Here we go again: California prepares to battle Trump over environmental policies

We’ve been here before. Even the players are the same.

When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, his favorite sparring partner was California. The state’s ambitious environmental policies often clashed with the president’s promise to “drill, baby drill for oil” and rein in California’s regulations.

Now it’s California v. Trump, 2.0 — and the stakes are much the same. Candidate Trump threatened to dismantle many environmental programs and hollow out federal regulatory agencies on his first day in office.

As much as California proclaims its exceptionalism, lauding its environmental policies as examples to the rest of the nation, the Golden State is just that, a state — not a nation state. It relies on the federal government for aid, funding and partnership on major initiatives.

California’s massive water projects, its authority to clean its air, federal support for offshore wind and disaster aid for wildfires all depend on cooperation with the new Trump administration.

On Thursday Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a special legislative session to fund California’s legal defense against efforts “aimed at undermining California’s laws and policies.” Newsom wants to beef up funding for the state Justice Department and other agencies to act swiftly through the courts to push back against an array of anticipated Trump actions, including those involving clean air and climate change.

The good news for California, said Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor and director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, is that the first Trump administration “lost 83% of its court cases involving attempts to roll back environmental regulations.”

Whether California can “Trump-proof” itself and fend off another four years of assaults on its environmental efforts is unknown, but lawmakers say they are ready to fight.

“We learned a lot about former President Trump in his first term — he’s petty, vindictive, and will do what it takes to get his way no matter how dangerous the policy may be,” Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Santa Rosa Democrat, said in a statement.

Here are some of the key environmental policies at stake in California:

Federal disaster funds for California’s wildfires

Trump has never lacked advice for California on how the state should manage its ever-growing wildfire threat.

As president, while visiting the burned-out husk of Paradise, a town wiped out in 2018, Trump suggested raking its 33 million acres of forested land to reduce fuel buildup. It was an especially destructive fire year: 8,000 fires, 2 million acres burned, 24,000 structures destroyed and 100 people killed.

Two years later, Trump threatened to withhold federal fire disaster aid because he said the state had deliberately not taken his advice to “clean its floors.”  

And last month at a campaign rally he made another threat to withhold fire aid should he be reelected. Trump scolded Newsom for not properly managing the state’s water supplies and vowed that if the governor did not toe the line. “We’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have. It’s not hard to do.”

Whether Trump’s remarks were meant as a warning or to fire up the crowd, it is a sobering thought: Presidents have the power to refuse to send emergency aid to states or delay it. 

Despite the bluster, California so far has generally received the wildfire aid it has requested. Even during the height of Newsom’s feuding with then-president Trump over wildfire and pandemic relief, the federal assistance has come. 

“There’s not one phone call that I have made to the President, where he hasn’t quickly responded,” Newsom said in 2020. “And in almost every instance, he’s responded favorably in terms of addressing the emergency needs of the state.”

Brian Rice, president of California Professional Firefighters, the state’s largest firefighter organization, said disaster aid should not be politicized.

“If you are a resident of California you need to be concerned about this,” Rice said. “Will the 47th president of the United States withhold federal disaster relief from the state of California? It’s difficult to comprehend. What if we have an earthquake, what if we have mudslides? This is one of those things that should be hands off.

“This isn’t the federal government’s money, this is our tax dollars,” he said. “The citizens of California have paid for this.”

Under the Fire Management Assistance Grant program — administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — states may be reimbursed for 75% of their fire suppression costs — which can be considerable. The 2020 fire season killed 33 people and caused the state more than $19 billion in economic losses. The cost to fight the fires was more than $2 billion. According to a UC Davis analysis, from 2015 to 2020, total insured economic losses from California wildfires exceeded $50 billion. 

These grants are commonly awarded, especially in California, where nearly 60% of the forested land is owned by the federal government. So far this year, the state has received 10 fire assistance grants, most recently this week for the Mountain Fire in Ventura County.  Other grants are available for post-fire work and assistance to affected communities.

