SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KERO) — Governor Gavin Newsom signed sweeping new climate legislation into law in Sacramento on Friday. The $54 billion dollar package aims to make California carbon-neutral by 2045.
Newsom said California has already taken big steps to reduce its environmental footprint compared to other states.
“Here we are, leapfrogging and moving ahead, the deniers and the doubters, all that anger these guys are spewing every single night. Let’s think about the state of Texas,” said Newsom. “The first five months of this year, talk about spewing. 22.9 million tons of coal they spewed in the first five months of this year, compared to California’s 18,000 tons.”
Newsom also said this climate action would create four million new jobs.
One of the package’s main priorities is electrifying vehicles. $10 billion dollars of its budget is focused on incentives to get people to switch to battery-powered cars.
Newsom estimates the measures outlined in the new legislation could save California around $23 billion dollars in air pollution mitigation costs.
