Environment

A bill that would have made it more difficult and expensive to drill off the California coast died in the legislature, leaving alive President Trump’s threat to open federal waters for oil and gas prospecting.

It should come as no surprise that when the California Legislature recently began the process of divvying up proceeds from the state’s cap-and-trade auctions, a cavalcade of local officials, community activists and lobbyists rushed to Sacramento, with hands out. Billions of dollars burning a hole in the state’s pocket has that effect on people, and […]

The very reason Arnold Schwarzenegger called GOP Assemblyman Chad Mayes the “future of the Republican party”—his work on climate change—was what ultimately cost Mayes his leadership post.

An irritated chairman of a state Senate Budget subcommittee says he intends to thwart a recent move by the state Air Resources Board that could give California’s biggest polluters a cushion of more than $300 million. In a sharp rebuke of the board, Sen. Bob Wieckowski said Thursday that he’ll insert language into the 2018-19 budget bill instructing regulators to reduce the free compensation they’re giving oil refineries and other industries covered under cap and trade, California’s signature climate policy.

The state Air Resources Board approved a paragraph, tucked in a 17-page resolution, that will likely mean benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars for oil and agriculture.

California just joined 14 other states in challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its delay implementing regulations to reduce ozone pollution.

In what is becoming a standard call-and-response rejoinder, a California water agency is considering rules to protect state wetlands after the Trump administration said it would do away with Obama-era regulations.

In a move that harkens back to environmental battles of decades past, a broad array of state officials are voicing opposition to the Trump administration’s review of whether to open four national marine sanctuaries off the California coast for oil and gas drilling.

The underbelly of cap and trade: Letting industries buy carbon credits or offsets, rather than modernize old equipment, means pollution in many poor communities could get worse.

In California, a deep blue state leading the charge to curb climate change, the question for many Republicans isn’t whether global warming is happening—it’s what kind of policies are best to address it.