As a candidate, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly professed his love of clean air and water, but he also dismissed climate change as a hoax, railed against zero emission electric vehicles and expressed contempt for the environmental regulations that seek to protect California rivers and estuaries.
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Now, as Trump prepares to return to the White House, state officials and environmental groups are bracing for the same sweeping environmental policy changes that characterized his first administration, as well as others that have been proposed more recently by former Trump aides and allies.
Although Trump has sought to distance himself from the conservative Project 2025 game plan, many of its energy and environment proposals mirror Trump’s contention that the government’s focus on climate change has shackled the oil industry and damaged the nation’s economy and must come to an end.
Equipped with a Republican-controlled Senate, a likely majority-Republican Congress, and a Supreme Court that has shown hostility toward environmental laws and regulations, the potential for a Trump administration to profoundly alter or gut existing polices is considerable.
However, experts say the road isn’t entirely clear: The lower courts can still slow down and stop some of the new administration’s proposed changes, while states, such as California, can continue to be leaders on the world stage in areas such as green technology, climate policy and scientific research.
Unfortunately, they say, the timing couldn’t be worse.
On climate change and governance:
“We do not have four years to not do things, let alone go backwards,” said Ken Alex, director at the Center for Law Energy and Environment at UC Berkeley. “We are in a very, very precarious moment.”
The goals outlined in Project 2025 point to a “dismantling of government and government regulation” and a “fossil fuel-based agenda.”
Alex said the biggest setback is the call to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Weather Service (which Project 2025 suggests should be privatized), and the National Hurricane Center — as well as the plan to downsize a variety of environmental or environmental-adjacent agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior.
“It’s a parade of horribles,” Alex said.
Brad Udall, a climate scientist at Colorado State University, said that “at best, Trump’s win means a four-year hiatus on US domestic and international leadership on greenhouse gas reduction efforts. … Unfortunately, the impacts are likely to last much longer than just four years given the way long-term investments and planning work in the energy sector.”
He said Trump’s win could lead to the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, which he described as “the single most important legislation to date anywhere in the world to reduce greenhouse gases.”
He said the act has been wildly successful in spurring investment and innovation. Ironically, much of the funding has gone to red, or majority Republican, states — which may help to preserve it.
Water:
Trump is certain to clash with California leaders over water.
He has said the resource is “horribly mismanaged” in California and has promised to turn on a massive “faucet” for farmers and cities — partly by weakening environmental protections for such species as the Delta smelt.
But such efforts, while popular among Trump supporters in rural farming communities, could encounter substantial obstacles.
“We’ve heard numerous statements from the incoming president that California has more water than they know what to do with, and that they’re wasting water,” said Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “I’m concerned and anxious about what the Trump administration could mean for water, and especially biodiversity protection in aquatic habitats.”
It is one thing to husband water resources. It is another to waste and destroy what is there.
Tearing out dam’s that have allowed the creation of places like San Jose, Berkley, and of course the Ag industry that feeds the people is not sound policies.
Listen to the idiots who state solar, destruction of nuke energy, and desal is the answer, while at the same time Slick, and the rest of them are in a silent fight with the environmentalists that are supposed to be their friends.
How about all those union jobs that are being squeezed by stupid Dem. policies and the massive long range deficit being thrown on the middle class and working poor!!!!!!
Clashing with Trump? It is Slicks group of failed Socialists who are trying to cover their tracks.
You know hyper inflation and stupid policies allowing illegals and crooks to get away with everything.
Still voting D? Why? Don’t yous see the failures of the past 40 years?
I am part of the environment. I need water too. We need access to larger volume of water at lower price. Then deduct the amount of water illegals drink in California. Use that water instead to waterboard Newsom.