William Anderson
William L Anderson is senior editor at the Mises Institute and retired professor of economics at Frostburg State University.
When reality hit the Democratic Party and its ruling-class allies the day after the election, one Democrat must have been relieved: California governor Gavin Newsom. The Kamala Harris loss not only ends her political career – at least at the presidential level – but also clears the way for Newsom to pursue the White House himself.
A Harris victory would have delayed Newsom’s quest for eight years, but now he can start laying the groundwork now for a run in 2028. Newsom will spend the next two years in office before becoming a full-time candidate, and, given the constitutional limit on two terms, the Republicans won’t have the advantage (or the weight) of incumbency and will likely present a candidate with less name recognition than Newsom possesses.
The New York Times already has jumped in feet-first in its “Style” section with a hagiographic portrayal of Newsom, hair gel and all. The writer breathlessly wrote:
Last year, he debated Ron DeSantis on that network, landing rhetorical jabs like “You’re nothing but a bully.” The appearances have burnished his reputation as someone who saunters into the conservative lion’s den and comes out with his slicked hair unruffled.
His first post-election heroic’ move was to call for a special session of the California legislature:
...to protect “California values” in preparation for former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Less than 36 hours after Trump’s resounding victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, the California governor — a prominent opponent of the former president during his first term — called to bolster the state’s legal resources with the aim of protecting reproductive healthcare, climate policies and immigrant communities in California.
One might think that we are looking at something that is light years away, politically speaking, but in the world of presidential ambition, successful candidates spend years scheming to reach that office. John F Kennedy’s father was planning the political careers of his sons long before they reached full adulthood, Ronald Reagan coveted the presidency more than 10 years before he was elected in 1980, and Jimmy Carter and his advisers quietly launched their quest long before the Watergate scandal gave him a major opening.
In presidential politics, four years is tomorrow and no doubt Newsom and those surrounding him already are at work. However, as Harris has found out, what constitutes success in California politics might prove a liability elsewhere, and that is especially the case regarding the state’s draconian policies on energy and climate change.
One imagines that most people believe California to be a weird and exotic place on the nation’s west coast that is an expensive place to live but has little relevance in their own lives. Sure, the state has stringent environmental laws, but the effects are limited to California, or one might think. However, California’s energy and climate policies affect nearly everyone in this country.
The election of Donald Trump brings an opponent of California’s policies to the White House, where he is:
…expected to try to blow up California’s climate policies, which have set the pace for the rest of the nation and the world. The state is requiring about three-quarters of new trucks sold there after 2035 to be zero emissions. And in a request that is pending, California wants permission from the Biden administration to enact one of the most ambitious climate rules of any nation: a ban on the sale of new gas-powered passenger vehicles in the state after 2035.
Both rules are far tougher than federal policy and could have influence beyond the United States, given California’s standing as the world’s fifth-largest economy. China and the European Union have already adopted parts of California’s car and truck tailpipe emissions reduction programs.
The Democratic-controlled state legislature has also passed a first-in-the-nation law requiring major companies to disclose their greenhouse emissions. And it has strengthened the authority of local governments to shut down oil and gas projects in their communities. Next month, Californians will be asked to approve a ballot measure to create a $10 billion “climate bond” to pay for climate and environmental projects.
While the New York Times writes approvingly of California’s policies, in reality they will be disastrous for the rest of the country if put into place. In 2023, the California legislature passed a law aimed at outlawing all internal combustion engines in trucks within a decade, a law so draconian that 19 state attorneys general filed suit in federal court to block it. The impact this law would have on the trucking industry would be enormous, especially given how much freight is carried overland on trucks and how inadequate electric vehicles would be to carry it:
Electric trucks suffer major disadvantages when compared to diesel trucks. Diesel trucks can travel about 1200 miles after filling the tank in 15 minutes. The range of electric trucks is about 150–330 miles and recharging may take hours, even on a high-speed charger.
Electric truck cabs cost two to three times as much as diesel cabs, an incremental cost of as much as $300,000 per truck. Electric cabs also weigh about 10,000 pounds more than comparable diesel versions. This can reduce net freight carried by as much as 20 percent.
Part of the problem is that California’s environmental standards often become the precursors to standards for the entire country, but thanks to the Jones Act, California policy has a disproportionate effect upon the lives of others. Because of California’s proximity to Asia (and especially China), it is a natural place for container ships coming from Asia to bring goods imported into the US, and at the present time, about 40 per cent of all US imports come through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Because of the Jones Act, those foreign-owned ships cannot take goods to any other US port unless they stop at a foreign port that is some distance away. Thus, they cannot take some goods to California and then sail to the US east coast and take goods there. The effect of this law is that a huge amount of imported goods going elsewhere in the US must be transported by truck or rail through California, and given the strict regulations for transfer trucks, carrying goods through that state is very expensive.
Given that the laws governing transfer trucks will be even more stringent, that only can raise costs – unless the Jones Act is repealed, which is highly unlikely, given its almost religious support by Democrats and labor unions, despite the hardships it causes. Because Newsom supports the draconian legislation regulating trucks in California, he also is playing a direct role in California being a transportation bottleneck for the rest of the country, a situation that will only become worse in the next four years.
To writers from the New York Times, economic crises caused by things like environmental regulations simply don’t happen, or if they do, the fault lies with capitalism. However, if California can proceed with radical restrictions on transporting goods, there can be no spinning the inevitable results. They will mean higher prices, empty shelves, and more hardships for those who are not wealthy. Newsom’s policies will at least be partly to blame, but will voters connect the dots, especially since journalists won’t?
Four decades ago, a former governor from California occupied the White House. Because the media and their governmental allies could not pin any scandals on Ronald Reagan, they derisively called him the “Teflon President.” Given the fawning coverage that Newsom receives in the media, the fact that California has the nation’s highest poverty rates, ruinous environmental laws, and one of the nation’s highest net out-migration rates, one would think that the most prominent political architect of these woes would at least pay something akin to a political price.
But think again. If there ever has been a “Teflon” politician, it is Gavin Newsom. Be prepared to see numerous fawning pieces from mainstream media outlets that present him as a demigod. They are coming.
This article was originally published by the Mises Institute.
