letting the big companies who supported the administration continue to pollute communities.”
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, a senior advisor to the Western States Petroleum Association, said that under Randolph’s tenure, California’s ambition got ahead of consumers and technology. Her pushback echoed the broader clash with the Trump administration, which has targeted electric cars as costly for consumers and impractical.
“We have no problem with electric vehicles,” Reheis-Boyd said, at the San Francisco CalMatters event. But “we think there should be a free market.”
Searing climate battles at home
Last November, the air board revamped its Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a program that uses financial incentives to encourage cleaner fuels as the state phases out gasoline and diesel.
The fight exposed twin challenges arising from within the state: rising costs and lingering environmental harms not addressed by the climate policy. Consumer advocates raised alarms about gas prices, while environmentalists warned that boosting alternatives like biofuels made from cow manure or soybeans offered limited climate benefits.
Phoebe Seaton, co-director of the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said her group “strongly disagrees” with the expansion of the fuel standard program but credited Randolph’s leadership for showing up and listening to all parties.
“We are especially grateful for the time Chair Randolph dedicated to meeting in Pixley and Fresno with people impacted by dairies,” Seaton said.
Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, speaks during an EVgo fast charging station launch event at El Mercado Plaza Shopping Center in Union City on Sept. 25, 2023. The event highlighted California achieving its goal of installing 10,000 direct current fast chargers for electric vehicles. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters Central valley politicians criticized the program for making fuels less affordable. Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a Bakersfield Democrat looking to unseat a moderate Republican in Congress, called for Randolph’s resignation earlier this year. She argued that the air board failed to study the economic impacts of its new standard. Her office did not respond to a request from CalMatters for comment.
Cullenward said the air board hasn’t always clearly said what its programs cost consumers. While Newsom and the legislature will extend cap-and-trade, the board still must decide how to reshape the program after pausing work on it during the reauthorization fight.
“One of the toughest things about this process is that being really honest about what's working — and what's not working — and what the costs of the different options are, is going to be essential,” Cullenward said. “Historically, that's not something staff have ever embraced.”
Newsom praised Randolph for stepping in during a time of uncertainty and leading with “vision and resolve.” She will leave at the end of the month, before the end of her term, which lasts through 2026.
Questions about costs, affordability and environmental concerns will continue to hang over the air board as it decides how to steer cap-and-trade and other programs in the years ahead.
Randolph, in her remarks Wednesday, said California regulators must get creative in the face of federal attacks, while also addressing public concerns and communicating why the state’s policies matter.
“All of the impacts of climate change make things fundamentally unaffordable,” she said.
Newsom’s point person steps in
Randolph’s replacement, Lauren Sanchez, has been the governor’s point person on climate from within the executive office. Translating Newsom’s vision into state policy at a key turning point while also leading a 16-member board and managing the agency’s vast, highly technical staff will present a new challenge.
Sanchez built her climate credentials on the international stage and inside the governor’s office, where she helped steer billions in budget funding for climate programs and advised Newsom on this summer’s high-stakes energy and climate package.
“He turned to the aide he trusts most on climate,” said Dean Florez, the state Senate appointee to the air board. “Lauren’s been at his side drafting the playbook and steering the billions. This isn’t a change in course, it’s keeping faith with his own circle.”
Before joining Newsom’s office in 2021, Sanchez served as a climate negotiator at the U.S. State Department and later advised John Kerry in the Biden administration. She also held senior roles at the California Environmental Protection Agency and the air board, coordinating climate policy across state agencies and shaping California’s international climate work.
“Lauren has been my most trusted climate advisor and the chief architect of California’s bold climate agenda,” Newsom said. “She is a force in her own right: her expertise, tenacity, and vision will serve California well as the Board works to protect our communities and defends our climate progress against relentless attacks from Washington.”
Sanchez played a central role in weaving climate priorities into the state budget in recent years, said Jamie Pew, climate policy advisor with NetxGen Policy. Cap-and-trade pays for a climate credit that consumers see on their utility bills; Pew said Sanchez advocated for expanding the credit during the recent legislative negotiations.
“Lauren has been a champion for getting cap and invest done this year, which will ensure that funding for critical climate programs will continue to grow at a time when federal rollbacks threaten the transition,” Pew said.
Next week, the state's top air and climate regulators will vote on amendments narrowing a previously rescinded truck rule to public fleets. The board is also advancing an emergency regulation to keep its clean-car and truck standards enforceable as the board battles the federal government in court.
Many of the air board's recent accomplishments have run into roadblocks this year. As expected, Trump quickly moved to block California’s mandates aided by Congress, signing three measures in June against clean cars and two others targeting diesel trucks.
Adrian Martinez, a lawyer with Earthjustice, said California’s air board faces “perilous times.”
“Everyone breathing in California depends on it,” he said.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
