A silver lining in Trump's anti-climate agenda

Politico

2 days ago

Presented by
With help from Noah Baustin, Annie Snider and Jordan Wolman
THE SAFETY IN ENDANGERMENT: The Trump administration is about to roll back the federal government's power to regulate climate change, but a former top Biden administration official sees a silver lining for California.
Ann Carlson, a UCLA professor who served as acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under Biden, said the Trump administration's move to nix the so-called endangerment finding — which the Obama administration issued in 2009 and lays out the legal basis for EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as a threat to human health — could open the door for states to create their own emissions rules for the transportation sector.
While states are preempted from setting vehicle greenhouse gas standards under Massachusetts v. EPA, a 2007 case that affirmed EPA's authority to regulate those emissions, Carlson said that the federal government getting out of the emissions game would present state leaders with a serious argument that preemption is off the table. That would be especially useful for California, after Congress in June revoked its unique ability to create stricter-than-federal pollution rules.
Carlson spoke with POLITICO about the endangerment finding, the Supreme Court and what electric vehicle policies she wants California to push forward.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
It seems counterintuitive that the Trump administration rolling back EPA's ability to reduce greenhouse gases could potentially help California regulate its own emissions. Can you explain your thinking?
I would start with the reality that what it looks like when you read the endangerment finding proposal from EPA is that it's essentially making arguments that greenhouse gases are not air pollutants under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act. That's the section that regulates vehicle emissions. So if that's true, then the states presumably are not preempted from regulating greenhouse gases. If you want Massachusetts v. EPA to be overturned, which is essentially what they're arguing, then you're basically saying that the Clean Air Act doesn't cover greenhouse gases, or at least with respect to mobile sources.
How exactly would that help a state like California to develop greenhouse gas rules for vehicles?
One of the arguments that opponents make against California's special authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate mobile sources is that Section 209, which is the section that both preempts other states and gives California its authority, is really designed to attack air pollution, because historically, that's been California's big problem. Los Angeles has the worst air pollution in the country, and that's really what that provision is about. And so if California is trying to use its authority to regulate greenhouse gases, opponents say that is beyond its scope.
But now, if EPA is in fact arguing that Section 202 of the Clean Air Act, which gives it authority to regulate pollution from mobile sources, doesn't cover greenhouse gases, then states aren't preempted from regulating them. You could have 50 states potentially regulating greenhouse gases coming out of vehicles.
Do you think that argument would hold up in front of a conservative Supreme Court?
What EPA is doing is squarely putting on a collision course the combination question of whether Massachusetts v. EPA should be overturned and whether states can regulate independently because they're not preempted. Let's take power plants as an example. States can regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, because there's no preemption provision in the Clean Air Act. That's why California has its cap-and-invest program, for example.
I believe the answer would be that if Section 202 doesn't cover greenhouse gases, there should be no prohibition on states regulating. Does that mean the Supreme Court would agree with me? Who knows. But it would raise a conundrum for them, because the conservatives on the court have been very reluctant to let EPA regulate greenhouse gases ambitiously.
This seems to be a serious conundrum for the auto industry, which pushed the administration to revoke California's EV mandate.
It's not an accident that the industry has not been urging EPA to withdraw the endangerment finding. If you look at who's aligned with that concept, going back to the first Trump administration, auto companies and the [U.S.] Chamber of Commerce are staying on the sidelines. It's the oil industry generally that has been arguing in favor of doing this.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order after Trump revoked California's EV mandate, directing state agencies to develop recommendations for maintaining progress. If you were a state regulator, what policies would you advocate for?
Incentives are one way to push. For example, replacing the rollback of the federal tax credits is one possibility. Cities and counties can invest in zero-emission technology and consider things like feebates, where you reward buyers of electric vehicles through lower vehicle license fees. You can use the indirect source rules that require stationary sources that attract a lot of vehicle traffic to ensure that some of those vehicles are low-emission or zero-emission.
