Senator Lena Gonzalez (4:41)

Right. Well, there's been a. Everybody hear me?

Neda Wolf Culver (4:44)

Okay.

Senator Lena Gonzalez (4:44)

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Yes, there's been a few different actions we've taken preemptively to be able to prepare for the January 20th inauguration. So just last year we held a special session that carried into this year, but essentially provided $50 million to the attorney General Bonta to be able to fight against these types of actions. Sixteen lawsuits have been filed so far as of yesterday. And I think, you know, a number of those are climate related actions were stated, still suing the largest oil companies right now for their misinformation and just taking that climate action from the attorney General's office. But I think in terms of policies, there's a few policies moving right now through the legislature, mostly on energy affordability, clean energy affordability, but we also have a polluter pays piece of legislation running through both houses in the assembly and in the Senate. It's very focused. It's very tailored. We're also not just looking at new policies, but what can we do to provide oversight on the policies existing that we know are going to slowly get peeled away, to kind of build off of what was mentioned before in terms of the federal government sort of attacks, too. And, you know, we saw it very loud here on January 7th when Palisades and the fire began. We noticed that the FEMA dollars that we thought we were going to get were not going to come. And he's dangling that all over our head now. So it's really like a little chess game with California to decide what do we do next. To not provoke, but to do something that is meeting the moment. So it's really tough overall.

Hallie (6:34)

Yeah, no, and there are several things you said that I want to circle back to, including that Polluter's Pay law that you mentioned that you're working on, the sort of climate Superfund bill. But, Emily, let me bring you in here. I mentioned before you work with this group, Science Moms. I'm hoping you can explain a little bit about what that is and how that got started and the approach you guys are taking to try to make the climate crisis feel more personal and get more people to pay attention. Because I think that something that a lot of journalists are feeling right now, just as a climate journalist and for hearing from a lot of folks in this room, is that it's just there's so much happening, I mean, just for the public at large, there's just so much stuff happening in the news. It's hard to know what to pay attention to. Even as climate journalists, it's hard to pay attention to everything because there's so much going on or just kind of everyone is overwhelmed by everything all the time. So talk a little bit about Science Moms and what you guys are doing to try to get people to stay focused and sort of why that might be relevant for folks here in this room.

Emily Fisher (7:40)

That's a big question. Let's start with Science Moms. Science Moms is a group of climate scientists. We all work on various aspects. For example, I'm an atmospheric chemist. I study wildfires and the smoke and how it impacts people. We're working to demystify climate science and climate change and help people connect to scientists and connect to the science. So we started in 2020, remember the dark times. And at that time, there was some new research showing that moms in particular were very worried about climate change, but were not comfortable talking about it. And so that was the first thing that we aimed to address to sort of build connections and help people feel confident in having enough information to talk about it. What I would say now is there's a few lessons from science moms that I think could be helpful. Regardless of what's happened over the last 95 days, the science is the same and it's a scary time to be a scientist, but the science is the same. Climate change is happening, CO2 is building up in the atmosphere. There will be more intense wildfires, there will be more heat waves. And that reality on the ground is not going to change regardless of the efforts to dismantle the scientific community. I think pointing to that the human part of this is very important. One other thing, as I touch on these natural disasters, what we know is that people are not connecting the natural disasters to climate change. And when there's an opportunity, a very sad opportunity after these natural disasters for journalists to make that connection. For example, after a natural disaster, the information on climate change is twice as likely to be received without a backlash. It's very important that we as teachers, which I view you all as that, that we take that moment and we say we experienced this, we can learn from this. This is the lesson to be taken. Let's move forward. And that's one of the messages I want to share with you from science moms is if you can help with that.

Hallie (10:11)

I think it's especially valuable in the wake of, I mean, we had the fires in Los Angeles and I read coverage of that voraciously obviously, and have contributed to it, but so much of it doesn't mention climate change at all. And I think that, I mean, for some non environmental journalists, there's sort of a fear of it seeming politicized. And I mean, I think that's sort of the lesson you're saying is, no, this is when you talk about it.

Emily Fisher (10:32)

This is when you talk about it. And it's very important to make that connection. And it's been interesting with the California when I ran from a wildfire in 2020 in Colorado with my kids backpacking. And so at that time it was very hard for me to speak about it. I think now I can help be the communicator for the people in California, for the people at JPL and people who experienced it so closely. But yes, I agree that is the time and it's, it feels awkward right in this suffering, but just look straight at it and call it what it is.

