The Brief

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Lawmakers have returned to Sacramento ready to hammer out — and potentially spike — several legislative deals before they adjourn for the year on Aug. 31 and hit the campaign trail.

Think of this year’s end-of-session as a bonus episode to last year’s saga over climate and energy policy. Much of the unresolved business has roots in the deal that renewed the state’s carbon market. But new topics have entered the plot too, and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón will bring a different dynamic to negotiations among the “Big Three.”

As usual, much of the negotiating will take place at the leadership level behind closed doors. Here are five deals we’re watching this month.

Climate fund a centerpiece to budget talks

How to spend the state’s main climate fund will be a primary sticking point this month after Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative Democrats failed to reach an agreement in time for the June budget.

Now, they have less than a month to settle their differences. Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat, told reporters in June that the climate budget would be “at the top of the list” for negotiations during the summer recess.

Newsom and lawmakers last fall reauthorized the state’s carbon market, which charges companies to pollute and deposits the dollars in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for climate programs. The deal also set the order in which projects would receive funding.

But that revenue source, which was estimated to generate $4 billion a year, could shrink by half under new climate rules the Newsom administration adopted this year, endangering funding for various legislative priorities and angering Senate Democrats, who in turn threatened to block Newsom’s funding proposals and presented alternative spending plans in June.

Legislative leaders agreed to use $115 million of the fund for Newsom-backed electric vehicle incentives and another $1.25 billion to backfill the state fire department’s budget. But still at stake is funding for the controversial high-speed rail project, which was set to receive $1 billion a year until 2045. Projects such as safe drinking water, affordable housing and transit are also at risk of losing funding.

Separately, top leaders put off negotiations over Proposition 4, the voter-approved $10 billion bond for climate projects. Last year, state lawmakers fought to secure a piece of the fund for pet projects, some tangentially related to environmental protection, in their own districts in a secretive process that even many lawmakers bemoaned.

Tech-backed California Forever seeks a deal

California Forever, the tech-billionaires-backed group seeking to develop swaths of Solano County farmland, is hoping to get a carve-out on environmental rules for the development.

For months, the group and its labor union allies told state lawmakers the relief was necessary to help California land a deal with Saronics Technologies Inc., a Texas-based shipbuilder they said was eyeing California for its next shipyard. The group wanted the state to streamline environmental reviews and override county restrictions for the development, but no legislation materialized as opponents accused the group of bypassing local resistance and sidestepping environmental regulations.

The shipbuilder announced last month that it would build in Texas, a decision California Forever blamed on state lawmakers. “We were passed over because … our approval process cannot accommodate the required speed without special legislation, which was not passed in time,” the group said in a statement.

“California and Solano County must not miss the next opportunity,” it continued.

California Forever has spent $455,000 since last year lobbying state lawmakers and the governor’s office, according to its lobbying report released Friday.

The proposed development appears to have Newsom’s blessing. The governor’s office called a meeting Thursday to discuss the project with a couple of Solano County supervisors, California Forever representatives and Assemblymember Lori Wilson and Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, who represent the region.

Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, who rose to the role this year, will be a key player in end-of-session negotiations for the first time.

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Dee Dee Myers, who heads the governor’s office of business and economic development that’s been pushing for the development, was also present. In a memo last month, her office called the region a “world-class industrial site” and touted the importance of building a shipyard and an advanced manufacturing hub in the area.

“California is better positioned to attract billions of dollars in investment, tens of thousands of new good-paying jobs and a more resilient supply chain than it has been in decades,” the memo said. “And no project represents this opportunity more clearly than the proposed Solano Shipyard and Solano Foundry.”

Will Newsom's wildfire plan benefit utilities?

Newsom is also proposing legislation to address growing wildfire risks in California but is not giving specifics.

Consumer advocates, wildfire survivors and insurers say he’s trying to reduce utilities’ liability for causing wildfires, shift wildfire recovery costs to insurance policyholders and make it harder for fire victims to get compensation or legal representation — claims Newsom’s office declined to address.

Newsom spokesperson Anthony Martinez said discussions about potential legislation followed a California Earthquake Authority study in April that examined ways to better prepare California for natural disasters. The study was required by a last-minute deal Newsom and state lawmakers struck last year, which required utility companies to pay into the state’s wildfire fund while allowing them to shift certain costs onto customers.

Wildfire Survivors First, a utilities-funded coalition despite its name, is lobbying state leaders to adopt several proposals listed in the study, arguing they would reduce wildfire risks and make property insurance more affordable.

