Sanchez says she saw an opportunity to make change at the state level.
“[I] told the president, thank you. But I needed to come back and work for the governor,” she said. “We are experiencing climate impacts at an accelerating rate.”
Gordon, her predecessor, spent two decades working on climate, energy and economic policy, championing the idea that bold climate action is good for the economy.
She worked with Michael Bloomberg, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and California philanthropist Tom Steyer, to found the Risky Business Project. An initiative that quantifies the economic impacts of climate change on things like crop yields, energy demands and human health.
As Newsom’s advisor, Gordon helped establish a commission on the catastrophic cost of wildfires. She also helped create the $12.5 billion “climate budget” Newsom proposed in 2020, which later was scaled back…