Hallie (11:04)

We'll be back after a quick break. Neda, just to go back to you here on the topic of things getting so politicized and just getting really difficult to talk about at times. The first time around with Trump, it was just pro fossil fuels all the time. But with renewable energy, it seemed like they were perfectly willing to go along and be OK with solar and wind and batteries. And on public lands, they sort of just went ahead and the western states kept on and approving all of that stuff. It was all energy seemed to be good. At least it seems like this time they're pretty actively hostile to renewables. I'm curious what you make of all that, because one of the big things you worked on was permitting for renewable energy on public lands. You worked on sort of balancing out these conflicts between renewable energy and conservation, which is a big issue in Western states, I guess I'm curious one your thoughts on how that's being handled this time around by the Trump administration. And I guess what your advice would be for journalists who are covering this battle that's happening everywhere between renewable energy, development and conservation on public lands now under this new environment where there's active hostility from the Trump administration, from the federal government, which wasn't the case before, which is a sort of a new really difficult twist to deal with.

Neda Wolf Culver (12:28)

Yeah, I think it does change the story somewhat because there was a lot of, I think, appetite to cover what we would call a little bit of the green on green of is there ever going to be a solar plant that somebody doesn't have a problem with?

Hallie (12:47)

If there is, I haven't seen one.

Neda Wolf Culver (12:50)

I might not have either. And that's true because they're large and there's always something. And the same with transmission. And that's been a very interesting topic. Right. Because there's always somebody and there's always conflict. But now we're really kind of at a major different inflection point of if we start to take all renewable energy off the table, it really does affect our ability to have an energy transition. And I don't know that you can successfully. I actually am pretty clear that you can't resurrect the coal industry. You know, there's been repeated efforts to do that. And even in the last administration, you know, having seen what coal companies were paying under their leases, they still weren't continuing on. You know, there were already so many breaks that they were given. It's just not there. So I think what will be interesting, Sami, is you can try to kind of lift up these other industries, but they're not going to replace renewable energy. So at some point as you're already seeing, I think that permitting continues.

Hallie (14:03)

You know, Ann, I'd bring you in here since we're talking about coal now. You work on the coal strip plant in Montana, the biggest, or not the biggest, but maybe the most polluting coal plant in the country by some metrics. Is that based on particulates or.

Unknown Host (14:16)

It's based on toxic air pollutants, which is measured through particulates.

Hallie (14:19)

Okay, so most polluting coal plant. And they were sort of the poster child for this policy that just came out last month where the EPA set up this email address where they said email us for an exemption under the Clean Air act and you can get exempted from mercury and benzene. And you know, this was this exemption that was written into the Clean Air act for national security reasons. So it's like, you know, pretty fictitious that they're now using it for. Just, you know, give any coal plant who sends an email an exemption from these air pollution regulations. So I guess what I want to ask you is like, you know, what's your advice for journalists who are writing stories about these moves by the administration that if you ask basically any legal expert, they're going to tell you like yeah, this is like definitely illegal or in some cases unconstitutional probably. Like what's your advice for reporters who are writing about this stuff?

Unknown Host (15:13)

I think so much of what's going on right now is a stall tactic. It's headline grabbing, it's trying to make red states happy. But it's a stall tactic because ultimately it's about economics. Which is your point really, which is these guys just simply can't compete. They need this boost to try to compete in a marketplace. But it's not going to, it's not durable. So what we're seeing in the coal industry and Montana is we're going to see more coal being dug out of the ground because of this. It is going to make the climate crisis worse. It is going to increase toxic air pollution. But I believe it's short lived and I think our legislature is a great microcosm for that. So everybody's pro coal in our legislature except a few Democrats. They can't save the coal industry either ultimately. And one of the smartest things that's happened in our state I think is all the clean energy industry companies have hired Republican lobbyists and they have defended against terrible win siding bills. We had a whole slew of wind sighting bills of session that all failed. We had tremendous success on transmission. And so when you have, especially if we can get a west wide Market really up and running beyond just the energy imbalance market, you are going to have a competition for the lowest cost resources, and that's not coal and it's probably not even gas. It's going to eventually be, and in many ways it's already here. It's going to be renewables and some storage. You can create competition in the marketplace and states like ours will ultimately participate in that. They don't want to hear about climate. You talk about climate and you are Persona non grata and your bill will die. But if you talk about transmission, if you talk about the need for new energy generation resources, then you can talk to anybody in our state legislature and find a willing listener and somebody who agrees with you.

Hallie (17:25)

Just quickly. Nada. You know, just having, having worked so much on renewable energy across the West, I mean, do you, do you agree with Ann here? I mean, do you think there's a way forward to, you know, get a lot of renewable? I mean, I guess I just am curious what you think. Is the Trump administration going to be able to like, throw the roadblocks on, throw the brakes on renewable energy, or is this train leaving the station no matter what? I mean, we have a lot of journalists in this room who are writing about renewables and writing about the transition away from fossil fuels. Is that still going on or is Trump going to be able to really stop that? What do you think?

