Here’s how the 2025 legislative session ends: The truth about environmental issues

Gov. Gavin Newsom ended the 2025 legislative session with his usual flurry of activity, signing several major environmental, energy and climate bills and vetoing others before a Monday deadline.

California’s latest laws include efforts to accelerate clean energy projects and boost the state’s status as a climate leader, as well as decisions to ramp up oil drilling and reject a phase-out of permanent chemicals.

Let’s take a look at what happened this year:

In September, Newsom signed a A package of blockbuster bills That includes reauthorizing California’s iconic cap-and-trade program, which sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allows big polluters to buy and sell emissions allowances in quarterly auctions. The Legislature extended the program by 15 years, through 2045, renamed it Cap and Invest and specified how its revenue would be allocated to wildfire prevention efforts, high-speed rail and other projects.

The greenhouse gas trading scheme is considered critical to the state achieving its climate goals, including reaching Become carbon neutral by 2045.

“California really needs to take action this year and decisively try to enact policies to achieve our climate goals [and support] “State legislative efforts are especially important as the Trump administration aims to weaken California’s authority in the economy and in different areas,” said Susan Nedell, senior Western advocate at the nonpartisan policy group E2. Exhaust emission standardselectric vehicle initiatives and renewable energy projects, among others.

“It’s time for California to take a leadership role, and I really feel like they’ve succeeded as a state,” Neidl said.

what else becomes law

• One of the most controversial bills this year is Senate Bill 237making it easier to drill as many as 2,000 new oil wells in Kern County. The trade-off also makes it more difficult to drill new oil or gas wells offshore. Lawmakers said the announcements by oil companies Phillips 66 and Valero would help address volatile gasoline prices. closure down two large refineries in the state. Environmental groups were quick to condemn the bill.
• Equally controversial is the Assembly Bill 825which would expand California’s participation in regional electricity markets—enabling the state to buy and sell more clean electricity with other Western states. Opponents fear it would cede some control of California’s power grid to out-of-state authorities, including the federal government. Supporters say it would improve grid reliability and save taxpayers money.
• Fires in Los Angeles in January sparked renewed focus on the state’s fire response, including Senate Bill 254which contains a variety of policies to address California’s aging electric infrastructure and wildfire prevention goals. It would raise about $18 billion to replenish the state’s wildfire fund, a state insurance policy for utilities, which officials said would help protect ratepayers from exorbitant utility liability costs. It will also develop a plan to speed up the construction of power lines needed for clean energy projects.
• Parliamentary Bill 39 Cities and counties with at least 75,000 residents are required to plan more electrification infrastructure, including electric vehicle charging and building upgrades, by 2030. These measures must meet the needs of low-income households and disadvantaged communities.
• Senate Bill 80 A $5 million fund will be established to accelerate research and development of fusion energy. Fusion produces energy by banging two atoms together. The state hopes to launch the world’s first fusion energy pilot project in the 2040s. “Fusion energy has tremendous potential to provide stable, clean baseload power on demand that will help us achieve our clean energy goals,” the bill’s author, Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Merced), said in a statement.
• Assembly Bill 888 Create a grant program to help low-income homeowners clear defensible space around their homes and install fire-resistant roofs. This is “exactly the kind of proactive, people-centered policy that California needs,” said Eric Horne, director of Megafire Action, a California nonprofit working to end large-scale wildfires.
• Senate Bill 653 means state agencies must focus more on using native species in fire prevention efforts and use science-based standards to avoid the introduction of invasive flammable species.
• Senate Bill 429 Establishes the Wildfire Safety and Risk Mitigation Program at the California Department of Insurance, which will fund research to develop and deploy a public wildfire disaster model, a computer simulation that estimates property damage from large wildfires and helps communities better assess and prepare for risk.
• Assembly Bill 462 Streamlining approval of accessory dwelling units on properties affected by the 2025 California Coast wildfires, requiring decisions on coastal permits to be made within 60 days and eliminating some appeals.
• Assembly Bill 818 Expedite approvals for local redevelopment housing and allow residents to place temporary housing, such as mobile homes or ADUs, on private land during redevelopment.
• Assembly Bill 245 gives residents more time to rebuild their homes or businesses after wildfires in 2025 without increasing property taxes.

• Senate Bill 614 New regulations will be put in place to safely transport carbon dioxide captured from large polluters or removed from the atmosphere. The legislation would authorize the development of specialized pipelines to move carbon dioxide into underground geological formations for permanent storage, which Newsom described as an important next step for the state’s booming carbon capture, removal and storage market.
• Assembly Bill 14 expands the Blue Whale and Blue Skies Plan to the entire state. The program encourages large vessels to voluntarily reduce speed in designated areas to reduce air pollution and reduce the risk of fatal vessel strikes and underwater acoustic impacts harmful to whales.

what was vetoed

• The governor vetoed Senate Bill 34, which would have required the South Coast Air Quality Management District to consider certain factors before implementing regulations at the region’s ports. Opponents, including health and environmental groups, say it will ultimately undermine its authority and ability to meet clean air standards. Instead, aviation districts and ports are seeking a Voluntary Cooperation Agreement This would include obligations for zero-emission infrastructure and other clean air efforts. “The current federal government is directly undermining our state and local air and climate pollution reduction strategies, and we must maintain the tools we have,” Newsom wrote in his veto.
• Assembly Bill 740 would direct the state’s energy agency to develop an implementation plan for “virtual power plants,” small energy networks such as smart thermostats, home batteries and rooftop solar panels that could help relieve stress on the grid. Newsom vetoed the bill earlier this month, saying it would impose additional costs on the California Energy Commission’s already depleted operating funds. But Edson Perez, head of the California nonprofit Advanced Energy United, called the veto a “costly mistake” and said the bill would save taxpayers more than $13 billion.
• Newsom this week also vetoed Senate Bill 682, which would have phased out the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in consumer products such as nonstick cookware and baby and children’s products. The governor cited affordability concerns in his veto.

Earlier this year, the governor also signed most important reform The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has been governed by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) since it first became law in 1970. Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, signed in June, exempt a range of housing developments and infrastructure projects from CEQA to ease new construction in the state. Supporters say it would help solve the state’s housing crisis, while many environmental groups say Angry at the move.

“While California has been able to advance its grid regionalization, strengthen energy affordability, maintain local air quality protections and protect endangered species, we are dismayed that the governor has vetoed measures that would have permanently banned chemicals, prioritized cost-effective energy consumption, expanded virtual power plants to lower electricity bills, and banned microplastics,” said Melissa Romero, director of policy advocacy at the nonprofit California Environmental Voters.