Gavin Newsom warms to Big Oil in climate reversal August 18, 2025

Cal Matters

Martha Dina Argüello, executive director of the Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, remembers attending a press conference last September, outside the Inglewood Oil Field, where Newsom signed a trio of new laws aimed at cleaning up idle wells and restricting oil and gas operations. She said she was “stunned” by the governor’s rapid reversal and warned that it would allow the oil industry to gut public health protections under the guise of affordability, passing the costs on to low-income communities near oil fields and refineries that have higher asthma and cancer risks from exposure to toxic chemicals.

“You don’t often get champions who are consistent — and it’s very sad that we didn’t have a champion that was really going to do the difficult thing and tell us the changes that we need to make to actually address climate change and air pollution,” she said. “That’s what our communities still need.”