Most legislative leaders were tight-lipped about the potential package. Sen. Ben Allen, a Los Angeles Democrat running for state insurance commissioner, said he would “carefully review” any legislation and urged against proposals to “simply shift around the costs consumers pay.” Democratic Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents Eaton Fire survivors, said she would oppose last-minute deals to cap compensation for fire victims.

Business and labor clash over antitrust proposal

Lawmakers will determine the fate of a controversial bill that would give Californians the ability to sue large companies in state court for using monopolistic practices to stifle competition.

The bill, known as the COMPETE Act, has infuriated the business community and set the California Chamber of Commerce on a warpath. The powerful industry group has called Assembly Bill 1776 “the largest expansion of antitrust law in world history” and warns its members that the legislation would “leave every business of every size in California vulnerable to massive legal liability.”

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas will be negotiating deals with Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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Business advocates also argue that the bill gives predatory law firms a new way to shake down California businesses by opening the floodgates for what’s known as “private right of action” lawsuits. For years, business owners have complained about California laws that allow activists and a cottage industry of lawyers to bombard them with cash demands and lawsuits over disability access, product warning labels, labor complaints and consumer privacy.

The legislation, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Davis Democrat, has support from labor-friendly progressive lawmakers, but also some who have more moderate records such as Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains and Senator Melissa Hurtado, both Central Valley Democratic lawmakers.

Several of the state’s most powerful unions have lined up as co-sponsors, including the California Federation of Labor Unions, SEIU California and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate appropriations committee on Aug. 10.

Counties seek reprieve from costly assault claims

Los Angeles County is leading a behind-the-scenes effort to limit lawsuits from Californians who allege they were abused as children by public employees while in county or school district custody.

The effort comes in response to a deluge of lawsuits that followed a 2019 law that dramatically expanded the time people have to sue for the alleged abuse. Survivors now have until they turn 40 to file claims, rather than the previous cutoff of age 26 or within five years of becoming aware of trauma caused by the alleged abuse. The resulting litigation and settlements have cost counties and school districts billions of dollars.

Last April, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $4 billion settlement with 6,800 people who claimed they suffered abuse while in county juvenile detention facilities. Some of those cases dated back more than 65 years.

Lawmakers attempted to broker a compromise, Senate Bill 577, at the end of last session that would satisfy survivors and roll back the scope of the law to provide some financial reprieve to cash-strapped counties and school districts. But that effort, led by Sen. John Laird, a Democrat from Santa Cruz, couldn’t gain traction, and Laird eventually shelved the issue.

Now, public employee unions are pushing for a reprieve again, largely to avoid potential pay concessions from their financially burdened public employers. Negotiations will likely take place at the Democratic leadership level between Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

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

A new law will require local agencies to publicly disclose audio recordings and written records of 911 calls originating from privately run immigration detention facilities. The bill was prompted by CalMatters reporting on alleged sexual assaults at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 423, called the Detention Facility Transparency Act, on Tuesday. It was one of 21 immigration-related bills in a package his office announced the same day.

The law will require local agencies to turn over recordings and written records of 911 calls from privately run detention facilities, if a member of the public requests them. It includes an exception if an active investigation is underway and requires redacting the names of affected individuals.

“Well, it goes without saying, these past two years, Donald Trump has brought fear and has brought anxiety, disruption and stress to our immigrant communities,” Newsom said in a recorded video statement on his website.

“So, today, I sign a number of bills to strengthen transparency and to strengthen accountability and oversight over federal immigration enforcement and civil detention in our state,” the governor said.

State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Democrat from Long Beach, introduced SB 423 as state investigations and courts found serious gaps in essential medical care within the facilities. She said the aim was to stop private operators, and the agencies that work alongside them, from keeping what happens behind detention walls from the public's view.

In February, L.A. Taco reported that detainees inside Otay Mesa were throwing lotion bottles wrapped with notes about conditions inside over the wall of the facility to organizers standing outside.

“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh," an Otay Mesa detainee wrote, the news outlet reported. "We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”

Gonzalez, who is chair of the Legislative Latino Caucus, said no person “should have to resort to throwing notes over the walls of a detention facility to have their needs met and their voices heard.”

Earlier this year, CalMatters sought information, including 911 audio records and other reports, about alleged serious incidents at detention facilities through a California Public Records Act request. While a San Diego County sheriff’s spokesperson said the agency was not investigating those cases, he said he was unable to turn over additional records because they were part of “a law enforcement investigation.”

