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After the recent discovery of a destructive mussel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, some experts say California officials have failed to effectively enforce laws designed to protect waterways from invaders carried in ships’ ballast water. 

A state law enacted 20 years ago has required California officials to inspect 25% of incoming ships and sample their ballast water before it’s discharged into waterways. But the tests didn’t begin until two years ago — after standards for conducting them were finally set — and testing remains rare. State officials have sampled the ballast water of only 16 vessels out of the roughly 3,000 likely to have emptied their tanks nearshore. 

Experts say stronger regulations are needed, as well as better enforcement. 

“It’s not really a surprise that another invasive species showed up in the Delta,” said Karrigan Börk, a law professor and the interim director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “It’s likely to continue happening.”

Native to eastern Asia, the mussels — detected near the Port of Stockton, in a small San Joaquin Valley reservoir and several other Delta locations — were the first to be detected in North America. If the mollusc evades eradication efforts, it could spread over vast areas of California and beyond, crowd out native species and clog parts of the massive projects that export Delta water to cities and farms. 

Ted Lempert, a former Bay Area Assemblymember who authored a 1999 state law aimed at preventing ships from bringing invasive species into California, said state officials “apparently took their eyes off the ball.”  

“We were trying to get ahead of the game, so I’m really frustrated that after all these years some of the events we were trying to prevent have come to pass,” he said. 

But the prospect of an invasive species colonizing a new region frequented by ships “is a numbers game” that can happen even under the most rigorous regulations and enforcement, said Greg Ruiz, a marine ecologist with the Marine Invasions Research Laboratory at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. “This is not a failure in the system,” he said.

Ballast water is stored in tanks to stabilize vessels at sea. Often taken on at the port of departure and released at the port of arrival, it is a global vector of invasive species, including pathogens that cause human diseases.

To address the threat to ecosystems and water supplies, the State Lands Commission, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard enforce a suite of overlapping regulations. 

The goal of these state and federal rules is to reduce as much as possible the number of living organisms in discharged ballast water. Vessel operators can achieve this by exposing their ballast water to ultraviolet light, filtering it and treating it with chlorine, which is then removed before discharge. 

‘Highest standards in the world.’ But are they enforced?

About 1,500 ships a year entering California waters release ballast water, according to Chris Scianni, environmental program manager of the State Lands Commission’s Marine Invasive Species Program. To check for compliance, officials board and inspect nearly all of them, plus another thousand vessels prioritized for inspection for other reasons, Scianni said.

During these inspections, officers review ballast water logbooks and reporting forms, interview crew members, inspect water treatment equipment, and occasionally take water samples for testing. 

“We’re the only entity in the world that’s doing this right now,” Scianni said.

A 2003 state law declares that the State Lands Commission “shall take samples of ballast water, sediment, and biofouling from at least 25% of vessels” subject to invasive species regulations. But commission officials told CalMatters they interpret it to mean that 25% of ships must be inspected, with no specific requirements for sampling. 

Sampling for some ships began in 2023, after the commission enacted standards for how the tests are conducted. It’s a considerable endeavor: A cubic meter of water  — which weighs a metric ton — must be collected from a ship. It can take an hour to draw, and it must be done while the vessel is actively discharging. Hours more may pass before results are ready.  

Federal officials have their own ballast oversight program. It leans on a system of self-reporting by vessel operators — which critics consider a weak tool for ensuring compliance. An EPA spokesperson said the agency “can assess compliance with (the rules) either through a desk audit or an on-site inspection.”

Many experts told CalMatters that the state and federal limits on how many organisms are allowed in discharged water are adequate but that enforcement is lacking. 

“We had the highest (ballast water management) standards in the world, but they were never actually enforced because the state couldn’t come up with a set of technologies to implement them,” said Ben Eichenberg, a staff attorney with the group SF Baykeeper.  

Ted Grosholz, a professor emeritus with the UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute said “the standards are very exacting…The problem we have is compliance. How many ships coming in with ballast water can we really sample and verify? Enforcement officials can’t watch everyone.”

Smithsonian’s Ruiz said state records show that all documented ballast discharges at the Port of Stockton since 2008 have followed state regulations.

Ships that discharge, however, occasionally remain uninspected as they enter a port. And some vessel operators may cheat, filling their ballast tanks with clean ocean water to pass off a faulty water treatment system as functional. Moreover, even treated ballast water can contain high levels of zooplankton. 

Ruiz, who has studied California’s data on ship arrival and locations of the mussels, said it’s probable the golden mussel entered the Delta at least a year ago and even possible that it’s been there for a decade or more, adding that “it could even have happened in the pre-treatment (of ballast water) era.”

Somehow, the creature slipped through the cracks and made itself a new home in what has been called one of the most invaded estuaries on the planet. 

It’s an outcome that Lempert as an assemblymember tried to prevent a quarter-century ago, when he authored the Ballast Water Management for Control of Non-indigenous Species Act. The law required incoming vessels to either retain their ballast water, drain it while simultaneously refilling with new water hundreds of miles out at sea, or use an “environmentally sound” treatment system. It tasked the California State Lands Commission with monitoring vessels for compliance. 

California has since enacted a complex system of regulations: In 2003, the Marine Invasive Species Act expanded the scope of Lempert’s legislation. Three years later, the Legislature required the commission to set limits on organism concentrations in ballast water; these “standards of performance” were implemented in 2022. While the standards allow minute levels of organisms in the water, the goal is “zero detectable living organisms” by 2040. 

Several federal laws also aim to protect U.S. waters from creatures like the golden mussel. 

Penalties for breaking ballast management rules have been modest. At the state level, violations have resulted in 24 fines in the past six years, totaling just over $1 million. Federal fines are rare, with just nine penalties issued amounting to about $714,000 in the EPA’s Pacific Southwest region since 2013.

