As California positions itself as a frontrunner on local weather change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is pivoting away from his personal observe report as an environmental champion to defend the state’s struggling oil {industry}.
Villaraigosa’s work to broaden mass transit, plant bushes and scale back carbon emissions made him a favourite of the environmental motion, however the former state Meeting speaker additionally accepted greater than $1 million in marketing campaign contributions and different monetary help from oil firms and different donors tied to the {industry} over greater than three many years in public life, in line with metropolis and state fundraising disclosures reviewed by The Instances.
Since getting into the race final yr to switch Gov. Gavin Newsom, Villaraigosa has accepted greater than $176,000 from donors with ties to the oil {industry}, together with from an organization that operates oil fields within the San Joaquin Valley and in Los Angeles County, the disclosures present.
The conflict between Villaraigosa’s environmentalist credentials and oil-industry ties surfaced within the governor’s race after Valero introduced in late April that its Bay Space refinery would shut subsequent yr, not lengthy after Phillips 66 mentioned its Wilmington refinery would shut in 2025.
Villaraigosa is now warning that California drivers may see fuel costs soar, blasting as “absurd” insurance policies that he mentioned may have led to the refinery closures.
“I’m not combating for refineries,” Villaraigosa mentioned in an interview. “I’m combating for the individuals who pay for fuel on this state.”
The refineries are a sore spot for Newsom and for California Democrats, pitting their environmental targets in opposition to issues in regards to the rising price of dwelling and two of the state’s strongest curiosity teams — organized labor and environmentalists — in opposition to one another.
Villaraigosa mentioned Democrats are letting the proper be the enemy of the great of their strategy to combating local weather change.
He mentioned he hoped no extra refineries would shut till the state hits extra electrification milestones, together with constructing extra transmission strains, green-energy storage programs and charging stations for electrical vehicles. The one method for the state to succeed in “internet zero” emissions, he mentioned, is an “all-of-the-above” strategy that features photo voltaic, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear energy and oil and fuel.
“The notion that we’re not going to try this is poppycock,” Villaraigosa mentioned.
Villaraigosa’s vocal help for the oil {industry} has upset some environmental teams that noticed him as a longtime ally.
“I’m actually shocked at simply how dangerous it’s,” mentioned RL Miller, the president of Local weather Hawks Vote and the chair of the California Democratic Occasion’s environmental caucus, of the contributions Villaraigosa has accepted since getting into the race in July.
Miller mentioned Villaraigosa signed a pledge throughout his unsuccessful run for governor in 2018 to not settle for marketing campaign contributions from oil firms and “named executives” at fossil-fuel entities. She mentioned he took the pledge shortly after accepting the utmost allowable contributions from a number of oil donors in 2017.
Miller mentioned that greater than $100,000 in donations that Villaraigosa has accepted on this gubernatorial cycle had been clear violations of the pledge.
That included contributions from the state’s largest oil and fuel producer, California Assets Corp. and its subsidiaries, in addition to the founding father of Rocky Mountain Assets, a frontrunner of the oil firm Berry Corp., and Excalibur Nicely Companies.
“That is bear-hugging the oil {industry},” she mentioned.
Environmental activists view the pledge as binding for future campaigns. Villaraigosa mentioned he has not signed it for this marketing campaign.
The economic system is dramatically totally different than it was in 2018, Villaraigosa mentioned, and working-class People are being hammered, which he mentioned was a significant factor in latest Democratic losses.
“We’re dropping working folks, notably working individuals who don’t have a school training,” he mentioned. “Why are we dropping them? The price of dwelling, the price of fuel, the price of utilities, the price of groceries.”
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, mentioned such statements are in keeping with Villaraigosa’s messaging lately.
“Villaraigosa is squarely within the reasonable lane within the governor’s race. That doomed him in 2018, when voters wished to counterbalance President Trump and Villaraigosa was outflanked by Newsom,” Kousser mentioned. “However as we speak, even some Democrats could wish to counterbalance the course that they see Sacramento taking, particularly in the case of cost-of-living points and the worth of fuel.”
He added that the fossil-fuel donations will not be the idea for Villaraigosa’s obvious embrace of oil and fuel priorities.
“When a politician takes marketing campaign contributions from an {industry} and in addition takes positions that favor it, that raises the opportunity of corruption, of cash influencing votes,” Kousser mentioned. “However additionally it is attainable that it was the politician’s personal strategy to a difficulty that attracted the contributions, that their votes attracted cash however weren’t in any method corrupted by it. Which may be the case right here, the place Villaraigosa has held pretty constant positions on this subject and persistently attracted help from an {industry} due to these positions.”
Different Democrats within the 2026 governor’s race, together with Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, have signed the pledge to not settle for contributions from oil {industry} pursuits, Miller mentioned.
