Hot Take
by Paul Thornton
Californians despise data centers.
According to a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll, 73% of respondents across party lines said they don’t want the power-hungry, water-gulping data centers driving the artificial intelligence revolution built in their communities.
State lawmakers have responded this year by passing seven bills regulating data centers in California – including four that made it out of the Legislature on Monday. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign the bills, veto them or let them become law without his signature.
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Three of those bills (Senate Bill 886, Assembly Bill 2383 and SB 1168) have to do with shielding electricity ratepayers from the high costs of grid upgrades and copious power use that data centers require. One, SB 887, would require new centers to undergo environmental review, and the three others (AB 2469, AB 1577 and AB 2619) seek water-use and other environmental disclosures.
What does Newsom think about this legislation? It’s not clear, but one of the bills is nearly identical to one he vetoed last year that would have required data centers to report water use to their suppliers. In his veto message then, Newsom expressed misgivings over imposing “rigid reporting requirements” on businesses driving a growing sector of California’s economy.
If Newsom signs this year’s version along with some or all of the others, it could be an acknowledgement of just how quickly the political winds have shifted.
Joel Bellman
But no matter what Newsom does this month, he can’t stop the growing grassroots movements against new data centers. In the San Gabriel Valley suburb of Monterey Park – not previously known as a hotbed of political activism – voters overwhelmingly passed the nation’s first municipal data-center ban in the June primary election. Less than two months later, city council members in neighboring Alhambra (where I live) voted unanimously to put a ban on the November ballot, even though there are no proposals for data centers in the city. Two of the activists leading the group behind both efforts are now running for council seats in Alhambra and Monterey Park.
Other cities have seen an organized backlash: There’s an effort in Oakland to get a municipal ban on a future ballot, and residents of the Bay Area suburbs of Pittsburg and Gilroy have protested the approval of new centers in their cities. In Covina, City Council meetings have been packed with residents opposing a battery storage facility that could help power data centers in the area.
A citizen uprising in California might not matter to Newsom, who for the last few years has governed his state with an eye on the national political environment. But hating data centers has become that rare issue of bipartisan appeal – and what Newsom does on these seven bills could have huge ramifications for his expected 2028 presidential run.
Paul Thornton
Noted, With Comment
By Mariel Garza
Endorsement season opens: The editorial board of the Southern California News Group (which includes the L.A. Daily News and Orange County Register) has begun to roll out its endorsements for the Nov. 3 election, and they are about what you might expect from a libertarian-ish, right-leaning board: So far, you can find a recommendations for L.A. County Measure E (no), the L.A. City Attorney (John McKinney) and state Board of Equalization (Mike Gipson for the L.A. seat) races.
Magic Bus-ted: The Trump administration posted something that’s offensive and racist, again. Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano calls out an image on the White House’s social media accounts of “The Magic Deportation Bus,” a riff on the PBS children’s show, “The Magic Bus.” “But instead of a bunch of happy kids off to another adventure, the passengers are five handcuffed, brown-skinned, mustachioed men looking downward and dejected, all identical save for the colors of their T-shirts,” he writes.
Yosemite steal: A former superintendent of Yosemite, Robert Binnewies, provides some history on a deal to carve off a piece of the national park for developers who want to build an adjacent resort. Specifically, he notes in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, the previous owner had unsuccessfully sued the federal government to gain right-of-way access to the park based on 100-year-old stagecoach tracks. Its new owners, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, hit upon a different scheme – and found a willing accomplice in the current administration.
Mariel Garza
Beware the golden mussels! It sounds like something you might hear in a fairytale. But it’s a real warning from a real scientist about a real problem bedeviling California’s crucial water management systems. In the Bakersfield Californian, West Bishop calls for a statewide emergency declaration so local agencies can better fight this invasive species that is clogging up canals, pumps, pipelines and other water facilities. (And no, we can’t eat our way out of the problem, according to Dan the Clamman, an environmental scientist who has the goods for those interested in going down the golden-mussel-invasion-of-California rabbit hole.)
Criminal justice reform fail? Sam Quinones was just finishing up his deeply reported book on the national opioid crisis, “Dreamland,” when California voters approved Proposition 47, an overhaul of the criminal justice system that lowered penalties for petty crime and drug use. In his Substack newsletter, he writes that at the time he suspected the measure would hurt the people it was intended to help. Twelve years later, his suspicions appear to been right: He points to a recent Public Policy Institute of California report finding a link between Proposition 47 and increased drug use and homelessness in the state.
Later, Lineage: Cal Poly Pomona professor Álvaro Huerta and his son Joaquin Montes Huerta collaborated on an opinion piece published by CALÓ News demanding that local officials block Lineage Logistics from rebuilding its Boyle Heights cold storage facility. Not only was the community recently harmed by the massive fire, they write, it has absorbed years of pollution by the regular traffic of trucks in and out of the plant.
What do you think? Golden State is a public forum. Send responses for possible publication to forum@golden-state.org.
