Gov. Newsom signs affordability package: Aims to cut utility costs, stabilize gas prices and fund high speed rail project

(FOX40.COM) — On Friday, Sept. 19, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of six bills into law. The new legislation promises to save Californians billions of dollars in utility costs and to fund a high-profile high-speed rail project.

These new laws also target gas prices and pollution in the Golden State.

“[These bills are] all about the how,” Governor Newsom said. “Not about the what and the why.”

The legislation aims to stabilize California’s gas supply — preventing price spikes. However, at Friday’s signing, the governor also spotlighted initiatives to reduce utility costs.

“$60 billion of tax rebates on electricity bills. That’s what this bill represents, $60 billion,” Gov. Newsom said. “We’ve got to manifest our ideals and our goals and so this lays it out, but it lays it out without laying tracks over folks. I know there are tracks we are starting to lay in the central valley…”

These “tracks” represent another California hot button topic the new legislation addresses. Amid the Trump administration withholding more than $4 billion for high speed rail, state leaders set aside $1 billion to finally make the project a reality in the Central Valley.

“This is the part that we’ve been waiting for years and years and years and to abandon it at this point is, would be absurd,” Gov. Newsom said in response to questions about the dedication to the rail system project.

Now, this action on the state level parallels movement from the Trump administration to cut clean air protections and funding for climate research. Governor Newsom addressed the white house on Friday.

“The vandalism that this president has done to our kids and our grandkids, the deficits, you know, environmental injury, injury is nothing more than deficit spending, health care costs, the burdens of clean-up cost and the next generation… is a disgrace,” Gov. Newsom said. “It’s a disgrace.”

However, the California leader also commended this political package’s bipartisan nature — promoting a message of unity on both sides of the aisle.

“It’s good to be reminded of an African proverb, which says, ‘You want to go fast, you can go alone. You want to go far, go together.’ And we have made tremendous progress over the course of the last many weeks,” Gov. Newson reflected.

Touting California’s economy as the fourth largest in the world — with 67% of the state’s energy carbon free, Gov. Newsom also emphasized the bills’ efforts to curb pollution and protect Californians from wildfires.