“Serious enough to be briefing me about it, serious enough to be proposing some bill language in a trailer bill, serious enough to be expending some political capital to try to make the case and get the information to the voters and the public as to why we need it.” Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham, a San Luis Obispo Republican, told the Sacramento Bee: “I think (the Newsom administration is) pretty serious” about Diablo Canyon.
(That isn’t the only contentious environmental legislation they’re grappling with: Newsom on Friday sent them a list of last-minute climate proposals he wants enacted, including accelerated greenhouse gas cuts, new interim targets for reaching 100% clean energy and safety zones around new oil and gas wells.) 31 - giving them less than three weeks to reach an agreement on the complex issue. Newsom - no doubt eager to avoid power outages as he elevates his national profile in what some suspect is preparation for a future presidential run - has for months pushed the idea of temporarily extending Diablo Canyon’s lifespan past its planned 2025 closure to help shore up the state’s electricity supplies.īut the draft legislation makes explicit the urgency behind his proposal: It would exempt the Diablo Canyon extension from review under the California Environmental Quality Act and several other environmental laws, limiting the legal challenges that anti-nuclear advocates and other environmental justice groups could bring against it, according to the Los Angeles Times.Īnd, unless Newsom calls for a special legislative session, lawmakers will have to approve his plan before the regular session ends on Aug. Taken together, the two actions underscore the extent to which California is at risk of repeating the events of 2020, when the state was unable to supply enough energy to meet demand, triggering the first rolling blackouts in nearly two decades. Gavin Newsom’s office unveiled late Thursday to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, the state’s last nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo, by as much as 10 years - and give its operator, PG&E, a forgivable loan of as much as $1.4 billion to do so. The California Independent System Operator’s warning came on the heels of draft legislation Gov. Starting today and lasting through Thursday, generators and transmission-line operators should delay any scheduled maintenance to avoid possible power outages as Californians crank up their air conditioners to deal with an expected onslaught of 100-plus degree heat, the state’s electric grid operator said Friday.