Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of President Donald Trump’s broad imposition of tariffs on imported goods … but California’s economy was already sluggish. … California’s largest-in-the-nation agricultural industry, including its famous winemaking sector, is also shrinking, largely due to uncertain water supplies, labor shortages and the same high costs for electricity and fuel that the logistics industry faces. The Public Policy Institute of California has estimated that, “even in the best-case scenario, some 500,000 acres may need to be fallowed in the San Joaquin Valley” due to restrictions on pumping irrigation water from underground aquifers.
–Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters