[ad_1]<\/p>\n
In summary<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s what California\u2019s governor had to say in his 2022 State of the State address, alongside corrections, clarification and context from the CalMatters reporting team.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Good evening everybody. Good evening everybody. good evening. Thank you everybody. Thank you. <\/p>\n Well, Madam Lieutenant Governor, it\u2019s nice to be able to say this on International Womens day, it\u2019s great to be able to say, thank you Madam Lieutenant Governor for that introduction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaker Rendon and Pro Tem Atkins, thank you as always for being here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And to members of the Legislature and other state officials, thank you for joining us this evening.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And of course to my remarkable wife, Jennifer, the First Partner of the State of California. Thank you for not only being the heart of our family, and for everything you do for the people of California.\u00a0<\/p>\n It goes without saying, given the state of our world, I don\u2019t imagine there are many people outside these walls waiting on the words that will be said here tonight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Interesting oratorical approach to emphasize how unimportant your speech is.<\/em><\/em> But it\u2019s important, as the rabbi said, for us to come together, nonetheless.\u00a0<\/p>\n Not just to mark how far we\u2019ve come in the fight against COVID, but also to reaffirm our commitment to democratic institutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you want to relive the last two years of California\u2019s fight against COVID, check out CalMatters\u2019 timeline<\/a>. \u2014\u00a0Richard Procter<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n As the people of Ukraine continue to come under assault, 2 million by the way, 2 million people already displaced from their homes, we take strength from their contagious courage as well as their willingness to fight for their freedom.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So tonight is a moment, a moment to reflect not just on what\u2019s happening overseas but it\u2019s a moment to reflect on what it means to live in a society where elected leaders still settle our disagreements by and large with civility and compromise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And how we derive strength from a government that reflects the people we represent.\u00a0Just think about it. \u00a0<\/p>\n Our Speaker,\u00a0son of working-class parents<\/a>\u00a0and grandson of Mexican immigrants, worked his way through California\u2019s public education system, earning a Ph.D. from UC Riverside. Now, committed to ensuring every child has access to early learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our Pro Tem,\u00a0born in poverty in Virginia<\/a>, she came to California and became a champion for housing and equal rights for all. The first openly-gay woman to lead both<\/a>\u00a0the Assembly and the state Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our Chief Justice, public school graduate,\u00a0descendant of migrant farmworkers,<\/a>\u00a0speaking out consistently against income inequality and tackling the cost of justice for people in poverty.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And take our constitutional officers here tonight \u2014 think about this \u2014 they include the daughter of an Arkansas sharecropper, an immigrant from the Philippines, the daughter of parents born in China and Greece, one raised by a teacher from Panama, and the proud son of undocumented Mexican immigrants.<\/p>\n Newsom has made the elevation of under-represented Californians to positions of power and influence a hallmark of his governorship. Sen. Alex Padilla<\/a>, Secretary of State Shirley Weber<\/a>, Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/a> and State Supreme Court Justice Martin Jenkins<\/a> are all demographic firsts and Newsom appointees. \u2014 Ben Christopher<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0Thank you all for your remarkable service to our state.\u00a0<\/p>\n California does democracy like nowhere else in the world. No other place offers opportunity to so many from so many different backgrounds. But we can\u2019t take our democracy for granted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Authoritarian and illiberal impulses aren\u2019t just rising overseas. They\u2019ve been echoing here at home for some time. We might not have strongmen quite literally waging war in our country, we are plagued by agents of a national anger machine, fueling division, weaponizing grievance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Newsom ran to an easy victory in both 2018 and during last year\u2019s recall by presenting himself as the antidote to Donald Trump and \u201cTrumpism.\u201d He doesn\u2019t say the \u201cT\u201d word in this speech, but it\u2019s still a contrast he\u2019s only too happy to invoke.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong> Powerful forces and loud voices \u2013- stoking fear and seeking to divide us, weakening the institutions of our democracy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Counting on complacency to erode voting rights, scapegoating vulnerable minorities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Conjuring conspiracies and promoting otherness.\u00a0<\/p>\n Actively exploiting\u00a0the \u201canger of the anxious.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Anger, by the way, that finds a home when people feel understandably disconnected from each other and our collective future \u2014 when that future doesn\u2019t look as bright as the past \u2014 making them more susceptible to the siren calls of those trying to tear us apart.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Foundationally, this is a threat we must all face, together, and prove there\u2019s\u00a0a better way \u2013 a California Way \u2013 forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n The California Way. <\/p>\n The California Way means rejecting old binaries and finding new solutions to big problems.<\/p>\n Take for example, the speaker was talking about, climate policy. California has no peers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon might disagree with that statement: \u201cI don\u2019t at all feel that we are leading the world anymore\u201d on climate, he said in November<\/a>. For years,\u00a0we\u2019ve set the rules, and others have followed.<\/a>\u00a0But over time, we\u2019ve learned we can\u2019t solve big problems like climate change situationally, with short-term thinking.<\/p>\n One of the state\u2019s landmark programs may not be working that well. Experts <\/em>warned lawmakers <\/em><\/a>that the market-based cap-and-trade program is unlikely to achieve 2030 greenhouse gas targets. \u2014 Rachel Becker<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The University of California is a research juggernaut, including in climate change. Newsom is seeking an additional $185 million<\/a> in climate change research, technology development and workforce development for the UC. Look, no one\u2019s naive about the moment we\u2019re living in with high gas prices. And the geopolitical uncertainty that\u2019s fueling them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n California continues to post the highest gas prices in the nation<\/a>, a political liability for Democrats who increased the state gas tax in 2017. \u2014 Emily Hoeven<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n In January, we\u00a0proposed a pause to the gas tax increase<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The state gas tax has been inching up every year since 2017 when the Legislature passed a $5 billion per year transportation funding bill. Republicans and low tax advocates <\/em>put a repeal on the ballot<\/em><\/a> the following year, but voters overwhelmingly shot it down. \u2014 Ben Christopher<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The governor\u2019s January proposal was very modest: it amounts to the <\/em>prevention of a 3 cent tax increase<\/em><\/a> on gas suppliers for one year. <\/em>\u2013 Grace Gedye<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n But now, it\u2019s clear we have to go farther.\u00a0<\/p>\n And that\u2019s why \u2013 working with legislative leadership \u2013 I\u2019ll be submitting a proposal to put money back in the pockets of Californians to address rising gas prices.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Details are still sparse on this proposal \u2014 the only fresh one in tonight\u2019s speech. What we know so far: This will be a general tax rebate, not tied to a person\u2019s gas spending, but targeted at car owners. \u2014 Ben Christopher<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n But I want to make this clear. At a time when we\u2019ve been heating and burning up, one thing we cannot do is repeat the mistakes of the past. By embracing polluters. Drilling even more oil, which only leads to even more extreme weather, more extreme drought, and more wildfire.\u00a0<\/p>\n Record-setting <\/em>drought continues to grip California<\/em><\/a>, and shows little hope of abating as the <\/em>snowpack dwindles<\/em><\/a>. \u2014 Rachel Becker<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n What more evidence, what more evidence do you <\/strong>need than our own state?\u00a0<\/p>\n Just think about this. In the past few years, we\u2019ve seen whole communities nearly wiped off the map.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Greenville<\/a>.\u00a0Paradise<\/a>.\u00a0Grizzly Flats<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n How many more are we willing to sacrifice?\u00a0<\/p>\n We need to be fighting polluters, not bolstering them. And in the process of doing so, freeing us once and for all from the grasp of petro-dictators.\u00a0<\/p>\n New oil and gas well development near schools, hospitals and homes would be banned under <\/em>a draft state rule.<\/em><\/a> Newsom also <\/em>called for an end <\/em><\/a>to new oil fracking permits by 2024. \u2014 Rachel Becker<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n But this conversation can\u2019t just be about supply, can\u2019t just be about oil supply. Daily life still demands too much fossil fuel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That too has to change.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Underscoring the importance of accelerating California\u2019s leadership in clean technology, this is not just a national security and an environmental justice imperative \u2013 clean energy is this generation\u2019s greatest economic opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n This speaks to an increasingly tender sore point within the California Democratic Party between environmentalists and labor. Exhibit A: This weekend\u2019s party convention<\/a>. \u2014 Ben Christopher<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n A perfect example by the way, a perfect example of that is our\u00a0dominance in electric vehicle sales and manufacturing<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was, by the way,\u00a0California policies<\/a>\u00a0that created this market.\u00a0<\/p>\n California has been a leader for decades in <\/em>requiring low-emission and zero-emission cars<\/em><\/a> and other vehicles, and it is now <\/em>developing regulations<\/em><\/a> to ban all new gas-powered cars by 2035. \u2014 Rachel Becker<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Now, we have the opportunity to extend this leadership, to secure a critical component of the supply chain for batteries, by tapping one of the world\u2019s largest lithium reserves \u2013 right here in California. In Imperial Valley. And you consider this, our nation-leading climate investments\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0some $38 billion<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 will ensure that other innovations will surely follow not by re-creating the 20th century, by extracting more oil, but by extracting new ideas,\u00a0drilling for new talent by running our economy on a carbon-free engine.\u00a0<\/p>\n The California Energy Commission doled out $16 million in grants in 2020 to a handful of companies to determine if it\u2019s feasible <\/em>to extract lithium from brine in the Salton Sea area.<\/em><\/a> \u2014 Rachel Becker<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s the California Way.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, when it comes to the economy, California\u2019s unmatched.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ben Christopher<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\u2014 Ben Christophe<\/em>r<\/strong><\/p>\nTouting climate; giving Californians gas money?\u00a0\u00a0<\/h4>\n
\u2014 Emily Hoeven<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\u2014 Mikhail Zinshteyn<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nTouting the economy; leaving no one behind? <\/h4>\n