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Boiling Point
Drill, Baby, Drill…Again
00:35:06
What will the second Trump administration mean for climate and clean energy – and is there still hope for a better future? Sammy interviews Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at UCLA and former Biden administration official. They talk about President Trump’s inaugural address, his Day 1 executive orders and his planned exit from the Paris climate agreement. They also discuss what California and other states and cities can do to keep making progress on climate.
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- [00:00]
Ann Carlson
This is an LA Times Studios podcast.
- [00:08]
Sami Roth
This week, Donald Trump took the oath of office for the second time. His administration is already taking the country backwards on climate change and clean energy. Within hours of his inauguration, President Trump signed executive orders reversing more than a dozen environmental actions taken by President Biden. He paused all new wind energy development on federal lands and waters and started the process of withdrawing the United States from the International Paris Climate Agreement. He also declared a national energy emergency. We don't yet know what that will mean in practice, but in his inaugural address, Trump said the emergency declaration would help fulfill his campaign promise to drill, baby, drill. And he didn't stop there.
- [00:54]
Ann Carlson
America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and it is that liquid gold.
- [00:59]
Sami Roth
Under our feet that will help to do it. With my actions today, we will end.
- [01:04]
Ann Carlson
The Green New Deal and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American auto workers.
- [01:16]
Sami Roth
In other words, you'll be able to buy the car of your choice. As usual, Trump wasn't telling the whole truth or the whole story. There was no electric vehicle mandate under President Biden, nobody stopping anybody from buying the car of their choice. There were federal tax credits for electric cars. One of the reasons for those tax credits, which Trump didn't mention, is that we have a climate crisis, a crisis being driven by oil and gas. The stuff Trump wants to drill, baby, drill for. Trump is trying to stack his cabinet with people who feel the same way. At a Senate confirmation hearing last week, Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. energy Department, an oil executive named Chris Wright, stood by his past suggestion that climate activists are overhyping the extremely well documented link between fossil fuels, rising temperatures and worsening wildfires. Climate change is a real and global phenomenon. Is it hype or not?
- [02:20]
Ann Carlson
I stand by my past comments. So you believe it's hype.
- [02:23]
Sami Roth
The next day, Trump's nominee for Interior Secretary, former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, said America can use fossil fuels to promote world peace. President Trump's energy dominance can be America's big stick that will be leveraged to.
- [02:38]
Ann Carlson
Achieve historic prosperity and world peace.
- [02:41]
Sami Roth
Then there was former New York Congressperson Lee Zeldin, Trump's choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. At his confirmation hearing, Zeldin was asked about fossil fuels and basic climate science. His response? I don't sit before you as a scientist. Fortunately, at epa, we do have many talented scientists. None of this is new. Ever since his first campaign for president, Trump has been a loyal supporter of coal, oil and gas companies. Like many Republicans, he's taken their campaign contributions and done their bidding. In his first term, Trump and his appointees spent four years working furiously to undo regulations limiting air and water pollution. They advanced oil and gas drilling on public lands and tried to undo protections for endangered species. They didn't just stop fighting the climate crisis, they made it worse. Now they're trying to do it again, only this time the world is even hotter than it was before. Scientists just finished running the numbers, and 2024 was the hottest year on record. The hottest year before that was 2023. If we don't start phasing out fossil fuels a lot faster, the wildfires still burning in Los Angeles could be just a preview of what's to come. Fortunately, that doesn't mean all hope is lost. Not My name is Sami Roth, and I'm the climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. On this week's episode of Boiling Point, our guest is Ann Carlson. She's an environmental law professor at UCLA and a faculty director of UCLA's Ammett Institute on Climate Change, Law and the Environment. During the Biden administration, she served as chief counsel and acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Ann and I talked about what's at stake over the next four years and all the things that cities and states can do and you, too, to keep pushing for climate action. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Anne Carlson, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.
- [05:17]
Ann Carlson
You're very welcome. It's nice to be here.
- [05:20]
Sami Roth
So it's been just about 24 hours now as we're recording this, since Donald Trump was inaugurated. Let's start with the big picture here on climate change. How bad could it be?
