Environment

A look inside the factory that assembles Ford’s F-150 electric pickup. As the industry invests $40 billion in new US electric car plants, the rapid transformation raises labor and supply chain issues. Automaker says “we're all-in.”

In a worldwide first, California’s air board unanimously moves to end diesel’s decades-long stranglehold on the economy. Truckers predict chaos, while communities near ports, freeways celebrate cleaner air.

A decision is expected Friday. Trucking companies say the deadlines for converting big rigs, delivery trucks and other heavy vehicles will cause “chaos and dysfunction” of California’s economy. Some residents urged the board to enact even stronger measures to clean up their polluted air and "put our lives over profit."

Nitrate contamination of well water has been a decades-long problem in the San Joaquin and Salinas valleys — and now stormwater has flushed more fertilizer and manure into aquifers.

Up to 60% of 2030 models and two-thirds of 2032 models sold nationwide would be zero-emissions — less aggressive than California’s mandate.

One of the options would override California’s water rights and split the cuts evenly between California, Nevada and Arizona — which would be a big blow to Imperial Valley farmers.

The governor eliminated $40 million for restoring floodplains, halting projects that help protect vulnerable, disadvantaged communities like Stockton. San Joaquin Valley legislators are pushing back.

California ended its voluntary statewide target, triggering concerns from experts that many water supplies remain depleted. Other drought measures remain in place.

Communities with high concentrations of electric cars are affluent, college-educated and at least 75% white and Asian. In contrast, electric cars are almost nonexistent in Black, Latino, low-income and rural communities — revealing the enormous task that California faces electrifying the entire fleet.

The salmon industry, worth about half a billion dollars, is devastated. The culprits: Drought and decades of water diversions and development.