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Los Angeles Times
31 minutes ago
- Automotive
- Los Angeles Times
As Trump's EPA reverses landmark climate policy, California could lead a resistance
In a stunning move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed to repeal its landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. The proposal would also revoke the standards the agency has set for greenhouse gas emissions from all motor vehicles. The so-called endangerment finding is a formal determination affirming that planet-warming greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane pose a threat to human health and the environment. It forms the legal and scientific basis for regulating these emissions under the Clean Air Act and is derived from decades of expert research and analysis. If it is reversed, many standards that rely on it could crumble — leaving the auto industry and other polluting sectors free to emit greenhouse gases without limits. But experts and state regulators say it could also represent a golden opportunity for California to set a national example, as the move may open the door for stronger regulations at the state level. 'Here in California, we recognize the science, we recognize the need for urgency, and we plan to continue doing the important work that will protect the public,' Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, told The Times. The plan marks the latest in a string of actions by the Trump administration to reverse years of climate-change policy — including the EPA's proposed repeal of power plant emissions standards in June, and its recent affront on California's ability to set strict tailpipe emission standards. A 2007 Supreme Court case, Massachusetts vs. EPA, affirmed that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA has the authority to regulate them. The finding became the legal foundation for regulating carbon emissions from vehicles, power plants and other polluting sectors and led to the formation of the endangerment finding two years later. A chorus of advocates and experts on Tuesday condemned the administration's plans to reverse this finding as dangerous and shortsighted. Independent researchers around the world have long concluded that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels are dangerously warming the planet and contributing to worsening wildfires, extreme heat, floods and other natural disasters. The effect on California is unclear at this point. Some experts said the EPA's proposal could make it harder for California to achieve its climate goals — particularly because the effects of greenhouse gas emissions do not respect state or national borders. 'What these actions are going to mean is that there are more emissions, which causes more extreme weather, which ultimately harms the residents of California as well as the residents of the United States writ large,' said Kathy Harris, director of the clean vehicles program at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. By in effect creating the weakest possible standard, Harris said, the EPA is attempting to undermine California and other states' authority to set stronger rules and 'taking away the levers that states might have to be able to protect their citizens and their residents.' 'The Environmental Protection Agency has one job, which is to protect the environment, and they're giving up on that responsibility,' she said. However, other experts said California is uniquely positioned to weather the storm. The state has notoriously struggled with smog and air pollution and has been a leader in adopting aggressive environmental regulations far exceeding national standards. In fact, much of the state's ambitious work around clean air and climate predates the development of the endangerment finding and even the Clean Air Act. For example, California implemented the nation's first tailpipe emissions standards in the 1960s and became the first state to pass a law requiring greenhouse gas emissions reductions from vehicles in 2002. Randolph, of the air resources board, noted that California also led the nation with 2002's Renewables Portfolio Standard requiring utilities in the state to source increasing percentages of electricity from renewable energy sources, and 2006's Assembly Bill 32, which mandated the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 — a goal the state met four years of ahead of schedule. Senate Bill 100, enacted in 2018, further pioneered the clean energy space by mandating that all retail electricity sales in the state be powered by carbon-free resources by 2045, she said. These items fall under state authority and would not be affected by a repeal of the endangerment finding, Randolph said. Legal experts anticipated that if Donald Trump were reelected, he would drastically roll back federal greenhouse-gas regulation. 'With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end 16 years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,' read a statement from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. 'In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year. ' Zeldin said the endangerment finding has been used to justify over $1 trillion in regulations that have throttled consumer choice. Ann Carlson, director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA, said that although some may see the EPA's move as another attempt to champion the fossil fuel industry, the decision could backfire. By ceding federal authority to regulate greenhouse gases, the Trump administration could unintentionally relinquish regulatory powers to California and other progressive states to carry out their own climate agenda, Carlson said. 'If the EPA is saying greenhouse gases aren't supposed to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, then that means they can be regulated under traditional state authority,' Carlson said. 'So this could have a silver lining for California. It would undoubtedly be litigated, but it may give California a strong legal argument that it can, in fact, go ahead and regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles.' Others said similarly that EPA's move might also have a galvanizing effect. 'They're proposing to walk away from all protections for public health and against these really damaging impacts of climate change,' said Peter Zalzal, associate vice president with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. 