When my editors asked me to write about President Trump and California’s climate policies, I was initially hesitant. Hadn’t I already written that story during Trump’s first term?
It turns out that since returning to office, Trump has gone much further to attack California’s position as a leader in environmental protection, with big implications for other states that follow its lead, as I reported today.
By my count, at least a half-dozen federal agencies have tried to undermine the state’s efforts to pivot away from fossil fuels and protect its natural resources. In one of the most striking examples, the Interior Department has paid energy companies hundreds of millions of dollars not to build wind farms off the California coast.
There are almost too many examples to list. But here are some other notable actions:
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The Energy Department announced $75 million for a new coal export terminal in Oakland that city officials have tried to stop for nearly a decade.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration signaled that it could curb the power of the California Coastal Commission, which has been entrusted with protecting the state’s 840-mile shoreline for more than a half-century.
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Trump and his Republican allies in Congress blocked California’s effort to phase out sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
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Trump ordered an oil company to restart a pipeline off Santa Barbara that caused one of the state’s largest oil spills in 2015.
To understand the effects of these moves, I called Jerry Brown, the Democratic former four-term governor of California who made climate change a signature cause. He warned that Trump’s attack on California’s electric vehicle efforts could delay the national transition to cleaner cars because of the state’s market muscle as the world’s fourth-largest economy.
“The automobile companies, of course, are going to have to compete in a world that will be predominantly electric over the next few years, and America will be way behind,” Brown said.
I spoke to another California Democrat, Senator Adam Schiff, while he was at the Lake Tahoe Summit, a conference in Nevada where lawmakers and officials from both parties discussed threats to the lake, which is on the border with California, including climate change, wildfires and invasive species.
“I certainly wish that we had an administration that was working as collaboratively with the states as we are working among ourselves here at the local level,” Schiff said.
What would happen, Schiff wondered, when the shoe was on the other foot? Would Trump’s efforts to block wind farms off California inadvertently inspire a future Democratic president to block oil drilling off red states?
“They want to federalize all of the decisions off the California coast, but do they want a Democratic administration to decide to do the same thing off the coast of Florida or elsewhere?” he asked. “They seem to be under the misimpression that they are always going to be in power.”
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was intervening in California because state policies had led to higher energy prices and oil refinery closures, though analysts say market forces have also fueled these trends.
“Governor Newscum has continued carrying out the left’s costly and unpopular green new scam,” Rogers said in an email, using Trump’s preferred nickname for Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat and possible 2028 presidential contender.
Join us for a day of live journalism
Our annual Climate Forward event is returning to New York City. During this day of live journalism on Sept. 23, we’ll have frank conversations about the state of the planet with some of the world’s top policymakers, executives, activists and scientists. We’ve even got a chef and a comedian.
Among those we’ll be interviewing onstage: Jane Fonda, the Oscar-winning actor and climate activist; Erin Brockovich, the longtime consumer and environmental advocate who has recently started her own organization pushing for transparency in data center construction; and Josh Parker, the head of sustainability at NVIDIA, the chip-making giant that recently announced it will help fund the construction of one the world’s largest data centers.
The full lineup, so far, is here. We’ll be adding more speakers soon.
We hope you’ll join the conversation at the Changemaker Lunch, a special session that brings together leaders dealing with climate issues in creative ways. Among the guests leading table discussions during the lunch will be Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy, and David Suzuki, a scientist, broadcaster and host of “The Nature of Things.”
You can apply to purchase tickets here. If you can’t attend, we’ll have a free livestream.
More news from around the web
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Egyptian farmers are using solar panels to shade crops and reduce evaporation, Grist reports.
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Teenagers and young adults, especially educated men, tend to have higher food emissions, according to Sentient.
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Australia is bracing for wildfires in almost every state as the southern winter ends and El Niño strengthens, The Independent reports.
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