Three-Year Decline Continues, Despite Waning Direct Influence of Oil
Last year was a bleak one for California’s environment, starting with the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, and the inauguration of the most anti-environmental president in history, with a particular animus for the state. And the state government’s response was mixed at best. On Feb 11, EnviroVoters released their annual California Environmental Scorecard. As recently as 2022, the state got an “A” grade with 91%, but with three straight years of decline, it got a “C” with 78%. That reflected a mix of big wins and losses—especially lost opportunities. Governor Newsom did marginally better with 82%.
“We started the year [2025] with devastating climate disasters in January, an inauguration of a hostile president, rising costs and energy, insurance, grocery bills, water bills,” said EnviroVoters CEO Mary Creasman. “And so it was a year where it was a huge call to action for the state to do big things on addressing the interconnected climate and affordability crisis,” she said, but “Too often the call to action went unanswered.”
“There were some big wins,” Creasman said, pointing to “energy affordability and sharing our electricity grid with other states,” along with “a slew of bills that moved forward to protect California’s biodiversity, especially against federal roll backs and attacks,” and the defeat of bad proposals “to create a CEQA—an environmental review—roll back and exemption for oil,” and “to weaken local standards and ability and decision-making on clean air.” She also cited passing Prop 50, to help “ensure that our federal leadership doesn’t continue to be hostile to climate justice, affordability, and environmental issues.”
But there were also big losses. Some were outside the legislative process—federal rollbacks of waivers that allow California to implement clean transportation policies, and court challenges delaying implementation of recent laws requiring corporate accountability for greenhouse gas emissions. There were also important bills vetoed, “like getting forever forever chemicals out of our water,” and “a budget package that jammed through some anti-environmental policies, and it also took a billion dollars away from the greenhouse gas reduction fund.” Creasman also cited “plastics pollution policy weakened and delayed, and a price-gouging policy for oil delayed.”
Historically, there have been two major obstacles to environmental progress, especially around climate issues: the Republican Party and the fossil fuel campaign spending, both of which have long been reflected in legislators’ scores. But the indirect impact of fossil fuel lobbying is harder to trace, and this year there was another factor: the sheer volume of urgent problems facing the state, which tends to give lobbyists an increased advantage. While fewer legislators than ever took fossil fuel money—43% in 2025, compared to 67% in 2021 according to the scorecard—the industry spent “almost $34 million on lobbying last year” according to Politico, which noted, “That spending helped shape consequential energy fights.”
As a result, “While fewer legislators accepted oil money this year, they fell for Big Oil’s anti-climate affordability propaganda and missed critical opportunities to advance clean, affordable energy solutions in a year marked by devastating fires in LA, an increasingly hostile federal government, and an affordability crisis,” EnviroVoters press manager Erika Guzman Cornejo told Random Lengths News.
The biggest difference in scores was due to partisanship: the average score of Democratic legislators was 83% (a “B”) vs 14% (“F—”) for Republicans. But accepting oil money made a big difference, too: Democrats who accepted it averaged a 66% score (D) compared to 89% (B+) for those who didn’t. Nine oil-free Democrats received a perfect 100% score, down from 21 in 2024.
Locally, the oil money difference was more stark. In the Senate, Laura Richardson, who takes oil money, scored 48% (the least for any Democrat), while Ben Allen scored 99% and Lena Gonzalez scored 89%. That was down from her lifetime 98% score, primarily due to support for SB 34, which would have prevented the AQMD from regulating port pollution with an indirect source rule (ISR). Newsom vetoed SB 34 as AQMD was negotiating an MOU with the ports that voluntarily ruled out an ISR in a backroom deal that environmentalists widely condemned.
But a statewide ISR from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) remains a possibility thanks to one of three legislators who spoke at the scorecard press event, Robert Garcia, from the Inland Empire. Last year, he authored AB914, allowing CARB to regulate pollution with ISRs. This year, he’s following up with AB 1777, “making an explicit declaration of CARB’s existing authority,” he explained.
“We think CARB already has authority to do ISR rules, but the bill would make that crystal clear,” Bill Magavern, Coalition for Clean Air’s policy director told Random Lengths. “CARB is not bound by the AQMD MOU. Our hope is that CARB, if the bill passed, would see the need for statewide ISRs for major freight facilities, including ports, railyards and warehouses. So we strongly support AB 1777.”
Oil money makes a difference locally in the assembly as well. Mike Gipson, who takes oil money, scored 73%, while Al Muratsuchi scored 90% and Josh Lowenthal, scored 79%. Differences in lifetime scores were more dramatic: 70% for Gipson, 95% for Muratsuchi and 91% for Lowenthal. Support for SB 34 was primarily responsible for Lowenthal’s low score last year.
A new addition to the scorecard is committee scores. “We decided to highlight committee scores this year because they play a critical role in which bills are stalled and advanced,” Cornejo said. “Since we just started grading those this year, I don’t have previous scores to compare this year’s.”
But the scores themselves are striking: 13 out of 21 committees had perfect 100% scores. Transportation committees scored the worst, 60% in the assembly, 40% in the senate. But for the sheer volume of laws—good ones blocked and bad ones passed—the appropriations committees, unsurprisingly, were the worst. While the assembly committee received an 83% score, it failed to pass 7 good bills while passing two bad ones. The senate committee scored 74%, passing two bad bills while blocking 12 good ones, including five that had passed the assembly.
“This scorecard really reflects all of the work we have left to do,” Creasman said.