Newsom’s history with Big Oil could affect the presidential bid

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

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Gavin Newsom and his family have had a long and complicated relationship with the oil industry. The latest chapter in the saga, a legal and political dispute over state aid to California refineries, could affect Newsom’s presidential ambitions.

The roots of this situation date back to the 1940s when Gordon Getty, son of oil magnate J. Paul Gettylived with the Newsoms while attending school in San Francisco.

Newsom’s father, William, later became a lawyer for the Getty oil empire and in 1973. delivered a $2.2 million ransom of a gang that kidnapped J’s grandson. Paul Getty in Italy, describing it later as “an interesting kind of work”.

After his parents divorced, Gavin Newsom was unofficially adopted by Gordon Gettyessentially returning the favor the Newsoms had done him three decades earlier. c his recent memoirNewsom described being torn between his life as the son of an impoverished single mother and the surrogate son of a multibillion-dollar oil family.

In 1975, then-Governor. Jerry Brown, another family friend, appointed William Newsom as a Placer County judge, later elevating him to the state Court of Appeals. While on the bench in the 1980s, the elder Newsom helped Gordon Getty obtain legislation changing California trust law, thereby allowing Getty to break up the J. Paul Getty and get billions of petrodollars.

In 1995, William Newsom retired from the court and became administrator of the Gordon Getty Trust, telling an interviewer, “I make my living working for Gordon Getty.”

A few years earlier, the trust provided seed capital for a wine shop venture that Gavin Newsom and Gordon Getty’s son, Billy, started, called PlumpJack, after an opera composed by Gordon Getty.

In essence, Newsom owes his start in business to the vast oil fortune that J. Paul Getty, once described as the richest man in the world, has accumulated. Without that connection, Newsom would have been hard-pressed to start what has become a lucrative business career.

Regardless, Newsom metaphorically bit the hand that fed him in 2022 when he began vilifying California oil refineries, accusing them of gouging drivers with gas prices. Months later, the Legislature passed a light measure the state energy commission to monitor the operations of the refineries.

“There’s a new sheriff in town in California, where we brought Big Oil to its knees. And I’m proud of this state,” Newsom said. That was hyperbole, but within months refiners began announcing plans to shut down operations or threatening to do so, raising the possibility of gasoline shortages and higher prices.

Very soon after that, Newsom made a political U-turn. He urged the refineries to stay and signed legislation that makes it easier to drill new oil wells.

This year, the California Air Resources Board revised its cap-and-trade auctionswhere refineries and other businesses buy rights to emit greenhouse gases. The program was renamed cap-and-invest, and refiners received free emissions allowances as an incentive to stay in the state.

Newsom welcomed the changes, but environmental groups were angered by the reversal. This month, the non-profit organization Communities for a Better Environment sued in Los Angeles, claiming the changes violate the California Environmental Quality Act.

“The amendments lock in decades of subsidies to polluting industries without CARB having conducted the necessary analysis of their wide-ranging environmental harms that would enable decision makers to make a fully informed decision about the wisdom of these significant changes,” the suit says.

The left wing of the Democratic Party was on the list in the last election and includes environmental activists who view the oil industry as the villain.

Newsom’s newly minted pro-oil stance, plus his family’s history in the industry, could backfire in a presidential campaign.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.