Hydrogen is not new to California. It has long served industrial users, refineries, and critical infrastructure. What is new, and what CEO Jason Caudle (First Public Hydrogen or FPH2) is focused on, is the deliberate expansion of hydrogen into new, scalable market segments, including: public transit, distributed energy, and stationary power.

General Manager and CEO of Moulton Niguel Water District (MNWD), Joone Kim-Lopez, brings a first responder’s mindset to water management. In this VX News interview, she shares how her experience as Pasadena’s first female Asian police officer shaped her leadership philosophy and drive to modernize public utilities. Kim-Lopez recounts her founding of the California Data Collaborative in working with respected water managers to enable data-informed policies and decision-making for California’s water future.

Testifying before California’s Little Hoover Commission at its recent hearing on data centers and electricity policy, Sen. Josh Becker framed the rapid growth of data centers as a pivotal moment for California’s energy system—one that could either accelerate the clean-energy transition or impose new costs on households and small businesses.

Billy Riggs, a national voice on autonomous mobility and Professor (University of San Francisco), explains why perception autonomy—the vehicle’s ability to truly see and interpret the world—is the real engine behind AV progress. Riggs argues that autonomy won’t solve congestion without major shifts in curb policy, workforce planning, and data governance, challenging cities to stop chasing sci-fi and focus on “Monday-morning” solutions like micro-transit, dynamic curb management, and realistic public–private models.

Chair Nava of the Little Hoover Commission joins VX News to unpack the findings of the Little Hoover Commission’s review of California’s electricity rates—and now the emerging impacts of data centers and AI. Addressing how ratepayers are not simply paying for electricity itself, Chair Nava details how profit structures and related costs of maintaining, hardening, and expanding the grid continue to compound California’s affordability challenges.

In conversation with VX News, climate veteran Lauren Faber O’Connor—now at Lowercarbon Capital and formerly with the City of Los Angeles, CalEPA, EDF, and the UK Foreign Office—argues that the next era of decarbonization won’t hinge on policy ambition, but on technologies that simply outperform the fossil economy. Her message is direct: if governments drop their perfectionism and engage early with innovators, and if private capital keeps scaling these breakthroughs, we have the tools to unf**k the planet while actually improving daily life.

In conversation with VX News, LA County ISD’s Tessa Charnofsky reflects on the vision behind the Future Green Leaders Summit and the broader mandate of SoCalREN—authorized in 2012 by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deliver energy-efficiency and workforce programs across 13 Southern California counties, with a specific focus on disadvantaged communities. Charnofsky shares why early exposure, community-designed programs, and partnerships that extend beyond the classroom are essential to growing California’s clean-energy workforce pipeline.