California failed to protect our waters, ecosystems, and communities again in 2026. With the Trump Administration dismantling federal environmental protections at a pace we’ve never seen, Californians needed their state to step up. Instead, the Legislature and Governor Newsom largely stood aside.
Bowing to Polluters: California Leaves Its Waters Unprotected
Nowhere is that failure clearer than with Senate Bill 601 (Allen), the Right to Clean Water Act. SB 601 died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee without ever reaching a floor vote. The concept was simple. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA, federal Clean Water Act protections no longer reach most of California’s wetlands and seasonal streams. SB 601 would have kept the polluting discharges previously covered by federal Clean Water Act permits regulated under state law. New state permits would have been as protective as the federal permits they replace, existing cleanup plans would have stayed in place, and polluters would have had no escape hatch to exploit looser federal rules.
Other states like Colorado, New Mexico, Delaware, Illinois, and Washington have moved to close the Sackett gap. California, long the nation’s environmental leader, bowed to polluters and left our waters exposed.
Then things got worse. Just weeks after SB 601 died, the Trump Administration proposed limiting the federal definition of “waters of the United States” to waters that flow year-round. That goes even further than the Sackett majority required. In a state like California, where so many streams run only part of the year, a perennial-only standard would strip federal protection from an enormous share of our waterways. The need for a state-level backstop has never been more urgent, and the Legislature went home without providing one. A California legislative response to the gutting of federal clean water protections must be a day-one priority next session, and California’s next Governor must treat it as one.
Leaving Our Coast Exposed
The Legislature also failed our coast. The Trump Administration’s draft offshore leasing program proposes the first new oil and gas lease sales off California in more than 40 years. Assembly Bill 1536 (Addis) would have tightened oversight of the aging oil pipelines along our coast, especially those that have already spilled. It would have ended routine safety exemptions, required independent risk analyses in place of operator self-assessments, and extended best-available-technology requirements to repaired pipelines. It died in committee. Anyone who remembers Refugio in 2015 or Huntington Beach in 2021 knows what that failure could cost.
A Unifying Issue: Common Ground on Data Centers
There is one bright spot. Governor Newsom signed a package of data center bills, including two by Assemblymember Diane Papan. Assembly Bill 2619 requires data centers to disclose how much water they expect to use, where it comes from, and what their peak demands will be, and then to report their actual use every year. It also directs the state to develop guidance on water-efficient cooling. Assembly Bill 2469 requires data center applicants to plan for water scarcity and to pay for the water infrastructure they need, so ordinary ratepayers aren’t left holding the bill.
These are real wins, and the Governor deserves credit for them. They also reveal something important. Concern about and opposition to data centers is one of the rare issues uniting people across the political spectrum right now. Californians on the left, right, and everywhere in between are counting on their state, and on the environmental community, to stand up to powerful interests when the federal government won’t. That is exactly the role California should be playing.
On the Governor’s Desk
Two bills awaiting action at the Governor’s desk give Governor Newsom a chance, in his final year, to show that California hasn’t fully surrendered its environmental leadership.
Assembly Bill 2218 (Kalra), the Indigenous Water Rights Bill, confronts a history California has too long avoided. Through state-sanctioned genocide, termination, removal, and forced assimilation, California stripped Tribes of the rivers, fisheries, and watershed practices that sustained their cultures for millennia, and those harms continue today. AB 2218 makes it state policy to recognize that injustice and begin correcting it through financial assistance, protection of tribal water uses, real consultation on water projects and policies, and the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge into restoring our ecosystems. Signing AB 2218 is a necessity. California owes Tribes far more than an apology, and this bill is where real repair begins, and where a more just future for California starts to take shape.
Assembly Bill 1448 (Hart) bars existing infrastructure on state tidelands and submerged lands from supporting new federal offshore leases issued after January 1, 2026. It also adds safeguards before changes to existing state-waters leases can be approved, such as restarting production or reusing infrastructure that has spilled. In short, it keeps California’s own waters from becoming a backdoor for Trump’s offshore drilling expansion. More than 100 organizations have urged the Governor to sign it.
Looking Ahead to New Leadership
This is a sad time for environmental protection in California. For a state that holds itself up as the leading voice against the Trump Administration, California has done remarkably little to stand up to those attacks on our environment. Signing AB 2218 and AB 1448 would be a welcome step, but one session of half-measures can’t hide the larger truth: California can no longer call itself an environmental leader. CCKA looks forward to working with a new administration next year, and we hope it will bring California back to the front of the fight for clean waters, healthy ecosystems, and thriving communities.
Staff Attorney Marty Farrell advocates for statewide policies and programs that protect the health of California’s water.
