Speaker 1: All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray.
Speaker 1: That's what many in California are worried will happen if
Speaker 1: the Trump administration gets its way on the environment. Today,
Speaker 1: on Parts Rebellion, we go California Nightmaring to talk about
Speaker 1: the Golden State's many conflicts with the President. What's Up?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Parts per Billion, the podcast from Bloomberg Environment.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, David Schultz. California has more people living
Speaker 1: in it than Canada and an economy larger than the UK's.
Speaker 1: It's really really big, and there aren't very many entities
Speaker 1: out there that can push it around. One of those entities, however,
Speaker 1: is the US federal government. California has had a share
Speaker 1: of conflicts over the years with the Feds, but things
Speaker 1: have really escalated in the last few years, ever since
Speaker 1: the Trump administration came into office, and a lot of
Speaker 1: these dispute center on how or whether to enforce environmental laws. Today,
Speaker 1: we'll be speaking with Emily Duley, Bloomberg Environments California correspondent,
Speaker 1: about what's driving these conflicts and about whether any state,
Speaker 1: even one as big as California, can really go up
Speaker 1: against the Feds and win Emily joins us on the
Speaker 1: phone from Sacramento. Hello, Emily, how are you doing pretty good?
Speaker 1: So can you just list off a few of the
Speaker 1: big environmental issues that California and the Feds have fought
Speaker 1: over in recent years? Well, it seems it could almost
Speaker 1: be countless. I know, the Attorney General has filed more
Speaker 1: than fifty claims against the Feds and more than half
Speaker 1: of those have been related to environmental issues? Is that
Speaker 1: five zero fifty five zero? Yeah? Wow? And you know,
Speaker 1: so they relate from you know, big things like harming
Speaker 1: natural resources and wildlife relating to the border wall, to
Speaker 1: selling wild horses for slaughter, to stalling methane rules, rolling
Speaker 1: back car emissions, weakening toxic air roles. So there's a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on here, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of legal paperwork being filed all over the place. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are you noticing any trends in the way that these
Speaker 1: fights play out? I mean, are they centering around similar
Speaker 1: issues or you know, does California usually back down, do
Speaker 1: the Feds back down? Or is it just all over
Speaker 1: the place. I haven't seen much indication of either party
Speaker 1: really backing down, and California has been sort of fighting things.
Speaker 1: You know, the governor's been outspoken about things, the Attorney
Speaker 1: general has been outspoken about things, and now the legislature
Speaker 1: has gone after sort of a lot of the environmental
Speaker 1: rollbacks when it comes to clean air and clean water
Speaker 1: or worker protections. There's a there's a bill moving through
Speaker 1: the legislature right now that has been called labeled Trump Insurance,
Speaker 1: So the author doesn't really like that. It basically says
Speaker 1: that if the Trump administration rolls back any of those
Speaker 1: federal rules, the state authorities have to kind of evaluate
Speaker 1: that and turn their roles back to prior to inauguration
Speaker 1: day so that you know, their protections would be Obama
Speaker 1: era and not Trump era. Wow, that's almost like sort
Speaker 1: of pausing or going back in time. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like a time machine for environmental regulations, little time warp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we should also mention that the governor, the Attorney general,
Speaker 1: and the legislature are all Democrats. Are controlled by Democrats,
Speaker 1: and I think in the legislature democrats have like a
Speaker 1: two or a supermajority. Is that right, there's a super
Speaker 1: majority in both houses and governor who's a Democrat. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot that can happen. But I will note
Speaker 1: that most policy and fiscal committees, the vice chairperson is
Speaker 1: generally a Republicans, So there is back and forth that happens.
Speaker 1: It's not just like there's no voices from the Republican side. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So California is pretty big and powerful, but I mean
Speaker 1: just one state, and you know there are lots of
Speaker 1: other states that have differing views. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of red states out there. Are there any people that
Speaker 1: you've spoken to in California who worry that, you know,
Speaker 1: going up against the federal government like this could have
Speaker 1: a backlash or could could backfire. I think when you
Speaker 1: talk to Republicans, they say, you know, like let's stop.
Speaker 1: It's always just we're kind of like poking the bear,
Speaker 1: and maybe let's focus on some of the local issues
Speaker 1: that are going on. And you know, we're spending money
Speaker 1: to kind of fight things in court when we could
Speaker 1: be focusing locally. But the Attorney General's office says they're
Speaker 1: pretty confident in nearly every challenge the file they file
Speaker 1: because they don't think the administration has been on solid
Speaker 1: legal ground for a lot of things. So a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff is playing out in the courts right now,
Speaker 1: so we will see, but I think it sort of
Speaker 1: depends on who you talk to and where. You know,
Speaker 1: the Central Valley is pretty conservative, and you know, not
Speaker 1: all of California is San Francisco, though there is a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of liberal liberal areas. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good point that you bring up the Central Valley because
Speaker 1: that's an area that, as you mentioned, is conservative and
Speaker 1: also has a lot of environmental issues. I mean that's there,
Speaker 1: there's in terms of water, soil, air, How does that
Speaker 1: play out? You know, that that combination of an area
Speaker 1: with severe vier environmental issues but also pretty conservative political leadership.
