Speaking truth to Trump on climate change

The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But even if the federal government can’t make laws abridging your freedom of speech (with a few exceptions), it does control enormous sums of money. Which is why universities worried about losing research grants and news organizations afraid of retaliatory lawsuits have, in some cases, started censoring themselves.

In theory, they have free speech. In practice, they know President Trump is watching.

Censorship was on my mind during last week’s meeting of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission. As I’d reported previously, the commission’s nonprofit partner, the Bay Foundation, had scrubbed references to climate change and environmental justice from its website and a draft work plan to submit to federal officials, out of fear the Trump administration would deny funding for initiatives to protect and restore Santa Monica Bay.

This was the commission’s first meeting since my column shined a light on the proposed deletions.

To their credit, commission members didn’t censor themselves. They discussed how to stay true to their mission — safeguarding Santa Monica Bay against climate impacts such as sea level rise, and making sure disadvantaged communities benefit from healthier coastal environments — without triggering the Trump administration.

Ultimately, they coalesced around a strategy — still subject to approval at next month’s commission meeting — of describing climate impacts in their work plan without saying the words “climate change,” and committing to steps to support disadvantaged communities without saying the words “disadvantaged communities.”

Even some commission members who supported the strategy, though, felt weird about the whole thing.

“It’s ridiculous that we have to do this,” Heal the Bay scientist Annelisa Moe said.

To be fair, a lot of things are ridiculous these days. Take for example, the Trump administration’s latest efforts to shrink the federal government, spearheaded by billionaire Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk:

• Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, plans to close 22 California offices related to science, agriculture or the environment. The list include offices for the Forest Service in Mount Shasta, the National Park Service in Ventura and the Fish and Wildlife Service in Palm Springs. (Hayley Smith, L.A. Times)
• A Colorado-based dam safety center, ironically created to promote efficiency in the Army Corps of Engineers, is also on Musk’s DOGE chopping block. Canceling the center’s lease would save less than $973,000 — at the expense of dam safety. Anyone remember Oroville? (Miranda Willson, E&E News)
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its entire research arm, firing as many as 1,155 scientists who work on water quality, toxic chemical cleanup and more. (Lisa Friedman, New York Times)

Trump administration officials are also seeking new ways to expand production of heat-trapping fossil fuels, and to otherwise support resource extraction on public lands:

• In a social media post, Trump said he was authorizing his administration to “immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL.” It’s not entirely clear what that means. (Hayley Smith, L.A. Times)
• Trump signed a bill repealing a federal fee on methane pollution. That means oil and gas companies will be allowed to emit more of the powerful, fast-acting greenhouse gas with impunity. (Zoya Teirstein, Grist)
• The new regional EPA chief overseeing California and the Pacific Southwest says the agency “will lead the way in reducing energy costs, creating wealth, and cementing America’s position as a leader in agriculture, energy, manufacturing, AI technology, and transportation.” (Hayley Smith, L.A. Times)
• A Trump executive order could help mining companies, which already enjoy relatively easy access to federal lands, advance their projects through faster environmental reviews. (Wyatt Myskow, Inside Climate News)

All that said, the Trump administration has faced setbacks in the courts. My L.A. Times colleague Jaclyn Cosgrove reports that about 1,000 National Park Service workers are getting their jobs back as a result of court orders.

Musk’s car company is having a rough time, too. Vandalism of Tesla vehicles and chargers is on the rise, per The Times’ Richard Winton and Hannah Fry. And beyond the firm’s stock price erosion since Trump took office, there’s reason to think the company is headed for a Wall Street crash, Times columnist Michael Hiltzik writes.

I’m guessing there are corporate executives, college administrators and nonprofit leaders following stories like these and hoping Trump and Musk crash and burn. That way, instead of risking their profits or their funding, all they have to do is spend a few years censoring themselves — dialing back or hushing up their clean energy and diversity goals, or saying “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico” — before returning to democratic life.

But maybe that doesn’t happen. Maybe Trump and Musk keep winning. Maybe the act of self-censorship helps them keep winning, as scholars of authoritarianism have warned.

Maybe we learn that the right to free speech is only as strong as the institutions tasked with upholding it.

On that note, here’s what’s happening around the West:

THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Protesters hold signs at a Stand Up for Science rally in Westwood on March 7.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

For all of Trump’s bluster about the virtues of fossil fuels, most analyses show that climate-friendly power is less expensive. The latest report comes from think tank Energy Innovation, which found that if Congress were to clean energy tax credits, electric bills would rise. Here’s the story from Canary Media’s Jeff St. John.

Alas, Trump is more likely to listen to fossil fuel executives than to independent experts. And with federal officials searching for spending cuts to pay for $4.5 trillion in tax breaks, oil and gas industry companies are scrambling to protect their existing tax benefits — and secure at least one more, per Nicholas Kusnetz at Inside Climate News.

A few more energy stories from different Western states:

• Even with a large oil and gas industry, Colorado has made big clean energy commitments under Democratic Gov. Jared Polis. Here’s how officials plan to keep pursuing their goals. (Wyatt Myskow, Inside Climate News)
• In Washington state, a King County judge overturned a ballot measure that blocked local governments from barring natural gas or incentivizing electric appliances in new homes. (Conrad Swanson, Seattle Times)
• The legacy of Cold War-era groundwater contamination from uranium mining and milling is alive and well in New Mexico — a reminder of one ever-present concern with nuclear energy. To this day, New Mexico families are being bought out by a firm responsible for toxic plumes. (Alicia Inez Guzmán, Searchlight New Mexico)

In North Dakota, meanwhile, a Morton County jury ordered the environmental group Greenpeace to pay fossil fuel company Energy Transfer $660 million for its role in leading protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. Experts say the verdict could stifle public protests, as Niina H. Farah and Robin Bravender report for E&E News.

Also concerning: Writing for Nieman Lab, Miranda Green reports that the jury may have been biased by a so-called newspaper full of anti-protester articles, quietly distributed to North Dakota doorsteps. I say “so-called newspaper” because of the publication’s mysterious nature and ties to fossil fuel money.

LAND AND WATER

Tule elk wander through a pasture at Point Reyes National Seashore.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

Let’s start along the Northern California coast, where a deal to remove cattle herds from beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore is being hailed by environmental activists as a win for sensitive public lands and endangered species. But is the loss of organic dairies actually a devastating blow to Latino workers and a rural community? Possibly both, per this fascinating story by my L.A. Times colleague Jessica Garrison.

In Southern California, meanwhile, a seawater desalination being tested at Las Virgenes Reservoir could reduce energy costs and limit harm to marine life — if it works as hoped. Here’s the story by The Times’ Ian James.

In other news affecting the Pacific coast:

• As of Jan. 1, expanded polystyrene plastic — the stuff of styrofoam, and a terrible pollutant of our bodies and the ocean — is banned in California. So why aren’t regulators enforcing the ban? (Susanne Rust, L.A. Times)
• A bill proposed in the California Legislature would restore protections for waterways and wetlands that were gutted in 2023 by the U.S. Supreme Court. (Ian James, L.A. Times)
• Sea lions and other ocean mammals are falling victim to a horrific domoic acid poisoning event in Southern California — and climate change may be partly to blame. (Summer Lin, L.A. Times)

Farther inland, California officials have devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to cleaning up Lake Tahoe. But climate change, development and tourism have left the lake less healthy than ever, leaving critics questioning the regional planning agency’s priorities, as Julie Cart reports in a great deep dive for CalMatters. The lake is also a wildfire “deathtrap,” ringed by a two-lane highway that would probably be clogged with traffic during an evacuation.

Speaking of wildfire, some updates on Los Angeles County:

• Oregon forestry investigators have determined that power lines owned by Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp utility didn’t cause a destructive 2020 wildfire. (Jeff Manning, Willamette Week)
• Some Altadena residents have returned to their smoke-damaged apartments — even though living there is hell, and potentially bad for their health. (Ruben Vives and Andrea Castillo, L.A. Times)
• Newly uncovered records show that Southern California Edison knew that some of its transmission towers at and near the likely ignition point of the Eaton fire were fire hazards. (Connor Sheets, L.A. Times)

A few more stories from around the West:

• In a victory for public lands access, a federal appeals court ruled that “corner-crossing” is legal. That refers to the act of carefully stepping from one piece of checker-boarded public land to another at the diagonal corner where they meet, avoiding privately owned land. (Amanda Eggert, Montana Free Press)
• After 25 years, a Navajo Nation community finally has running water. (Shannon Mullane, Colorado Sun)
• Los Angeles trees are absorbing more carbon dioxide than expected. (Ryan Fonseca, L.A. Times)

ONE MORE THING

Jackie Robinson in his U.S. Army uniform in New York in the 1950s.

(Sports Studio Photos / Getty Images)

My colleague Chuck Schilken reports that the Department of Defense took down a webpage describing Dodgers legend Jackie Robinson’s U.S. Army service — before later restoring the page after a public backlash — as part of the Trump administration’s purge of information and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Why am I including this in a climate newsletter? Because when California Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) wrote to Dodgers owner Mark Walter earlier this month urging him to stop accepting oil and gas industry sponsorships, she cited the team’s historic signing of Robinson — which broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier — as an example of the Dodgers leading the way on important social issues.

“For decades, the Dodgers have been ahead of the curve,” Gonzalez wrote. “On issues from banning cigarette ads to making history by signing Jackie Robinson, this team has occupied a unique place in American sports.”

Climate justice and racial justice are part of the same cause, the same story. Let’s not lose sight of that.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

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