Commission officials said “the frequency of noncompliant discharges … has dropped dramatically since our enforcement regulations (with penalties) were adopted in 2017.”

Can ballast water be sterilized?

California officials say achieving the law’s goal of zero organisms in ballast water discharged into waterways is infeasible. It would require a network of treatment plants at coastal ports, costing $1.45 billion over 30 years. The shipping industry would face another $2.17 billion in costs for installing systems capable of transferring ballast water to the floating treatment plants. 

But Eichenberg said some ships already use commercially available systems that consistently, and by a wide margin, outperform industry standards. He said the state’s failure to require that vessels use the most advanced treatment systems available — technology capable of nearly sterilizing ballast water — has culminated in the golden mussel’s arrival. 

“Something like this was bound to happen eventually,” he said.  

State and federal performance standards — modeled after international standards — limit the concentration of living zooplankton-sized organisms, like mussel larvae, in ballast water before discharge to 10 per cubic meter. For smaller organisms, allowances are higher. 

But even in ballast water that has undergone treatment in approved systems, zooplankton concentrations can be off-the-charts for reasons not always clear, according to Hugh MacIsaac, an aquatic invasive species researcher at the University of Windsor in Ontario, who has studied the spread of the golden mussel in South America and central China. 

Treating ballast water doesn’t necessarily work. A study in Shanghai found up to 23,000 zooplankton-sized organisms per cubic meter in the ballast water of half of ships sampled, MacIsaac said. 

Ruiz, at the Smithsonian research center, said the study’s sample size of 17 ships is too small to be representative and that such high concentrations are abnormal in the United States. “We sample vessels here, and that’s not what we see coming into the U.S.,” he said. 

Ship operators have shifted radically in the past 20 years “from no management to a nearly complete use of open-ocean exchange to, now, an almost complete transition to ballast treatment technology,” Ruiz said.

Attention turns to federal rules

The federal government, not state agencies, will soon become the key player in ballast management. That’s because new EPA rules, which are likely at least 18 months away from full implementation, will preempt state regulations.

The new rules — which state officials will help enforce — will keep the existing standards for organism concentrations, but prevent states from implementing their own rules that exceed federal standards. For example, California’s goal of zero detectable organisms in ballast discharge will be nixed. 

Nicole Dobrosky, the State Lands Commission’s chief of environmental science, planning and management, said states can petition the federal government for changes to the rules. 

Shippers welcome the shift to national rules that align with international standards, said Jacqueline Moore, Long Beach-based vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. 

“An international industry by nature, the maritime community always appreciates consistent standards across the board, and across the ocean in this case,” Moore said. “It’s much easier for everyone.”  

But the change of regulatory oversight concerns Marcie Keever, the oceans and vessels program director with Friends of the Earth. She said that to date the State Lands Commission has been the more active enforcer.

Preempting state laws with federal standards that she says are too weak “will essentially give the shipping industry a free pass to pollute…These shipping companies are self-reporting pollution instances, and no one is doing anything about it except for the state.”

In 1973, the EPA exempted ballast water from the Clean Water Act. Eventually forced by court rulings to comply with the act, the agency released its newest standards in October for limiting organism concentrations in ballast water.

Keever said the EPA is not setting the bar as high as it should. 

“We’re still basically at the same place we were at 20 years ago,” Keever said. “The EPA has never set what we see as the best available technology for ballast water discharges.”

More than 150 environmental groups made similar claims in a 2022 letter to President Joe Biden, arguing that the technology exists now to almost entirely sterilize ballast water. 

“[W]e have the technical ability to efficiently remove or kill organisms that are trapped in a tank of water,” they wrote. “For half a century federal law has required EPA to use that ability to protect the environment and public health — yet EPA still refuses to do so.”

The EPA disagrees with the criticism. Joshua Alexander, press officer with the agency’s Region 9 San Francisco office, told CalMatters that “the EPA concluded that these standards (in the new rules) are the most stringent ones that the available ballast water test data can support.”

Can anything stop the mussel invasion?

October’s discovery of the golden mussel in California is being treated urgently by state and federal officials.

The creatures have wreaked havoc on water supply and hydroelectric facilities in South America, and they are spreading rapidly through central China. In the Great Lakes, invasive zebra mussels cause $300 to $500 million in damages annually to power plants and other water infrastructure — the types of impacts officials in California hope to avoid. 

Tanya Veldhuizen, the Department of Water Resources’ special projects section manager, said officials are considering the use of chemicals to remove the creatures from pumps, intakes and pipelines of the massive State Water Project, which transports water to farms and cities.  

Several scientists told CalMatters that with most nonnative species, eradication is only possible early in the game — meaning management officials often have one shot at success.

Biologist Andrew Chang, who works at the Smithsonian research center’s Marin County field lab, noted an old adage in invasion ecology — containing the spread of a nonnative species is like trying to put toothpaste back into a tube. “The more time that passes, the process of putting the toothpaste back in the tube gets messier and messier,” Chang said.

University of Windsor’s MacIsaac thinks California may be on the cusp of an unstoppable mussel invasion. 

“This is an enormous problem for your state,” he said.

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California’s offshore wind industry could be a casualty if President Elect Donald Trump makes good on his promise to sign an executive order to “end” the offshore wind industry.

He cannot do it with the stroke of a pen. But Trump can deeply wound the state’s next-generation renewable energy source by cutting off funding just as it’s gaining a foothold in the U.S.

California’s offshore wind plans rely on a federal policy that offers billions of dollars in grants, subsidies and tax incentives.  

Floating offshore wind farms, which bob in the deep ocean as much as 20 miles from shore, are still not common in U.S. waters. But the technology is well on its way to being deployed in the ocean off California, which is counting on the clean energy source to meet its goals to scrub fossil fuels from the electric grid.

