Climate Change

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to extend California's landmark cap and trade program through 2045. But earmarking half of this year's funds to the beleaguered rail project and Cal Fire would leave too little for other climate projects, critics say.

The $250 million, which would fund about 500 electric trucks serving the ports of LA and Long Beach, remains frozen as a legal dispute plays out between the EPA, a bank and a green energy group.

Six conservancies throughout the state will oversee work largely in Southern California and the Sierra Nevada.

Trump ordered his attorney general to move against state climate programs that clash with his energy agenda. Legal experts say his claims about the laws being unconstitutional are an overreach.

Billions of state and federal dollars are spent on Lake Tahoe. But is all this attention actually protecting this unique treasure? Pollutants pour in, while development continues. Funding has shifted in focus to tourism and traffic projects, while money spent directly on fixing the lake has declined.

Evacuating the Tahoe basin in summer could take 14 hours, and 99% of properties are at risk — yet new resorts are being built in high-danger fire areas.

The governor’s planned $20 billion tunnel to divert more water south and bypass the Delta would bring years of construction noise, pollution and traffic. Residents worry their rural farm towns will never be the same.

California and other states and counties are using a legal strategy that took down Big Tobacco, hoping to make fossil fuel companies pay for damage they have long denied. But many obstacles remain.

California’s new Low Carbon Fuel Standard has been stalled because it lacks ”clarity.” The new standard, which offers incentives for cleaner fuels, is highly controversial because it would raise gas prices.

San Gabriel Valley areas scarred by the Eaton Fire are at “high to very high risk” of debris flows this week. How do they happen? What is being done to prepare? And what do survivors of a catastrophic one that killed 23 people remember about the day that the hills came down?