“When journalists and reporters attempted to obtain records about reported incidents at these facilities through the Public Records Act, they faced severe pushback from law enforcement, citing vague investigatory records exemptions, despite there being no active investigation,” said Gonzalez.

Immigrant Defense Advocates and the First Amendment Coalition co-sponsored the bill.

“The governor has sent a powerful message: No more secrecy. SB 423 makes clear that 911 calls and related records about events in detention must be released upon request. This will shed more light on a notoriously opaque system, leading to stronger oversight and accountability,” Ginny LaRoe, Advocacy Director, First Amendment Coalition, said in a written statement.

Gonzalez’s bill was one of several detention oversight bills Newsom signed Tuesday. Others impose a new 25% tax on private detention facilities, expand health, safety and oversight requirements for the centers, and add to the state attorney general’s oversight role.

The new laws take effect Jan. 1.

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

Six Flags Magic Mountain is retiring its famous X2 roller coaster amid lawsuits alleging serious brain injury caused by the ride.

The Southern California theme park said Tuesday that it is permanently shuttering the ride after nearly 20 years. Six Flags recently settled a wrongful-death lawsuit from the family of a 22-year-old man who died after riding the coaster in 2022, and three more lawsuits alleging traumatic brain injuries were filed last week.

“While X2 consistently passed a multitude of safety tests, we have decided to close the ride because we believe it’s the right thing to do,” park President Brian Oerding said in an online announcement. “Ride safety is a cornerstone of our business, and when we see guest confidence affected, we take it seriously.”

The ride has been closed since the evening of July 12, after two women who rode the coaster less than a week apart both needed to be rushed to the hospital after they exited.

One of them, 25-year-old Naomi Greer-Wilkinson, collapsed shortly after the ride ended and was found to have massive brain bleeding inside the skull that required emergency brain surgery. She remains in a vegetative state in the hospital, unable to speak or move and dependent on a ventilator. Her family filed a lawsuit against Six Flags on her behalf.

Her attorneys said more than 100 people claimed they suffered brain injuries from the roller coaster in the past two years, and more lawsuits would be filed in the coming weeks.

According to the Six Flags Magic Mountain website, the X2 roller coaster reaches a top speed of 76 mph (122 kph) and has a total length of 3,610 feet (1,100 meters). The seats rotate 360 degrees “so your body will be flipping around the entire time,” and the ride features two “raven turns” — half loops that turn into sheer drops midway.

It debuted at the park in 2002 under the name X as the world’s first “fourth-dimension” roller coaster and reopened in 2008 as X2 with new trains and special effects. The uniqueness of the ride drew thrill-seekers from around the world and garnered a fervent fanbase.

The park settled a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of Christopher Hawley, a 22-year-old who died the day after he rode X2. He was taken to the hospital after the ride with severe brain bleeding. The medical examiner’s office said his death was from blunt head trauma. The case was settled at the end of August, a few days before the trial was scheduled to start.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the administration to resume, for now, deportations of migrants to countries that are not identified in their removal orders, handing President Donald Trump another victory in his aggressive immigration agenda.

The court also said it would take up the case for full oral argument in December.

The court's brief order granting the petition did not outline a reason for staying a lower-court order that blocked the third-country deportations. It noted the court's three liberal justices objected to staying the order.

Solicitor General John Sauer told the justices the third-country deportation policy amounted to "an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens" in court papers earlier this month. The administration said it has used the policy to deport tens of thousands of noncitizens to Mexico and countries in Africa and Latin America after the migrants' home countries refused to accept them.

"While certain aliens may benefit from stalling their removal, the Nation does not," Sauer wrote in an emergency application Sept. 24.

The action by the high court marks the third time the justices have rejected efforts by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston to pause the deportations, which the judge said violate due process rights and fail to give detainees meaningful notice to raise arguments that they have credible fears of torture or abuse in the countries where they could be sent.

The National Immigration Litigation Alliance, which is representing migrants facing deportation, said in court papers that their clients are facing significant harms.

"The record shows that class members removed without meaningful notice or an opportunity to present country-specific protection claims have faced prolonged and arbitrary detention, beatings and sexual assault, disappearance, and chain refoulement to countries from which the United States had already granted them protection," wrote lawyer Trina Realmuto. "These harms cannot be undone."

The Department of Homeland Security said Murphy's rulings have created a logistical nightmare, including canceled flights, potential diplomatic clashes, and a lag in removing people convicted of assault and drug crimes.