The state’s energy blueprint envisions massive offshore wind farms producing 25 gigawatts of electricity by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13% of the power supply.

Five offshore wind companies have already paid the U.S. Treasury $757 million to lease five tracts in the deep ocean off Humboldt County and Morro Bay.  The hundreds of turbines, each as tall as a 70-story building, would not be visible from the coast but would need infrastructure on land, including port expansions and new transmission systems.

The Biden administration calls the rush to develop this new energy frontier the “Floating Offshore Wind Shot.” But harnessing that power could end up more of a long shot if Trump pulls back federal support.

The industry, which is largely Europe-based, has kept a keen eye on Washington, D.C. politics — cheering when the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act passed, freeing up federal money, including $100 million for transmission development and a 30% tax credit. 

In the wake of Trump’s election victory last week, stock in some offshore wind companies dropped.

Trump vowed to “terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act. But much of the tax breaks have already been claimed and the construction jobs, manufacturing and supply chain development will take place in districts that Republican lawmakers might want to protect.

Trump has long carried a grievance against offshore wind turbines, a dislike that may have begun with land-based turbines that he said spoiled the seaward view from his golf club in Scotland. He has repeated, many times over the years and at recent campaign rallies, unsubstantiated claims that wind farms cause cancer and environmental damage. 

“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said at a rally in May in New Jersey. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”

Scientists say there is no evidence that offshore wind projects kill whales. Other offshore wind farms around the world have had minimal impact on marine mammals, although they are not directly analogous to the Pacific Ocean’s deep floating platforms. Researchers are examining the potential impacts of increased sound and ship traffic on migration patterns and effects on prey.

“More information is needed to help us better understand the potential short-term and long-term impacts of this industry on protected, threatened, and endangered species, as well as the cumulative effects of these activities on marine mammals in the context of stressors already present in the marine environment,” the federal Marine Mammal Commission says.

Floating offshore wind is at a critical inflection point. Wind developers say they need certainty from state and federal partners that environmental policies will remain in place to reassure investors. That’s no problem in California, they say, where state officials have sent strong signals of support, backed by billions in investments to build power transmission and ports. The industry got a $475 million injection for port infrastructure from just-passed ballot initiative Proposition 4.

“In the next few years much of the work that needs to be done to advance offshore wind will focus on state activities,” said Adam Stern, executive director of the industry group Offshore Wind California.

However, while the federal scaffolding to support the industry is already in place, Stern said, there’s no guarantee that support will remain.

“As an industry we want to work with the new administration to help strengthen the state’s grid reliability, continue to achieve energy independence and create new jobs,” he said. “Those issues ought to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats.”

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In one of its most controversial decisions, California’s air board voted tonight to revamp a key climate change program, which could increase gas prices in a state already facing some of the nation’s steepest costs at the pump.

The California Air Resources Board approved major changes to its Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a program aimed at encouraging use of cleaner transportation fuels with financial incentives as the state moves toward phasing out gasoline and diesel.

The board’s 12-2 vote tonight followed about seven hours of comments from more than 100 people and four hours of discussion by board members at its meeting, held in Riverside.

State Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican from Palmdale, told the board during public comments that the possible impact on gas prices will harm working class Californians.

“We’re the hard working men and women here in the state of California. We build homes, we fix roads, and we serve you when you dine out,” Lackey said. “To do this, we must drive hours each day to work to put food on the table for our families. This measure before you will cause us financial pain.”

At the heart of the controversy is the question: How do you wean Californians off gasoline and diesel — which is critical for cleaning the state’s dirty air and reducing its role in the climate crisis — without substantially raising the cost to consumers?

Many air board members referred to an urgency to push for cleaner fuels in California because of the outcome of the Tuesday election, which gave Donald Trump, who has denied the existence of climate change and targeted California environmental programs, the presidency and Republicans control of the U.S. Senate.

The new rule’s potential effects on California fuel prices are largely unknown. The air board said today that oil companies typically already pass 8 to 10 cents per gallon of costs on to consumers because of the state’s fuel standard. 

The board also passed a resolution tonight requiring an annual review of the rule’s impact on gas prices. If the changes “ultimately accelerate cost burdens on California consumers,” the board said in the resolution that it will consider amending them.

Eric Guerra, a Sacramento city council member who was appointed to the air board by Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the air board must prioritize public health but that support of working families is equally important, so he called for frequent monitoring of the possible impact on gas prices.

Concerns about gas prices have fueled the debate surrounding the board’s proposal since its release last December. But much of the agency’s revamp of its fuel rules focuses on intricate disputes among environmentalists, oil companies, dairy farms that use manure to produce fuels, biofuel companies and other low-carbon fuel providers.

Environmentalists and consumer advocates opposed the new rules, warning the changes will boost alternative fuels — such as biofuels made from cow manure or soy beans — that may have limited environmental upsides, and will allow oil companies to stay in business because they can buy credits or switch to producing those fuels.

“It is not based on science, and it will undermine environmental justice and the rapid transition to zero emissions that we need more than ever today,” Nina Robertson, a senior attorney with Earth Justice told the board. “It represents a grab bag of giveaways to polluting special interests that have turned what once was a program for climate progress into a piggy bank for their false climate solutions.”

Electric car advocates and a variety of biofuel company representatives supported the new rules, saying they will provide billions of dollars in funds and incentives to move California toward eliminating carbon that warms the planet. 

Tonight’s vote was the culmination of a debate over changes in a fuel standard that has roiled the air board for longer than a year, becoming a political flashpoint in recent weeks.

The program, which has existed since 2011, is a $2-billion credit trading system that requires fuels sold in California to become progressively cleaner, while giving companies financial incentives to produce less-polluting fuels, such as biofuels made from soybeans or cow manure.