'But states have always had an important role in regulating this pollution, and I think that role is even more pronounced in the environment we're living in.' That said, California is not immune to decisions made by the federal government. Fifty years ago, California asked for — and received — EPA waivers allowing it to set stricter tailpipe emissions than those mandated by the federal government. The waivers formed the foundation of the state's nation-leading ban on the sale of gas-powered cars in California by 2035. The Trump administration in June took the unprecedented step of revoking those waivers, which prompted an immediate lawsuit from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who argued that the move was unlawful. Meanwhile, Trump administration officials and auto industry representatives celebrated the EPA's latest announcement Tuesday. 'The trucking industry supports cleaner, more efficient technologies, but we need policies rooted in real-world conditions. We thank the Trump Administration for returning us to a path of common sense, so that we can keep delivering for the American people as we continue to reduce our environmental impact,' read a statement from American Trucking Assns. President and Chief Executive Chris Spear. 'Today's announcement is a monumental step toward returning to commonsense policies that expand access to affordable, reliable, secure energy and improve quality of life for all Americans,' said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. The EPA proposal will undergo a public comment period and review process before being finalized. Multiple environmental groups said they are prepared to challenge the rule in court.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump administration EPA cuts are ‘absolutely nuts,' health expert says
There's a threat around us 24 hours a day that the Trump administration could make even more dangerous. Air pollution. This dire warning comes from Dr. John Balmes and is the topic of his Open Forum on Thursday. Balmes is a member of the California Air Resources Board and a professor emeritus of occupational and environmental medicine and pulmonary and critical care at UCSF, and in environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley. He writes that it now seems 'the branch of government tasked with protecting our environment has been busy trying to undermine it.' The Environmental Protection Agency under Trump is rolling back regulations and cutting funding to address climate-change-induced pollution, which Balmes told me is 'absolutely nuts.' 'Climate change is occurring, and it's due to anthropomorphic activities,' Balmes said. 'It's settled science.' The recent rise in wildfires is making air already dirty from decades of greenhouse gas emissions worse. Wildfire smoke now accounts for at least 50% of all the fine particulate air pollution in the country, Balmes said. This increase in wildfire smoke is negating efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions in California and elsewhere. 'It's called the climate penalty,' Balmes said. If the government isn't going to protect us from worsening air pollution, what can people do? 'That's trickier, and really there isn't much short of environmental regulation,' Balmes said. 'I mean, you could go around wearing an N95 all the time.' Many people in polluted cities around the world do wear masks all the time. Balmes said the U.S. probably won't reach that point. But air quality could get a lot worse if an EPA proposal succeeds in rescinding a 2009 scientific finding by the agency that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use endanger human health. If that happens, the federal government's main mechanism to fight climate change disappears, and every MAGA climate-change denier's dream comes true. Even with the Trump administration AWOL on climate change, Balmes said states and local jurisdictions can continue their efforts. 'We're not going to stop in California because they've taken our (electric vehicle) mandate away,' Balmes said. Are you concerned about air pollution and changes at the EPA? You might be after reading Balmes' op-ed. Tell me how you feel in a letter to the editor. Questions, shoot me an email: hmok@
Politico
17-07-2025
- Automotive
- Politico
How Newsom Hiked Fuel Prices — and Got Away With It
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been fighting for more than a year with Republicans and members of his own party about whether his fuel standards will raise gas prices for Californians. Turns out, they already have. But no one noticed. The rules that went into effect July 1 requiring companies to lower the carbon content of their transportation fuels marked an occasion to renew hostilities. President Donald Trump contrasted California's prices with the rest of the country's. ('All they do is they keep adding taxes. Terrible governor, doesn't know what he's doing.') A state Republican lawmaker launched a petition to 'repeal Gov. Newsom's 65-cent gas price hike,' and a gubernatorial candidate held a press conference at a gas station to propose repealing the rules. Even Democrats couldn't resist introducing a bill to freeze prices under the program, which sets a steadily tightening emissions limit and lets producers buy and sell credits to meet it. After the augured price hike failed to materialize, Newsom took a victory lap. 'Did gas prices go up by 65 cents at the pump?' his office asked in a press release July 2. 'No.' But according to two industry sources granted anonymity to discuss proprietary market data, refiners started incorporating the new rules into their prices in January. As a result, California's gas prices have been roughly 5-8 cents per gallon higher at the pump since then, despite the underlying regulations not taking effect until this month. And drivers are out roughly $300 million that they shouldn't have been charged, according to their calculations. State officials confirmed the error to me on Wednesday, the same day they sent a memo to board members detailing the findings — and said it shows the program is ultimately working as intended, price-wise. 'It does sort of validate the points that we were making over time,' said California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph. 