- [05:32]
Ann Carlson
I really have a couple of concerns that maybe oddly, aren't completely about whether we reduce our emissions, but instead ceding leadership in the global community to China. We're going to do that. We are withdrawing from the Paris agreement. Trump announced that via executive order as one of his first actions. I also worry about technology development and technology innovation, because what the US has been really good at historically with environmental technology is developing it and then exporting it around the world. The best example of that is the catalytic converter. If we back out of aggressive climate action, one of the things that we do is that we again, we cede economic leadership to other countries, particularly China. However, the thing that Trump can't do unilaterally is repeal the biggest climate legislation ever passed. That's the Inflation Reduction Act. It contains all kinds of tax incentives and Subsidies to develop clean energy across the economy. And that was passed by Congress. So. So that's not something Trump can just get rid of via executive order. And that is doing a lot of work to spur technological development and also to cut the United States emissions.
- [06:51]
Sami Roth
What I find interesting about your answer, it kind of cuts in both directions and there's a lot to lose, but there's also a lot that can't be lost. And what I think is interesting about that is that I hear really frequently from people who are kind of on both sides of this question who either say, well, it doesn't matter what the federal government does because there's been so much progress made with, you know, with the Inflation Reduction act, with technologies that have already been developed, emissions are going to keep going down because clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. And because there's so much good policy already in place, we're going to keep making progress. Who cares about Trump? And then I hear from people on the totally opposite side of that who say, oh, well, the United States is, you know, only X small percent of global emissions. China and India, you alluded to China there are emitting so much, it doesn't matter what we do. They're going to keep building coal plants. We can only have so little effect. The US doesn't matter. But it sounds like you're saying it's a little bit of both.
- [07:47]
Ann Carlson
It's a little bit of both. The United States is one of the largest emitters. It's no longer the largest emitter, although, of course, historically the US has emitted more carbon than any other country on the planet. But we do lead in a couple of important ways that I think are going to be undermined by the Trump administration. One is internationally. The Paris Agreement would not have occurred but for the United States leadership. And we're withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. That is a big blow to that agreement, although I also think it will continue and that China will really emerge as the global leader on climate change and climate change reduction. The other place, the United States has always led us technologically with technological innovation, and that's what you need in the climate space. So let me give you a couple of examples that I'm particularly concerned about with the Trump administration. One is heavy duty vehicles. So we're seeing a lot of progress in the passenger vehicle market. There's something like 117 new EV models that consumers can purchase. Those aren't just going to disappear because Donald Trump is president, but the heavy duty sector is harder to electrify. Batteries need to Be really big, or you need to.
- [09:00]
Sami Roth
You're talking about big trucks, freight trucks.
- [09:02]
Ann Carlson
Big trucks, diesel trucks, big trucks. So big trucks, you can't go very far on a small battery. So you need either a different fuel, like hydrogen, or you need big innovation in the development of batteries that can go farther. That gets spurred by regulation. It gets spurred by regulation both at the federal level and through California, which has its own special authority to regulate under the Clean Air Act. But Trump has already indicated that he's going to cut that authority way back if he can. And in fact, California preemptively withdrew a request to be regulating emissions from heavy trucks, again, the biggest 18 wheelers that you see on the road, anticipating that they weren't gonna get the permission to issue those regulations under the Trump administration.
- [09:50]
Sami Roth
Right. If I recall. So two things, if I recall correctly, one of the executive orders that Trump already issued on his first day had to do with revoking California's or starting the process of revoking California's special authority to regulate vehicle emissions. Right.
- [10:05]
Ann Carlson
So California has special authority to regulate. It needs EPA permission to do so. Trump can't, by executive order, just revoke, provoke that authority. He can direct his agencies to evaluate policies, and that's what he's doing right now. So he's already been very clear with his Environmental Protection Agency that he's going to take away a waiver that the Environmental Protection Agency granted to California to allow it to push towards zero emissions in the passenger automobile fleet.
- [10:39]
Sami Roth
Right. Okay. And the heavy duty trucks, that was the one where California had this rule, as I recall, to say that big heavy duty trucks had to be electric or zero emission by a certain date. And for whatever reason, the Biden EPA didn't approve that on time. Right. And so now they know Trump isn't going to bother, so they're not even going to try to do that.
- [11:00]
Ann Carlson
That's correct. This is a rule called the Advance Clean Fleet Rule. And EPA did not act in time to grant California the waiver. And so California withdrew its application because it didn't want to give Trump the opportunity to simply deny it.