The amendments approved today will require gasoline, diesel and other fuels in California to meet stricter standards for greenhouse gases while changing how credits are awarded for specific lower-carbon fuels.

Air board Chair Liane Randolph told CalMatters in an interview last month that the low-carbon fuels program is “one of California’s most significant and most effective climate programs.” 

At the meeting today, Randolph suggested the new rules are critical, given how California’s climate and air pollution programs could come under strain from the new Trump administration.

“We know that in order to be successful in addressing climate change, we must continue to reduce our fossil fuel consumption and invest in low-carbon energy,” said Randolph, who was appointed to the board by Newsom. “Let’s be realistic, the tools in our (climate) toolbox may become much more limited going forward.”

But the debate resulted in two rare public defections among the 14 voting members of the Air Resources Board, who often unanimously approve major rules for cleaning up air pollution and cutting greenhouse gases. 

Air board members Dean Florez, a former state senator from the Central Valley, and Diane Takvorian, an environmental justice advocate, voted no.

“Obviously, I’m a no, mostly about the environmental issues that were brought up, but also this whole discussion about gas,” Florez said.

Takvorian criticized how large dairy farms, which often pollute low-income farm communities, will benefit from the state’s low-carbon fuel credits for their manure digesters for 30 years.

Florez said he is concerned that oil companies support the program and “that should give the board a little bit of pause.” Their products are a main cause of climate change.

“I listened to the testimony today, and I’ve been watching most of the industry tweets, and they all seem very giddy about the current program … that kind of worries me, because they kind of get to play both sides in some sense,” he said.

Florez warned in a CalMatters opinion piece earlier this week that the program is flawed, that it could impose financial hardships on people, and that the air board was not transparent about the costs.

“Such increases would affect essential goods and services, as transportation costs ripple through the economy, impacting food prices, housing affordability and more. For Californians already stretched thin by escalating rents and inflation, these additional costs could become overwhelming, pushing many into deeper financial insecurity,” wrote Florez, who is the state Senate-appointed member of the air board. His current term ends next month. 

Air board member Hector De La Torre said oil companies are dishonest when they blame rising gas prices on the climate program. He said it was “a false narrative period” and blamed oil companies for price fluctuations.

“We’re not wildly fluctuating … we project out for many years. We let them know what we’re going to do, we let them know how it’s going to play out,” said De La Torre, a former Assembly member who was appointed to the board by the state Assembly. “So let us be clear about why we have the wild fluctuations in California on gas prices. It is not us. It is not the Legislature.”

Florez, however, disagreed. “How we can, in all good conscience, say that it’s all these other factors and somehow we’re not a cause.”

A gas price fight

Energy experts and air board staff say the fuel standard raises the cost of producing high-polluting gasoline and diesel for the California market because oil companies must buy credits from lower-carbon fuel producers, or produce the fuels themselves.

Those costs can drive up prices at the pump when companies pass them on to customers, although it’s difficult to predict by how much. Some companies might produce cleaner fuels themselves, potentially profiting from the incentives, while others may buy credits on the market.

In an initial assessment released last year, the air board projected that the proposed new standard could potentially raise the per-gallon price of diesel by 59 cents and for gasoline, 47 cents, in 2025. Air board officials have since disavowed that estimate, writing last month that the analysis “should not be misconstrued as a prediction of the future credit price nor as a direct impact on prices at the pump.”

A separate report, released last month by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, predicted that the program’s changes could increase the cost of gas by 85 cents a gallon through 2030.

The fight over the fuels standard has shown how the state’s ambitious agenda for addressing climate change can be the subject of ire if it threatens to make fossil fuels more expensive. Californians paid an average of $4.52 a gallon today, second only to Hawaiians.

The vote came three days after a presidential election marked by concerns over inflation. State Republicans, in particular, have slammed the program as misguided, saying it piles on costs at a time when affordability is a top concern.

An analysis by California’s nonpartisan legislative analyst found the average California household spent about $3,200 a year on gasoline in 2021 and 2022, but some families — typically those with below-average incomes — spent more, about $6,150 a year. 

“If gas prices would have been (10 cents per gallon) higher during the period we reviewed, the typical household’s gasoline spending would have increased by about $60 per year” and $130 per year for the households most reliant on gasoline, the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote.

Raising the cost of diesel could have sweeping effects on the economy, since it fuels trucks and trains that carry goods, from food to toys, that Californians rely on and buy.

Tim Taylor, chief legislative advocate for the National Federation of Independent Business, said the state’s small business owners are concerned about that ripple effect on the economy.

“We’re not opposed to the greenhouse gas emission goals of the state, but the choice today is not one of endorsing zero emissions…it’s one of subsidizing biofuels,” Taylor said.

Small businesses worry about “the potentially massive gasoline price hikes, and the adverse impacts those increases will have on their businesses, and the rippling effect it will have on all Californians without actually improving the air quality of the state,” he said.

The Western States Petroleum Association, an oil industry group, has supported the program, with many of its members producing some of the new fuels the program has spurred. However, they argued against many proposed changes because they might increase costs or disadvantage some companies. Chevron also warned against what the changes might do to costs in the state. 

“At a time when fuel prices are under significant scrutiny and demand in California frequently outstrips supply, regulators should be careful about adding new measures that restrict supply,” Don Gilstrap, Chevron’s manager of fuels regulations wrote to the board last month.

Millions of tons of carbon eliminated

Under the California Climate Crisis Act, the state must slash its greenhouse gases to reach net-zero greenhouse gases by 2045. Cars, trucks and other transportation are the number one source and the changes to the fuels standard are meant to prevent California from falling behind on its ambitious climate goals, which are already at risk.

