Newsom's podcast sidekick: a single-use plastic water bottle
In most of the YouTube video recordings of Newsom's new podcast, "This is Gavin Newsom," a single-use plastic water bottle lurks on a table nearby.
Sometimes, it is accompanied by a single-use coffee cup. Other times, it stands alone.
Typically, such product placement would raise nary an eyebrow. But in recent weeks, environmentalists, waste advocates, lawmakers and others have been battling with the governor and his administration over a landmark single-use plastic law that Newsom signed in 2022, but which he has since worked to defang — reducing the number of packaged single-use products the law was designed to target and potentially opening the door for polluting forms of recycling.
Anti-plastic advocates say it's an abrupt and disappointing pivot from the governor, who in June 2022, decried plastic pollution and the plague of single-use plastic on the environment.
"It's like that whole French Laundry thing all over again," said one anti-plastic advocate, who didn't want to be identified for fear of angering the governor. Newsom was infamously caught dining without a mask at the wine country restaurant during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Newsom's efforts to scale back SB 54, the state's single-use plastic recycling law, has dismayed environmentalists who have long considered Newsom one of their staunchest allies.
'Our kids deserve a future free of plastic waste and all its dangerous impacts ... No more," Newsom said in 2022, when he signed SB 54. "California won't tolerate plastic waste that's filling our waterways and making it harder to breathe. We're holding polluters responsible and cutting plastics at the source.'
Asked about the presence of the plastic water bottle, Daniel Villaseñor, the governor's deputy director of communications, had this response:
"Are you really writing a story this baseless or should we highlight this video for your editor?" Villaseñor said via email, attaching a video clip showing this reporter seated near a plastic water bottle at last year's Los Angeles Times' Climate Summit. (The bottles were placed near chairs for all the panelists; this particular one was never touched.)
More than a half-dozen environmentalists and waste advocates asked to comment for this story declined to speak on the record, citing concerns including possible retribution from the governor's office and appearing to look like scolds as negotiations over implementing SB 54 continue.
Dianna Cohen, the co-founder and chief executive of Plastic Pollution Coalition, said that while she wouldn't comment on the governor and his plastic sidekick, she noted that plastic pollution is an "urgent global crisis" that requires strong policies and regulations.
"Individuals — especially those in the public eye — can help shift culture by modeling these solutions. We must all work to embrace the values we want to see and co-create a healthier world," she said in a statement.
On Thursday, Newsom dropped a new episode of "This is Gavin Newsom" with independent journalist Aaron Parnas. In the video, there wasn't a plastic bottle in sight.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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