California Governor Vows to “Fight” Trump on Climate Change

California Governor Jerry Brown, never one to pass up a chance to do some liberal grandstanding, issued strong remarks on Wednesday aimed at President-elect Donald Trump and his climate change agenda. Speaking to the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Brown said that California would oppose any Trump policies that would roll back the Obama administration’s climate efforts.

“We’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the lawyers and we’re ready to fight,” Brown said.

Brown said he was hearing a “miasma of nonsense” from Republicans on climate change and other domestic issues. He addressed the president-elect specifically when it came to rumors of Trump directing NASA to stop collecting climate data.

“If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” Brown vowed.

We’ll see, but there may be a reckoning for these Democratic governors promising to fight the Trump administration on every dot and tittle of the federal agenda. There is certainly room for local officials to push back on Washington’s overreach, but we’re talking about a state governor who wants to start doing D.C.’s job for them. There may not be quite as much patience for that, even in a state that went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton.

And climate change is just one of the issues. Brown is among the many local and state officials around the country who have promised to fight Trump on illegal immigration. San Francisco, Chicago, and New York and other “sanctuary cities” have vowed to shield illegal immigrants from deportation, no matter what Trump decides to do. What happens when those cities are stripped of their federal funds? Will the citizens be glad to pay extra taxes to make up the shortfall? Does it mean that much to them to keep illegal immigrants in their communities?

The leftists in California probably aren’t keen to come around on the Trump administration, but do they really want to suffer for their governor’s national ambitions? Brown and the rest of these local Democrats around the country see Trump as a star-making opportunity. Who will be the loudest and more forceful in their opposition to Trump? Who can use their war on Trump to vault themselves into 2020 contention? This is the game we’re going to be watching for the next few years.

From a distance, it will be highly amusing. But to the people expecting their local politicians to be focused…locally…it may not be that funny.