The standard has helped the state clean up air pollution and cut climate-warming gases, according to the air board. Through 2022, the program has eliminated 140 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The air board’s changes are expected to reduce carbon dioxide-equivalent gases by 558 million metric tons through 2046, according to its initial economic assessment.

Those predicted reductions are equal to what more than 120 million cars emit on average in a year, though experts have told CalMatters the board’s estimates could be overstatements because the carbon footprint from some renewable diesel might be more than reported.

The program has been particularly successful in shifting the fuel market for medium and heavy-duty trucks, and over the course of 13 years, the program has displaced 25 billion gallons of petroleum fuels, according to the board’s economic assessment.

The previous standard’s target was reducing the climate impact of transportation fuels by 20% between 2010 and 2030. The changes impose tougher “carbon intensity” targets, tightening the greenhouse gas reductions by about 30% by 2030 and 90% by 2045. 

Through the state’s fuel standard, California has become a proving ground for cleaner fuels. But so many companies are producing them now that the value of credits has nosedived, dropping to an average of $68.12 last week compared to a weekly high in February 2020 of $211.02. The credits have built up to the point where some companies can buy their way out of producing cleaner fuels. To avoid that, regulators tightened the standard so that companies have incentives to burn through their excess credits.

Laura Renger, chair of the California Electric Transportation Coalition, emphasized the low-carbon fuel program’s importance in advancing the state’s electric car market. “It will bring critical funding,” she said. Electrify America and several car manufacturers also voiced their support.

“We have estimated that between now and 2035, the utilities would get about $4.8 billion” from the program to invest in electrification of cars and zero-emission trucks and buses, much of it in low-income communities, air board deputy executive officer Rajinder Sahota.

Biofuels: Are they better?

The fuel standard has notably driven a surge in biofuel production, derived from plant and animal waste. In the Bay Area, two companies are shifting their refineries to biofuels: a joint venture between Marathon and Neste is repurposing the Marathon Martinez refinery, while Phillips 66 is converting its Rodeo refinery into a biofuels-focused facility.

Bobby Thomas, general manager of the Rodeo refinery, told the board today that the program has helped “embrace and promote the production of lower carbon fuels in California.”

However, some experts are skeptical about the benefits. The University of Pennsylvania report estimates that about 80% of the credits issued to date — worth more than $17.7 billion, have gone to biofuels. While the air board says biofuels reduce emissions compared to traditional fossil fuels, experts say the results are mixed.

Renewable diesel fuels, like ones made from soybeans, also have unintended environmental consequences, including deforestation and food system disruptions​. The board imposed limits on diesel produced from soybean oil, canola oil and sunflower oil, but some say the changes don’t go far enough.

“A dynamic that has simply not gotten the attention that it deserves is what it means, ethically and morally, that California is celebrating making fuel from food,” said Gary Hughes, Americas Program Coordinator for the group Biofuelwatch. “This is a trend that’s particularly disturbing with all the evidence about how these products are not a climate solution.”

The board directed the staff to convene a forum in a year to collect the latest science on the effects of biofuels and find ways to avoid any harm on resources and food supply that they may cause.

Another debate over new biofuels has sparked tension around their effects on California’s low-income, polluted communities of color. The flashpoint is the phaseout of climate credits for dairy farms’ cow poop.

California’s strategy has leaned heavily on dairy industry incentives, offering grants for digesters — systems that trap methane from manure — and valuable fuel standard credits for the resulting natural gas. With dairy and livestock responsible for nearly half of the state’s methane emissions, capturing these gases not only keeps them out of the atmosphere but also turns waste into renewable fuel.

The changes will phase out these dairy credits, starting in 30 years for existing projects and in 20 years for those built before 2030. Environmental groups wanted a faster discontinuation, arguing that the credits prop up industrial dairy farms that pollute low-income, rural communities in the Central Valley.

In response, the air board directed the staff to prepare a plan to regular methane emissions from dairy farms and other livestock.

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We’ve been here before. Even the players are the same.

When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, his favorite sparring partner was California. The state’s ambitious environmental policies often clashed with the president’s promise to “drill, baby drill for oil” and rein in California’s regulations.

Now it’s California v. Trump, 2.0 — and the stakes are much the same. Candidate Trump threatened to dismantle many environmental programs and hollow out federal regulatory agencies on his first day in office.

As much as California proclaims its exceptionalism, lauding its environmental policies as examples to the rest of the nation, the Golden State is just that, a state — not a nation state. It relies on the federal government for aid, funding and partnership on major initiatives.

California’s massive water projects, its authority to clean its air, federal support for offshore wind and disaster aid for wildfires all depend on cooperation with the new Trump administration.

On Thursday Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a special legislative session to fund California’s legal defense against efforts “aimed at undermining California’s laws and policies.” Newsom wants to beef up funding for the state Justice Department and other agencies to act swiftly through the courts to push back against an array of anticipated Trump actions, including those involving clean air and climate change.

The good news for California, said Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor and director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, is that the first Trump administration “lost 83% of its court cases involving attempts to roll back environmental regulations.”

Whether California can “Trump-proof” itself and fend off another four years of assaults on its environmental efforts is unknown, but lawmakers say they are ready to fight.

“We learned a lot about former President Trump in his first term — he’s petty, vindictive, and will do what it takes to get his way no matter how dangerous the policy may be,” Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Santa Rosa Democrat, said in a statement.

Here are some of the key environmental policies at stake in California:

Federal disaster funds for California’s wildfires

Trump has never lacked advice for California on how the state should manage its ever-growing wildfire threat.

As president, while visiting the burned-out husk of Paradise, a town wiped out in 2018, Trump suggested raking its 33 million acres of forested land to reduce fuel buildup. It was an especially destructive fire year: 8,000 fires, 2 million acres burned, 24,000 structures destroyed and 100 people killed.

Two years later, Trump threatened to withhold federal fire disaster aid because he said the state had deliberately not taken his advice to “clean its floors.”  

And last month at a campaign rally he made another threat to withhold fire aid should he be reelected. Trump scolded Newsom for not properly managing the state’s water supplies and said if the governor did not toe the line, “we’re not giving any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire, forest fires that you have. It’s not hard to do.”

Whether Trump’s remarks were meant as a warning or to fire up the crowd, it is a sobering thought: Presidents have the power to refuse to send emergency aid to states or delay it. 

Despite the bluster, California so far has generally received the wildfire aid it has requested. Even during the height of Newsom’s feuding with then-president Trump over wildfire and pandemic relief, the federal assistance has come. 

“There’s not one phone call that I have made to the President, where he hasn’t quickly responded,” Newsom said in 2020. “And in almost every instance, he’s responded favorably in terms of addressing the emergency needs of the state.”

Brian Rice, president of California Professional Firefighters, the state’s largest firefighter organization, said disaster aid should not be politicized.

“If you are a resident of California you need to be concerned about this,” Rice said. “Will the 47th president of the United States withhold federal disaster relief from the state of California? It’s difficult to comprehend. What if we have an earthquake, what if we have mudslides? This is one of those things that should be hands off.

“This isn’t the federal government’s money, this is our tax dollars,” he said. “The citizens of California have paid for this.”

Under the Fire Management Assistance Grant program — administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — states may be reimbursed for 75% of their fire suppression costs — which can be considerable. The 2020 fire season killed 33 people and caused the state more than $19 billion in economic losses. The cost to fight the fires was more than $2 billion. According to a UC Davis analysis, from 2015 to 2020, total insured economic losses from California wildfires exceeded $50 billion. 

These grants are commonly awarded, especially in California, where nearly 60% of the forested land is owned by the federal government. So far this year, the state has received 10 fire assistance grants, most recently this week for the Mountain Fire in Ventura County.  Other grants are available for post-fire work and assistance to affected communities.

Federal funding for wildfire disasters is in line with the government aid states receive for natural disasters such as hurricanes, and can sometimes become snarled in political score-settling. A 2021 federal report found that the Trump administration delayed $20 billion in disaster aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The Delta water wars

Trump’s reelection has unnerved environmental groups that are watching over the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its imperiled fish. At stake are the state’s massive projects that bring Northern California water south to farmers and cities. 

In 2016, Trump famously scorned California for wasting water by allowing its major rivers to reach the ocean. More recently, at a September campaign speech in Rancho Palos Verdes, Trump said he will increase the amount of water these projects deliver, promising Southern Californians “more water than almost anybody has.” 

“The farmers up north are going to be able to use 100% of their land, not 1% of their land, and the water is going to come all the way down to Los Angeles,” he said before voicing his well-known contempt of the Delta smelt, a fish nearly extinct in spite of desperate campaigns to save it. 

Complex federal and state rules, jointly developed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources, govern the operation of the Delta’s two massive water systems, limiting how much water can be pumped south. 

But sources said Trump, upon taking office, could almost immediately bypass those rules to increase exports from the Delta. He could issue an executive order, for instance, that ramps up pumping early next year, according to Ashley Overhouse, the California water policy advisor for Defenders of Wildlife.     

Environmentalists fear this would have a variety of impacts on the Delta, such as killing more already threatened salmon and other fish at pumping facilities.

Also possible are rollbacks of protections provided by the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, appointment of an industry-friendly staff and cabinet, and new federal legislation aimed at storing and exporting more water. 

“An administration led by President-elect Trump will push a legislative and regulatory agenda that is designed to dismantle bedrock conservation laws, destroying the wildlife and habitat that we advocate for,” Overhouse said.

A House of Representatives bill sponsored by San Joaquin Valley Republican Rep. David Valadao, for example, directly challenges state authority with a push to enlarge Lake Shasta, the infrastructural headwaters of the Central Valley Project, which sends water south to farmers. This would inundate tribal land along the McCloud River and could violate the state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts. 

The pending bill — which sources expect Trump will sign if it reaches his desk — would also cripple the State Water Board’s power to curtail water deliveries to protect fish, and it would at least double federal water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley farmers in drought years, when fish often face lethal river conditions. 

Jon Rosenfield, science director at San Francisco Baykeeper, said Trump’s allegiance to “industrial agriculture that exports nuts and hay across the globe” will mean less cold water for spawning salmon, which already are in dire shape. He said the Sacramento River’s ailing Chinook salmon runs are poised to be a casualty of Trump’s agenda. 

Trump’s vow to deliver more water to farmers south of the Delta has gained him strong support from one of California’s biggest industries.

San Joaquin Valley farmer Sarah Woolf anticipates with Trump’s reelection a better outcome for growers than might have materialized under Kamala Harris. She said water insecurity has plagued the region’s environment, farms and communities — an issue she feels Harris did not adequately address in her campaign. 

“Trump has vocalized his understanding and concern about water in California and agriculture, and I think that’s critically important as a solution to the problems,” she said. 

Allison Febbo, general manager of the Westlands Water District — a major recipient of federal Delta exports for growers — congratulated the Republican candidate in a statement.

“President-elect Trump has made California water a central part of his policy platform and we look forward to working with his Administration on water security and affordability issues that plague our state and region,” Febbo said. 

California’s clean cars and trucks 

California has embarked on a massive undertaking: A phaseout of new sales of gasoline-powered cars, requiring all new cars sold in California beginning with 2035 models to be zero-emissions. The mandate is a cornerstone of the state’s efforts to clean its air and combat climate change.