'The pricing has played out in pretty much the way we anticipated.' The episode illustrates the degree to which rhetoric and reality are almost entirely divorced in California's interminable gas-price wars — and the difficulty of puncturing the curtain that separates the two. 'It was priced in on Jan. 1, and no one really knew about it,' said Will Faulkner, a carbon market analyst. California gas prices have long been a topic of fascination and speculation, thanks to perpetually high costs that exceed even the levels predicted by the low-carbon fuel standard, the state's 61-cent gas tax, and another trading program that covers all industrial emissions. (A state analysis in 2019 pinned some of the responsibility on drivers, who 'continue to purchase higher-priced brands despite having many options.') And while California's climate policies are a perennial culprit, the low-carbon rule has been a particular lightning rod. Part of the reason is that it's been twisting in the wind: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) began updating it in mid-2023 and didn't finish until the end of 2024 — a long time even by California standards — as environmental groups and industry fought over how stringent it would be and which fuels it would incentivize. That left a lot of time for politics — like a bill by state Republicans to freeze the program, a publicity campaign by Chevron at its gas stations and a proposal by Newsom to boost in-state gasoline's ethanol content — and a lot of time for policy analysis. After CARB produced — and then walked back — an estimate that the changes could raise gas prices by 47 cents per gallon, climate economist Danny Cullenward released an analysis that found worst-case estimates of 65 cents per gallon in the near term, 85 cents by 2030 and nearly $1.50 per gallon by 2035. Another academic, University of Southern California professor Michael Mische, produced an estimate of $8.43 per gallon by 2026 based on refinery closures plus the rules. (Newsom's office responded last month: 'Why not $10 by 2026? $12? Just because one crackpot 'expert' says something does not make it true.') At the same time, Newsom, already acutely sensitive to gas prices after they spiked to $6.44 per gallon in 2022, was picking a separate fight with oil companies over price spikes related to refinery outages. That culminated in a pair of laws giving the state more power to investigate price gouging and oversee refineries' maintenance schedules — and pulled neighboring governors into the fray over concerns that they could raise prices in their own states. Given all the scrutiny, it's fairly stunning that no one pointed out that the program was already priced in at the pump starting in January. That's not even accounting for the fact that since it wasn't in effect, refiners kept the extra money that they would have spent on buying credits. At an average of 7 cents per gallon over 4.3 billion gallons of gas sold, they collected roughly $300 million before the rules actually kicked in. 'No one's paying attention,' Faulkner said. 'The No. 1 thing in Sacramento is affordability, and $300 million just went poof.' The actual process that led to the snafu was largely due to an administrative hiccup. After CARB approved the amendments in November, they submitted them to the Office of Administrative Law, a final step before they took effect. But OAL rejected them over technical issues, so CARB had to resubmit them — and it wasn't clear whether they would take effect retroactively, on Jan. 1, or whenever the agency approved them. Enter OPIS, an oil price reporting service owned by Dow Jones that performs the function of converting the carbon price into the cents-per-gallon price for fuel trading purposes. OPIS started incorporating the new numbers in January, on the assumption that the amendments would take effect retroactively. It didn't remove the added cost until late May, once regulators said the rules would take effect in July, so for five months OPIS' price incorrectly reflected the tighter rules. 'OPIS started 2025 using the proposed targets based on communications from CARB that the agency planned to implement the targets retroactively to Jan. 1,' spokesperson Lauren McCabe said in an email. 'Once CARB indicated on May 16 that it was targeting a July 1 implementation, we updated the LCFS pricing methodology to reflect the outgoing targets, effective May 27. After the amendments were finalized on June 27, we updated our LCFS pricing methodology to reflect those targets, effective July 1.' Randolph said CARB had alerted Newsom and other officials in the spring, when the premature pass-through became apparent. 'When we saw what was happening in the data, we certainly let the governor's staff know, and we certainly let DPMO know,' she said. When asked for comment, Newsom's office referred me to CARB. State officials say they're looking into it. 'The Division of Petroleum Market Oversight (DPMO) is aware of this issue and, in collaboration with other state agencies, is engaging with market participants to resolve this fairly for California consumers,' California Energy Commission spokesperson Niki Woodard said in an email. Bigger picture, this is good news for California at a fairly dark time for U.S. climate policy (although environmentalists are decidedly split on the program's climate bona fides). The low-carbon fuel standard is one of the only remaining major planks of California's climate policies that Trump hasn't touched. He signed a law last month removing California's ability to enforce its electric vehicle sales targets. Renewable energy targets are going to get harder to meet with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's rollback of federal tax incentives. And carbon prices fell after Trump asked the Justice Department to specifically block the state's carbon-trading program, among other laws. When it comes to the politicians who have been sparring for months over climate priorities and cost of living for Californians, this debacle leaves both sides looking hollow. 'It was a rhetorically useful bit of data for people to support the messages they wanted to put out anyway,' said Colin Murphy, deputy director of University of California, Davis' Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy. 'And that's politics.'