- [11:17]
Sami Roth
Why didn't the Biden people just approve that? They were waiting on it for a couple of years. I was so confused by that.
- [11:23]
Ann Carlson
Well, I don't have insight into what the Biden administration was doing. I will say that the air kind of portion of the Environmental Protection Agency was overwhelmed with the number of rules that it was issuing, and California had a number of waiver requests. So one possibility is simply that they ran out of time to build the legal case necessary to issue the waiver, because they do actually have to provide very strong reasons for why California can have that waiver. So that's one possibility. Another possibility is that they were concerned about potentially some legal issues. This is California exercising authority with a very hostile Supreme Court that is essentially fly specking every major environmental rule that comes to it and frequently ruling against environmental interests. And so there's some trepidation about what you let this Supreme Court actually hear. I don't know whether that played a role or not.
- [12:25]
Sami Roth
Right. And I feel like I have to think that that lurks in the background of a lot of what's going to be going on with climate and environmental policy over the next four years, whether it's clean car rules or power plant regulations. And we'll get into more of this. But I mean, you've got a Supreme Court with a 6:3 conservative majority, and three of those justices were appointed by Trump. Right. I mean, that's gotta sort of be lurking beneath a lot of this.
- [12:46]
Ann Carlson
It is looming. But I think what we're gonna see first is Trump withdrawing a number of the rules that the Biden administration issued. Although there are ongoing court challenges, most of those are currently in the Court of Appeals, the kind of intermediate court in the District of Columbia, which is where a lot of these environmental cases get heard. We will see if those go forward. I expect that the Trump administration will ask the D.C. circuit to put those cases on hold pending it basically withdrawing rules like the power plant rule that the Biden administration issued, a car rule to cut emissions from vehicles for model years 2027 to 2035 and several others?
- [13:29]
Sami Roth
California is a leader on this, not just because, in theory, other states and countries could follow our lead. But aren't there like a dozen other states that literally have it in their laws or in their regulation that whatever California does to reduce emissions from cars, they just like copy and paste that.
- [13:45]
Ann Carlson
They can opt into the California rules. Those rules, though, again, have to be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. We call them 177 states. Those are the states that. That's the section of the Clean Air act that allows states to choose whether to follow California standards or federal standards. And for the passenger vehicle rule that California has a waiver for, that would push California to zero emission vehicles by 2035. A number of states.
- [14:13]
Sami Roth
That's the ban on gasoline cars by new sales of passenger gasoline vehicles by 2035.
- [14:19]
Ann Carlson
That's right. So all vehicles would need to be zero emission by 2035. A number of states are planning to follow California's lead that rule. Trump says he's going to withdraw the permission for that rule, and I expect that there will be litigation over whether Trump can do that.
- [14:34]
Sami Roth
If you were placing bets, does it hold up in court that Trump is able to revoke that?
- [14:40]
Ann Carlson
I think it's actually a really hard question, and let me give you a little background about why. So the clean car rule is necessary not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to reduce conventional pollution that causes smog in places like the Central Valley and Southern California. So we have a lot. We have air quality problems, and we don't meet federal standards for ozone pollution. That's what you see when you see smog. We don't even meet a standard that was supposed to be met in 1997, although we were given a lot of extensions. There have been two standards tighter than that that have been adopted since that time. And we need these car rules to meet federal law. So it's going to be really weird for the Trump administration to try to say, oh, you don't need this rule, but by the way, you're violating federal standards. And I think that's going pose some real legal challenges for the Trump administration.
- [15:37]
Sami Roth
So clean cars, clean trucks, that's a big area where the Trump administration could at least try to push things backwards on climate and clean air. Another executive order that I saw come out just in the first 24 hours. Trump wants to end new leasing and permitting for wind farms on federal lands and waters, onshore and offshore. Is that something he can just do so.
- [16:00]
Ann Carlson
He's certainly trying. I think he's going to succeed in halting a lot of these projects. The executive branch has a lot of authority to do that. He can't undermine the subsidies for these kinds of projects. But if they need permitting, the federal government has a lot of authority. And that executive order is really going to cause havoc in the wind energy market, particularly for offshore wind.
- [16:29]
Sami Roth
Right. Cause offshore, it's all federal waters.
- [16:33]
Ann Carlson
Correct. And, boy, does he have it out for wind for reasons that I've never fully understood.
