Assembly budget-chair Nancy Skinner introduced the bill this week. Here’s what you need to know.

The California Democratic Party passed a resolution in support of a windfall profits tax. Golden State Grid obtained a copy of the resolution.

What can $1.8 million buy you in California these days? Apparently not a state Senate seat. But that didn’t stop the oil and gas industry from trying. A political action committee funded exclusively by Chevon, Valero, Phillips 66, and Marathon Petroleum spent big in an attempt to influence the race for the newly-drawn Senate District 38 seat.

“It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering, meet their responsibilities to this country, give the American people a break and still do very well.” That’s President Joe Biden, who, on Monday, threatened big oil with a windfall profit tax.

The cold war between Governor Gavin Newsom and Big Oil is heating up this week. The battle lines for the next skirmishes are already drawn.

The California Public Utilities Commission reversed course on Monday, and will now force SoCalGas to formally apply for permission to expand a notorious gas compressor site that sits directly next to a heavily-Latinx elementary school in the City of Ventura. The move comes after an outpouring of frustration and concern from city and county officials, businesses, parents and teachers.

In Ventura, Southern California Gas Company plans to expand a gas compressor station that has suffered at least a dozen unplanned methane leaks that sits directly next to a heavily-Latinx elementary school. The Newsom Administration has the power to block SoCalGas, which is why parents and teachers—not to mention the city council, county commission, and school board—are all pushing the Governor to act. Here’s what you need to know.

The California Building and Construction Trades Council came down on the losing side of key legislative fights and party platform disputes this legislative session, and found itself crosswise with Governor Newsom and other leading unions on a much-hyped electric vehicle ballot measure.

The only part of his recent trip to the White House that California Governor Gavin Newsom hated was when they made him board the plane back home. Now Newsom’s betting that his climate leadership positions him as the Democratic frontrunner best able to tackle tomorrow’s biggest challenges while stitching the Obama coalition back together. There’s just one problem. At home, in California, the only person who seems to be inspired by Newsom’s new climate agenda is Gavin Newsom.

Golden State Grid launched a month ago with a mission of covering the people who shape energy politics in California—the regulators, the electeds, the lobbyists, the unions, and industry. We think of our work as exposing the power behind the power grid. Here’s what we’ve covered so far.

New data analysis shows nearly one-third of senior staff at CalGEM–the state agency charged with regulating oil and gas companies–came to the agency from the oil and gas industry.

Pacific Gas and Electric—you know, PG&E, the people whose equipment failures continue to light California on fire—have a proposal in front of state lawmakers that would kneecap the state’s rooftop solar industry. And Californians are very unhappy about it.

Longtime California Assemblyman Jim Cooper is leaving his seat this year to become Sheriff in Sacramento County. One of his final acts in the state legislature was to use his position as the chair of a powerful state assembly committee to block a key piece of climate legislation from even getting a vote.

The all-male leadership is particularly troubling given that the The Trades has long battled issues of harassment and discrimination of women.

Andrew Meredith’s eruption at the Democratic Party convention reflects a widening rift between the Building Trades and the state’s Democratic Party over California’s energy future.