Politico
02-07-2025
- Business
- Politico
The upside of missing deadlines
With help from Camille von Kaenel and Jordan Wolman SILENCE IS GOLDEN: California regulators' reluctance to implement the state's nation-leading climate disclosure laws could be their saving grace in court. The California Air Resources Board was supposed to finish writing rules for SB 253 and SB 261 — the contentious laws that will require large companies to disclose their carbon footprint and climate-related financial risks — on Tuesday, under an agreement lawmakers hashed out with the agency and Gov. Gavin Newsom last year. CARB Chair Liane Randolph made it clear in an exclusive interview last week that those rules won't be finalized until the end of the year and that the agency isn't planning to put out any updates in the short term. That's potentially a potent — if unintentional — legal strategy. State attorneys were in a Los Angeles federal courtroom Tuesday morning, arguing against the U.S. Chamber, the California Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau and other groups' request that Judge Otis D. Wright II immediately block the two laws as the case over whether they violate the First Amendment plays out. The crux of Deputy Attorney General Caitlan McLoon's argument is that the rules businesses will need to follow haven't even been finalized yet, so there's no reason to put the laws on hold. 'If there is no requirement to speak, there can be no First Amendment harm,' McLoon said. If Wright buys that argument — and there's reason to think he could, after he dismissed two claims earlier this year that the laws violate Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce, in part because companies hadn't proved any immediate harm — it would be an ironic twist in the years-long fight between CARB, Newsom and the laws' authors over how quickly and aggressively to implement what will be first-of-their-kind standards in the United States. Focus on SB 253 and SB 261 has been heightened since President Donald Trump's victory in November and his promise to immediately roll back climate rules. California's laws could offer a model for other Democrat-led statehouses, after Trump's Securities and Exchange Commission announced in March that it would stop defending a Biden-era federal disclosure law in court. But Trump's win wasn't enough to defuse tensions with Sen. Scott Wiener, the influential Senate Budget Committee chair who wrote SB 253, who slammed CARB in December for telling companies covered under the law that they'll get a break from having to perfectly tally their greenhouse gas emissions during the first year of the rule. Wiener and CARB are playing nice at the moment. Wiener said in an interview Tuesday that he's been in communication with the agency and that he understands officials need more time. 'My hope was to get it done July 1, but that's not feasible for them,' Wiener said. 'It's fine, because it's not going to impact the disclosures themselves, which are the most important thing.' CARB has told companies to start getting ready for when the disclosure laws take effect in 2026, a point that Eugene Scalia, the lead attorney (and son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia) representing the plaintiffs, highlighted in his oral arguments. 'My client members are incurring costs, and are on the cusp of having to engage in unconstitutional speech,' he told the judge. Both sides also offered arguments on the merits of the First Amendment debate: McLoon said that the state has the right to regulate emissions disclosures and that the vast majority of companies that already disclose emissions as part of their business strategies do so in a way that is incomplete or misleading. Scalia countered that companies have a First Amendment right to remain silent and picked apart the studies CARB has cited to bolster their claims of misleading business practices. That fight to untangle those arguments could stretch into next year, but Wright's decision on the preliminary injunction — which he didn't offer a specific timeline for — is expected to come much sooner. — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! INSIDE THE BILL: The California Chamber of Commerce is taking its swing at one of the boogeymen of the year: electric bills. The business group released a study Tuesday by the Blue Sky Consulting Group that determined that the costs of wildfire mitigation and rooftop solar represent 13 and 14 percent of the average residential monthly bill from an investor-owned utility, with another 7 percent coming from state public purpose programs like one to subsidize low-income customers. (The study largely reflects the findings of legislative analysts in January.) The Chamber is touting its new numbers as a reason to support its preferred policy fixes, which include reducing rooftop solar incentives, as proposed by Assemblymember Lisa Calderon. It's also arguing against limiting the infrastructure costs utilities can recoup from ratepayers and creating a new financing authority for transmission projects — measures proposed by energy chairs Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris and Sen. Josh Becker as part of their energy affordability packages. — CvK RAKE TIME: Newsom trolled Trump from a fire lookout tower near Colfax on Tuesday morning, challenging the White House to adopt a 'model executive order' to increase firefighter pay and staffing. It's not the first time either of them have tried to score political points by criticizing the other on wildfire management. But Newsom's dig reflects his fraying relationship with the president over federal immigration enforcement raids in California. It also comes as peak fire season is ramping up, with red flag warnings blanketing Northern California on Tuesday and evacuations underway in the San Jacinto Mountains of Riverside County, where a fire has grown beyond 2,000 acres. Newsom hammered the point that the federal government owns 57 percent of the forested land in California, compared to the state's 3 percent. And he attacked the Trump administration's job cuts at federal land management, science and disaster response agencies. 