California Environmental Voters (formerly California League of Conservation Voters) has been preparing an environmental score card to rate state legislatures since 1977 and just awarded California a B this year for its 2024 environmental and climate action, noting that many opportunities to reduce emissions were left on the table despite record disasters from fires. They note in a recent OpEd to CalMatters that based on their 50 years of observation: “The main obstacle to government action at the scale this crisis demands are corporate polluters as one of the biggest financial spenders on elections and lobbying in California. The California Environmental Scorecard started tracking legislators that accept money from Big Oil at the turn of the decade.”
Oil money continues to play a potent force in California politics. Based on data from the Secretary of State, CalMatters reports that big oil and big tech spent nearly $168 million to influence California lawmakers in in the fall quarter of 2024 alone. California Environmental Voters notes that legislators who accept oil money are more likely to vote against environmental initiatives than those who refuse such contributions. Just looking at Democratic lawmakers, those who took oil money had an average voting record on environmental legislation that was 25% lower than their peers who did not. To be fair, their scores were penalized just for receiving oil money, but the penalty accounts for only a small difference in the score. The bulk of the discrepancy stems from their voting history on environmental issues.
On a more hopeful note, the trend of accepting oil money is on the decline. In 2021, 65% of legislators took oil money, while in 2024 that was down to 51%. Only 30% of Democrats in the Senate and 35% in the Assembly took oil money in 2024.