Speaker 1: When I first moved here, someone said, welcome to the
Speaker 1: state of emergency. And it's sort of true when you
Speaker 1: think about there's water issues, there's wildfires, there's earthquakes, there's
Speaker 1: sea level rise, there's all of these things. So sort
Speaker 1: of regardless of kind of what your party is, there
Speaker 1: are environmental issues happening all over the state, so they
Speaker 1: get a lot of focus. You know, the air quality
Speaker 1: is really bad in the Central Valley. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of water issues relating to agriculture and water contamination and
Speaker 1: things like that. So it's sort of avery can be
Speaker 1: a very bipartis an issue when people are talking about
Speaker 1: you know, like kids having childhood asthma and other things
Speaker 1: like that. Finally, you know, we talked about the governor
Speaker 1: really briefly, but California has a new governor, Governor Gavin Newsom,
Speaker 1: who took over for Jerry Brown, who was a longtime governor,
Speaker 1: served I think two stints in the governor's mansion. Have
Speaker 1: you noticed any change between and Newsome? You know, is
Speaker 1: Newsome more likely or less likely to sort of pick
Speaker 1: fights with the Trump administration. It seems like Governor Newsom
Speaker 1: is more willing to verbally spar with the President and
Speaker 1: the administration in words and on Twitter than Governor Brown.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, California needs federal assistance when it
Speaker 1: comes to wildfires and all sorts of things. So there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a fine line. But so it sounds
Speaker 1: like Governor Newsom is talking very tough, but you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of the actions that the state is taking,
Speaker 1: maybe that hasn't differed as much. I would say the
Speaker 1: Attorney general has continued to sort of be aggressive. But
Speaker 1: also there you know, there's this big sort of war
Speaker 1: going on about vehicle emission standards and the air Board
Speaker 1: chairwoman has really been forceful and pretty tough in her
Speaker 1: words about sort of California not giving up their authority
Speaker 1: to enact their own vehicle mission standards. And that's sort
Speaker 1: of escalating right now. So it seems like things are
Speaker 1: kind of heating up, but you never know sort of
Speaker 1: what point they'll get to. Yeah, and we should just
Speaker 1: actually mention really briefly what that's about. You know, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration came in and decided that it wants to
Speaker 1: roll back some of the car and truck efficiency standards
Speaker 1: that its predecessor, you know, enacted, and California has the
Speaker 1: right to set its own vehicle standards. And it sounds like,
Speaker 1: based on what you're saying that you know, the state
Speaker 1: has not wanted to go along with that at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, the car makers want just one standard so
Speaker 1: they can make one car they can sell across the country.
Speaker 1: But if California and the federal government had different standards,
Speaker 1: that would be a big mess for them. And it
Speaker 1: sounds like the more the closer, you know, the further
Speaker 1: along we get in this conflict, the more likely that
Speaker 1: is going to happen. Because these two sides really can't
Speaker 1: come to an agreement at all. Yeah, and you have
Speaker 1: to think like a lot of them auto manufacturers have
Speaker 1: spent a lot of money already researching how to get
Speaker 1: to some of these standards that were sort of thought
Speaker 1: to already be in place. And California it's the fifth
Speaker 1: largest economy in the world, but it also has more
Speaker 1: than a dozen states that follow it's a mission standard,
Speaker 1: so that's huge buying power. So it's that's a lot
Speaker 1: of industry that's sort of like a bit in the middle.
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
Speaker 1: I know automakers sort of asked for the state and
Speaker 1: federal authorities to you know, get back in a room
Speaker 1: and talk to each other. But there's been sparring that's
Speaker 1: sort of escalated since then. Yeah, all right, Well that
Speaker 1: was Bloomberg Environment's Emily Dooley. She covers environmental issues in California.
Speaker 1: You can find more of her reporting at our website
Speaker 1: news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com. That website is news
Speaker 1: dot Bloomberg Environment dot com and if you want to
Speaker 1: chat with us on social media, use the hashtag parts
Speaker 1: per B. That hashtag, once again is parts per B.
Speaker 1: Today's episode of Parts Pavilion was produced by myself along
Speaker 1: with Marissa Horne and Jessica Coombs. Nicholas Anzelada is our
Speaker 1: audio engineer. The music for this episode is a message
Speaker 1: by Jizarre. It was used under a Creative Commons license,
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