Last month, I wrote that California is backsliding on climate , and that it’s mostly Gov. Gavin Newsom’s fault. I took him and his appointees to task for undermining rooftop solar , propping up the Aliso Canyon gas field and slowing implementation of a single-use plastics recycling law, among other offenses.

So it’s only fair that I give him credit for his actions last week, at the close of the legislative session.

Thanks partly to pressure from Newsom, lawmakers struck a series of deals to limit electric rate increases, boost clean-energy supplies and extend an emissions-reduction program called cap-and-trade. Environmentalists were justifiably furious over a deal to advance oil drilling in Southern California’s Kern County — a painful compromise that lawmakers may come to reg

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