Neda Wolf Culver (17:59)

I agree with Anne. I think it's moving and I think it's continuing. And I think there are states that are relying on it. There are farmers across the west who are leasing their land for wind. There are transmission lines that are built to support renewable energy. And I think that's going to continue. And what happens on federal land, we're going to see. But again, a lot of these companies have already started building these projects. The BLM has been issuing notices to proceed. Construction is moving. So I think there will be a lot of rhetoric. There'll be some things that are delayed and then it's going to start to shift again. And I hope.

Hallie (18:38)

But if it's delayed, that's still pretty unfortunate from a climate science perspective, right? I mean, that's something that we shouldn't lose track of in our reporting, I would think.

Neda Wolf Culver (18:46)

I think to Anne's point, there will be an impact, right? There will be an impact. There will be an effort to get coal up and running. There will be support for more oil and gas, and there will be delays to some of the renewables projects. Yeah, I think something stops the advance.

Hallie (18:59)

Yeah. I mean, to My mind, something that gets lost in a lot of, a lot of reporting, unfortunately, is that it's either like, well, renewables are going to keep going no matter what, so it doesn't matter. But. But it does matter. It does matter.

Neda Wolf Culver (19:10)

It does matter.

Emily Fisher (19:10)

Yeah, the rate matters.

Hallie (19:12)

Yeah, I mean, please, I mean, speak to that if you can.

Emily Fisher (19:14)

Yeah, no, I think we can't really afford to lose four years of progress.

Neda Wolf Culver (19:18)

Agreed.

Emily Fisher (19:19)

And so that is a clear message.

Unknown Host (19:21)

Right.

Emily Fisher (19:21)

And so the rate at which this transition occurs is really important.

Hallie (19:25)

Senator Gonzalez, we were just chatting beforehand about there was a new study out of Dartmouth College that just came out, one of many studies quantifying the climate damages, or assigning, I should say climate damages to the biggest companies in the world. And this one that calculated that the 111 biggest companies in the world, or 111 of the biggest companies, it assigned them $28 trillion in climate damage just from heat, of which I think more than half of that $28 trillion could be assigned to just 10 fossil fuel companies, which is pretty startling. And you guys have all seen there have been a bunch of studies like this. This was just the latest one. And I'm bringing that up because you're a co author of a bill in the California legislature this year, the Polluters Pay, which would act like a climate super fund. So I guess I'm curious if you could talk about your experience trying to get fossil fuel accountability legislation through Sacramento, because I think for a lot of folks outside of California, they think, oh, it's California, they can do anything on climate, when in reality it's not quite so simple.

Senator Lena Gonzalez (20:36)

As a legislator in California, you think it's easy because we're in California. But one of the largest lobbying arms is our fossil fuel industry. Tagged onto that is the worker element, is the trades, the building trades that double down on these bills and do major opposition on these. And I'm the daughter of a building trades person, I'm the daughter of a truck driver, teamster, but I also live in one of the most polluted neighborhoods in all of Los Angeles, which is in my district, it's Long beach, which is a major oil drilling community for the last 100 years. Again, to move back to the fossil fuel industry. They spent on this bill, SB 1137.

Hallie (21:19)

The setback bill.

Senator Lena Gonzalez (21:20)

Yeah, the setbacks bill, which provides a 3200 foot setback health protection zone is what we call it, from neighborhoods and oil drilling. And they spent over $40 million on that bill alone. Attacks on me personally, attacks on the co Authors attacks on the bill. I mean it was haunting. It still haunts me to this day that you were that author that did that. So it's grueling, it's difficult. And then the divestment bill which I presented almost three years ago had two different iterations of this. It basically said we needed to ensure that the 10 to 15 billion dollars that Calpers and CalSTRS was investing in fossil fuels, some of the largest companies, obviously not just homegrown companies like Chevron and Exxon, but Saudi Arabia, Aramco that we needed to make sure that we were divesting and there was a phased off approach over a seven year time horizon that I mean saw complete. I mean everyone was just, you know, the sky was falling in California over that bill.

Hallie (22:28)

Yeah, CalSTRS and CalSTRS the. Was it the state pension fund for state employees and calstrs the teacher's son. What was their argument for why they didn't want to divest?

