So during the last tenure of Jerry Brown as governor (and Newsom as lieutenant governor) they backed & signed a bill to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant by 2025. Now they realize that they need that power past 2025, especially because of increased demands for electricity. In order to avoid haggling with environmentalists that insist nuclear power is not renewable, Newsom and the legislature have waited until the last minute of the session to try to force through a bill that will give PG&E owners $1.4 BILLION of taxpayer dollars in order to keep the nuclear facility open and "provide alternate sources of renewable energy" to an ever-increasing & demanding public. It's not bad enough that the state government and the Public Utilities Commission have allowed electric rates to dramatically increase in order for customers to share half the burden of liability that private power companies have incurred in the past or may incur in the future. Now they want us, taxpayers, to pay for more "research" by these companies on alternate energy sources which so far have proven to be unreliable (wind & solar) or non-existent.
Here's an alternate plan, let private companies build more nuclear facilities to provide alternate power sources and allow the ultimate closure of some of the fossil fuel facilities.
Photo Courtesy of Massachusetts Institute of Technology News On Campus & Around the World, dated November 8, 2021.
MIT explains how the nuclear power plant has the potential to provide additional benefits to the State of California.
https://news.mit.edu/2021/diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-1108