The Magician’s Trick
California blames wildfires on Big Oil. The real culpability lies in Sacramento.
“Only you can prevent forest fires.”—Smokey the Bear
The ink is barely dry on the flurry of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in the first weeks of his new term, yet California Governor Gavin Newsom is already in full campaign mode for the 2028 election. Consider his newly launched podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, a show on which he welcomes guests from the opposite end of the political spectrum for open and frank debates.
With conservatives dominating the alternative media space and his leading opponents for the Democratic Party nomination unlikely to excel in such formats, Newsom’s gambit—showcasing his formidable political and oratorical skills—is a shrewd one. His third guest, MAGA philosopher Steve Bannon, humorously quipped, “This is part of the process to unwind you from being a globalist to make you a populist nationalist. It’s a long journey.”
With Newsom nearing his term limit as governor, the race is on to replace the captain of California’s rapidly sinking ship. Years of single-party rule have left the state a bloated mess of waste, incompetence, and fraud. Perhaps no event better symbolizes California’s decline than the recent Los Angeles wildfires—an utterly preventable catastrophe. For those up and down the Democratic Party ticket seeking a promotion in the post-Newsom era, a scapegoat would certainly come in handy. It didn’t take much blamestorming to find one:
“State Sen. Scott Wiener has introduced a bill that would create a pathway for Californians affected by fires, floods and other climate disasters to sue fossil fuel companies for damages. The bill would also let insurers do the same to recover costs.
Senate Bill 222, introduced Monday by the San Francisco Democrat and state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, accuses gas and oil companies of deceiving the public about the impact of their products on climate change. Supporters argue it would provide relief from California’s home insurance crisis by explicitly allowing insurers to recoup costs from fossil fuel companies, rather than solely by raising their rates.”
The proposed law is merely the latest escalation in the ongoing lawfare campaign waged against the hydrocarbon sector by progressive actors at the state level. California already sued major oil companies over their alleged culpability for wildfires in 2023, and several other states followed suit. Republican-led states have pushed back, asking the Supreme Court to dismiss such litigation as a usurpation of the federal government’s powers under the Commerce Clause. Their efforts suffered a setback last week:
“The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an argument that aimed to restrict states from suing oil companies for financial damage related to climate change.
The argument was brought to the high court by 19 Republican attorneys general, representing states including Alabama and West Virginia, who were trying to prevent other states, led by Democrats, from pursuing lawsuits against the oil industry. Those states include California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.”
The rush to blame oil and gas companies for the problems of progressive regimes is cynical enough, but the attempt to pin accountability for California’s wildfire disasters on climate change is particularly insidious. The calamity that struck Southern California in January was, without a shadow of a doubt, the culmination of decades of mismanagement across five pivotal dimensions—a perfect storm of ineptitude converging on a single point of failure. Let’s explore each of them in order, and set the record straight.