- [16:39]
Sami Roth
Well, I seem to recall that a lot of it goes back to there was a wind farm that was proposed offshore near a golf course that he owned somewhere.
- [16:46]
Ann Carlson
Yes, I believe that was in Scotland.
- [16:49]
Sami Roth
Yeah. And also he really hated when he used to spend time in Palm Springs, where I used to report. He hated the look of the wind farms that are out there off the 10 on the way to Palm Springs. He really seems to have it out for wind. He has not put out a similar executive order banning solar farms or new solar permits on federal lands. You talked about the Inflation Reduction act as well. And as you said, the subsidies, the tax incentives that are written into law, he can't do anything about. But it does seem like there's a lot of federal money in there. The ability to put out loans and grants for clean energy development and to help push forward sort of cutting edge clean energy technology. And the Biden administration made a really big push in its final weeks and months to put tens of billions of dollars of grant and loan funding out there. Is that one of those areas where you're thinking about when you say we might lose the technology edge to China? Because those seem like funds that he could probably start to cut off. Right.
- [17:47]
Ann Carlson
I think a lot of those funds are already obligated and he's going to have difficulty cutting them off. There are also real political issues here. So, for example, a number of the loans and grants have been made to car manufacturer manufacturers to build battery plants, and they're often in red states or red congressional districts. So the politics of these subsidies are going to be kind of fascinating to watch. The same thing is true more generally with the Inflation Reduction act, where these tax incentives are used across the country. They're not just used by liberal Democrats who didn't vote for Trump. So I think we're going to see interesting politics play out with the Inflation Reduction act, not only in whether it gets repealed, but how it actually gets implemented. Implemented, totally.
- [18:34]
Sami Roth
I guess I was thinking of cutting off new funds. Like, it seemed like Biden's people were trying to get as many as much money out the door as possible before Trump stopped giving away money. I shouldn't say giving away money, giving out loans, because these loan programs have actually made a profit for the federal government with interest payments. But, yes, I mean, yeah, in terms of getting the money that's already out the door legally, that's money that they are sort of obligated to give out, as I understand.
- [18:58]
Ann Carlson
Yes, that's my understanding as well. To the degree that there's money left, I think there's a lot the Trump administration can do to tie that money up and slow the process down so that it basically doesn't get into the hands of energy developers, energy innovators. Again, though, there are complicated politics here, because it isn't just the case that energy developers are supporters of liberal Democrats. And it's also the case that a lot of energy development takes place in places where there is wind or there is sun or there are geothermal resources, and those are not confined to blue states. Texas is, in fact, the biggest producer of renewable energy in the country. Oklahoma has a lot of wind resources. So these politics are more complicated, as they often are with energy. Energy politics are often dictated by region as much as they are by ideology. I think we're going to have to wait and see what happens when there's money on the table and there's money to be given out to innovators who can create jobs, create manufacturing jobs in red states and so forth. So this is the one place where I'm somewhat optimistic that because Congress actually enacted the Inflation Reduction act, it makes it a whole lot harder to interfere with actually keeping that law in place.
- [20:28]
Sami Roth
I think California and a lot of other states are going to be sort of taking the tack that they did during the first Trump administration and trying to push forward on climate and clean energy, despite what Trump and his appointees are up to. Is there a model for success in that? I mean, is there progress that can be made at a state and local level? Is that realistic?
- [20:49]
Ann Carlson
There is progress that can be made at a state and local level. California, for example. But California's not alone in this, has a lot of its own authority under its own state laws to push forward with progressive climate policies. One good example of that is in the electricity sector, setting what are known as renewable portfolio standards. That is telling utilities they have to get a certain percentage of their electricity from clean sources. Lots of states have those. They can strengthen those. Getting your governments to purchase vehicles that are clean. So fleets that cities use, buses investing in clean buses, investing in clean cop cars, for example, police cars. There are lots of ways that states can continue to push forward. It's not as strong as having the federal government lead. It's not as strong as having California have all that power it has under the Clean Air act, if the EPA allows it to exercise it. But there are lots of things that states can do they can subsidize. They can have their own tax incentives, for example, for electric vehicles. They can invest in charging infrastructure. Again, lots of things that can be done.
- [22:04]
Sami Roth
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said that if the federal government were to end the tax incentive for electric vehicles, that he wants the legislature in California to step in and create something to replace it here in California.
