IT’S COMPLICATED: I opened my mailbox last week to discover a political mail bomb ticking away. It wanted to blow up Das Williams, our state assemblymember. The timing seemed premature. Williams won’t be on the ballot again until next November. The brochure — printed on expensive, glossy card stock paper — came courtesy of a group new to me, the California Driver’s Alliance. It featured a color photo of the aforementioned Williams, slumping off to the side and looking blithely unconcerned beneath a headline blaring, “His vote hurts many … and helps one.” All this was superimposed over a hazy black-and-white, shot-from-behind photo showing a heroically beleaguered soccer mom and four kids pushing their minivan down the road. Williams, the Driver’s Alliance explained, supports a bill that gives unnamed members of an obscure state agency powers to “levy surcharges” on minivans like the one pictured, thus harming “families with small children.” But that was nothing; the Driver’s Alliance charged Williams was also out to get farmers, workers, working families, air travelers, and commuters by supporting a bill that would increase the price of gas. In fact, it would mandate nothing less than gas rationing by the State of California. The only group Williams is, in fact, positively looking out for, the Alliance charged, are “wealthy Tesla owners.”
The Driver’s Alliance, I quickly discovered, was a front group concocted by the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA). That’s pronounced “Wis-pa.” And when you have as much money and as many lobbyists as WSPA does, that’s as loud as you ever have to speak. The oil industry has been doing a whole lot of heavy “wispa-ing” in Sacramento the past couple of months, trying to put the terminal kibosh on SB 350, a landmark environmental bill written by State Senator Kevin de León that would mandate California cut gas consumption by 50 percent, increase the amount of electricity provided by renewable energy sources to 50 percent, and increase the energy efficiency standards of new buildings to 50 percent. Conspicuously missing from the bill — despite multiple assertions to the contrary by the oil industry — is any language having to do with gas rationing. Or minivan surcharges. Mostly, it’s a road map with a lot of urgent lofty goals. How those goals get met is left to the divine genius of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to suss out. For those leery of CARB, that’s a huge problem.
To call this bill “the whole ball of wax” and “all the marbles” would be a vast understatement. It’s the unified field theory of environmental grooviness. It’s the 800-pound gorilla and the elephant under every rug. Backing the bill to the hilt are Governor Jerry Brown, de León, the Pope, all the bishops not under indictment for sexual abuse, and actress Halle Berry. And Williams, course. On the other side is the oil industry. The oil industry doesn’t need friends or allies. If Brown, famous for almost becoming a priest, manages to get God on his side, SB 350 might have a chance.