The Briefing
- Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared together at the 2026 California Economic Summit in Long Beach on Wednesday to mark two decades of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act Schwarzenegger signed in September 2006.
- Newsom cited approximately $16 billion in cap-and-invest auction revenues directed toward consumer energy-cost relief since the program launched, with another $8 billion projected over the next four years; critics counter that Californians pay some of the highest utility rates in the country as a direct result of the state’s regulatory model.
- Proposition 50, Newsom’s congressional redistricting measure, passed in November 2025 with roughly 65 percent of the vote — a defeat for Schwarzenegger, who led the “No” campaign; the new Democratic-drawn maps are already reshaping the 2026 midterm elections.
For the first time in years, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gov. Gavin Newsom occupied the same stage in Long Beach on Wednesday, building a unified case for AB 32 — California’s landmark climate law — even as the redistricting outcome that ended their most direct political confrontation continues to shape the state’s electoral map ahead of November.
A Rare Stage, a Calculated Message
Held October 13–15 in Long Beach, the 2026 California Economic Summit provided the backdrop for a conversation as strategically calculated as it was substantive. In a format the program billed as a “fireside chat,” Schwarzenegger and Newsom sat together to mark the twentieth anniversary of AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, before an audience of regional business, government, and civic leaders. The optics carried their own message: a Republican environmental legacy-holder and a Democrat with clear national ambitions, openly sharing credit for a law that still drives sharp ideological disagreement nationwide.
The Signing That Started It All
On September 27, 2006, Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 at a ceremony on Treasure Island in San Francisco — putting into law a statewide emissions cap that no state had previously attempted. The statute directed California to bring its greenhouse gas output back to 1990 levels by 2020. Newsom, then serving as San Francisco’s mayor, attended that original event and returned to Long Beach on Wednesday to argue the law’s momentum is still building.
Schwarzenegger on the Early Critics: Blunt as Ever
The 79-year-old former governor offered no softened account of the opponents who fought AB 32 at its passage. Reflecting on the fierce industry resistance that greeted the legislation in 2006, Schwarzenegger defended California’s carbon market and argued that rigorous environmental oversight and sustained economic growth had reinforced each other — precisely the inversion his critics once claimed was impossible.
“We have shown to the world what a subnational government, a state, can do,” Schwarzenegger said, pointing to documented emissions reductions and continued business investment as proof that regulatory certainty draws capital into a market rather than driving it out.
His deeper argument rested on a reframing of conventional economic logic: that clear, durable environmental rules give investors the long-horizon certainty they need to commit. California reinforced that architecture in September 2025, when the state legislature approved a 15-year extension of cap-and-invest, locking the AB 32 framework in through 2045 — well beyond any single administration in Washington.
Newsom’s $16 Billion Case — and His Critique of Federal Policy
Newsom arrived with figures. He credited AB 32 with generating California’s cap-and-invest program and said the state has directed approximately $16 billion in auction revenues toward consumer energy-cost relief since the program launched, with another $8 billion projected over the next four years. He pointed to accelerating investment in renewable energy and battery storage as evidence that California’s climate policy has built a technology-industrial base, not merely an environmental record…