Federal funding for wildfire disasters is in line with the government aid states receive for natural disasters such as hurricanes, and can sometimes become snarled in political score-settling. A 2021 federal report found that the Trump administration delayed $20 billion in disaster aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The Delta water wars

Trump’s reelection has unnerved environmental groups that are watching over the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its imperiled fish. At stake are the state’s massive projects that bring Northern California water south to farmers and cities. 

In 2016, Trump famously scorned California for wasting water by allowing its major rivers to reach the ocean. More recently, at a September campaign speech in Rancho Palos Verdes, Trump said he will increase the amount of water these projects deliver, promising Southern Californians “more water than almost anybody has.” 

“The farmers up north are going to be able to use 100% of their land, not 1% of their land, and the water is going to come all the way down to Los Angeles,” he said before voicing his well-known contempt of the Delta smelt, a fish nearly extinct in spite of desperate campaigns to save it. 

Complex federal and state rules, jointly developed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources, govern the operation of the Delta’s two massive water systems, limiting how much water can be pumped south. 

But sources said Trump, upon taking office, could almost immediately bypass those rules to increase exports from the Delta. He could issue an executive order, for instance, that ramps up pumping early next year, according to Ashley Overhouse, the California water policy advisor for Defenders of Wildlife.     

Environmentalists fear this would have a variety of impacts on the Delta, such as killing more already threatened salmon and other fish at pumping facilities.

Also possible are rollbacks of protections provided by the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, appointment of an industry-friendly staff and cabinet, and new federal legislation aimed at storing and exporting more water. 

“An administration led by President-elect Trump will push a legislative and regulatory agenda that is designed to dismantle bedrock conservation laws, destroying the wildlife and habitat that we advocate for,” Overhouse said.

A House of Representatives bill sponsored by San Joaquin Valley Republican Rep. David Valadao, for example, directly challenges state authority with a push to enlarge Lake Shasta, the infrastructural headwaters of the Central Valley Project, which sends water south to farmers. This would inundate tribal land along the McCloud River and could violate the state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts. 

The pending bill — which sources expect Trump will sign if it reaches his desk — would also cripple the State Water Board’s power to curtail water deliveries to protect fish, and it would at least double federal water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley farmers in drought years, when fish often face lethal river conditions. 

Jon Rosenfield, science director at San Francisco Baykeeper, said Trump’s allegiance to “industrial agriculture that exports nuts and hay across the globe” will mean less cold water for spawning salmon, which already are in dire shape. He said the Sacramento River’s ailing Chinook salmon runs are poised to be a casualty of Trump’s agenda. 

Trump’s vow to deliver more water to farmers south of the Delta has gained him strong support from one of California’s biggest industries.

San Joaquin Valley farmer Sarah Woolf anticipates with Trump’s reelection a better outcome for growers than might have materialized under Kamala Harris. She said water insecurity has plagued the region’s environment, farms and communities — an issue she feels Harris did not adequately address in her campaign. 

“Trump has vocalized his understanding and concern about water in California and agriculture, and I think that’s critically important as a solution to the problems,” she said. 

Allison Febbo, general manager of the Westlands Water District — a major recipient of federal Delta exports for growers — congratulated the Republican candidate in a statement.

“President-elect Trump has made California water a central part of his policy platform and we look forward to working with his Administration on water security and affordability issues that plague our state and region,” Febbo said. 

California’s clean cars and trucks 

California has embarked on a massive undertaking: A phaseout of new sales of gasoline-powered cars, requiring all new cars sold in California beginning with 2035 models to be zero-emissions. The mandate is a cornerstone of the state’s efforts to clean its air and combat climate change.

What’s more, other states have followed California’s stricter rules, making the state a nationwide leader on climate policy. Eleven states and Washington, D.C., for instance, are adopting or plan to adopt California’s phaseout of gas-powered cars. 

The new Trump administration, however, probably will try to block California’s rules to reduce emissions from cars and other vehicles.

At a campaign event in Michigan last month, Trump said no state would be allowed to ban gas-powered cars, telling a rally, “I guarantee it — no way,” according to Reuters. He also has repeatedly taken aim at Biden administration pollution rules that promote electric vehicles. And during his last go-around as president, Trump tried revoking California’s authority to set stricter vehicle emissions rules.

How successful the second Trump administration will be in rolling back California’s clean air initiatives is uncertain, given that the state’s ability to set its own standards is rooted in longstanding federal law, the Clean Air Act.

Also, electric cars have increasingly become a big part of auto sales in California and nationwide, and nearly all automakers already are selling them, so they have less incentive to support rollbacks of rules.

Congress in 1967 gave California the authority to set its own standards for cars and other vehicles. For more than half a century, this ability has been the main driving force behind California’s success in cleaning up its severe smog and other air pollution.

But there is a catch: Each of California’s emission standards must be granted a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before it can take effect.

The EPA has not yet approved waivers for eight of California’s standards, including its landmark zero-emission car rule. Others require cleaner trucks, locomotives, commercial ships and off-road diesel vehicles like tractors and construction equipment. The most controversial one mandates zero-emission trucks.

Trump’s EPA is expected to deny or try to revoke all of the waivers that California is seeking to enforce its clean air standards. But Congress wrote explicit provisions in federal law about when EPA can reject them: The federal agency can only reject California mandates if they are “arbitrary or capricious,” if the state doesn’t need them to clean its severe air pollution, or if they are inconsistent with federal law because there is “inadequate lead time” for manufacturers to develop electric cars or other technologies at a reasonable cost.

“You can’t just deny it because you don’t like it. California has this authority and the Clean Air Act specifies how EPA is supposed to review the waiver and what it’s supposed to consider in granting or denying the waiver,” said Carlson of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.  

An EPA spokesperson said the agency is “reviewing the (California waiver) requests closely to make sure its decisions are durable and grounded in the law.” 

California officials said they would vigorously defend their electric car and truck rules in court.

“We expect pushback from the Trump administration, so we’ll see what he does and how he does it, and we will push back legally,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a press conference on Thursday.

The air board has six decades of history on its side: “No waiver has ever been revoked and the one previous denial was quickly reversed” by the EPA, according to the California Air Resources Board. A board spokesperson declined to comment about the new Trump administration.

Mary Nichols, former chair of the air board under Newsom and former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, said the state has weathered opposition from presidents in the past, including clashes with the Bush and Trump administrations. Neither impeded the state’s progress in combating air pollution and climate change, she said. 

“To the extent that the new incoming administration… tries to dismantle these programs, I think they’re going to face some strong opposition,” Nichols said.

Nichols said the auto industry, despite some pushback and reluctance about deadlines and details, has come to respect California’s regulatory approach and sign on to new standards.

When the Trump administration attempted to roll back California’s standards, many major automakers chose to negotiate with the state instead to avoid the uncertainty. The state in 2020 finalized an agreement with BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America and Volvo, which agreed to follow the state’s standards through 2026 regardless of what the federal government did. 

But these agreements leave open to challenge the state’s requirements after 2026 — including its landmark mandate for 100% zero-emission car sales in 2035.

Last year, automaker Stellantis agreed to comply with the state’s zero-emission car sales requirements through 2030, even if California is “unable to enforce its standards as a result of judicial or federal action.”

Paul Nolette, a professor of political science at Marquette University who has studied how attorneys general shape policies through litigation, said California might not only challenge federal rollbacks but also work directly with industries to agree on emission standards.

For example, California could negotiate more agreements with automakers, bypassing federal regulations. This approach, modeled after settlements in industries like tobacco and banking, could set a powerful precedent, allowing California to push its environmental agenda even without federal support.

The state’s large economy gives it considerable influence as manufacturers and corporations can’t afford to ignore California’s car and truck market. 

