These new California laws test whether we still set the national agenda – latimes.com

These new California laws test whether we still set the national agenda  latimes.com

When the California Legislature ends its session each fall, as it did this week, the state’s boosters like to think its new laws provide a good road map for where the rest of the country might be in a few years. It’s a bit of California exceptionalism. Some years it’s true (the state has a long lead in pollution controls) and some years it’s not (California's disastrous foray into energy deregulation gave Enron some great ideas). This legislative session offers some new tests of the theory that California legislation could spread to other parts of the country. Here's a summary from The Times reporters who covered it: Gov.

Gavin Newsom surprised some by signing several bills aimed at protecting consumers from growing electricity costs and tracking data centers’ immense energy and water consumption. Data centers have become a huge grassroots political issue across the country that, in some places, has united Democrats and Republicans. Will California lead the way on regulating them? Tech is a home industry in California, and regulation can sometimes be tricky. This year, Newsom signed more than 10 bills aimed at keeping young people safe from the potential harms of social media sites, artificial intelligence, addictive autoplay and more. California has long battled the Trump administration over immigration. This year, more than 20 bills aimed at