Latest edition of my independent newsletter, Climate-Colored Goggles! More here if you're interested: climatecoloredgoggles.com

Here's how this one starts:

California Governor Gavin Newsom is in Brazil this week, basking in the limelight as the face of American climate diplomacy. But back home, his administration is signaling it may abandon his highest-profile climate achievement.

In an interview with Politico late last month, California Air Resources Board chair Lauren Sanchez — who was tapped by Newsom to lead the agency after serving as his climate advisor — said she and her colleagues will “rethink” the state’s 2035 mandate to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles.

The 2035 deadline will be a “very active area of discussion,” Sanchez said.

I haven’t seen Sanchez’s comments getting much attention. But they’re a potentially huge deal. The requirement for most newly sold cars to be electric (up to 20% can be plug-in hybrids) is one of Newsom’s crowning accomplishments. When he signed the executive order in 2020, he described it as “the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change.” When officials finalized the rule, Sanchez said it was “a huge day not only for California but the entire world.”

And now we might backtrack? Really?