[48] One of Feinstein's first challenges as mayor was the state of the San Francisco cable car system, which was shut down for emergency repairs in 1979; an engineering study concluded that it needed comprehensive rebuilding at a cost of $60 million.

[84][85][14] After her performance at Amy Coney Barrett's October 2020 Supreme Court nomination hearings was criticized, Feinstein did not seek to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee or serve as its ranking member in 2021.

[88][89][90] On October 22, 2022, Feinstein said that due to family matters, she was not interested in serving as president pro tempore in 2023; the position is traditionally held by the senior member of the Senate's majority party.

[93] Representatives Ro Khanna, Dean Phillips, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with a group of California progressive organizations and the New York Times editorial board, publicly urged Feinstein to resign.

[121][122] After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Feinstein called for congressional action to protect abortion rights[123] and stated her support for lifting the Senate filibuster rule to allow such legislation to pass with a simple majority.

[129][h] As a result of Feinstein's legislation, average fleet fuel economy for new automobiles will climb to approximately 60 miles per gallon by 2032, cutting greenhouse gas emissions from passenger and commercial vehicles in half without impeding automotive performance or degrading traffic safety.

[130][131] During the 110th Congress, Feinstein authored an amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, mandating all major sources of greenhouse gasses to annually report their emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency.

[136] Feinstein co-sponsored (with Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn) an amendment through the Senate to the Economic Development Revitalization Act of 2011 that eliminated the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit.

[138][139] In February 2019, when youth associated with the Sunrise Movement confronted Feinstein about why she did not support the Green New Deal, she told them, "there's no way to pay for it", and that it could not pass a Republican-controlled Senate.

[141] While Feinstein's bill ultimately died in the Senate, President Biden issued an executive order containing several of its provisions, including directing the Treasury Department to study climate-related financial risks.

[142] In addition, Feinstein co-sponsored with Senator Coons the Climate Action Rebate Act of 2019 - legislation that would create a nationwide carbon fee and dividend program to decarbonize the American economy and transition it to net-zero.

However, a separate battery storage tax credit bill co-sponsored by Feinstein was ultimately incorporated into the Inflation Reduction Act, legislation she also supported.

[153][154] She co-sponsored a second bipartisan, bicameral reauthorization of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act's activities with senators Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, and Alex Padilla on March 1, 2023 – six months before her death.

[159][160] The Trinity Alps Wilderness encompasses rugged mountains, alpine meadows, myriad pristine lakes and streams, 550 miles of maintained hiking trails, and California's third-largest swath of previously unprotected old-growth, predominantly Douglas-fir forest.

[163][164] Several threatened species call the Headwaters Forest home, including coho salmon, the northern spotted owl, and the marbled murrelet.

[169] Later in 2016, Feinstein requested President Obama create Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow, and Castle Mountains national monuments under the Antiquities Act.

[171] The combined acreage of the 1994, 2000, and 2019 acts of Congress, in concert with the presidentially authorized national monument designations, protect the largest tract of public lands anywhere in the lower 48 states and the second-largest desert preserve on the planet.

"[181] During a July 2017 appearance on Face the Nation after North Korea conducted a second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, Feinstein said the country had proven itself a danger to the U.S. She also expressed her disappointment with China's lack of response.

[185] In January 2013, about a month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, she and Representative Carolyn McCarthy proposed a bill that would "ban the sale, transfer, manufacturing or importation of 150 specific firearms including semiautomatic rifles or pistols that can be used with a detachable or fixed ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and have specific military-style features, including pistol grips, grenade launchers or rocket launchers".

She voted against the Paul Ryan Budget's Medicare choice, tax and spending cuts; and allowing tribal Indians to opt out of federal healthcare.

"[194] During a news conference at the University of California, San Diego in July 2017, she estimated that Democratic opposition would prove sufficient to defeat Republican attempts to repeal the ACA.

[195] Feinstein wrote in an August 2017 op-ed that Trump could secure health-care reform if he compromised with Democrats: "We now know that such a closed process on a major issue like health care doesn't work.

A Feinstein spokesperson said she "is doing all she can to ensure that the bill is balanced and protects the intellectual property concerns of the content community without unfairly burdening legitimate businesses such as Internet search engines".

[212] Following her 2012 vote to extend the Patriot Act and the FISA provisions,[208] and after the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures involving the National Security Agency (NSA), Feinstein promoted and supported measures to continue the information collection programs.

[221] Feinstein's displeasure at having been spied on was contrasted with her support for government surveillance of US citizens, with public figures and privacy advocates such as Jon Stewart and Edward Snowden noting the apparent incongruity.

[241] On January 9, 2018, Feinstein caused a stir when, as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she released a transcript[242] of its August 2017 interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson about the dossier regarding connections between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.

[257] In the fall of 2020, in her capacity as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feinstein participated in the confirmation hearings for President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

[14] Mayer reported that among various short-term memory issues, Feinstein could not remember Chuck Schumer's repeated attempts to convince her to relinquish her leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

[14] Stories of Feinstein's cognitive issues continued to circulate in the press for the last few years of her life: in 2022, The New York Times reported that she struggled to remember her colleagues' names, meetings she had attended, and phone calls she had received.

[290][22][21] Despite longstanding health problems that had caused her to miss Judiciary Committee meetings for several months, her death was sudden, with Feinstein having cast a vote on the Senate floor the previous day that was needed for Democrats' efforts to avert a government shutdown.