Gavin Newsom’s 2028 presidential ambitions have come under attack – from a group of Los Angeles progressives.
Los Angeles-based Streets For All, which advocates for anti-traffic reforms, has announced it’s running blistering newspaper ads that blast the governor in Columbia, South Carolina and Reno, Nevada.
Both locations are in early-primary states that could sway who wins the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, which Newsom is likely seeking.
They group is particularly angry about funding cuts to the Gov. Gavin Newsom-appointed agency, the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
The organization and its left-leaning allies are upset over changes in the past months to the state’s cap-and-invest program, which works by placing a limit, or “cap,” on greenhouse gas emissions and requires major polluters to buy allowances for their emissions.
“Governor Gavin Newsom increasingly wants to be judged by voters across the country—and those voters deserve to know what he is actually doing in California,” the Streets For All declared in a blog post.
Environmental groups were frustrated with a proposal that would give free allowances to companies that invest in cutting carbon emissions. Such an incentive would encourage more pollution instead, they argued, and reduce money for climate and energy programs funded by cap-and-trade, such as the state’s high-speed rail project.
One analysis concluded the incentive could lead to $2 billion less for the cap-and-trade fund, which Streets For All characterized as a “giveaway” to Big Oil and polluters.
“California Governor Gavin Newsom just supported moving billions away from clean drinking water, public transit, and affordable housing into subsidies for refineries and industrial polluters,” read the ad, which was framed as a letter to Nevadans and South Carolinians from “struggling Californians.”
The agency, the California Air Resources Board, had defended the proposal as a “challenging balancing act” between climate goals and keeping critical industries from leaving the state.
Still, pro-climate groups have seized on a May statement from Newsom’s office where he praised the updates to the cap-and-invest program as a counter to the pro-oil Trump administration. Streets For All blasted his “climate hypocrisy.”
The governor’s tension with certain far-left elements of his Democratic Party — on this issue and others, such as the proposed state billionaire tax — could pose a complicated juggling task for him should he choose to run for president.
The California Post reached out to Newsom’s office for comment on the ad.
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