What’s more, other states have followed California’s stricter rules, making the state a nationwide leader on climate policy. Eleven states and Washington, D.C., for instance, are adopting or plan to adopt California’s phaseout of gas-powered cars. 

The new Trump administration, however, probably will try to block California’s rules to reduce emissions from cars and other vehicles.

At a campaign event in Michigan last month, Trump said no state would be allowed to ban gas-powered cars, telling a rally, “I guarantee it — no way,” according to Reuters. He also has repeatedly taken aim at Biden administration pollution rules that promote electric vehicles. And during his last go-around as president, Trump tried revoking California’s authority to set stricter vehicle emissions rules.

How successful the second Trump administration will be in rolling back California’s clean air initiatives is uncertain, given that the state’s ability to set its own standards is rooted in longstanding federal law, the Clean Air Act.

Also, electric cars have increasingly become a big part of auto sales in California and nationwide, and nearly all automakers already are selling them, so they have less incentive to support rollbacks of rules.

Congress in 1967 gave California the authority to set its own standards for cars and other vehicles. For more than half a century, this ability has been the main driving force behind California’s success in cleaning up its severe smog and other air pollution.

But there is a catch: Each of California’s emission standards must be granted a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before it can take effect.

The EPA has not yet approved waivers for eight of California’s standards, including its landmark zero-emission car rule. Others require cleaner trucks, locomotives, commercial ships and off-road diesel vehicles like tractors and construction equipment. The most controversial one mandates zero-emission trucks.

Trump’s EPA is expected to deny or try to revoke all of the waivers that California is seeking to enforce its clean air standards. But Congress wrote explicit provisions in federal law about when EPA can reject them: The federal agency can only reject California mandates if they are “arbitrary or capricious,” if the state doesn’t need them to clean its severe air pollution, or if they are inconsistent with federal law because there is “inadequate lead time” for manufacturers to develop electric cars or other technologies at a reasonable cost.

“You can’t just deny it because you don’t like it. California has this authority and the Clean Air Act specifies how EPA is supposed to review the waiver and what it’s supposed to consider in granting or denying the waiver,” said Carlson of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.  

An EPA spokesperson said the agency is “reviewing the (California waiver) requests closely to make sure its decisions are durable and grounded in the law.” 

California officials said they would vigorously defend their electric car and truck rules in court.

“We expect pushback from the Trump administration, so we’ll see what he does and how he does it, and we will push back legally,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a press conference on Thursday.

The air board has six decades of history on its side: “No waiver has ever been revoked and the one previous denial was quickly reversed” by the EPA, according to the California Air Resources Board. A board spokesperson declined to comment about the new Trump administration.

Mary Nichols, former chair of the air board under Newsom and former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, said the state has weathered opposition from presidents in the past, including clashes with the Bush and Trump administrations. Neither impeded the state’s progress in combating air pollution and climate change, she said. 

“To the extent that the new incoming administration… tries to dismantle these programs, I think they’re going to face some strong opposition,” Nichols said.

Nichols said the auto industry, despite some pushback and reluctance about deadlines and details, has come to respect California’s regulatory approach and sign on to new standards.

When the Trump administration attempted to roll back California’s standards, many major automakers chose to negotiate with the state instead to avoid the uncertainty. The state in 2020 finalized an agreement with BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America and Volvo, which agreed to follow the state’s standards through 2026 regardless of what the federal government did. 

But these agreements leave open to challenge the state’s requirements after 2026 — including its landmark mandate for 100% zero-emission car sales in 2035.

Last year, automaker Stellantis agreed to comply with the state’s zero-emission car sales requirements through 2030, even if California is “unable to enforce its standards as a result of judicial or federal action.”

Paul Nolette, a professor of political science at Marquette University who has studied how attorneys general shape policies through litigation, said California might not only challenge federal rollbacks but also work directly with industries to agree on emission standards.

For example, California could negotiate more agreements with automakers, bypassing federal regulations. This approach, modeled after settlements in industries like tobacco and banking, could set a powerful precedent, allowing California to push its environmental agenda even without federal support.

The state’s large economy gives it considerable influence as manufacturers and corporations can’t afford to ignore California’s car and truck market. 

Congress could try to repeal the Clean Air Act to remove California’s long-standing authority. But even with a Republican majority, Congress would likely face many obstacles, especially with potential filibustering by Democrats. Previous efforts in Congress to scale back the Clean Air Act have failed since many states support strong efforts to combat air pollution. If California’s authority comes under fire, Nolette expects legal battles to reach the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

California doesn’t have much choice when it comes to cleaning its air. If California doesn’t have specific plans and rules to meet national health standards for smog and soot, the state faces federal sanctions — withholding of federal highway funds. Carlson said that “makes the Trump effort to deny the waivers actually legally vulnerable … .The court is bound by what the law says.”

California has “to regulate cars and trucks and other equipment if we’re supposed to meet our air quality standards,” said Paul Cort, an attorney with EarthJustice. “Until that changes, I think folks just keep moving forward.”

Another potential challenge could come from Congress if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to revoke federal rules approved during a certain timeframe at the end of an administration. Legal experts, however, debate whether that law would apply to EPA actions related to California’s clean-air waivers.

California’s offshore wind projects

The offshore wind industry could be a Day One casualty if Trump makes good on his promise to sign an executive order to “end” the offshore wind industry.

He cannot do that with the stroke of a pen. But as president, Trump can deeply wound this next-generation renewable energy source by cutting off funding just as it’s gaining a foothold in the U.S.

California’s offshore wind plans rely on a federal policy that offers billions in grants, subsidies and tax incentives.  

Floating offshore wind farms, which bob in the deep ocean as much as 20 miles from shore, are still not common in U.S. waters. But the technology is well on its way to being deployed in California, which counts on the clean energy source to meet its goals to scrub fossil fuels from the electric grid.

