CA abandons clean-air guidelines on diesel vehicles

In a hanging setback to scale back California’s air air pollution however a win for trucking corporations, state regulators have walked away from their bold plan to section out diesel vehicles lower than per week earlier than President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White Home.

As CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo explains, in 2023 the California Air Assets Board voted to ban the sale of recent diesel massive rigs by 2036 and require giant fleets to transform all their vehicles to zero-emission fashions by 2042. About 1.8 million vehicles function within the state.

To implement the ban, California wants a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Safety Company. (In December, for instance, the Biden administration permitted California’s mandate to section out new gas-powered vehicles.) However on Tuesday the board withdrew its requests for approving emission requirements for diesel vehicles in anticipation that the Trump administration will doubtless reject them.

• Liane Randolphboard chairperson, in an announcement: “The withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs.”

Trump has repeatedly denounced the state’s electrical automobile mandates, and through his first time period tried to revoke California’s authority to restrict automobile emissions. In October he additionally mentioned no state could be allowed to ban gas-powered vehicles underneath his presidency.

Environmentalists criticized the withdrawal, together with Paul Cort, the director of Earthjustice’s Proper To Zero marketing campaign, who argued that “diesel is one of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution for human health.”

The withdrawal follows the air board’s resolution in December to pull the plug on what would have been a first-in-the-nation initiative to extend electrical bike gross sales.

Learn extra right here.

Let’s dive into some information in regards to the Los Angeles County fires:

• Unhoused residents: The wildfires will doubtless worsen the housing scarcity in a county that already has greater than 75,000 unhoused residents, writes CalMatters’ Marisa Kendall. However wanting again at previous fires make clear different potential housing points to return: Individuals who can’t insure their housesfor instance, may wind up homeless as a result of they’ll’t discover one other place to dwell, and tenants in undamaged buildings may face evictions if their landlords resolve to lift rents. Learn extra right here.

• College students: On Tuesday Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an government order to assist younger college students displaced by the fires. This contains waiving sure state guidelines to permit them to attend faculties outdoors their districts, and serving to faculties keep away from penalties in the event that they fail to satisfy the minimal quantity of college days in a 12 months. In the meantime, faculties and universities throughout L.A. County are responding to the fireplace by offering companies corresponding to providing short-term housing for workers and organizing fundraising efforts, write CalMatters’ Faculty Journalism Community reporters. Learn extra right here.

Whereas Trump continues to blame Newsom’s water insurance policies and alleged mismanagement by state officers for the Southern California fires, a UCLA report launched Monday finds {that a} buildup of vegetation, dry situations and extreme winds have been main elements fueling the fires.

As CalMatters atmosphere reporter Alastair Bland explains, Southern California lately skilled two unusually wet winters — which triggered brush to flourish — adopted by one of many hottest summers on document final 12 months.

Within the days earlier than the blazes started, the air within the area was additionally exceedingly dry.

Add to those situations Santa Winds blowing at 100 mph and specialists say there’s little that would have been achieved to forestall the catastrophe, as these fires would grow to be practically unstoppable as soon as ignited.

• Alexandra Syphardsenior analysis ecologist on the Conservation Biology Institute: “I do not believe there is anything that wildland management could have done to qualitatively or substantially alter the outcome of these fires.”

Learn extra right here.

Extra climate swings: Alastair and CalMatters’ video technique director Robert Meeks even have a video phase on how climate extremes in moist Northern California and arid Southern California gasoline local weather risks as a part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it right here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.

Two years in the past, Gov. Newsom vetoed a invoice that might have lowered insulin copayments, citing a plan for California to supply its personal insulin. However the $100 million mission is years away from delivering drugs. Discover out why from CalMatters well being reporter Kristen Hwang.