- [22:18]
Ann Carlson
Exactly. And there's nothing to prevent California from doing that. Another thing that states can do, and this is something they did during the first Trump administration, is indicate to the global community that there are a number of states that are still committed to strong climate policy. So California, for example, had a strong presence at the international climate talks even as the United States was backing out of them, and continued again to signal to the rest of the world, hey, there are a lot of people in the United States who care about climate change. We're enacting policies at the state level to try to continue to cut our emissions. And we're here on the global stage to demonstrate that.
- [22:56]
Sami Roth
Talking about California doing more and better, you mentioned, for instance, renewable portfolio standards basically requiring a certain amount of clean energy by a certain date. I mean, California's renewable energy Mandate has been 100% clean electricity by 2045, going back since 2018, since that was passed into law, even though there's a lot of science and advocacy sort of saying that 2035 is the ideal target date. I mean, do you think there's any chance of California strengthening that? I don't know. I guess a lot of the reporting I've been doing recently, it sort of seems like there's a hesitancy in California Democratic leadership to get too much tougher on climate.
- [23:37]
Ann Carlson
So one of the things that I think is important to focus on is how far we've come and how we aren't going back to dirty energy. We may get there slower because of the Trump administration, but it's really important to focus on the fact that almost all new energy sources these days are renewable. We're seeing huge uptake in electric vehicles. It is slower than some predicted, but again, there are 117 new models on the market. There's been a large investment in electric vehicle infrastructure. If you look globally, the same patterns are true. Big investments in renewable energy around the globe. Some electric vehicle markets are stronger than they are in the United States. China's introduction of cheap electric vehicles, I think, is going to upend the global auto market. We will try to keep those vehicles out of the United States for a while, I suspect, in order to bolster our own auto industry. But the progress we've made is extraordinary, and that's going to continue. I think pushing against that is that climate change is occurring already on the ground. We're seeing effects that are more dramatic than we anticipated. The models almost can't keep up with exactly what's going on in our climate. We're seeing record, of course, records being broken with average temperatures and so forth. So we've got sort of two trends, one very negative and one very positive. And whether the positive can turn the very negative trend around is something that is going to take several decades for us to see, but I don't think we're going to retreat. We may see slower ambition in the United States, but I think that's going to be offset by ambition from, again, China, Europe, potentially India. And in India and China, where emissions have not peaked yet or at the point where they're about to peak, that's where we really need to see emissions cuts that are dramatic because they're making up an increasing portion of overall emissions. Let me just say one other thing about innovation. This is a super controversial topic, but I think it's worth exploring, and that is, are there ways to capture carbon emissions and never let them go into the atmosphere in the first instance, or to mitigate the effects of climate change through various mechanisms that, say, seed the sky with chemicals, et cetera? Super controversial. I think we're still exploring whether those things are possible. But if we can see innovation, at least in carbon capture, not just from coal, but also in embedding carbon and things like cement, et cetera, we may again make real progress. And that's something where the Inflation Reduction act has a big role to play because there are a lot of incentives across industries, not just on electricity and automobiles, trying to get industrial emissions down. And one of the ways to do that may be actually to embed the emissions in, either underground or in the product itself, et cetera. So keeping that innovation going, to me, is the single most important thing we can do right now. And the Inflation Reduction act, again, is the biggest way to do that. So that's why I'm watching it so closely and why I have some optimism, optimism that it won't be undermined because it's congressional law and it can't be undercut by executive orders.
- [27:10]
Sami Roth
You talked at the beginning about how the United States could lose its technological edge to China. And now you're also saying that some of the innovations, like cheap electric vehicles coming out of China, could be a positive. The thing that I hear most frequently from people, from readers who are, especially those who are more skeptical about climate action about China and also India, is, well, what does it matter what the United States does? They're building so many coal plants. As you just said, emissions haven't peaked yet in some of these other major countries. Why are we working so hard to reduce emissions when they're growing emissions? I guess I'm just curious to maybe put those two things together. How should we think about China and India and global climate politics? Are they a force for good because of all of the solar and wind they're Building and other technological innovation. Are they a force for evil because they're still building coal plants? Should we be trying to dominate them in clean energy? Should we be embracing the clean energy they might be giving us? How do we even begin to think about those things? Not to just drop a bomb of a question on you.