The administration argued that if a country has assured Secretary of State Marco Rubio that it will not engage in persecution or torture, that should be enough to deport a noncitizen to a country that's not their own.

The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority has recognized the president has substantial authority over the border. Last summer, in a 6-to-3 decision, the court ruled President Trump has sweeping power to end the temporary protected status program for people who can't return to their home countries because of wars and natural disasters.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The bell had already rung on a recent morning at Newport Beach’s Ensign Intermediate School. But two of the school’s students hadn’t made it to class. Instead, they were sitting on a sidewalk across from campus, detained by a police officer for parking their e-bikes on the street.

The situation at Ensign has gotten messy since the school district, Newport-Mesa Unified, voted to ban e-bikes from middle and elementary school campuses, citing safety concerns. Many students kept riding their e-bikes to school anyway, parking them in swarms in the surrounding neighborhood.

The neighbors did not like this. Shouting matches ensued between students and homeowners. At least one student returned from class to find her tires deflated.

The city responded to the tension by putting up “No e-bike parking” signs on several streets.

The city of Newport Beach prohibited e-bikes on some streets around Ensign Intermediate School after neighbors complained.

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“I wouldn't want it in my neighborhood either, like, I get it,” said Corey Gulbranson, who got a $100 parking ticket on behalf of his daughter, one of the Ensign students detained for allegedly illegally parking her e-bike. “But at the end of the day, we're just trying to get our kids to school on a legal mode of transportation.”

Crucial teen commuting tools? Or dangerous devices?

E-bikes and significantly more powerful e-motorcycles have become very popular in many Orange County suburbs, where the streets are wide, public transit is spotty, and distances are longer than some are willing to pedal on a regular bike. For teens and tweens, e-bikes provide a taste of independence. They also relieve parents of some of their driving duties. Plus, e-bikes can replace polluting cars.

But their popularity has brought an alarming increase in serious injuries, especially among young riders.

At Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, e-bike crashes are now sending more kids to the ER than any other cause, according to Dr. Tetsuya Takeuchi, the hospital’s trauma medical director. More than 70% of those patients had some level of head injury, from minor concussions to devastating brain damage, he said, often because they were not wearing a helmet.

But even Takeuchi recognizes the nearly irresistible draw of e-bikes.

“If you ride one, you realize how easy it is to go everywhere with it,” he said.  “I am not by any means surprised at how popular this is, especially amongst kids.”

‘Bicycle-shaped devices’

Not all e-bikes are equally fast, or equally dangerous. California uses a three-tier system, developed by the bike industry, to classify e-bikes depending on:

• engine power
• max speed
• whether the bike has pedals 
• whether a cyclist has to use those pedals before the engine kicks in 

California law prohibits children under age 16 from riding Class 3 e-bikes with engines capable of reaching 28 miles per hour. In reality, though, many kids are riding e-vehicles that go faster — in some cases, much faster.

“There are lots of what I will call 'bicycle-shaped devices' being ridden,” said Asha Weinstein Agrawal, a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. “Some of them are legal e-bikes. Some of them are not.”

Agrawal recently co-authored a 210-page report on e-bike safety. It includes data collected from middle and high schools in Marin and San Mateo counties, which showed that only 12% of students’ e-bikes fit into the legal classification system. The other 88% were more powerful than legally allowed under California law.

A Newport Beach Police officer tickets a middle schooler for parking her e-bike on the street across from Ensign Middle School on Sept. 4, 2026.

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Any bicycle-shaped device that goes faster than 30 miles per hour is technically an e-motorcycle, which requires a special driver’s license and, if ridden on public roads, insurance and registration.

Agrawal said it’s hard for parents, and even police officers, to figure out what’s legal and what’s not.

“Nobody understands this,” she said. “It’s very hard to enforce.”

The crackdown

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has taken some unusual approaches to addressing the e-bike dilemma. To date, he has pressed criminal charges — including for child endangerment — against four parents after their children were involved in collisions, all of them on e-motorcycles, not e-bikes.

One of those parents, a woman from Aliso Viejo, was charged with three felonies, including involuntary manslaughter, after her 14-year-old son allegedly struck and killed an 81-year-old man while doing wheelies in the street in Lake Forest on an e-motorcycle souped up to reach 60 miles per hour.

People with e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos move through the long line at the Orange County District Attorney's buyback event at Angel Stadium, Sept. 13, 2026.