Senator Lena Gonzalez (22:36)

They did not. And they ran a full on campaign. They actually hired lobbyists, new lobbyists and a communications folks against this bill. It was madness. But their argument was that they already engaged, they have a whole engagement process. And I said what do you, who are you engaging in? There's nothing moving the needle here. And so they have stuck by the fact that they are already leaning towards clean investments and don't touch our. We have a fiduciary responsibility to be able to figure it out on our own. And that's absolutely all well and true, but the reality is that if we had divested 10 years ago, we know what the returns would be for beneficiaries and it would have been good, it would be good. But here we are stuck in this space and the average CalPERS pension beneficiary is a state employee getting $2,500. So these are folks that really care about their pensions but are not getting the full story as it pertains to where their money is actually going. So it's ongoing conversations and we'll continue to renew them.

Hallie (23:46)

One of the things I find interesting about that kind of bill or perhaps the Polluters pay model is that it not necessarily that it's immune from interference by the Trump administration because I forget if it was Nader Ann earlier who said, maybe both of them who said, who knows what happens with the courts because judges seem to be sometimes a wild card these days. But unlike stuff like the clean vehicle rules that the Trump administration and Congress are trying to overdo, if you can do stuff at the state level with state investments or with state law that seems relatively safer than stuff that's requiring federal approval or federal funding.

Senator Lena Gonzalez (24:22)

Right. And we're going to continue to do those bills and we're going to continue to push on all of our clean vehicle policies and also provide the incentives to get us through that transition has been mentioned. Like we cannot. What we've talked about is protecting our progress in California and also doing this multi state alignment when it comes to energy, when it comes to clean vehicles, because we need to do that now. It's a different, a different moment.

Hallie (24:48)

We'll be back after a quick break. One other question. You talked about all of the intense air pollution in your district. How are you thinking about just organizing and building support for climate action in terms of the overlap between climate and environmental justice when there have just been such intense attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion and environmental justice being part of that? You know, just like what's your thought process on how to bring those things together? And you know, knowing that there's so much animosity among a lot of the country and the federal government towards anything that smacks of diversity right now.

Unknown Host (25:26)

Yeah.

Senator Lena Gonzalez (25:27)

What I'm seeing and what I've seen even before the Trump administration is, you know, I do a lot of environmental justice bills. I do a lot of the climate bills too, but I always segment them because you've got the large climate bills. But the environmental justice bills is really, it really speaks to my district, just given the ethnic makeup. A lot of Latino communities, many monolingual Spanish speakers living near oil wells. I have one family that actually out of their window, they can touch an oil pump, Jack. They can touch it and they have 10 year olds that live in that community or in that household. It's real for these communities. What I always say is sometimes we need, you know, in terms of the lobbying with climate folks, sometimes the larger climate groups like the enviro voters of the world that have the bully pulpit, they have the money really take a step back and allow the environmental justice folks to really push and be front and center. And that's been really helpful and really, really great and creating this really strong alignment between them to be able to get bills passed like SB 1137. That was the environmental justice community with the support of major climate funders to be able to really get that done. In fact, when the fossil fuel industry was trying to overturn the bill about a year and a half ago, the groups got together and they now are sitting on $20 million because we were going to have to defend that overturn. So they're sitting on $20 million. But now we're ready to fight. And this needs to be, in some cases, with environmental justice faces and groups front and center.

Hallie (27:06)

And I know you mentioned earlier Held v. State of Montana, which was the youth climate lawsuit, since we're talking about fossil fuel industry accountability here, I think everyone here is familiar. There have been all of these lawsuits that states and local governments have filed against the fossil fuel industry and youth climate lawsuits that have been filed against government. And the one in Montana, which you were a witness in, was, I think, the only successful one thus far, where the kids won and the judge ruled in favor of them against the state, I guess I'm curious if you could talk about how it was that they managed to win in Montana and what the impact of that was, Because I'm really interested in sort of what is or is not the value of the potential, I guess, of legal action as a tool for fossil fuel industry accountability and how journalists might think about covering these lawsuits, because sometimes they seem a little bit pie in the sky. But this was one that actually worked out.

Unknown Host (28:07)

The youth climate lawsuit was just this big boost to everybody's morale in our state. They were victorious because it was based on the state constitution. Montana rewrote its constitution, state constitution in 1972 and gave Montanans the right to a clean and healthful environment because we had faced decades of the copper color, the copper industry just running amok. And so they wrote the constitution in a way that would try to protect people from that ever happening again. And we, as an organization, have been trying to get climate change to be considered a part of our right to a clean and healthful environment for decades. So. And we've done that always through the court. And so I got to be an expert in that case. And it was super exciting. It was wonderful. And it was based upon the State Environmental Policy Act. Since that time, you know, here's the high. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The legislature has just gutted the Montana Environmental Policy Act. All those bills are now sitting on the governor's desk. And we think that most of those laws that they are passing are going to also violate the right to a clean and helpful environment. But it's a stall tactic. These guys, as long as we have to go back to court and we have to reestablish that same ground that we won in December on the youth climate case, then they get to do what they want while we are stuck in court trying to reinvigorate our Constitutional rights. And we will do it, because what else do you do? This is the moment in time when we have to push as hard as we can as every place, everywhere, everywhere, all at once. Everything all at once.

