‘Drill, baby, drill!’ and climate change denial: California braces for a Trump environment

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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.

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.”

But Gold said he is confident that Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta will be strong adversaries.

“Between the environmental community and the governor and the attorney general, we’re well situated to fight to protect nature and to protect environmental health and the public,” Gold said.

One area where the administration may not push for major change is the overburdened Colorado River, a water source that has been dwindling during the last 25 years amid persistent drought worsened by global warming.

During the Biden administration, federal water managers seemed reluctant to compel the states that rely on the river to develop plans for dramatically cutting water use. That hands-off approach is likely to continue under Trump because requiring certain states to accept painful cutbacks may be politically unpalatable, Gold said.

Indigenous lands:

Neither Trump nor the Republican party has declared any official policies for Indigenous people, but tribal leaders worry the new administration could slow land return efforts, slash essential services and undermine their sovereignty.

“While they don’t mention tribes, they do mention so much that would impact us,” said Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria in the Bay Area and the board chair of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Project 2025 calls for restructuring and consolidating essential Native American health, education and housing services, creating “one-stop shop[s]” for tribal issues.

The document also recommends allowing tribes to drill for oil and natural gas on their land, and — to decrease the size of government — passing both land and some environmental responsibilities over to tribes.

However, with many tribes reliant on government services because of poverty and the remoteness of the federally created reservations, some Indigenous leaders worry a rushed push for tribes to take on more responsibility in the name of small government could ultimately hurt them.

“Yes, they want us to have agency,” said Sarris, “but we have to eat while we have agency.”

Clean air:

“A Trump agenda means more sickness and death caused by pollution and runaway climate change,” insisted Bill Macgavern, policy director of the Los Angeles nonprofit Clean Air Coalition.

Despite having some of the strongest clean air rules in the nation, Southern California endures some of the highest levels of lung-aggravating smog.

“It was challenging already with a relatively cooperative federal government,” said Macgavern, noting that many of the more innovative air policies and standards that state regulators have passed in recent years have not yet received federal approval.

If they aren’t approved by Jan. 19, there is concern they’ll be denied.

During the previous Trump administration, California officials had to get creative to advance clean-air and climate action.

“It was a time of intense deregulation of a heavily polluting industry and efforts to derail clean-air and water protections,” said Adrian Martinez, senior attorney with Earthjustice. “I suspect that’s in the cards now.”

However, there is a twist this time: Trump’s most ardent supporter is electric vehicle magnate Elon Musk. That leaves some wondering if Trump may soften his negative stance toward EVs.

“There’s criticism of electric vehicles, but, then again, his biggest backer runs an electric vehicle company. Tesla gets a lot of business in California, so I think it’s an open question,” Martinez said.

National monuments:

A tribal-led coalition has urged the Biden administration to designate three new monuments in the Golden State using the Antiquities Act of 1906, a law that has allowed presidents to protect land of historic and scientific significance.

The requests have assumed heightened urgency as the administration nears its end. Trump downsized monuments in the West during his first term, and some want him to go further in his second — by abolishing the Antiquities Act altogether.

Project 2025 calls on a new administration to repeal the law, arguing it has been overused and that public lands need to remain open to a wide range of uses, including oil drilling, coal mining and recreation.

“I would say any monuments that Biden has already designated or is going to designate in the coming two months are at severe risk of being shrunken or eliminated by the Trump administration,” said Brendan Cummings, conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Last time around, the Trump administration sharply reduced the size of two monuments in southern Utah — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. The boundaries were re-expanded by the Biden administration.

Wildfire and forest management:

Project 2025 lays out a strategy to reform U.S. Forest Service wildfire management. Right now, the agency manages some naturally ignited fires rather than immediately extinguishing them so that the flames can achieve ecological benefits like consuming excess vegetation. This approach is backed by research that shows low-intensity fires can reduce the risk of high-intensity fires.

But the 2025 manifesto instructs the agency to focus on thinning trees and increasing timber sale, in part by reducing “regulatory obstacles” put in place by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

It’d be like “turning the clock back to the 1950s to 1980s, when logging dominated national forest management,” said Andy Stahl, executive director of advocacy group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

However, Stahl doesn’t expect changes to the U.S. Forest Service will be a top priority for the Trump administration. He noted that in Project 2025, the agency is addressed only in one very short section, “reflecting the significance of this issue to the broader conservative world, which is that it’s not a significant issue.”