- [28:13]
Ann Carlson
Yeah, that's such a hard question and a good one. I mean, I'll take technological innovation where we can find it. I think it's a shame for the United States to back out of the innovation game. It's one of the things I've never understood about the Trump administration is that there are jobs to be made, there's innovation to be gained, there's global leadership to be had in clean energy. And backing out of it has always struck me as counter to our national interests, our security interests, and so forth. And so I think it's really important that we stay in the game. But it's also the case that we are not the green leaders alone on the planet. And China is investing really, really heavily in green technology. It is also, as you say, continuing to rely on coal heavily and also to invest in coal in other parts of the country. And my hope is, although this is where global leadership matters, but it's also where innovation in the clean energy sector can displace dirty technologies when they get cheaper. And that's what we're starting to see with electric vehicles. When you've got $15,000 electric vehicles, you're undercutting internal combustion engine prices. Same thing is happening with solar energy. We might make those kinds of gains in geothermal energy. We're certainly seeing it in the wind sector. And so it's why I place so much focus on the need to innovate, and the need to innovate at scale in a way that brings costs down so that you don't have a choice between coal and solar. You're gonna go with solar because it's cheaper in addition to being significantly cleaner.
- [30:02]
Sami Roth
It sort of like sounds like you're saying that that's helpful because then you don't have to count on whoever the president is or what the federal policy is, because that's unreliable.
- [30:12]
Ann Carlson
Well, we have seen that we are not going to have steady and consistent leadership from the United States on climate policy as long as the Republican Party does not embrace the need to do something about climate change and the urgency that we face as a planet to do something, and so we to look to other places.
- [30:32]
Sami Roth
Trump put out this National Energy Emergency Executive Order, which I don't think there's any precedent for anything like this. And he says there's this national emergency. We don't have enough energy. Energy prices are too high. I don't fully understand it, to be honest. But it's interesting. It defines energy as I'm looking at it right now. Energy means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat. Various other wonky words here. But anyway, geothermal heat is in there, which in theory could refer to a renewable resource. But energy is not defined to mean solar or wind. Do you have any sense of what this emergency energy emergency declaration could mean in practice?
- [31:19]
Ann Carlson
My sense is that this executive order is mostly symbolic. It's odd symbolism at a time when gas prices are actually at close to record lows and the United States is energy independent. In other words, we export more oil than we import. It's also odd to say that solar energy isn't energy, that wind energy isn't energy, particularly given what a large percentage both of those are making up in new energy resources. I don't think it gives them significant power. The last time around he did this with respect to the border and tried to shift some funds to help build the wal Mexico and the United States. It may give him some expansive powers, but this has not been tested. It's not clear what a court would think about this. It's not clear whether a court would defer to the President's judgment about why or whether something is an emergency. Hard to see why there's an emergency being called here, but I suspect that it is more symbolic than substantive.
- [32:29]
Sami Roth
Last thing, if you're a regular person listening to this podcast or following the news about climate, energy, the environment, and you're bothered by what's going on at the federal level and want to do something about it over the next four years, or just want to be involved in some way or want to help make progress, what would be your advice?
- [32:50]
Ann Carlson
Advocate for climate policies at the local and state level. The single biggest thing we can do is pass laws and regulations to attack climate change. Take personal steps yourself. You can invest in a vehicle that is either low or zero emitting. You can use less water. In Southern California in particular, we use a lot of energy. Getting water over the Tehachapis, for example. So you can take some personal steps. But we need government to act. We need government to lead. The federal government is not the only game in town. And let Congress know that you care. If you have a member of Congress who's particularly in a swing District. Let them know how important the Inflation Reduction act is. Let them know that you care about climate change. Climate change was barely discussed in the election. I found that baffling, given the existential threat that it faces. We need to make our politicians understand that we care about the climate and we want action and leadership on it. They do listen to voters, but we need to be screaming loudly about why it's so important.
- [34:01]
Sami Roth
Ann Carlson, thank you very much for being with us on the Boiling Point podcast.
- [34:05]
Ann Carlson
Sure. It was great to be here.
- [34:14]
Sami Roth
Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflett. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shifflett. Elijah Wolfson is our editor. Denise Callahan is our studio manager. Ben Church is our Production manager. Nick Norton is our engineer. Special thanks to LA Times Studio President Anna Magzanian, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argentieri and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Boiling Point is executive produced by Darius Derekshon and created by me, Sami.