'The president of the United States needs to do more to back up his rhetoric with investments and resources,' Newsom said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. — CvK AROUND THE CAMPFIRE: Water agencies, Big Tech and timber companies are banding together to ask state lawmakers for more money for wildfire prevention. The Association of California Water Agencies, the Bay Area Council and the California Forestry Association are all members of a new coalition called the 'Wildfire Solutions Coalition,' along with more than a dozen conservation groups. Their ask: As part of the slated reauthorization of the state's landmark cap-and-trade program this year, they want ten percent of future revenues to go to 'regionally appropriate wildfire resilience strategies, as part of a larger set of dedicated investments for nature-based solutions.' They'll be fighting with transit agencies and various energy groups for the pot of money. — CvK AND FIRETECH TOO: Fire Aside, a company that sells software streamlining defensible space inspections, has signed contracts with a series of new Bay Area fire agencies, including municipal departments in El Cerrito, Hayward, Fremont and Richmond, it told POLITICO exclusively this week. It's one of a number of companies making inroads as both the Newsom and Trump administrations try to claim the growing sector for their own. MEGA MEGA: The U.S. Senate softened its phase-out of a tax credit for wind and solar projects to get holdouts on board with the massive tax and spending bill it passed on Tuesday. But renewable energy groups are still fuming, with American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet calling the bill 'an intentional effort to undermine the fastest-growing sources of electric power [that] will lead to increased energy bills, decreased grid reliability, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.' The last-minute compromise, as POLITICO's Josh Siegel and Kelsey Tamborrino report, strikes a proposed added excise tax on wind and solar projects. But it still requires most solar and wind energy projects to be placed in service by the end of 2027 to get the tax credit, potentially derailing hundreds of planned projects. The bill also kills the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles that automakers have been trying to save. The megabill is now back in the House, where California Reps. David Valadao and Young Kim are among the few Republicans who have stumped for clean energy tax credits and have said they'll vote against it. — The NYT has a deep dive on the former EPA employee whom Project Veritas recorded calling federal climate funding 'gold bars.' — It's not just California — the Sunbelt is also starting to experience a house-building slowdown. — Farmers can sell their groundwater rights to urban developers desperate for water in Arizona under a new state law.
Time of India
01-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
California gas prices jump 2¢ per gallon, pain at the pump hits again and you are responsible for it
Drivers across California are bracing for a new hit at the pumps: gas prices rise by approximately 1.6 cents per gallon today, July 1, as the state's automatic annual gas tax increase took effect. This additional charge supports infrastructure projects, including road repairs. This increases the total excise tax to 61.2 cents per gallon. Stricter Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rules also added 5–9 cents per gallon, bringing the estimated price hike to 7-10 cents overall, far below claims of a 65-cent surge. The LCFS changes require fuel suppliers to offset carbon emissions, which experts say could drive up future costs but benefit long-term emissions goals. Refinery closures are also contributing to pressure on fuel supply. Lawmakers are now pushing reforms to stabilize fuel markets and manage carbon credit pricing. Motorists in Fresno and beyond already took notice. 'Everything costs more in California,' said local resident Max Emberton, reflecting widespread frustration. Another driver added, 'I feel like gas prices are artificially inflated,' despite broader market stability. That tax hike is just the first push, the California Air Resources Board 's Low Carbon Fuel Standard is expected to further raise costs, adding yet another layer to the final price at the curb. Live Events Matt McClain of GasBuddy explained, 'This creates a higher price point in California than really most any other state in the United States,' linking California's reg alone to consistently steeper pump prices. Local businesses are also feeling the pinch. Scott Miller of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce warned, 'For some businesses, it'll be less profit. For some, they'll be passing the cost … to their customer.' While short-term price trends may dip slightly, ongoing regulatory fees and automatic tax escalators will likely prevent significant relief anytime soon.
