Gov. Gavin Newsom proudly announced that he’s going to give away your hard-earned tax dollars to people who are buying an electric vehicle for the first time. He claims to be filling the gap caused by the federal government deciding not to give away your hard-earned tax dollars to EV buyers.
What he didn’t announce, proudly or otherwise, is that this giveaway was added to the budget as part of a trailer bill, a peculiar institution in Sacramento that lifts money from your wallet without any committee hearings or debate.
Senate Bill 168 was first introduced on January 23, 2025. Here is the complete text of the original bill:
“SECTION 1. It is the intent of the Legislature to enact statutory changes relating to the Budget Act of 2025.”
That’s it. The rest of the bill was blank. It sat in a drawer, or wherever these things sit, for about a year and a half. Then, less than three weeks ago, it was “amended” in the Assembly.
The amendment was about 2,500 words long, almost four times the length of this column.
The state constitution requires a 72-hour waiting period between the time the final version of a bill is “in print,” publicly available on the internet, and the time the Legislature votes to pass it.
SB 168 sprang into print on June 26. It passed both houses of the Legislature on June 29. The governor signed it into law on July 13.
Would you like to know what’s in it? Maybe you would have liked to know what’s in it a little earlier, say, during a committee hearing when questions could have been raised and witnesses could have been heard.
That’s not how it’s done in Sacramento. This bill, which was titled, “Public Resources,” is making all kinds of changes to how your tax dollars are spent, and the people of California have not been invited to see any of the process that led to those decisions.
SB 168 requires the California Air Resources Board to establish a new zero-emission electric vehicle incentive program for first time zero-emission vehicle buyers. The law requires buyers to attest that it really is their first time. Funding will come from both taxpayers and manufacturers, which would seem to guarantee that the price of the vehicle will go up in direct proportion to the cost of the rebate.
There’s a theatrical feeling about this EV incentive program, as if its only purpose is to enable the governor to emote on stage, mostly in other states, about California’s leadership. But California is dealing with budget problems that would lead any Broadway producer to close the show, and fast. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, California is looking ahead to deficits as high as $35 billion per year. The state’s spending growth consistently exceeds its revenue growth.
The EV rebate program is just one small part of the mischief in SB 168, which you can be fairly sure no one who voted on it actually read. For example, the bill makes more funding available for the Demand Side Grid Support Program. The money is coming from an appropriation in the Budget Act of 2021, which was supposed to implement and administer the Distributed Electricity Back-up Assets Program.
Translated: funding that was supposed to produce more electricity is being routed to a program that seeks to reduce demand for electricity. The “Demand Side Grid Support Program” is Sacramento-speak for shutting off your air conditioning on the hottest days of the summer.
You may already have received a pitch from your utility company offering you lower rates or other compensation for getting a “smart” thermostat and giving the utility permission to manage your “demand” automatically.
California is trying to reduce your quality of life and pressure people on fixed incomes to sign up for suffering.
You’d think something like that would merit a committee hearing. Nope.
Other parts of the bill change the rules for utilities paying into the Wildfire Fund, exempt the Western Climate Initiative from bothersome contracting requirements and set a new salary for the vice chair of the Energy Commission.
Trailer bills make tax dollars vanish in the dark. We should sell this trick to Penn & Teller.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley