Local leaders have been discussing for several months what a second Trump term could mean for the Bay Area environment and are prepared for years of litigation to defend climate rules, Choksi-Chugh said.
During the first Trump administration, California was involved in dozens of major legal cases, most directly on issues of the environment, according to a tracker developed by a Marquette University political scientist, including the federal government’s effort to roll back emission standards, its justification for new water rules, and its push to ease methane regulations, for example.
California won injunctions, policy reversals or other favorable rulings on the vast majority of its major environmental cases.
Mary Nichols, former chair of the California Air Resources Board, was the architect of much of California’s resistance to the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation.
She told KQED that “he was particularly focused on California as the enemy because we have been so out in front, both in terms of pollution regulation over many years, and also because we had taken a strong stand on climate change.”
Nichols noted that Trump’s victory this time is different because it puts numerous new clean-air rules in jeopardy, as the state is still awaiting waivers from federal regulators at the EPA.
“Unfortunately for the Trump agenda, it takes as much work to deregulate as it does to regulate,” she said. “You still have to go through a lot of hoops in order to make that happen. It won’t happen overnight.”
The nomination for EPA administrator will need confirmation from the Senate, where Republicans are poised to hold a majority of seats next term.