All of those sorts of things are, I think, appropriate. I think the harder question is, can you do enough to replace straight regulation? Yeah, right. That's why this opportunity is potentially interesting. If the endangerment finding is going to go away, maybe California has authority that it didn't think it had. — AN
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WAIT FOR US: The Trump administration is jumping into truck manufacturers' lawsuit seeking to dissolve a zero-emission sales agreement with California.
The Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division filed the motion to intervene in a Sacramento federal court on Thursday, three days after four truck makers — Daimler Truck North America, International Motors, Paccar and Volvo North America — sued to break a 2023 voluntary agreement with the state.
The move is the latest step in the administration's aggressive effort to dismantle California's electric vehicle policies, most notably Congress' June revocation of EPA waivers that allow the state to enforce ZEV mandates. DOJ's filing, like the industry's lawsuit, argues that without the waivers, California no longer has the authority to enforce the Clean Truck Partnership, which was negotiated by nine manufacturers and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association.
'Agreement, contract, partnership, mandate — whatever California wants to call it, this unlawful action attempts to undermine federal law,' Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson said in a statement. — AN
ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET: A who's who of the California wind energy industry, and their regulators, visited Merced County on Thursday to tour the under-construction Gonzaga Ridge Wind Farm.
Just three of the new turbines being installed will produce more power than the 1980s-era installation of 166 turbines that it's replacing, according to the developer, Scout Clean Energy. In total, its capacity will reach 147.5 megawatts.
'That demonstrates how far the technology has come,' said California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild as he gazed at the site. 'This is what the future looks like.'
Besides the state's top energy boss, POLITICO also spotted Ignis Energy USA General Manager Pedro Blanquer, Wind Stream Properties co-owner Bob Gates, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria's field representative Vanessa Barraza and California Wind Energy Association lobbyist Melissa Cortez. Also in attendance were representatives of Clean Power SF, whose agency has committed to purchasing the power for San Franciscans to use, and the state park system, whose land the installation sits on.
Rows and rows of turbine blades were being stored on the location, a welcome site to Scout Clean Energy CEO Michael Rucker. When his team heard that the Trump administration would be imposing hefty tariffs, they sped to expedite shipping supplies from India, Germany, and Malaysia. The blades, which were manufactured in Turkey, cleared customs one day before Liberation Day, according to Rucker.
'We were lucky,' he said. — NB
BETTER TO BE LUCKY: Warnings that the Trump administration's Forest Service downsizing could hamper wildfire response efforts haven't materialized yet, thanks in part to favorable weather conditions in fire-prone parts of the country.
Democratic lawmakers and state officials across the country have warned that the Trump administration is courting disaster by removing about 5,000 Forest Service workers through early retirement and buyout programs, including about 1,600 people with wildland firefighting qualifications.
But decent spring and summer rainfall and cooler temperatures across the West have helped contain wildfires, making existing personnel and resources adequate for ongoing response efforts, POLITICO's Jordan Wolman reports.
'He's gotten lucky in a way,' Steve Ellis, a former Forest Service supervisor who now serves as chair of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, said of Trump. 'You're not really going to look bad until fire gets going and you don't have enough resources.' — AN, JW
KEEPING THE TAP FLOWING: California can expect to receive steady Colorado River water supplies for the rest of the year, but the situation is getting dicey.
The Interior Department announced Friday that states along the river will continue to get stable supplies, despite the latest projections for the waterway, which show water levels at the two main reservoirs continuing to plummet, POLITICO's Annie Snider reports.
New projections show Lake Mead at elevation 1,056 feet at the beginning of 2026 — almost 8 feet lower than it was on New Year's Day 2025 — and Lake Powell at elevation 3,538 feet — 33.5 feet lower than it was on Jan. 1.
But the Trump administration left open the possibility of making mid-year changes to how much water gets released from Lake Powell, and potentially also releasing water from other reservoirs upstream in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah and New Mexico.
The news comes as the administration warns it could develop its own water-sharing rules for Western states if they can't reach an agreement among themselves. — AN, AS
— Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter gives Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin's AB 1408 a shoutout in his call to speed up clean energy installations.
— A small Napa County town is experimenting with a new microgrid run on batteries and liquid hydrogen.
— An invasive swan species is a growing threat to California's wetlands, sparking a debate over whether hunters should be allowed to begin killing the beautiful birds.