Congress could try to repeal the Clean Air Act to remove California’s long-standing authority. But even with a Republican majority, Congress would likely face many obstacles, especially with potential filibustering by Democrats. Previous efforts in Congress to scale back the Clean Air Act have failed since many states support strong efforts to combat air pollution. If California’s authority comes under fire, Nolette expects legal battles to reach the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

California doesn’t have much choice when it comes to cleaning its air. If California doesn’t have specific plans and rules to meet national health standards for smog and soot, the state faces federal sanctions — withholding of federal highway funds. Carlson said that “makes the Trump effort to deny the waivers actually legally vulnerable … .The court is bound by what the law says.”

California has “to regulate cars and trucks and other equipment if we’re supposed to meet our air quality standards,” said Paul Cort, an attorney with EarthJustice. “Until that changes, I think folks just keep moving forward.”

Another potential challenge could come from Congress if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to revoke federal rules approved during a certain timeframe at the end of an administration. Legal experts, however, debate whether that law would apply to EPA actions related to California’s clean-air waivers.

California’s offshore wind projects

The offshore wind industry could be a Day One casualty if Trump makes good on his promise to sign an executive order to “end” the offshore wind industry.

He cannot do that with the stroke of a pen. But as president, Trump can deeply wound this next-generation renewable energy source by cutting off funding just as it’s gaining a foothold in the U.S.

California’s offshore wind plans rely on a federal policy that offers billions in grants, subsidies and tax incentives.  

Floating offshore wind farms, which bob in the deep ocean as much as 20 miles from shore, are still not common in U.S. waters. But the technology is well on its way to being deployed in California, which counts on the clean energy source to meet its goals to scrub fossil fuels from the electric grid.

The state’s blueprint envisions offshore wind farms producing 25 gigawatts of electricity by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13% of the power supply.

Five offshore wind companies have already paid the U.S. Treasury $757 million to lease tracts in the ocean off Humboldt County and Morro Bay. Energy produced in the Pacific would be part of a federal goal of 15 gigawatts of ocean wind power by 2035. 

The Biden administration calls the rush to develop this new energy frontier the “Floating Offshore Wind Shot.” But harnessing that power could end up more of a long shot if Trump pulls back federal support.

The industry, which is largely Europe-based, has kept a keen eye on Washington, D.C. politics — cheering when the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act passed, freeing up federal money, including $100 million for transmission development and a 30% tax credit. 

In the wake of Trump’s election victory this week, stock in some offshore wind companies dropped.

Trump vowed to “terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act, but much of the tax breaks have already been claimed and the construction jobs, manufacturing and supply chain development will take place in districts that Republican lawmakers might want to protect.

Trump has long carried a grievance against offshore wind turbines, a dislike that may have begun with turbines that the former president said spoiled the seaward view from his golf club in Scotland. He has repeated, many times over the years and at recent campaign rallies, the unsubstantiated claims that wind farms cause cancer and environmental damage. 

“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said at a rally in May in New Jersey. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.” (Scientists say there is no evidence that offshore wind projects kill whales.)

Floating offshore wind is at a critical inflection point. Wind developers say they need certainty from state and federal partners that environmental policies will remain in place to reassure investors. 

That’s no problem in California, they say, where state officials have sent strong signals of support, backed by billions in investments to build power transmission and ports. The industry got a $475 million injection for port infrastructure from just-passed ballot initiative Proposition 4.

“In the next few years much of the work that needs to be done to advance offshore wind will focus on state activities,” said Adam Stern, executive director of the industry group Offshore Wind California.

While the federal scaffolding to support the industry is already in place, Stern said, there’s no guarantee that support will remain.

“As an industry we want to work with the new administration to help strengthen the state’s grid reliability, continue to achieve energy independence and create new jobs,” he said. “Those issues ought to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats.”

When it comes to all environmental programs and policies, experts and environmentalists say Trump’s first term in the White House inflicted some damage, but they fear the second coming of Trump could be worse for California. 

“President Trump, in his first term, took a while to understand and exercise the reins of power,” said Ron Stork, a senior policy staffer with Friends of the River. “I expect that his administration will get off to a faster start this time with a more organized agenda. They’ll be able to hit the ground running.”

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