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The DA’s office said it has also sent letters to retailers reminding them of a ban on selling products used to modify e-bikes to go faster than legally allowed.

Spitzer recently tried another novel approach: buybacks. On a recent Sunday, hundreds of people brought their e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos to an event at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, hoping to turn them in for up to a thousand dollars in gift cards. The county event was paid for with $100,000 in asset forfeiture funds.

One man near the front of the line said he had arrived at 1 a.m. By the time the event started at 10 a.m., sheriff’s deputies were turning people away.

“Holy smokes,” Spitzer said from behind a podium mounted in the parking lot. “Look at the participation. … And you can see why, because we have a serious problem here in Orange County and across the nation with individuals who have e-bikes and e-motorcycles.”

Spitzer spoke about the dangers, but also the attractiveness of a high-powered personal vehicle, especially for teen boys.

 “We're not gonna change our internal DNA about who we are as young people and the fact we wanna go places, and we wanna experiment, and quite frankly, we like fast things,” he said. “ But the fact of the matter is when you have a machine, and you don't understand its capabilities, you can find yourself in harm's way very quickly before you can control that mechanism.”

Orange County District Attorney is testing out a range of strategies to crack down on illegal e-bikes and e-motos, including a buyback event at Angel Stadium on Sept. 13, 2026.

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Are unsafe riders ‘ruining it for other people’?

Paul Dumont drove to the buyback event all the way from Chatsworth in hopes of exchanging five e-bikes he had bought for his kids and grandkids.

“They got injured on them when we first got them, so they've been sitting in storage,” he said of the bikes.

Dumont said he wished he had bought less powerful e-bikes. “But I bought them the best ones,” he said. “I thought they'd be better.”

Denise Mills and her 17-year-old son Nathanael came from Torrance to turn in three e-motorcycles that he had been riding to and from his high school last year. He stopped after the school told him it was illegal. A new state law defining e-motorcycles took effect in January.

A student at Ensign Middle School runs to campus after parking his e-bike at a nearby park, Sept. 4, 2026.

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“That was very unfortunate because it's his primary source of transportation,” Mills said. “Now it's his dad and I.”

Nathanael said he had logged several thousand miles without an accident.

“ Partially it's, like, people ruining it for other people,” he said of efforts to tighten the rules for young riders.

Local leaders grapple with the flood of e-bikes

Cities and school districts are testing a variety of approaches to decrease e-bike crashes and injuries, from prohibiting riding on sidewalks to outright bans for young riders. The Brea City Council has even discussed using police drones to follow unsafe youth riders home in order to inform their parents.

In a more typical approach, the Huntington Beach City School District requires all student e-bike commuters to pass a safety course in order to get a permit to park their bike on campus. Newport-Mesa has a similar program for high schoolers.

Marin County limits youth under age 16 to riding Class 1 “pedal-assist” e-bikes, which have motors that kick in only while pedaling, and shut off once the bike reaches 20 miles per hour. The ban on more powerful e-bikes for young riders is part of a pilot program approved by the state legislature that sunsets in 2029.

At the federal level, O.C. Congressman Dave Min, D-Irvine, co-authored a bill earlier this year, the Safe SPEEDS Act, that would develop nationwide safety standards for e-bikes, including minimum age recommendations.

A dilemma for parents

Parents of student e-bike commuters have said they do not oppose regulating the vehicles, and they want authorities to crack down on dangerous and illegal riding. But an outright ban goes too far, they’ve said.

“ I know there are kids that are a little wild,” said Kellie Newcombe, whose 13-year-old daughter is still riding her pedal-assist bike from their home in Costa Mesa to Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach.

“That is not my child. That is not her friends. They are so ridiculously safe and by the book,” she said. “It's just super frustrating that they would say every kid cannot ride an e-bike.”

A spokesperson for Newport-Mesa Unified told LAist in an email that the school district’s new e-bike restrictions have gone smoothly and are helping to reinforce safety. But that is not how Gulbranson and Newcombe see it.

“We've had my daughter intimidated by multiple neighbors now,” Gulbranson said. “This whole guise of doing it under safety is totally misguided.”

Newcombe said she worries about her daughter’s safety more now that an increasing number of parents are driving their kids to school.

“They're in a rush because the traffic is insane,” she said. Plus, her daughter now has to cross a busy street to get to campus.

Newcombe said she wishes the school district would work with local leaders and police to enforce e-bike rules and to create safer paths to school for responsible riders.