Wildlife and conservation:

In the first Trump presidency, the administration weakened the Endangered Species Act by making it easier to remove a species from the endangered list and reducing protections for threatened species. In addition, it allowed regulators to explore economic impacts when considering listing a species and made it more difficult to account for climate change when making such decisions.

Cummings, the conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Biden reversed some of the changes to the way the law is applied, but not all. And he expects the incoming administration will develop new regulatory changes that hark back to Trump’s first term.

Environmental groups say they are already girding for a fight.

“We know from recent history that the incoming administration will undoubtedly push both a legislative and a regulatory agenda that is designed to dismantle bedrock conservation laws like the Endangered Species Act, and will work to destroy the wildlife and the habitat that we cherish,” said Pamela Flick, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife.

“We’ve been here before — and we’re here to double down on our conservation work, which is more imperative than ever.”

Oil and gas in California:

Though “Drill, baby, drill!” was the rallying cry during Trump’s first administration, it’s doubtful he’ll get far in California, experts say.

Though the state boasts ample oil reserves, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s climate policies and his enmity toward the oil industry is forcing a gradual wind-down of oil production. Drilling permits in California’s oil fields are being slow-walked and production decreases year by year.

The federal government has little control over the state’s leave-fossil-fuels-behind energy strategy. Nor does the federal government hold power over offshore oil platforms within three miles of shore — those areas fall under state jurisdiction.

Though the federal government does oversee exploration and drilling beyond state waters, those platforms are rapidly aging and many have been decommissioned or are being shut down.

Drilling for oil out at sea has become expensive compared with far more economical alternatives such as the fracking fields in the Permian Basin, which straddled Texas and New Mexico. Also, oil companies are aiming new offshore production at more promising locations, including the Gulf of Mexico.

“The offshore sector in California has been in decline for over a decade now, across multiple administrations,” said Matthew Bernstein, senior analyst at Rystad Energy. “This area forms a small drop in the barrel of total U.S. offshore volumes, much less compared to total U.S. output.”

Solar and wind:

Solar and wind energy stocks plummeted on news of Trump’s election. However, many say the market overreacted and that despite Trump’s public hostility toward green energy, he may be able to slow it down, but he can’t stop it.

“In Texas, we now have not only more wind energy than any other state, we have more installed utility-scale solar than any other state,” said Katharine Hayhoe, the Nature Conservancy’s chief scientist and a professor of atmospheric science at Texas Tech University.

She, like Alex, pointed to the Inflation Reduction Act’s infrastructure and energy projects — largely wind and solar — which have proved to be an economic boon for red states.

“I will tell you for sure that this [Trump] administration is beginning in a radically different place than it did eight years ago in terms of the giant boulder that is the clean energy economy, which is already rolling down the hill,” she said.

According to the Department of Energy, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are the fastest-growing segments on the power grid — driven by federal tax credits, state renewable-energy mandates, and technology advancements that have lowered their costs.

Hope for the environment:

Most of the researchers said that despite the changes afoot, there is hope that many of the gains made will be preserved.

First, there are the courts:

“Biden has appointed as many judges as Trump did outside of the Supreme Court,” said Alex, the UC Berkeley law professor.

He also noted a recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Chevron Doctrine, which allowed federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer. Now it’s up to the lower courts to interpret ambiguous laws.

“That will now apply to any interpretations of statutes and regulations done by the Trump administration,

which gives a fair amount of additional leeway to courts, particularly lower courts, to constrain outlandish interpretations of rules, regulations, statutes by agencies,” he said.

He also said that by virtue of its size and strength, California was — and will be — a stabilizing force.

“Trump was elected the first time in 2016 and it really increased California’s profile on climate,” he said. “I suspect that will have a repeat, because countries around the world, let alone states and provinces, need a U.S. partner. And while California cannot do foreign policy, it can do agreements, memorandum of understanding and cooperation.”

Times staff writers Noah Haggerty, Alex Wigglesworth and Russ Mitchell contributed to this report.