President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday ushered in a new era of climate regulation, effectively rescinding a 16-year-old foundation for federal policies to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide.

The White House says the move will unshackle a needlessly regulated energy sector, though many climate scientists see the step as undercutting action on an urgent priority for the United States and the world.

Since 2009, what’s known as an “endangerment finding” by the EPA has classified greenhouse gases (GHGs) as a threat to public health. In turn, that designation has served as a legal basis for emissions regulations. In undoing it, Trump administration officials argue the endangerment finding stood on shaky legal ground.

Why We Wrote This

President Donald Trump and his team held a “Clean, Beautiful Coal” event this week and are rescinding a rule that enables the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. But the moves come as renewable energy sources including solar are increasingly in demand.

Opponents of Thursday’s action will appeal, and courts will ultimately play a key role in deciding. Both sides agree the stakes are high.

“It has the broadest impact on EPA’s legal authority, this agency that literally has one job, to protect human health and the environment,” says Meredith Hankins, the federal climate legal director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental advocacy group. “They are just walking away from that responsibility.”

Mr. Zeldin, in announcing the reversal, said “The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning common sense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American dream.” 

Unless blocked in court, the move represents the most aggressive rejection of climate change policies by the Trump administration thus far. It also comes as renewable energy sources are increasingly competitive in price – and popular even among Trump voters – compared with coal and other fossil-fuel energy sources.

Recent polls show strong Republican support (61% in a Pew Research Center survey) for solar energy farms, alongside other energy sources, amid concerns about high electricity costs. The economy has been continuing to move away from fossil fuels, with GHG’s declining by about 1% a year since 2007, according to the Rhodium Group. The Trump policy changes, while not erasing that trend, may slow it considerably.

The administration sees the rollback as a boost to the economy, saying the endangerment finding is “unnecessarily expensive.” Cars are one key sector that will be affected, because the finding served as the legal foundation for regulating vehicle greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The decision, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a news briefing this week, will save the American people $1.3 trillion in “crushing regulations.” She also said the savings would include reduced costs for new vehicles of around $2,400 for “popular light duty cars, SUVs, and trucks.”

The endangerment finding is also the foundation for regulating coal and gas power plants and the methane levels produced by both the oil and gas industries.

Thursday’s rollback comes a day after President Trump, Mr. Zeldin, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum met at the White House, where Mr. Trump hosted a “Clean Beautiful Coal” event, casting the coal industry as pivotal to U.S. energy production going forward.

Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing the Defense Department to prioritize long-term, on-demand power purchases with coal-based power plants for future military installations.

Efforts that unraveled the endangerment finding

Last July, the Heritage Foundation released a policymaker memo titled “Reversing the EPA’s Endangerment Findings on Greenhouse Gases.” Authors Kevin Dayaratna and Diana Furchtgott-Roth argued that it is inconclusive whether GHGs harm human health.

“The critical question is whether [carbon dioxide], a component of the ambient air, which is crucial for life on Earth, can be considered ‘air pollution,’” the report’s analysis reads. “The answer is ‘No.’ The Clean Air Act was not designed for the regulation of such essential components of the air that humans and animals breathe.”

The backing for the Trump administration’s argument supporting the reversal of the endangerment finding comes from an Energy Department report, “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate,” which has been used to justify diminishing the credibility of the rules precedent.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is occurring, is the result of human activity, and poses severe risks for ecosystems and the human economy. The Trump administration’s report reflects the conclusions drawn last summer by a working group of scientists outside that consensus, formed by Energy Secretary Wright. Group members John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick, and Roy Spencer held closed-door meetings to produce their sweeping report.

The EPA’s rationale for striking down the endangerment finding is based on the report’s suggestion that GHG regulations have minimal climate impact.

“The report was harshly criticized by many scientists, including the National Academy of Sciences, which put together a very detailed report that basically showed the Department of Energy report was completely wrong,” says Michael Gerrard, an environmental law professor at Columbia University.

On Jan. 30, U.S. District Judge William G. Young of Massachusetts ruled that the panel’s meeting was illegally convened, violating the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act’s transparency requirements. The panel violated the act, the judge ruled, by not opening its meetings to the public.

Judge Young, first appointed in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan, declared: “These violations are now established as a matter of law.”

What’s next for climate regulation?

The rescission of the endangered finding is expected to wipe clean most U.S. policies geared toward reducing emissions, starting with emissions standards for trucks and cars.

States, environmental groups, and industry stakeholders are expected to appeal in court against the administration’s move. The pathway for challenging the repeal starts with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and could make its way to the Supreme Court – a process that could take years.

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The EPA’s endangerment finding had its legal roots in a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA. The court has become more conservative in the intervening years, setting up a potential swing against the tenor of its prior ruling, Professor Gerrard says.

If the issue reaches the Supreme Court, oral arguments might be influenced by the 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which established that, under what legal scholars call the “major questions doctrine,” the EPA’s authority to control emissions is limited. The ruling holds Congress, not agencies, responsible for making major policy decisions. Professor Gerrard says that if the case is won on those grounds, it could hinder a future president from reversing the current administration’s action – unless Congress provides that authority.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 8 last year, Marisol Espino lost the home she shared in Altadena with her father, child, sister, and sister’s children to the Los Angeles wildfires. Since then, she moved at least 10 times before finding an apartment where she could stay for a little while. Now she spends hours each day getting her son to and from school. Her old neighbors, she says, remain close, even if they are scattered.

But “we kind of still feel stuck,” she says. “A lot of us can’t even believe it’s been a year because a lot of us feel like we haven’t made progress.”

Her sentiment is shared in Pacific Palisades, another Los Angeles community that was devastated. “There’s a little frustration that [recovery is] not faster, but there’s also recognition from previous nearby experiences that this takes five years or more,” says Patrick Healy, a retired LA newscaster turned Palisades historian.

Why We Wrote This

Wildfires devastated LA-area communities about a year ago. There are some signs of recovery, but many residents remain uncertain about whether, or when, they will be able to rebuild their homes.

With property and other financial losses estimated between $95 billion and $164 billion, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires are the most costly disaster in the LA area’s history. Beginning Jan. 7 and burning for more than three weeks, the fires killed 31 people, destroyed 13,000 homes mainly in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, and left thousands more uninhabitable. An October report showed about 80% of Altadena residents and 90% of Pacific Palisades residents were not living in their homes.

Gallagher Re, map data from OpenStreetMap

The fires came amid an insurance crisis, with carriers pulling out of high-risk areas over the last few years and forcing many homeowners onto a state-run plan that was more expensive for less comprehensive coverage. The statewide gap in private insurance coverage for single-family homes is estimated at up to $1.3 trillion. In many cases, residents’ decisions to rebuild may be determined by whether they had insurance, and if their coverage pays enough for them to stay in one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets.

Both Altadena and Pacific Palisades have deep roots and homeowners who have lived there for decades – many of whom could not afford to buy into their neighborhoods at today’s rates. Survivors also understand that some of their neighbors may not be interested in a years-long rebuild, and that selling an empty lot could bring a substantial windfall.

Still, some optimism is spreading in each community as businesses begin to reopen and some building gets underway.

“Every day I go and I see a new house going up,” says Veronica Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society. “In that state of recovery, there’s a feeling of hope … It’ll be not the same, of course, but we will be Altadena.”

Historic change

Residents in Pacific Palisades and Altadena are frustrated by a lack of clarity regarding who qualifies for financial assistance, what resources are available to homeowners and renters, and by the malaise of loss and displacement.

“This is by far the single most significant event in the century since the [Pacific Palisades] was founded,” says Mr. Healy, secretary of the neighborhood’s historical society.

The fire destroyed every essential community element: homes, schools, most businesses and churches “just disappeared,” he says.

Gallagher Re, map data from OpenStreetMap

In both areas, residents have expressed concern that building back might erase the neighborhoods’ distinct characters. If too many properties go to developers, they argue, the focus will be on profit, not spirit.

“I’m all about things getting better and looking better and being better for the community,” says Ms. Espino. “I don’t want it to be better and not affordable for us who were there before, and we just permanently get displaced and essentially shoved out of our community that was ours.”

Ocean Development and Black Lion Properties – two developers active in the recovery – did not respond to requests for interviews.

“A lot of human stuff”

A survey by the Department of Angels – created by the California Community Foundation and Snap founder Evan Spiegel to help residents affected by the fires – shows just over one-third of survivors said they would rebuild no matter what. Two-thirds of people whose homes were a total loss said out-of-pocket costs are an obstacle, and about one in five plan to sell their lot and move on.

A handful are back in rebuilt homes. Many are still trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between temporary housing and the years it may take to piece together funding, find a contractor, and complete construction. At the same time, they are managing jobs, families, school, and the trauma of disaster.

“It’s not just a real estate project,” says Bea Hsu, president and CEO of the nonprofit Builders Alliance. “There’s a lot of human stuff going on here that is very real.”

Builders Alliance is connecting fire-impacted homeowners with homebuilders. An online portal allows owners to search an address and find turnkey designs in a range of prices that fit the parcel.

“Their eyes really open. I think there were a number of people who, through the course of the year, had come to believe that they could not afford to rebuild. And maybe this is helping people think about it again,” she adds.

Shumin Zhen isn’t there yet – she wants to rebuild the condo she lost in Altadena, even though she has no idea what it will cost or how she’ll get the money to do it. She and her husband found temporary housing nearby in a Pasadena apartment complex for seniors.

Ms. Zhen’s story underscores the difficulties of recovery. She has tried to use publicized resources, like mortgage assistance, but was turned down. Her insurance policy for additional living expenses expires in January, so she’ll have to pay rent on top of her mortgage.

State of California, California Department of Insurance, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

The median loss for survivors – those who lost their homes and those whose homes were damaged – is $200,000. Net losses for more than half of them exceed their annual income.

Many lawsuits have been filed over both fires. In the Palisades and Malibu, homeowners are suing state and city agencies, claiming a mismanaged response made damages worse. Ms. Zhen is among those who are suing Southern California Edison, forgoing settlements offered by the utility company, which acknowledges its equipment may have started the Eaton fire. The offer, says Ms. Zhen, would be a “huge loss” for her.

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Meanwhile, she says, she is changed by the fires.

“Life is not about stuff,” she says. “Life is about happiness and health.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to reduce the number of lakes, streams, wetlands, tributaries, and other waterways covered by the Clean Water Act, which regulates the amount and type of pollutants allowed in bodies of water. By some estimates, as much as 55 million acres of wetlands will no longer be subject to the law.

Advocates for greater protections say broader regulations are necessary to protect public health – especially safe drinking water – and the environment. But people working in agriculture, construction, and other businesses say the regulations are burdensome and represent government overreach.

The EPA’s proposal to scale back the rule known as “Waters of the United States” is the latest of several changes reflecting the priorities of different administrations. President Joe Biden expanded the rule to include any body of water that has a significant impact on traditional navigable waterways. But a court challenge led to a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Sackett v. EPA, which struck down that change. Sackett also determined that only permanent waterways qualified for federal jurisdiction and limited the types of wetlands that qualify.

Why We Wrote This

The EPA plans to reduce the scope of an old federal law that regulates waterway pollutants. The agency’s proposal reveals how far-reaching the rules are and how they affect multiple stakeholders.

The EPA says its proposed change aligns the rule with the Sackett decision. It defines waterways subject to the rule as “relatively permanent,” and requires a “continuous surface connection” to traditional waterways. The new definition affects wetlands in particular. It’s now in a public comment period before being finalized.

There’s a wide range of interests in the rule. Associations including those representing homebuilders, the petroleum industry, and forest owners, plus the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed amicus briefs in the Sackett case arguing for reduced federal authority; support for broader protections came from environmental and conservation groups, a coalition of Indian tribes, and others.

The Monitor spoke with three people from industries impacted by the EPA proposal. The interviews are edited for clarity and length.

Stacy Woods, a research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who studies waterways:

[The proposal says] wetlands will have to be connected to a water body, like a river, that already falls under the Clean Water Act on the surface. And this definition completely ignores how water moves in ways we can’t always see from the surface, like through soil or underground connections.

The proposed changes don’t just focus on what waters we can see from the surface; they also limit clean water protections to what they’re calling relatively permanent waters. So, [permanent waters] are those that flow year-round, or at least during the wet season. But we know that water bodies like ephemeral or intermittent streams can create connections between other water bodies, and those temporary water features, along with that groundwater, really facilitate a water-to-water pathway that ultimately leads to our drinking water. While these proposed changes might sound like they are only targeting certain wetlands, temporary streams, and some ditches, the reality is that it puts all of our water at risk, including our drinking water.

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that wetlands in the U.S. provide $7 trillion in benefits each year. So, that’s to fishing, recreation, water quality, and flood control. [Our research estimates] that the 30 million acres of wetlands in the Upper Midwest alone provide nearly $23 billion in residential flood mitigation benefits each year.

Healthy wetlands can capture and store carbon where it would otherwise contribute to a warming planet. The current estimates are that wetlands track and store more than 30% of soil storage carbon on Earth. But when wetlands are damaged or destroyed, such as what we expect to happen when these protections are lessened, they can release that stored carbon as methane, carbon dioxide, or other heat-trapping gases that can accelerate climate change.

Roger Isom, president and chief executive of the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association and the Western Tree Nut Association:

We do a lot of what we call tidal drainage. So, we’ll irrigate one field. There’s tile drainage underneath; it collects [the groundwater], and we move it to another field. And all of that at one point or another was in [the rule], and then another time it isn’t. And, so, probably the biggest thing is certainty. Just knowing, are we in the rule? Are we not in the rule?

We know the San Juan River, Sacramento River, the tributaries; obviously, those are in. They’re navigable waters. That’s been the base interpretation. But then we start talking about canals and drainage ditches. We’re like, well, wait a minute. When we think about navigable, those aren’t navigable.

We had hoped that the [Sackett] decision was going to give us that certainty. [The EPA proposal] is the rule coming out of that. So, we hope [this proposal will offer certainty]. But we’re not going to know until the next administration and see what they might do with it.

We’ve changed our practices to make sure we don’t exceed or cause problems in the river. For example, a few years ago, we had [the insecticide] diazinon show up in the San Joaquin River, and through the Irrigated Lands program, we were able to find the growers, find out what happened, and change some practices. And we haven’t had that issue since that time. So, we definitely change what we do because, hey, we live here, we drink the water here, we breathe the air here. And, so, it’s a balance.

On the surface, [the EPA proposal] looks like it’s addressed our biggest concerns. But we hope that it does get finalized and stays this way.

Jocelyn Brennan, interim executive director, Home Builders Association of the Central Coast in California

California is in a unique situation compared with some other states, because we do have, arguably, the most stringent environmental laws of any state. I think what our industry partners are concerned about is that the state will step in with more stringent regulations. And then it will just be a different regulatory agency that we’re dealing with, versus federal.

Builders and developers, when they’re looking at site feasibility and they see a wetland or a tributary, or some body of water, and they know that’s going to require additional mitigation, maintenance, and permitting, they’re going to keep looking for a better site. When they’re doing a constraints analysis, that’s really pretty prohibitive, because they know that it’s going to be a lot of extra time and extra cost.

In theory, [the EPA proposal] helps. It should open up additional lands for development.

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Some other states will completely benefit from [the proposed changes], and it will be great, and reduce a lot of unnecessary regulations. We’re all for, obviously, protecting the environment. But some [regulations] are for standing water that’s there when we have a good rain, and it’s gone a week later. And, so, this makes a lot of sense to us.

California is experiencing a housing crisis. And yet, the building industry is the most regulated industry in California compared with other states. And thus, we have a housing crisis. So, any type of regulations that don’t make sense, that can be streamlined, are a tool to address the housing crisis.

The historic district of Lahaina remains mostly cordoned off to visitors two years after the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century. Fencing, signs, and orange blockades keep curious passersby at bay.

Next month, some activity will return when two piers are expected to reopen at the harbor. County officials say 18 vessels will resume tours and whale watches, bringing some business and jobs back to the area.

But for this island community, the push for progress is tempered by growing calls for a thoughtful, culturally sensitive recovery. The 2023 blaze that killed more than 100 people in Lahaina also leveled centuries of history.

Why We Wrote This

After the deadliest fire in 100 years of U.S. history, houses are rising from the ground once again in Hawaii. But the people of Lahaina are trying to do more than rebuild buildings – they are also trying to rebuild their culture.

Lahaina sits on sacred cultural grounds. It was once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Restoring that history, say residents and county leaders, will allow the area to reclaim its identity, benefiting generations to come.

“We’ve got to go slow,” says Ke’eaumoku Kapu, executive director of Nā ‘Aikāne o Maui, Inc. The nonprofit has been overseeing cultural monitoring of the fire clean-up. “And whatever happens here should set the standard of what happens throughout the town.”

That aspiration isn’t without challenges. County leaders and cultural advocates alike say thoughtful recovery is hinged on education and community buy-in, not to mention warding off investors hoping to scoop up property.

Cultural restoration also includes bringing back the very people who call Lahaina home. The wildfire physically separated the community’s ohana, or family, dispersing residents near and far. Outside the historic district, houses are rising from the ground once again.

Maui County operates a rebuild dashboard that tracks metrics such as building permit status (342 being processed; 527 issued; and 89 completed for residential and non-residential buildings as of early November). Last month, the county announced that the final truckloads of wildfire debris had been moved to a permanent disposal site, clearing the way for roadway and other restoration projects to begin.

“We could rebuild the entire town and rebuild every single structure, but if we’ve lost our people, then ... those metrics don’t matter,” says John Smith, Maui County’s recovery administrator.

Center of the Hawaiian Kingdom

Tourists likely knew Front Street as the waterfront roadway filled with shops, art galleries, and restaurants. The fire consumed it. Now, cultural advocates are on a mission to restore what visitors may not have realized: the area’s historical significance.

In the early 1800s, long before Lahaina emerged as a vacationers’ paradise, King Kamehameha declared it the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. A cadre of royal buildings materialized near the harbor, where multiple fishponds existed. But then Christian missionaries, whaling operations, and sugar plantations arrived and erased certain aspects of cultural history. Thirsty sugar crops also diverted water from Maui’s streams.

Gone were the town’s Hawaiian names for streets, replaced by English surnames such as Shaw and Dickenson. The fishponds disappeared as well, filled in for purposes such as a baseball field.

The fire took even more. It destroyed the Nā ‘Aikāne Cultural Center, home to original signed manuscripts, land awards, historical documents, and artifacts. In the aftermath, Mr. Kapu sees an opportunity to recast a vision of Lahaina that honors its past.

“Let’s just bring back the integrity of our town,” he says while standing next to a map of the Lahaina Royal Complex and cultural sites. “Our children are losing their sense of place.”

In July, Maui County officials launched a two-year, $1 million master planning process for the Complex. The project, with community feedback involved, is expected to include restoration of coastal wetlands and historical sites.

Mr. Kapu pointed out some of those sites on a recent tour of the fire-ravaged sacred space. A damaged courthouse sits near the harbor. A short walk away is a barren plot of overgrown land where a 17-acre pond called Loko o Mokuhinia existed more than a century ago. In the middle was Moku’ula, a manmade island that housed King Kamehameha III’s palace.

Even longtime residents weren’t necessarily aware of the area’s history. Earle Kukahiko, a Lahaina resident who worked for the county for 33 years, says the fire inadvertently provided an educational opportunity, including for himself.

“For me growing up, that was a park,” he says, referring to Loko o Mukuhinia. “I played ball there.”

But Mr. Kukahiko says he has seen minds slowly change as more residents learn about Lahaina’s history. A few months ago, at a community meeting, he watched a group of women back off advocating for rebuilding King Kamehameha III Elementary School in the same location after they heard iwi kupuna, or ancestral remains, were discovered at the site. Instead, the school will be rebuilt roughly a half mile north of its original footprint.

That kind of thought shift is crucial, Mr. Kukahiko says, as Lahaina attempts to braid its past and future in this post-fire era.

“You see what a little bit of education does,” he says.

“Place of peaceful recovery”

Up a hill from the shoreline sits a tiny-home community known as Ka La’i Ola. The Hawaiian name, a gift, means “the place of peaceful recovery.”

That’s what it seeks to be for more than 900 Lahaina residents displaced by the wildfire. The modular homes, ranging in size from one to three bedrooms, are providing interim housing for up to five years. It’s not quite temporary but not long term either.

The community is the product of a public-private partnership that has brought together the state, the Hawaii Community Foundation, and HomeAid Hawai’i, among other partners, in a bid to provide fire survivors stability while they navigate next steps. Roughly 90% of Lahaina residents affected by the fire were renters.

Cesar Martinez and his family were among them. Now, he’s working for the nonprofit HomeAid Hawai’i and living at Ka La’i Ola with his girlfriend and three children. They spent more than a year going from “hotel to hotel to condo,” he says, before moving into a three-bedroom modular home.

“There’s kids knocking at our door. There’s kids riding bicycles down the street,” he says, describing a renewed sense of home. “So they have [a] more community feel and a lot of friendships here.”

That sense of community reverberates from a pop-up Halloween festival situated within walking distance of Ka La’i Ola. Ukulele music greets costume-clad children, some clutching their parents’ hands as they arrive. Food trucks, an inflatable bounce house, and – of course – candy await.

Anthony M. La Puente II, a longtime Lahaina resident who lives in the interim housing development, attended the festival with family friends. Two years ago, he was shopping at Safeway when they called to warn him about the fire so he could get to safety. There were no other sirens or alarms.

“It’s the people of Lahaina that is Lahaina,” he says from under a white canopy tent that is filling with families. He wants their voices to be heard as recovery efforts continue.

But intentional design helps. The community features garden beds and communal barbecue areas where neighbors can gather. A ti leaf plant brightens every corner of a pod containing these tiny homes. In Hawaiian culture, the tropical shrub symbolizes protection.

“When you look around, you’ll see that it’s landscaped,” says Joseph Campos, deputy director of Hawaii’s Department of Human Services. “There are native plants here, so all to just help people find some sense of normalcy.”

Normalcy doesn’t mean forever, though. The goal is for Lahaina wildfire survivors to re-establish permanent housing.

County officials have launched a program dubbed Ho’okumu Hou that offers three housing assistance programs. Two provide financial help for homeowners rebuilding. The third program is for renters who want to become first-time homeowners – a feat notoriously difficult in this high-cost-of-living state.

Mr. Smith, who is shepherding recovery efforts, says the county received roughly 2,800 applications for the first-time homeowners grant. The program, which offers assistance up to $600,000, will help aspiring homeowners cover closing costs or bring down the cost of their mortgage payment.

“It is moving through the process,” he says. “We’re going to help a couple hundred people become homeowners.”

Mr. Martinez and his family hope to make that transition.

“We’re taking the classes. We’re signing up for anything possible,” he says, a note of optimism in his voice. “At the end of five years for Ka La’i Ola, we’re going to be able to purchase a home.”

Ohana spirit at work

On a breezy Saturday morning, Mr. Kukahiko – or “Uncle Earle,” as he is known – sits under a canopy strung from a makeshift bathroom. Nearby is a tool shed.

He calls the temporary dwellings, which he built where his daughter’s house once stood, his sanctuary. Mr. Kukahiko and his wife lived next door. The wildfire razed their homes, along with many of their neighbors’. Like so many others, the family now lives at Ka La’i Ola.

But you can find him here most days watering plants and holding conversations with community members.

“I’m here most of the time just for peace of mind,” he says.

While Mr. Kukahiko is quick to label his family fortunate, he doesn’t gloss over the reality of a nonlinear recovery. Displaced residents remain wary, wondering who is telling the truth and if the influx of disaster relief money is going to the intended purpose. They also have to beware of scams. Someone tried using his daughter’s name, he says, for wildfire-related benefits.

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But there are other reasons to remain optimistic. Good Samaritans helped rebuild a neighbor’s house. And a local contractor whom Mr. Kukahiko coached in youth baseball has promised to rebuild his home. The handshake agreement is a nod to the ohana spirit that underpins Lahaina recovery efforts.

“That’s our people,” he says. “That’s what we do here.”

Every five years, this town built on oil throws a party like no other. 

It’s called Oildorado, and, over the course of 10 days, it celebrates the oil and gas that flow from the pumps that pockmark the hills and plains in this corner of Southern California. Organizers consider it an homage to the pioneers of the past and to the men and women who work in the industry today. 

Oildorado features oil-field workers competing for prizes for pipe welding and crane operating. Motorcycle riders roar around a dirt racetrack, vying to win the Black Gold Shoot Out. A sheriff’s posse, sporting cowboy hats and black waistcoats, cruises the streets in an open-sided truck with a jail cell.

Why We Wrote This

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is making headlines this week promoting clean energy at COP30, the United Nations’ climate gathering. But even the Golden State is reconsidering its oil reserves – and policies – as President Donald Trump doubles down on fossil fuels.

During the festival’s Grand Parade, the sheriff’s posse wages a mock gun battle with outlaws. “Cover your kids’ ears,” they warn families. 

But not everyone is feeling so festive. On a shaded corner, Travis Longley scans the parade through wraparound shades. He grew up in Taft and spent six years working on oil rigs, making $20 an hour, until he was laid off last year. 

Since then, he’s applied for more than 30 jobs in the industry. Some of his friends have moved to North Dakota or Texas to find jobs. “It’s hard to find work out here in the oil field,” he says. 

Taft, with a population of less than 9,000, has also not had much to celebrate, despite Oildorado’s staging. Dozens of brick-fronted stores are boarded up, and there’s only one drugstore left. Shrinking investment in oil and natural gas has meant fewer jobs for residents who used to finish high school and then walk into an oil-field job. 

But there has been some hope recently. “We’re fighting to bring it back so that our kids can stay here,” says Mr. Longley’s older brother Chris, standing next to him. 

Taft has powerful allies in this fight. Above all, it has President Donald Trump, a firm believer in fossil fuels as a source of American strength. On his first day in office in January, he declared a national energy emergency. In May, he told a joint session of Congress, “We have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on Earth and by far.” 

And he wants the United States to prioritize getting it. “It’s called drill, baby, drill,” the president said.

At the same time, Mr. Trump slashed federal support for renewable energy, which many experts say is essential to reducing the heat-trapping greenhouse gases produced by oil consumption. 

It’s a hard pivot from President Joe Biden’s green-energy agenda, even harder than many expected. It puts the U.S., already the world’s largest oil and gas producer, on a path divergent from other major economies – including China’s, which is rapidly electrifying at home and is seeking to dominate green-tech markets. 

In oil country, President Trump is hailed as a savior. One of the trucks in the Oildorado parade hoists a “Make Oil Great Again” banner. Another sign, on a truck carrying beauty contestants dressed in black-and-white dresses and called the “Maids of Petroleum,” reads: “This float is covered in 100% petroleum based products.” 

California has made its own pivot under Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and a foil to Mr. Trump. 

In September, Mr. Newsom, a climate hawk who had previously urged California to “move beyond oil,” signed a Democratic-written bill to allow more oil and gas drilling in Kern County, where Taft sits. “He did a 180-degree turn in short order,” says Dave Noerr, the mayor of Taft. 

Behind this about-face is a stubborn reality: Even as tech-first California embraces electric cars, solar panels, and other green alternatives, it can’t kick its oil habit. For every electric or hybrid car driving its freeways, there are 10 that run on gas or diesel. 

Nationwide, that ratio is roughly 1 in 20. All those cars mean oil consumption isn’t going down. 

Around the world, a similar dynamic is playing out. Most new electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar. But existing energy systems, including for transportation, still run on fossil fuels – and voters are more focused on energy costs than on carbon emissions. 

The global adoption of renewable energy is “going very fast,” says Atul Arya, a former BP executive who is the chief energy strategist at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “But the emissions are not going down. We are in this dual reality.” (Emissions in the U.S. have trended downward, however, since peaking in 2004.)

Democrats such as Mr. Newsom, expected to run for president in 2028, still insist that a swift transition to renewable energy is essential to slow global warming. But they also talk about affordability, which in California means tackling high gas and electricity prices. 

Mr. Trump, however, rejects the entire premise of decarbonization. His administration is betting that fossil fuels aren’t dead. That they’re not even past. And, as an energy superpower, that the U.S. can leverage trade with other countries while powering its own economy, including with electricity-guzzling AI data centers. 

For the Trump administration, hydrocarbons are still king. 

Kern County: The energy capital of California

Five miles from Taft, a concrete marker by the road marks the site of the Lakeview Gusher. In 1910, Union Oil struck oil here, sending up a giant geyser that destroyed the drilling rig. Ponds were dug to collect the roughly 9 million barrels of oil that flowed unabated for 544 days. 

The gusher was the largest-ever oil discovery in California – and the largest spill. More than half of the oil wasn’t recovered. 

By then, California was already a leading producer. Farther south, in Los Angeles, oil pumps proliferated on suburban tracts as speculators chased new finds. In 1923, about 1 in 4 barrels of oil produced in the world came from California, and by 1930, the population of Los Angeles had more than doubled to 1.2 million. 

As the birthplace of American car culture and suburban sprawl, California would also give rise to the modern environmental movement in the 1970s. Mr. Newsom, who was sworn in as governor in 2019, has made this legacy his own. 

He has banned fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, of oil wells. In 2020, California became the first state to mandate a phaseout by 2035 of sales of new gas-powered vehicles. In May, however, Congress voted to block its implementation. 

Mr. Newsom’s aggressive drive to decarbonize California’s economy and regulate its fossil-fuel companies has made him few friends in the state’s oil patch. “He did a damn good job of destroying the oil and gas industry and the energy market in California. He did an incredible job,” deadpans Chad Hathaway, a third-generation oil producer in Bakersfield, the seat of Kern County. 

Most of the energy produced in California, from oil and gas to solar and wind, originates in Kern County. “We’re the energy capital of California,” says Vincent Fong, a Republican from Bakersfield whose House seat was previously held by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “There is no energy goal that can be met in California without us.” 

California refines about 1.6 million barrels of oil a day into gasoline and jet fuel, an amount that has fallen in recent decades. (The U.S. consumes around 20 million barrels a day.) California continues to be the nation’s largest producer of jet fuel, in fact, and about 35% of the state’s electricity comes from natural gas. 

As a frontier of technological innovation, California straddles the future and the past, adding green-energy sources while still relying on older, dirtier fuels to sustain its outsize economy. 

This fits the pattern of energy transitions, from the burning of wood to coal and then to nuclear energy, says Sarah Elkind, an professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. “We’ve never replaced one [form of] energy with another. What we did was add more energy to the mix,” she says. 

Even now, Los Angeles County has hundreds of oil wells. “The thing that California lets us do in thinking about energy is we can look at the impact of oil extraction and production. It’s right there. It’s not hidden,” she says. 

Approving new drilling permits

Mr. Hathaway pulls up in his white pickup and uses a shovel to uproot a tumbleweed from the dirt beside a black pumpjack, one of two he operates on this site in Kern County.

The pumpjack surfaces oil and gas from 3,800 feet underground. It’s one of hundreds in and around Bakersfield. Larger in land area than New Jersey, but with only one-tenth of the population, at 900,000, Kern County has thousands of similar rigs, also known as “nodding donkeys.”  

Mr. Hathaway grew up in the business. His father and grandfather worked in California’s oil fields, and he left school to do the same, before setting up his own company in 2006 with a $5,000 loan from his mother, a schoolteacher. “This is 100% organically grown,” he says of his business. 

Today, he has 27 employees who operate 200 wells in Kern County, which produce around 500 barrels of oil and 700 million cubic feet of natural gas each day. He has mineral rights on other sites, but California’s environmental regulations have prevented him from drilling new wells. 

All states set rules on how close oil rigs can be to homes and businesses. California’s are the strictest: no closer than 3,200 feet. On the wall in Mr. Hathaway’s office are black-and-white aerial maps of sites with light-blue circles drawn to delineate prohibited areas known as setbacks. “All that part that’s in the circle is off-limits. You can’t drill in it,” he says. 

In 2024, California approved only 47 new drilling permits in Kern County. Other sites in rural areas, where the setback requirement might not apply, still need permits. But these have been held up for years by environmental litigation and, since 2019, by Governor Newsom’s opposition to oil and gas. 

Less drilling means less work for contractors and less reason for oil companies to invest here. Last year, Chevron, which began as Pacific Coast Oil in San Francisco in 1879, moved its headquarters from the Bay Area to Houston. 

“You can get a drilling permit in two days for Texas,” says Shannon Grove, a state senator from Kern County. “You don’t got to worry about carbon emissions; you don’t got to worry about setbacks; you don’t got to worry about all these requirements that we have.” 

Ms. Grove, a Republican, has spent years trying to persuade the Democrats who control California’s Legislature to ease the regulatory burden on oil companies. Her pleas were ignored until earlier this year when two of California’s nine largest oil refineries announced closures.

When Michael Mische, a business professor at the University of Southern California, ran the numbers, he estimated that the reduction in refining capacity could push gasoline prices, already the nation’s highest, from roughly $4 a gallon to $7 to $8 a gallon by the end of 2026. He also noted California’s growing dependency on foreign imports due to declining in-state output. 

“We’re sending about $60 million a day to foreign countries,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of oil. The amount of oil in the LA basin alone is astronomical.”

His self-published report added to the political pressure on Mr. Newsom, who then worked with Democrats to pass a package of energy bills in September. One bill allows Kern County to drill up to 2,000 new wells a year over the next decade. That won’t bring back the refineries, but it could attract new investments to the area. 

“It’s a lifeline,” says Mr. Hathaway. Still, it will take time to prepare wells and to replace the contractors who packed up and left during a decade of decline. “We can’t just turn a tap on.” 

"We still need oil."

In California’s oil patch, talk of an energy transition as inexorable progress toward climate salvation is unwelcome. “We prefer to say ‘evolution,’” says Lorelei Oviatt, who recently retired as Kern County’s director of planning and natural resources. 

That evolution is well underway: Kern County supplies the majority of California’s solar and wind power and is developing carbon capture and storage, as well as low-carbon steel and other green-tech industries. “We embraced [renewables] because of the jobs and the revenues, not the politics of climate change,” says Ms. Oviatt. 

One catch is that the economic benefits don’t match what oil offers: Solar farms are exempt from local property taxes at least through 2026 and, like wind turbines, don’t require much labor after construction. Oil and gas facilities pay property taxes and support thousands of middle-class jobs. The industry also has a philanthropic presence, funding scholarships and sport centers, for example. Ms. Oviatt still sees renewables as an essential arrow in Kern’s quiver, but she wants California to recognize that its demand for fossil fuels hasn’t abated. “We still need oil,” she says. 

In energy policy circles, this is known as an “all of the above” approach. Under the Biden administration, this was framed as the pragmatic path to tackle climate change. 

Then came the second Trump administration. As he did in 2017, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate action. But his administration has gone much further this time in putting a thumb on the scale for oil, gas, and coal, along with nuclear power.  

Mr. Trump has opened federal lands and waters for oil drilling, suspended offshore wind farms, and canceled contracts for onshore wind and solar projects. Federal subsidies for renewable energy have largely ended, slowing the rate of its expansion. As a result, growth in solar, wind, and battery storage is expected to be 23% less in 2030. 

“Everything will go more slowly. We’ve moved the curve out five years,” says David Goldwyn, a former State Department official for international energy affairs. 

Then there’s transportation, the largest single source of U.S. carbon emissions. For decades, California has had a federal waiver to set strict standards for tailpipe emissions. The Trump administration has rescinded that waiver and ended fines for automakers that fail to meet fuel-efficiency standards. U.S. manufacturers have responded by scaling back electric-vehicle production. 

But potentially the most far-reaching policy is the administration’s attempt to preempt any federal curbs on greenhouse gases. Since 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency has regulated emissions from power plants, vehicles, and other sources because it determined that climate change endangers human health. 

Under Mr. Trump, the EPA has proposed a rescission of this landmark finding, which provides the legal basis for federal climate policy. 

An overwhelming majority of scientists in the U.S. and other countries say that emissions of heat-trapping gases are warming the planet and are contributing to disasters – such as the Pacific Palisades fire in the Los Angeles area in January, the costliest wildfire in U.S. history. Last year was the warmest ever recorded.

In September, Mr. Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world.” He cited dire predictions by U.N. officials in the 1980s. “They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes,” he said. 

Some allies of Mr. Trump concede that emissions from fossil fuels are warming the planet. But they argue that nations still need to use these fuels, which are proven and abundant, to provide energy for their people and to grow their economies, particularly in the Global South. Around 3 billion people in developing economies each use less electricity a year on average than a standard American refrigerator. 

Of course, a world powered by fossil fuels plays to the strengths of the U.S., the world’s largest producer and exporter. 

In striking trade deals, the Trump administration has used this strength as leverage. It has required trading partners such as Japan and the European Union to buy U.S. oil and gas in return for preferential tariffs – part of a diplomatic effort to promote these fuels over green alternatives. 

Most U.S. energy is generated in

Republican-run states, such as Texas and North Dakota. Voters in red states typically spend more of their income on gas than people from blue states. This shapes their politics, Kevin Book, an energy analyst, told a recent podcast hosted by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. 

“You have essentially people driving longer distances in bigger cars on smaller wallets,” he said. “They think differently about energy.” 

Oil-field workers show off their skills

In Taft, displays of oil machinery are everywhere: drill bits, hammers, pipes, and cable tools. The most impressive is the Taft Oilworker Monument, a 40-foot bronze sculpture of an oil derrick with a life-size laborer standing guard. At the base of the sculpture, which was completed in 2010, are engraved bricks and plaques with the names of oil companies and of their workforce. 

One brick belongs to Diane Boylston, who retired from her last job in 2020. It reads: “Making Energy for America Since 1980.” She didn’t have space to list the different companies she worked for.

Ms. Boylston isn’t opposed to environmental regulations. She has solar panels on her roof. But she thinks Democrats in Los Angeles who reflexively oppose fossil fuels are hypocrites. “They don’t realize that everything they use has some kind of petroleum in it,” she says. 

It’s not just the gasoline in our cars. Petrochemical plants convert hydrocarbons into materials that go into a welter of consumer goods – from plastics, clothing, and beauty products to digital devices and detergents. So much is downstream of the oil industry that an all-EV fleet would still depend on it. 

Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Trump’s call for America to “Drill, baby, drill” has not led to a surge in output. The main reason is supply and demand, the industry’s lodestar. While the administration has taken credit for lowering pump prices, which is politically popular, low oil prices are a disincentive to drill new wells in Taft and other oil towns. 

U.S. companies also face higher costs from tariffs on steel and aluminum, says Mr. Goldwyn, the former energy official who served in the Obama administration. Mr. Trump “has raised the cost and lowered the price,” he says. 

The rollout of low-emissions technologies won’t end because the U.S. takes a different path. Even if adaptation slows here, global investment in renewables and related technologies is still forecast to outpace fossil fuels, says Mr. Goldwyn, whose clients include green-energy firms. “The trend is irreversible,” he says. 

After the parade, Oildorado’s festivities move to a fenced-off dirt lot where oil-field workers show off their skills. As a crowd watches under a broiling sun, welders wearing face shields cut and weld pipes alongside a row of pickup trucks. A judge inspects the pipes and notes their times. 

At the back of the lot, a crane mounted on a truck holds a barrel filled with sand. The challenge is to steer the barrel through an obstacle course of traffic posts topped with tennis balls. Six crane operators, all men, wait in the shade cast by a backhoe to take their turn. 

Tyler Weeks steps up to the crane. He’s been in the industry since 2007 and works for a local contractor. He deftly steers the barrel past the posts without toppling one, but crushes a cone that divides the lanes. After he brings the barrel to a stop and returns to the shade, his fellow crane operators rib him about the cone. 

“You crushed it,” one of them puns. Mr. Weeks smiles, knowing he’s aced the contest. “I’m taking that cone home.” 

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Like Mr. Longley, the laid-off oil worker, Mr. Weeks has seen friends quit the oil fields and find jobs elsewhere, but he’s staying in Taft and is hopeful that production will pick up. 

“We can produce more oil – if they let us,” he says.

Every five years, this town built on oil throws a party like no other. 

It’s called Oildorado, and, over the course of 10 days, it celebrates the oil and gas that flow from the pumps that pockmark the hills and plains in this corner of Southern California. Organizers consider it an homage to the pioneers of the past and to the men and women who work in the industry today. 

Oildorado features oil-field workers competing for prizes for pipe welding and crane operating. Motorcycle riders roar around a dirt racetrack, vying to win the Black Gold Shoot Out. A sheriff’s posse, sporting cowboy hats and black waistcoats, cruises the streets in an open-sided truck with a jail cell.

Why We Wrote This

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is making headlines this week promoting clean energy at COP30, the United Nations’ climate gathering. But even the Golden State is reconsidering its oil reserves – and policies – as President Donald Trump doubles down on fossil fuels.

During the festival’s Grand Parade, the sheriff’s posse wages a mock gun battle with outlaws. “Cover your kids’ ears,” they warn families. 

But not everyone is feeling so festive. On a shaded corner, Travis Longley scans the parade through wraparound shades. He grew up in Taft and spent six years working on oil rigs, making $20 an hour, until he was laid off last year. 

Since then, he’s applied for more than 30 jobs in the industry. Some of his friends have moved to North Dakota or Texas to find jobs. “It’s hard to find work out here in the oil field,” he says. 

Taft, with a population of less than 9,000, has also not had much to celebrate, despite Oildorado’s staging. Dozens of brick-fronted stores are boarded up, and there’s only one drugstore left. Shrinking investment in oil and natural gas has meant fewer jobs for residents who used to finish high school and then walk into an oil-field job. 

But there has been some hope recently. “We’re fighting to bring it back so that our kids can stay here,” says Mr. Longley’s older brother Chris, standing next to him. 

Taft has powerful allies in this fight. Above all, it has President Donald Trump, a firm believer in fossil fuels as a source of American strength. On his first day in office in January, he declared a national energy emergency. In May, he told a joint session of Congress, “We have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on Earth and by far.” 

And he wants the United States to prioritize getting it. “It’s called drill, baby, drill,” the president said.

At the same time, Mr. Trump slashed federal support for renewable energy, which many experts say is essential to reducing the heat-trapping greenhouse gases produced by oil consumption. 

It’s a hard pivot from President Joe Biden’s green-energy agenda, even harder than many expected. It puts the U.S., already the world’s largest oil and gas producer, on a path divergent from other major economies – including China’s, which is rapidly electrifying at home and is seeking to dominate green-tech markets. 

In oil country, President Trump is hailed as a savior. One of the trucks in the Oildorado parade hoists a “Make Oil Great Again” banner. Another sign, on a truck carrying beauty contestants dressed in black-and-white dresses and called the “Maids of Petroleum,” reads: “This float is covered in 100% petroleum based products.” 

California has made its own pivot under Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and a foil to Mr. Trump. 

In September, Mr. Newsom, a climate hawk who had previously urged California to “move beyond oil,” signed a Democratic-written bill to allow more oil and gas drilling in Kern County, where Taft sits. “He did a 180-degree turn in short order,” says Dave Noerr, the mayor of Taft. 

Behind this about-face is a stubborn reality: Even as tech-first California embraces electric cars, solar panels, and other green alternatives, it can’t kick its oil habit. For every electric or hybrid car driving its freeways, there are 10 that run on gas or diesel. 

Nationwide, that ratio is roughly 1 in 20. All those cars mean oil consumption isn’t going down. 

Around the world, a similar dynamic is playing out. Most new electricity comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar. But existing energy systems, including for transportation, still run on fossil fuels – and voters are more focused on energy costs than on carbon emissions. 

The global adoption of renewable energy is “going very fast,” says Atul Arya, a former BP executive who is the chief energy strategist at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “But the emissions are not going down. We are in this dual reality.” (Emissions in the U.S. have trended downward, however, since peaking in 2004.)

Democrats such as Mr. Newsom, expected to run for president in 2028, still insist that a swift transition to renewable energy is essential to slow global warming. But they also talk about affordability, which in California means tackling high gas and electricity prices. 

Mr. Trump, however, rejects the entire premise of decarbonization. His administration is betting that fossil fuels aren’t dead. That they’re not even past. And, as an energy superpower, that the U.S. can leverage trade with other countries while powering its own economy, including with electricity-guzzling AI data centers. 

For the Trump administration, hydrocarbons are still king. 

Kern County: The energy capital of California

Five miles from Taft, a concrete marker by the road marks the site of the Lakeview Gusher. In 1910, Union Oil struck oil here, sending up a giant geyser that destroyed the drilling rig. Ponds were dug to collect the roughly 9 million barrels of oil that flowed unabated for 544 days. 

The gusher was the largest-ever oil discovery in California – and the largest spill. More than half of the oil wasn’t recovered. 

By then, California was already a leading producer. Farther south, in Los Angeles, oil pumps proliferated on suburban tracts as speculators chased new finds. In 1923, about 1 in 4 barrels of oil produced in the world came from California, and by 1930, the population of Los Angeles had more than doubled to 1.2 million. 

As the birthplace of American car culture and suburban sprawl, California would also give rise to the modern environmental movement in the 1970s. Mr. Newsom, who was sworn in as governor in 2019, has made this legacy his own. 

He has banned fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, of oil wells. In 2020, California became the first state to mandate a phaseout by 2035 of sales of new gas-powered vehicles. In May, however, Congress voted to block its implementation. 

Mr. Newsom’s aggressive drive to decarbonize California’s economy and regulate its fossil-fuel companies has made him few friends in the state’s oil patch. “He did a damn good job of destroying the oil and gas industry and the energy market in California. He did an incredible job,” deadpans Chad Hathaway, a third-generation oil producer in Bakersfield, the seat of Kern County. 

Most of the energy produced in California, from oil and gas to solar and wind, originates in Kern County. “We’re the energy capital of California,” says Vincent Fong, a Republican from Bakersfield whose House seat was previously held by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “There is no energy goal that can be met in California without us.” 

California refines about 1.6 million barrels of oil a day into gasoline and jet fuel, an amount that has fallen in recent decades. (The U.S. consumes around 20 million barrels a day.) California continues to be the nation’s largest producer of jet fuel, in fact, and about 35% of the state’s electricity comes from natural gas. 

As a frontier of technological innovation, California straddles the future and the past, adding green-energy sources while still relying on older, dirtier fuels to sustain its outsize economy. 

This fits the pattern of energy transitions, from the burning of wood to coal and then to nuclear energy, says Sarah Elkind, an professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. “We’ve never replaced one [form of] energy with another. What we did was add more energy to the mix,” she says. 

Even now, Los Angeles County has hundreds of oil wells. “The thing that California lets us do in thinking about energy is we can look at the impact of oil extraction and production. It’s right there. It’s not hidden,” she says. 

Approving new drilling permits

Mr. Hathaway pulls up in his white pickup and uses a shovel to uproot a tumbleweed from the dirt beside a black pumpjack, one of two he operates on this site in Kern County.

The pumpjack surfaces oil and gas from 3,800 feet underground. It’s one of hundreds in and around Bakersfield. Larger in land area than New Jersey, but with only one-tenth of the population, at 900,000, Kern County has thousands of similar rigs, also known as “nodding donkeys.”  

Mr. Hathaway grew up in the business. His father and grandfather worked in California’s oil fields, and he left school to do the same, before setting up his own company in 2006 with a $5,000 loan from his mother, a schoolteacher. “This is 100% organically grown,” he says of his business. 

Today, he has 27 employees who operate 200 wells in Kern County, which produce around 500 barrels of oil and 700 million cubic feet of natural gas each day. He has mineral rights on other sites, but California’s environmental regulations have prevented him from drilling new wells. 

All states set rules on how close oil rigs can be to homes and businesses. California’s are the strictest: no closer than 3,200 feet. On the wall in Mr. Hathaway’s office are black-and-white aerial maps of sites with light-blue circles drawn to delineate prohibited areas known as setbacks. “All that part that’s in the circle is off-limits. You can’t drill in it,” he says. 

In 2024, California approved only 47 new drilling permits in Kern County. Other sites in rural areas, where the setback requirement might not apply, still need permits. But these have been held up for years by environmental litigation and, since 2019, by Governor Newsom’s opposition to oil and gas. 

Less drilling means less work for contractors and less reason for oil companies to invest here. Last year, Chevron, which began as Pacific Coast Oil in San Francisco in 1879, moved its headquarters from the Bay Area to Houston. 

“You can get a drilling permit in two days for Texas,” says Shannon Grove, a state senator from Kern County. “You don’t got to worry about carbon emissions; you don’t got to worry about setbacks; you don’t got to worry about all these requirements that we have.” 

Ms. Grove, a Republican, has spent years trying to persuade the Democrats who control California’s Legislature to ease the regulatory burden on oil companies. Her pleas were ignored until earlier this year when two of California’s nine largest oil refineries announced closures.

When Michael Mische, a business professor at the University of Southern California, ran the numbers, he estimated that the reduction in refining capacity could push gasoline prices, already the nation’s highest, from roughly $4 a gallon to $7 to $8 a gallon by the end of 2026. He also noted California’s growing dependency on foreign imports due to declining in-state output. 

“We’re sending about $60 million a day to foreign countries,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of oil. The amount of oil in the LA basin alone is astronomical.”

His self-published report added to the political pressure on Mr. Newsom, who then worked with Democrats to pass a package of energy bills in September. One bill allows Kern County to drill up to 2,000 new wells a year over the next decade. That won’t bring back the refineries, but it could attract new investments to the area. 

“It’s a lifeline,” says Mr. Hathaway. Still, it will take time to prepare wells and to replace the contractors who packed up and left during a decade of decline. “We can’t just turn a tap on.” 

"We still need oil."

In California’s oil patch, talk of an energy transition as inexorable progress toward climate salvation is unwelcome. “We prefer to say ‘evolution,’” says Lorelei Oviatt, who recently retired as Kern County’s director of planning and natural resources. 

That evolution is well underway: Kern County supplies the majority of California’s solar and wind power and is developing carbon capture and storage, as well as low-carbon steel and other green-tech industries. “We embraced [renewables] because of the jobs and the revenues, not the politics of climate change,” says Ms. Oviatt. 

One catch is that the economic benefits don’t match what oil offers: Solar farms are exempt from local property taxes at least through 2026 and, like wind turbines, don’t require much labor after construction. Oil and gas facilities pay property taxes and support thousands of middle-class jobs. The industry also has a philanthropic presence, funding scholarships and sport centers, for example. Ms. Oviatt still sees renewables as an essential arrow in Kern’s quiver, but she wants California to recognize that its demand for fossil fuels hasn’t abated. “We still need oil,” she says. 

In energy policy circles, this is known as an “all of the above” approach. Under the Biden administration, this was framed as the pragmatic path to tackle climate change. 

Then came the second Trump administration. As he did in 2017, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate action. But his administration has gone much further this time in putting a thumb on the scale for oil, gas, and coal, along with nuclear power.  

Mr. Trump has opened federal lands and waters for oil drilling, suspended offshore wind farms, and canceled contracts for onshore wind and solar projects. Federal subsidies for renewable energy have largely ended, slowing the rate of its expansion. As a result, growth in solar, wind, and battery storage is expected to be 23% less in 2030. 

“Everything will go more slowly. We’ve moved the curve out five years,” says David Goldwyn, a former State Department official for international energy affairs. 

Then there’s transportation, the largest single source of U.S. carbon emissions. For decades, California has had a federal waiver to set strict standards for tailpipe emissions. The Trump administration has rescinded that waiver and ended fines for automakers that fail to meet fuel-efficiency standards. U.S. manufacturers have responded by scaling back electric-vehicle production. 

But potentially the most far-reaching policy is the administration’s attempt to preempt any federal curbs on greenhouse gases. Since 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency has regulated emissions from power plants, vehicles, and other sources because it determined that climate change endangers human health. 

Under Mr. Trump, the EPA has proposed a rescission of this landmark finding, which provides the legal basis for federal climate policy. 

An overwhelming majority of scientists in the U.S. and other countries say that emissions of heat-trapping gases are warming the planet and are contributing to disasters – such as the Pacific Palisades fire in the Los Angeles area in January, the costliest wildfire in U.S. history. Last year was the warmest ever recorded.

In September, Mr. Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in New York that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world.” He cited dire predictions by U.N. officials in the 1980s. “They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes,” he said. 

Some allies of Mr. Trump concede that emissions from fossil fuels are warming the planet. But they argue that nations still need to use these fuels, which are proven and abundant, to provide energy for their people and to grow their economies, particularly in the Global South. Around 3 billion people in developing economies each use less electricity a year on average than a standard American refrigerator. 

Of course, a world powered by fossil fuels plays to the strengths of the U.S., the world’s largest producer and exporter. 

In striking trade deals, the Trump administration has used this strength as leverage. It has required trading partners such as Japan and the European Union to buy U.S. oil and gas in return for preferential tariffs – part of a diplomatic effort to promote these fuels over green alternatives. 

Most U.S. energy is generated in

Republican-run states, such as Texas and North Dakota. Voters in red states typically spend more of their income on gas than people from blue states. This shapes their politics, Kevin Book, an energy analyst, told a recent podcast hosted by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. 

“You have essentially people driving longer distances in bigger cars on smaller wallets,” he said. “They think differently about energy.” 

Oil-field workers show off their skills

In Taft, displays of oil machinery are everywhere: drill bits, hammers, pipes, and cable tools. The most impressive is the Taft Oilworker Monument, a 40-foot bronze sculpture of an oil derrick with a life-size laborer standing guard. At the base of the sculpture, which was completed in 2010, are engraved bricks and plaques with the names of oil companies and of their workforce. 

One brick belongs to Diane Boylston, who retired from her last job in 2020. It reads: “Making Energy for America Since 1980.” She didn’t have space to list the different companies she worked for.

Ms. Boylston isn’t opposed to environmental regulations. She has solar panels on her roof. But she thinks Democrats in Los Angeles who reflexively oppose fossil fuels are hypocrites. “They don’t realize that everything they use has some kind of petroleum in it,” she says. 

It’s not just the gasoline in our cars. Petrochemical plants convert hydrocarbons into materials that go into a welter of consumer goods – from plastics, clothing, and beauty products to digital devices and detergents. So much is downstream of the oil industry that an all-EV fleet would still depend on it. 

Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Trump’s call for America to “Drill, baby, drill” has not led to a surge in output. The main reason is supply and demand, the industry’s lodestar. While the administration has taken credit for lowering pump prices, which is politically popular, low oil prices are a disincentive to drill new wells in Taft and other oil towns. 

U.S. companies also face higher costs from tariffs on steel and aluminum, says Mr. Goldwyn, the former energy official who served in the Obama administration. Mr. Trump “has raised the cost and lowered the price,” he says. 

The rollout of low-emissions technologies won’t end because the U.S. takes a different path. Even if adaptation slows here, global investment in renewables and related technologies is still forecast to outpace fossil fuels, says Mr. Goldwyn, whose clients include green-energy firms. “The trend is irreversible,” he says. 

After the parade, Oildorado’s festivities move to a fenced-off dirt lot where oil-field workers show off their skills. As a crowd watches under a broiling sun, welders wearing face shields cut and weld pipes alongside a row of pickup trucks. A judge inspects the pipes and notes their times. 

At the back of the lot, a crane mounted on a truck holds a barrel filled with sand. The challenge is to steer the barrel through an obstacle course of traffic posts topped with tennis balls. Six crane operators, all men, wait in the shade cast by a backhoe to take their turn. 

Tyler Weeks steps up to the crane. He’s been in the industry since 2007 and works for a local contractor. He deftly steers the barrel past the posts without toppling one, but crushes a cone that divides the lanes. After he brings the barrel to a stop and returns to the shade, his fellow crane operators rib him about the cone. 

“You crushed it,” one of them puns. Mr. Weeks smiles, knowing he’s aced the contest. “I’m taking that cone home.” 

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Like Mr. Longley, the laid-off oil worker, Mr. Weeks has seen friends quit the oil fields and find jobs elsewhere, but he’s staying in Taft and is hopeful that production will pick up. 

“We can produce more oil – if they let us,” he says.

In September, protesters in the Philippines began taking to the streets, accusing the government of misusing billions of dollars meant for flood-control efforts.

The country of islands in Southeast Asia is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world and has undertaken almost 10,000 flood-control projects in the past few years.

In some ways, the protests echoed concerns raised by demonstrators and representatives from affected countries each year at United Nations climate summits: Climate funds meant to serve the public good must reach the people most affected by climate disasters.

Why We Wrote This

Countries around the globe are spending trillions of dollars to address climate issues. The money doesn’t always reach the places that need it most, meaning some people remain vulnerable to increasingly intense storms.

As world leaders gather for this year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil, from Nov. 10 to 21, public anger in the Philippines raises larger questions about the global issue of who pays for climate response and resilience, who benefits, and how much money is being siphoned off through mismanagement or corruption. 

What were the protests about?

Previous demonstrations at COP – the annual meeting of governments that are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – have called on wealthy nations to compensate developing countries that bear the brunt of emissions they did not cause. 