Hallie (29:45)

That movie title is useful for a lot of things these days. I find myself using it all the time.

Unknown Host (29:49)

Yeah, it's accurate, but, you know, the youth climate case, it was great. It was heartening. It gave everybody a shot in the arm thinking that they could make a difference. The legislature tried to undo it, but that's not the end of the story. But it won in Montana because of our Constitution, what we base most of.

Hallie (30:07)

Our litigation on, and nada. One more hopeful note here before we turn over to audience questions. And again, please feel free to line up at the microphones because we're going to switch over and take questions from everyone here. Having worked in the federal government, I'm curious, you mentioned transmission. I think is one area where maybe things can keep moving forward under the Trump administration, needing to build more power lines and that they're not totally against that, I guess. I'm curious, do you see there being avenues for state and local governments, and I know we're talking about the west here, but state and local governments writ large. Do you see there being avenues for folks who care about climate at a local level to work with the Trump administration? Even if you can't say the word climate because that'll get you thrown out on the street at this point? Are there ways to do it? Is that something that people should even be thinking about? Is that the wrong way to go about it? Or are there places where there might be ways to collaborate without contributing to the overthrow of democracy?

Neda Wolf Culver (31:10)

Yes, I do think so. I think there's been very often, just as long as I've been working on public lands, the word climate has come and gone, and the BLM in particular, even when climate's been back. I mean, I remember revealing age here, but when President Obama first came in the BLM at a whole conference and they were like, we get to say climate. And I don't know that things change that much in the next couple of years, I remember a lot of people reporting on failure to do exciting things about climate. So using the word is not always the big difference, but the action that happens, the reporting, the lawsuits, the advocacy, is what makes the change on the ground. And in the case of this administration, there are still certain opportunities. Transmission's a good example. They really love geothermal. It involves drilling. Perhaps that's one reason it is renewable energy. They really like geothermal. And there was released early drafts of a strategy for the Department of the Interior. It includes restoration, includes water conservation, it includes recreation. It includes supporting gateway communities. Gateway communities are gateways to conservation areas, to national monuments and national parks and wilderness areas. Those things have to exist for gateway communities to succeed. So I do think these are the places that, if you think about renewable energy and then the other side of the climate coin, the resilience, these are the places that you can work with the federal government if you're not thinking or if you're not explicitly talking about it as climate. So California is a good example. The policies in California might be couched for them as 30 by 30, but for the point of how the federal government is counting it, maybe we're talking about the city of Taft and how much they love the Carrizo Plain National Monument. And it's got an oil history, but it's got a conservation mission as well.

Hallie (33:16)

Right. Although you just have to be willing to do all the environmental impact statements in 14 to 28 days based on that new policy announced yesterday.

Neda Wolf Culver (33:23)

We can do it. But yes, well, it's very urgent, so maybe that will help us urgently get good things approved.

Hallie (33:30)

I'm going to close this up here by asking Emily, one last thing, and I'm sorry for putting you on the spot. Real quickly, what is one thing that every journalist, environmental journalist should, or any journalist should have in their minds when writing about climate in 2025? If you had one piece of advice.

Emily Fisher (33:45)

The human impact, human impact wheezing child, something like that. The human impact reality on the ground and following up on natural disasters and showing them as a pattern.

Hallie (33:59)

Thank you for this excellent panel. Really, really appreciate your being here and your thoughtful answers. Thanks, everybody. One more thing.

Sammy Roth (34:17)

Remember that climate super fundamental bill in California that Senator Gonzalez is working on? The one where polluting companies would be required to pay for some of the damages from climate change? The bill managed to make it through one committee each in the California Senate and the California assembly, but there's been some opposition and recently the bill has been stalling. This week, one of the other authors in the assembly pulled the bill from a committee hearing and said she'd bring it back during state budget negotiations and try to get some momentum there instead.

Hallie (34:47)

We'll see if that works any better.

Sammy Roth (34:56)

Thank you for listening to Boiling Point. I'm your host, Sammy Roth. My producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflet. Sound design and original music by Jonathan Shiflett. 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.