For better or worse, Governor Gavin Newsom has shown remarkable message discipline when targeting President Donald Trump and Republican leaders, often pinning responsibility on them for many of California’s—and America’s—problems. But last week, when asked why he was backing away from a 2024 promise to protect electric vehicle subsidies if the federal program ended, he slipped.
Instead of addressing the state’s own subsidy program, Newsom pivoted to the Trump administration’s attempt to cancel California’s electric vehicle mandate under powers granted by the Clean Air Act. While he had plenty to say about Republican efforts, he also singled out a private citizen: General Motors CEO Mary Barra.
“Mary Barra sold us out, eliminating Ronald Reagan's work, eliminating the progress we made under the California Air Resources Board in 1967, where we began regulating tailpipe emissions,” Newsom said. “The Republicans rolled that back this year under Donald Trump's leadership, but the American automobile manufacturers allowed that to happen. GM led that effort.”
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Barra and GM are easy villains for the governor, based on recent actions.
Earlier this month, the company announced it would stop production of its electric Cadillac and has dismissed the federal $7,500 EV rebate as “irrational.”
That stance marks a sharp reversal from just three years ago, when GM declared it “aspires to eliminate tailpipe emissions from all new light-duty vehicles by 2035 and plans to be carbon neutral by 2040 in global products and operations.” GM has also pulled investments from its Cruise electric robotaxi project, once headquartered in San Francisco.
The relationship between Barra and Trump has changed from an adversarial one in the first term, to a more collaborative one this time. Trump seemed to take GM plant closures personally in 2018, and promised federal retaliation. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump also took umbrage at the price GM was charging for ventilators.
This time around things are different. The GM head signaled support for the administration after the election saying the company and president "share common goals." Despite the potential cost of billions of dollars to General Motors from Trump's tariffs, she has refused to publicly denounce them while working with the administration to try and get exemptions and relief for her company.
Whither California?
While casting GM as the “bad guy” makes for compelling politics, it doesn’t explain why California allowed its own EV rebate program to lapse.
The state’s program, which also offered $7,500 rebates for EV purchases, expired two years ago. After the election last November, Newsom vowed to revive it if then President-elect Trump followed through on his threat to end federal incentives. That federal rebate now expires next week.
But California, facing shrinking revenues and massive rebuilding costs after another devastating wildfire season, chose different priorities when allocating funds from its Cap-and-Trade program.
Whether General Motors had any influence over that decision remains an open question.
