California’s Climate Leaders Talk Clean Energy Growing Pains and the War on Iran

SACRAMENTO—Not long into Ellie Cohen’s opening remarks at the California Climate Policy Summit this week, the crowd erupted in boos—at her request. 

The CEO of the Santa Rosa-based Climate Center had been noting widening climate threats and thanked the state and Gov. Gavin Newsom for lawsuits against the Trump administration, then shifted her tone. 

Taking aim at Newsom. 

“His audience now seems to be the purple states and the people who vote in those purple states,” said Cohen. “He’s stepping back from his climate championship, his climate leadership.” 

In the 2025 legislative session, she said, the governor rejected a slew of bills meant to bolster virtual power plants across the state. One such bill, AB 740, passed with broad, bipartisan support. 

“He vetoed that,” said Cohen. “And then a bill that actually got enacted, many of you will remember this: SB 237. Anybody remember what that bill does? Boo, let’s hear it … loud. ” 

The boos ensued. 

Senate Bill 237 expanded oil and gas drilling in California’s Kern County by streamlining permitting processes. While the fossil fuel industry touted the bill as a way to lower gas prices, experts argue that the bill will not move the needle on affordable gas, since petroleum prices are set by a global market. 

Now, with the war on Iran in its seventh week, driving gas prices upwards, hundreds of policymakers and advocates were left grappling with how to think about California’s “mid-transition,” a period when renewables must coexist with fossil fuels to drive the state toward a zero-carbon energy grid. The conference centered the revived push for virtual power plants and the creation of equitable pathways for decarbonization, all while balancing state political goals. 

While Newsom wasn’t present, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, in delivering the event’s keynote address, responded to Cohen. Praising her advocacy, Crowfoot also called for realism: 

“We are a model across the world, but there are forces in the United States that are working to make us the cautionary tale,” he said. “Yes, drive forward and hold us accountable to continue to make progress, but ensure that ambition is pragmatic because we are on a transition and we are demonstrating to the world how to get this done.” 

An Equitable Energy Transition

While AB 740 was vetoed by the governor, a renewed push for virtual power plants—networks of small, distributed energy resources like solar panels, batteries and EV chargers tied together by software to act as a single power plant—is well underway. 

“So much of our climate policy depends on electrification, electrifying transportation, electrifying homes and buildings,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat representing parts of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. 

A new bill backed by Becker, SB 913, “Resource Adequacy for Affordable Electricity,” would aggregate the capacity of home batteries and smart technologies or “distributed energy resources” to meet energy grid requirements, instead of fossil fuels. Distributed clean energy resources would act as a power plant in itself.

“The more we have of separate sources of [renewable] energy, the more resilient we’ll be, whether it’s to political shock, like the Iranian war, a dramatic increase in a very short period of time in global gas prices, or it could be a heat wave or a wildfire or a flood,” said Cohen. 

Virtual power plant systems have shown success in California. California’s Demand Side Grid Support Program already offers incentives for electric customers providing backup generation to the grid in the event of an extreme event. 

“ It’s one gigawatt of everybody’s batteries and smart thermostats and EV charging all looped together so that when the grid hits that peak day … we can get everybody to respond together and bring down that demand,” said Leah Stokes, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “What does that mean? It means that that is delivering the cheapest, cleanest power to our grid.”

Stokes participates in the program herself. “I’m a nerd and I have a battery, and so I’ll sign up for everything,” she said. According to Stokes, data from the California Energy Commission indicates that participants tend to be lower income and earn around $300 a year for their contribution to the grid.

“That makes a much bigger difference to you if you are living in Central Valley and you’re struggling to pay your electricity bills, and so that’s exactly the kind of people that we’re supporting for this program,” she said. 

But its funding bottomed out in September 2025, and shortly thereafter, Newsom vetoed AB 740, the virtual power plant bill. While SB 913 is a renewed chance at bolstering the virtual power plant grid in California, getting the bill through the legislature and signed by the governor will require a delicate dance. 

“In light of things that happened last year,” Cohen said, “ we’re trying to be strategic but still move the needle forward.”