There is opposition to climate spending: Research led by Stanford University shows that the number of countries with at least one “counter climate change organization” — such as a think tank, research institute, or foundation — has more than doubled in the past 35 years. The report’s author says the economic interests of the energy and agricultural sectors are helping to shape the movement.

Yet countries globally have committed to spending trillions to mitigate the effects of climate change.

In the Philippines, tens of thousands of people demonstrated during the week of Sept. 21, triggered by the Department of Finance’s report that corruption related to flood relief projects resulted in the loss of up to 118.5 billion Philippine pesos ($2 billion) from 2023-25. Lawmakers and officials allegedly pocketed money in exchange for contracts, while hundreds of projects intended to protect the country from flooding were never built.

Jefferson Chua, a campaigner at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, says many in the Philippines suspected corruption even before the finance department report.

“Sometimes, it’s even a running joke here that when money goes to these kinds of public projects, we all know a significant portion of that goes to the pockets of these politicians,” Mr. Chua says.

He notes a saying in the Philippines: “The Filipino spirit is waterproof.” But there is evidence of more intense and frequent storms in Southeast Asia, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A tropical storm in late October killed seven people and forced more than 22,000 people to evacuate. 

Most of the protests stopped soon after they started, when a typhoon – a weather event that causes significant flooding – hit the country Sept. 22. More protests were expected, The Philippine Star reported.

How much money is earmarked for addressing climate change?

It’s complicated, partly because it can be hard to figure out what counts as climate finance.

The UNFCCC’s definition runs almost 100 words, covering everything from cutting emissions to “enhancing resilience of human and ecological systems” and implementing the goals of the Paris Agreement to cut emissions by 43% worldwide by 2030.

About 55 countries and jurisdictions say they have or are developing climate finance tracking systems. But it can still be difficult to decipher what is climate funding and what is not.

For example, grants that help build and maintain public transportation may not explicitly be labeled as such even though they could help bring down greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

A recent UNFCCC report says global spending reached an annual average of $1.3 trillion in 2021-22, the most recent data available. That includes money going toward areas such as sustainable transport, clean energy systems, and buildings and infrastructure.

This figure includes the newly established Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, headquartered in the Philippines. A COP resolution created it to help low-income countries most vulnerable to and impacted by climate change pay for damage caused by climate-related natural disasters. Twenty-seven countries have pledged $768 million. Payments to affected countries haven’t started.

How much of climate funding is misused? 

Brice Böhmer, the climate and environment director at Transparency International, helped develop the Climate and Corruption Atlas. He says it can be hard to distinguish between mismanagement and corruption.

“Even if it’s actually corruption, it’s very hard to prove that,” Mr. Böhmer says. “Because it’s more about the intention behind the mismanagement.”

Instances of climate corruption go beyond the Philippines. In 2021, an energy company agreed to a $230 million penalty in a settlement with federal prosecutors, who charged the company in connection with a bribery scheme to advance legislation that included a $1 billion bailout for two power plants in Ohio, NPR reported. In Germany in 2023, the deputy minister of the environment was ousted after he named the best man at his wedding as chair of the national energy agency’s management board, according to Reuters.

Mr. Böhmer says a major barrier to documenting corruption is gaining access to information in countries where people who voice concerns fear retaliation by the government. He says it is important to have complaint mechanisms and protections for those who raise questions.

Deepen your worldview

with Monitor Highlights.

Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.

“For example, environmental defenders and whistleblowers who are bringing those cases to our knowledge are doing a job that is good for all of us,” he says. “And they are usually targeted and punished, whereas the ones that should be prosecuted are the ones doing the act of corruption.”

In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has established an independent commission to investigate the disappearance of funds. The country’s interior secretary estimated that around 200 people could be indicted by an anti-graft court for government officials.

In September, protesters in the Philippines began taking to the streets, accusing the government of misusing billions of dollars meant for flood-control efforts.

The country of islands in Southeast Asia is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world and has undertaken almost 10,000 flood-control projects in the past few years.

In some ways, the protests echoed concerns raised by demonstrators and representatives from affected countries each year at United Nations climate summits: Climate funds meant to serve the public good must reach the people most affected by climate disasters.

Why We Wrote This

Countries around the globe are spending trillions of dollars to address climate issues. The money doesn’t always reach the places that need it most, meaning some people remain vulnerable to increasingly intense storms.

As world leaders gather for this year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil, from Nov. 10 to 21, public anger in the Philippines raises larger questions about the global issue of who pays for climate response and resilience, who benefits, and how much money is being siphoned off through mismanagement or corruption. 

What were the protests about?

Previous demonstrations at COP – the annual meeting of governments that are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – have called on wealthy nations to compensate developing countries that bear the brunt of emissions they did not cause. 

There is opposition to climate spending: Research led by Stanford University shows that the number of countries with at least one “counter climate change organization” — such as a think tank, research institute, or foundation — has more than doubled in the past 35 years. The report’s author says the economic interests of the energy and agricultural sectors are helping to shape the movement.

Yet countries globally have committed to spending trillions to mitigate the effects of climate change.

In the Philippines, tens of thousands of people demonstrated during the week of Sept. 21, triggered by the Department of Finance’s report that corruption related to flood relief projects resulted in the loss of up to 118.5 billion Philippine pesos ($2 billion) from 2023-25. Lawmakers and officials allegedly pocketed money in exchange for contracts, while hundreds of projects intended to protect the country from flooding were never built.

Jefferson Chua, a campaigner at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, says many in the Philippines suspected corruption even before the finance department report.

“Sometimes, it’s even a running joke here that when money goes to these kinds of public projects, we all know a significant portion of that goes to the pockets of these politicians,” Mr. Chua says.

He notes a saying in the Philippines: “The Filipino spirit is waterproof.” But there is evidence of more intense and frequent storms in Southeast Asia, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A tropical storm in late October killed seven people and forced more than 22,000 people to evacuate. 

Most of the protests stopped soon after they started, when a typhoon – a weather event that causes significant flooding – hit the country Sept. 22. More protests were expected, The Philippine Star reported.

How much money is earmarked for addressing climate change?

It’s complicated, partly because it can be hard to figure out what counts as climate finance.

The UNFCCC’s definition runs almost 100 words, covering everything from cutting emissions to “enhancing resilience of human and ecological systems” and implementing the goals of the Paris Agreement to cut emissions by 43% worldwide by 2030.

About 55 countries and jurisdictions say they have or are developing climate finance tracking systems. But it can still be difficult to decipher what is climate funding and what is not.

For example, grants that help build and maintain public transportation may not explicitly be labeled as such even though they could help bring down greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

A recent UNFCCC report says global spending reached an annual average of $1.3 trillion in 2021-22, the most recent data available. That includes money going toward areas such as sustainable transport, clean energy systems, and buildings and infrastructure.

This figure includes the newly established Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, headquartered in the Philippines. A COP resolution created it to help low-income countries most vulnerable to and impacted by climate change pay for damage caused by climate-related natural disasters. Twenty-seven countries have pledged $768 million. Payments to affected countries haven’t started.

How much of climate funding is misused? 

Brice Böhmer, the climate and environment director at Transparency International, helped develop the Climate and Corruption Atlas. He says it can be hard to distinguish between mismanagement and corruption.

“Even if it’s actually corruption, it’s very hard to prove that,” Mr. Böhmer says. “Because it’s more about the intention behind the mismanagement.”

Instances of climate corruption go beyond the Philippines. In 2021, an energy company agreed to a $230 million penalty in a settlement with federal prosecutors, who charged the company in connection with a bribery scheme to advance legislation that included a $1 billion bailout for two power plants in Ohio, NPR reported. In Germany in 2023, the deputy minister of the environment was ousted after he named the best man at his wedding as chair of the national energy agency’s management board, according to Reuters.

Mr. Böhmer says a major barrier to documenting corruption is gaining access to information in countries where people who voice concerns fear retaliation by the government. He says it is important to have complaint mechanisms and protections for those who raise questions.

Deepen your worldview

with Monitor Highlights.

Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.

“For example, environmental defenders and whistleblowers who are bringing those cases to our knowledge are doing a job that is good for all of us,” he says. “And they are usually targeted and punished, whereas the ones that should be prosecuted are the ones doing the act of corruption.”

In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has established an independent commission to investigate the disappearance of funds. The country’s interior secretary estimated that around 200 people could be indicted by an anti-graft court for government officials.