Former California Senate President Professional Tem Toni Atkins, former Well being and Human Companies Secretary Xavier Becerra and businessman Stephen Cloobeck haven’t. (Cloobeck has by no means run for workplace earlier than and has not been requested to signal.)
Different gubernatorial candidates have additionally accepted fossil-fuel contributions, though in smaller numbers than Villaraigosa, state and federal filings present.
Becerra accepted contributions from Chevron and California Assets Corp., previously Occidental Petroleum, whereas working for lawyer common. Atkins took donations from Chevron, Occidental and a commerce group for oil firms whereas working for state Meeting and state Senate. And whereas working for lieutenant governor, Kounalakis took contributions from executives at oil and mining firms.
Marketing campaign representatives for the 2 essential Republican candidates within the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, mentioned they welcomed oil-industry donations.
Villaraigosa is a fierce defender of his environmental report courting again to his first years as an elected official within the California Meeting.
As mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa set new targets to scale back emissions on the Port of Los Angeles, finish using coal-burning energy crops and shift the town’s power technology towards photo voltaic, wind and geothermal sources.
The kid of a girl who relied on Metro buses, he additionally branded himself the “transportation mayor.” Villaraigosa was a vocal champion for the 2008 gross sales tax enhance that supplied the primary funding for the extension of the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the Westside.
However, he mentioned, Democrats in 2025 must be life like that the refinery closures and their targets of decreasing greenhouse fuel emissions may disproportionately have an effect on low-income residents who’re already struggling to make ends meet.
Villaraigosa’s feedback underscore a broader divide amongst Democrats about methods to battle local weather change with out making California much more costly, or driving out extra high-paying jobs that don’t require a school training.
Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who turned the chief of the California Labor Federation in 2022, mentioned that whereas local weather change is an actual menace, so is shutting down refineries.
“That’s a menace to these employees’ jobs and lives, and it’s additionally a menace to the worth of fuel,” Gonzalez mentioned.
California just isn’t presently positioned to finish its reliance on fossil fuels, she mentioned. If the state reduces its refining capability, she mentioned, it must depend on exports from nations which have much less environmental and labor safeguards.
“Anybody working for governor has to acknowledge that,” Gonzalez mentioned.
Villaraigosa mentioned that whereas the lack of union jobs at Valero’s Bay Space refinery apprehensive him, his main concern was over the price of gasoline and family budgets.
His feedback come as California prepares to sq. off but once more in opposition to the Trump administration over its environmental insurance policies.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to revoke a federal waiver that allowed California to set its personal automobile emission requirements, together with a rule that will have in the end banned the sale of latest gas-fueled vehicles in 2035. Villaraigosa denounced the vote, however mentioned that efforts to battle local weather change can’t come on the expense of working-class People.
President Trump has additionally declared a nationwide power emergency, calling for elevated fossil-fuel manufacturing, eliminating environmental evaluations and the fast-tracking of initiatives in doubtlessly delicate ecosystems and habitats. The Trump administration can be concentrating on California’s environmental requirements.
Villaraigosa, an Eastside native, began his profession as a labor organizer and rose to speaker of the state Meeting earlier than changing into the mayor of Los Angeles. Now 72, Villaraigosa has not held elected workplace for greater than a decade; he completed a distant third within the 2018 gubernatorial main.
Through the years, donors affiliated with the fossil-fuel {industry} have contributed greater than $1 million to Villaraigosa’s political campaigns and his nonprofit causes, together with an after-school program, the town’s sports activities and leisure fee and an effort to scale back violence by offering programming at metropolis parks throughout summer season nights, in line with metropolis and state disclosures.
Greater than half of the contributions and help for Villaraigosa’s pet causes, over $582,000, got here throughout his years at Los Angeles Metropolis Corridor as a council member and mayor.
In 2008, billionaire oil and fuel magnate T. Boone Pickens donated $150,000 to a metropolis proposition backed by Villaraigosa that levied a brand new tax on cellphone and web use.
Pickens made the donation as his firm was vying for enterprise on the port of Los Angeles, which is overseen by mayoral appointees and was in search of to scale back emissions by changing diesel-powered vans with autos fueled by liquid pure fuel.
The remainder of the contributions and different monetary help flowed to Villaraigosa’s marketing campaign accounts and affiliated committees whereas he served within the Meeting and through his two gubernatorial runs. These figures don’t embody donations to unbiased expenditure committees, since candidates can not legally be concerned in these efforts.
Villaraigosa mentioned that whereas such voters don’t subscribe to Republicans’ “drill, child, drill” ethos, he slammed the Democratic Occasion’s give attention to such issues and Trump as a substitute of kitchen-table points.
“The price of all the things we’re doing is on the backs of the individuals who work the toughest and who make the least, and that’s why so lots of them — even after we had been saying Trump is a menace to democracy — they had been saying, yeah, however what about my fuel costs, grocery costs, the price of eggs?” he mentioned.
Instances employees author Sandra McDonald in Sacramento contributed to this report.
