Gavin Newsom can count votes.

It is why, as one of the leaders of the green revolution with his decision to keep the California High Speed Rail project after signally briefly after taking office six years ago he was open to pulling the plug, is probably doing a lot of pacing these days.

Newsom is also the face, although not the architect, of the anti-greenhouse gas movement’s coming rapture in 2035.

That’s the year when California is supposed to experience the absolute end of the sale of new fossil fuel vehicles.

Both the zero emission mandate for Golden State vehicles and the high speed rail project that — according to a New York Times investigation is burning through $1.8 million a day — are on the radar of an unlikely pair of green capitalism counter revolutionaries.

They are not Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, but the so-called “bro” combo of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

They are preparing to fan fear in corporate boardrooms across America when it comes to green strategies.

And while ultimately they may not succeed, they will certainly implode the cozy government/private sector portion of the green capitalism cartel that leans heavily on tax credits and good old fashioned government grants.

The initial attack has garnered little attention in the political hurricane that’s in the Category 3 range now slamming Washington, D.C.

Last week’s announcement that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will investigate the high speed rail project and possibly withdrawal $4 billion in federal funds barely registered a mere mention in the whirlwind of media coverage of the Trump administration’s actions.

The Duffy pronouncement, was practically screamed from the mountain tops compared to another move that could do serious damage to the greenhouse gas reduction strategy that California has advanced on Newsom’s watch.

It is so significant should it come to fruition, green scholars generations from now may refer to it as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre given the seed was planted on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025.

It is when federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin officially submitted to Congress paperwork for the repeal of the California waiver allowing Newsom to actually implement the 2035 mandate for selling only zero emission vehicles in the Golden State.

California can’t actually go through with the 2035 mandate without the waiver.

Zeldin is taking advantage of the Congressional Review Act.

Federal law allows a simple majority of both the House and the Senate to overturn a regulation on the strength of a President’s signature.

The process has  been used 20 times since 2000 to overturn federal regulatory rules.

The federal statute bars judicial review of resolutions to overturn federal regulations via the congressional process it establishes.

It also bans future administrations from reissuing a rule “in substantially the same form.”

Should the wavier be rejected by a simple majority of Congress within 60 days of the official submission of the request to do so, that means the current California EV mandate can’t be resurrected.

Rest assured, Newsom knows this, which is why he got the legislation to write his administration a $50 million check to fight Trump actions that threaten what he touts as “California values.”

He also has a handle on how such a vote, should it occur within the required 60 days, will go down.

All evidence points to the EV mandate debate not being a pure blue versus pure red issue. There is a lot of purple out there not for the establishment of a federal EV mandate and it is mostly among Democrats.

As such, there is a strong likelihood if Republicans in Congress take the EPA request to nix the waiver and run with it that Zeldin will prevail.

Never, of course, say never when it comes to reviving the idea of a free-standing California waiver if and when Congress torpedoes it.

Politicians hellbent on getting their way can regurgitate proposed policy a thousand different ways so that there is enough gray they can claim it is a platypus even though it still quacks rather than the original duck that was shot down simply because both have bills.

That, however, would take buy in from Congress to succeed, and not simply the California Legislature which is not the final authority.

Newsom could breathe life back into the mandate banning the sale of new vehicles that are zero emission but the timetable would likely be set back.

High speed rail in its current form is an entirely different matter.

At the very least for the next four years, the odds are no federal dollars will come California’s way for the project. It is also highly likely the $4 billion will be clawed back as well.

Simply waiting for 2028 and banking on the Republicans losing the White House and even if Newsom himself becomes the 38th, is fraught with danger.

Even when the Democrats were in a position to shovel more money into the California high speed rail pit they have declined to do so.

Private sector projects in Florida for faster and more efficient passenger trains as well as the Las Vegas to Riverside (LA) high speed rail endeavor took sizable chunks of the available funding supply.

The reason is simple.

There were no private sector investors interested before the original $10 billion high speed rail bond was approved by voters in 2008. Since then, despite every carrot Sacramento could dangle, the private sector has continued to avoid the project like the plague.

Yet that hasn’t been the case elsewhere with faster passenger rail projects.

The reason is obvious, unless you are a diehard California High Speed Rail groupie.

The potential ridership demand is underwhelming and the cost is overwhelmingly not just to build but also operate and maintain.

Newsom likely understands a lot of realities he’s not going to think out loud about.

►He is asking Uncle Sam for $40 billion in aid to rebuild after the LA wildfires.

►The start of the forced shift to EVs is undercutting gas pump dollars that include fees collapsed into the price of each gallon that the state uses to help fund greenhouse gas reduction endeavors including high speed.

►Heavy-hitter constituencies — read that, the California Mother Lode of voters in the Los Angeles Basin and the Bay Area — are lukewarm at best on the idea of zipping from a station near the homeless skid row in LA to a station near the homeless skid row in San Francisco.

Trump, on the political Richter scale, could be heading for creating a more enduring tectonic shift even though it may not be exactly what he envisions. That means these are the pre-shocks leading up to the “big one.”

If that is the case, and even if Trump isn’t channeled by his predecessor, the playing board will have been altered.

As such, there isn’t likely going to be much federal funding action — an essential must for the high speed as the project now stands — after it has been on life support for four years.

Newsom is probably wishing he had dialed back the rail project when he had an opening.

There is a huge dollar difference — and ridership potential — between high speed and a faster more efficient statewide passenger rail system.