By Dan Bacher, DAILY KOS
You know when a MAGA Republican Senator calls a piece of controversial energy legislation a “Big Beautiful Bill” that it isn’t going to serve the residents of the state of California.
But that’s what Republican Senator Tony Strickland called SB 540 (Becker). And despite Democratic floor speeches outlining concerns about cost, oversight and loss of control to Trump, the Senate voted 33 – 1 to advance the deregulation bill, a priority of Governor Newsom’s, according to a news release from Consumer Watchdog.
During the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, Strickland supported Donald Trump, and he was a Trump delegate at the 2016 Republican National Convention. In May 2016, Strickland was also named the California chairman of the “Committee for American Sovereignty,” a pro-Trump super PAC.
“In a bipartisan ramrod, reminiscent of the vote over the first electricity deregulation bill in 1996, the California Senate approved legislation allowing for a regional electricity system that throws out Enron-era state protections against price manipulation and gives the Trump Administration control over California environmental laws,” Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, reported.
The sponsors of SB 540 are Sen. Josh Becker (D) and Sen. Henry Stern (D).
“Senator Aisha Wahab issued a stunning rebuke of the measure and said she would vote against it. However, after Senator Pro Tem Mike McGuire gave a floor speech for SB 540 she abstained and the other Democrats fell in line behind the party, bowing to the energy utility establishment behind the proposal,” said Court.
“In addition to the energy traders, utilities and arbitragers who will benefit from a regional market, the Silicon Valley also seeks the regional system to power its AI data centers. Other senators – including Umberg, Caballero and Allen – voiced concerns about Trump preemption of CA laws, the lack of legislative oversight, and the ability for price manipulation,” Court noted.
“This is stunning abdication of the Senate’s duty to protect electricity consumers and the state’s environmental laws when they are under threat from the Trump Administration,” said Court. “The Senate turned a blind eye to the failure of regional organizations elsewhere, where the same players behind SB 540 are robbing other East Coast states blind.”
“California voters should be deeply disappointed in their leaders at time when the affordability of electricity is under scrutiny and our climate laws are under attack from Washington. As the Senate Judiciary Committee analysis states, this is the worst time to be giving away Californians’ power over our electricity market to a regional organization subject to Trump’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC),” Court continued.
“Backers of the bill – largely the energy traders, brokers and suppliers who stand to make a killing off the building of new transmission lines and arbitraging of energy – paint a panacea of one big beautiful free market for electricity. Without the post-Enron era protections, however, California consumers will be targets of excessive prices and our environmental laws will be erased,” he observed.
Consumer Watchdog, TURN, Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, the Environmental Working Group, the District Council of Iron Workers and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, as well as 100 other groups, oppose SB 540.
According to Court, in creating a Western regional electricity market, SB 540 gives Trump’s FERC and market participants the power to invalidate California environmental laws. With respect to the regional market, SB 540 also repeals Enron-era protections against price gouging – Public Utilities Code Section 345 – which requires electricity supplies be maximized and prices be minimized.
Court said amendments taken by the author in the Judiciary Committee to require regional markets to minimize costs and maximize supply, as well as greater transparency amendments, were subsequently taken out after the Appropriations Committee.
“This power grab reveals the real motives of the backers – wanting to have the power to manipulate markets while shielding their actions from public scrutiny,” emphasized Court.
The bill was ramrodded through the Senate despite the Senate Judiciary Committee analysis revealing the harm the bill could cause:
“California could see significant harms to its energy goals and its standing in the regional market… These dangers are even greater now that President Trump has put a target on California’s green energy laws and directed the United States Attorney General to find ways to curtail our state’s climate change efforts and to identify opportunities to challenge our state policies through various legal angles, such as federal preemption and discrimination (Dormant Commerce Clause) legal angles…Currently, California is able to exert a certain amount of influence over the direction of the CAISO with regard to interstate energy with a board appointed by the Governor and subject to approval by the California State Senate. Under this bill, California would open the state up to federal challenges.”
An article by Freddy Brewster in the Lever News exposes the Big Tech money behind SB 540 and its sponsors: www.levernews.com/…
“State Sen. Josh Becker (D), co-author of the bill, represents Silicon Valley and has received more than $42,000 in campaign donations since June 2021 from industry groups and tech companies supporting the bill, according to recordsreviewed by The Lever. Additionally, disclosures reveal that Becker has up to $3.4 million invested in various tech and artificial intelligence companies and received $100,000 for advising a quantum computing company.
“Becker’s co-author, Sen. Henry Stern (D) has received $16,000 since December 2021 in campaign donations from Google and Amazon, which both support the bill, disclosures show. Stern represents Los Angeles suburbs just north of neighborhoods incinerated by climate-fueled wildfires in January, and in 2018, Stern’s house and 1,600 other structures were destroyed in a wildfirethat burned 97,000 acres across his district.”
You can read more here.
Electric worker and corporate lobbyist Scott Wetch played a key role in pressuring State Senators to support SB 540. In April, an investigative reportby Consumer Watchdog explained the sudden reversal by Wetch.
“Once a vocal opponent of California entering a regional energy grid, Wetch now backs the very policy he previously claimed would devastate California’s environment, raise rates, and cost millions of jobs,” said Justin Kloczko, author of “Dirty Deal: How A Corporate Utility Fixer Is Poised To Turn Over California Climate Law To Trump.” “To understand Wetch’s flip, you just need to follow the money.”
The report traces the economic motivations for Wetch’s change of heart and the massive wealth the worker lobbyist has accumulated, including a $13 million real estate portfolio with a $4 million dollar ocean view home in Maui, which he notoriously shopped for on the Fox Business TV show “American Dream Home.”
Google, one of the bill’s top backers, dumped a record amount of money lobbying the California Legislature in 2024, spending $10.7 million lobbying California officials from July 1 to September 30 alone: cal-access.sos.ca.gov/…
“The company reported one of the largest totals for state advocacy last year, driven primarily by a spending spree in the third quarter of the year when the tech giant was fighting a media bill and AI regulations. The company got its way in both cases,” reported Cal Matters.
The Senate’s passage of SB 540 demonstrates the power that Google, Amazon and other tech firms wield in California. While Governor Gavin Newsom and state legislators portray themselves as the “resistance” to Trump, in reality they have united with MAGA Republican State Senators to pass a bill that tosses out Enron-era state protections against price manipulation and gives the Trump Administration control over California environmental laws.