The state’s blueprint envisions offshore wind farms producing 25 gigawatts of electricity by 2045, powering 25 million homes and providing about 13% of the power supply.

Five offshore wind companies have already paid the U.S. Treasury $757 million to lease tracts in the ocean off Humboldt County and Morro Bay. Energy produced in the Pacific would be part of a federal goal of 15 gigawatts of ocean wind power by 2035. 

The Biden administration calls the rush to develop this new energy frontier the “Floating Offshore Wind Shot.” But harnessing that power could end up more of a long shot if Trump pulls back federal support.

The industry, which is largely Europe-based, has kept a keen eye on Washington, D.C. politics — cheering when the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act passed, freeing up federal money, including $100 million for transmission development and a 30% tax credit. 

In the wake of Trump’s election victory this week, stock in some offshore wind companies dropped.

Trump vowed to “terminate” the Inflation Reduction Act, but much of the tax breaks have already been claimed and the construction jobs, manufacturing and supply chain development will take place in districts that Republican lawmakers might want to protect.

Trump has long carried a grievance against offshore wind turbines, a dislike that may have begun with turbines that the former president said spoiled the seaward view from his golf club in Scotland. He has repeated, many times over the years and at recent campaign rallies, the unsubstantiated claims that wind farms cause cancer and environmental damage. 

“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said at a rally in May in New Jersey. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.” (Scientists say there is no evidence that offshore wind projects kill whales.)

Floating offshore wind is at a critical inflection point. Wind developers say they need certainty from state and federal partners that environmental policies will remain in place to reassure investors. 

That’s no problem in California, they say, where state officials have sent strong signals of support, backed by billions in investments to build power transmission and ports. The industry got a $475 million injection for port infrastructure from just-passed ballot initiative Proposition 4.

“In the next few years much of the work that needs to be done to advance offshore wind will focus on state activities,” said Adam Stern, executive director of the industry group Offshore Wind California.

While the federal scaffolding to support the industry is already in place, Stern said, there’s no guarantee that support will remain.

“As an industry we want to work with the new administration to help strengthen the state’s grid reliability, continue to achieve energy independence and create new jobs,” he said. “Those issues ought to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats.”

When it comes to all environmental programs and policies, experts and environmentalists say Trump’s first term in the White House inflicted some damage, but they fear the second coming of Trump could be worse for California. 

“President Trump, in his first term, took a while to understand and exercise the reins of power,” said Ron Stork, a senior policy staffer with Friends of the River. “I expect that his administration will get off to a faster start this time with a more organized agenda. They’ll be able to hit the ground running.”

California will spend $10 billion to fund water, climate, wildfire and natural resource projects after voters approved a bond measure in Tuesday’s election.

Proposition 4 will fund projects across the state to safeguard drinking water, combat wildfires, protect natural lands, and improve resilience against floods and extreme heat, but some of the money is also directed toward shorter-term items like job training.

At least 40% of the funds will be spent to benefit communities considered most harmed by climate change and environmental fallout —  prioritizing support for populations that might lack the resources to cope with those impacts.

Alfredo Gonzalez, an environmentalist who headed the campaign backing the measure, described  the financing as a strategic response to the state’s growing environmental threats. The bond measure will be a down payment aimed at water security, wildfire management, and resilience against intense heat waves, floods and even rising sea levels, he said.

“Voters have yet again made it clear that they believe in the need to prepare California for the ever-growing impacts of climate change,” Gonzalez said today in a statement after the measure passed. “This bond enables the state to invest in climate solutions at scale, and we urge our leaders to continue to deliver results that protect our communities and economy.” 

Water projects will get the bulk of the money, about $3.8 billion. Half of that portion, $1.9 billion, will be spent on improving water quality, while the rest will be spent on protecting the state from floods and droughts, as well as other activities, including restoring rivers and lakes.

Despite improvements, safe drinking water remains a severe problem across California. Nearly 730,000 people are still served by the 380 water systems that fail to meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water. Latino farm communities struggling with poverty and pollution are especially hard-hit.

Funds also will be directed toward wildfire risk reduction, coastal protection, clean energy initiatives and sustainable agricultural practices.

“We are inspired and grateful to see voters back the largest climate and natural resources bond in state history,” said Liz Forsburg Pardi, California policy director at the Nature Conservancy. “Voters sent a powerful signal that climate resilience is a priority.” 

The drawback, opponents said, is that bonds are an expensive way to pay for projects and should only be used on long-term, durable infrastructure.

Paying off the bonds will cost the state about $400 million a year, for a total of $16 billion, according to the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst. Taking inflation into account, that’s about 10% more than if the state paid for the projects without using debt.

The bond measure will saddle taxpayers with long-term debt for short-term projects, said State Sen. Brian Jones, the Republican minority leader from San Diego, one of the authors of the official argument against the measure.

Jones said today that he would seek to “ensure the funds are used responsibly and efficiently.”

“Prop. 4 places a significant financial burden on California taxpayers,” Jones said in a statement. “While I’m disappointed it ultimately passed, I respect the will of the voters and am committed to fulfilling it.”

While acknowledging the importance of environmental stewardship, Jones said some of the short-lived items in the measure include things such as funding for farmers’ markets, job programs and van pools — in other words, projects that aren’t intended to last.

California voters have a history of approving environmental initiatives on the ballot, though not all have succeeded.

In 2018, voters passed a $4 billion bond for state and local parks, environmental protection, water infrastructure and flood protection projects. Four years earlier, voters approved $7.12 billion in bonds for building reservoirs, recycling and groundwater projects and other water supply infrastructure.

But voters rejected a 2022 measure that would have raised taxes on high-income individuals and spent that money on electric car programs and wildfire prevention initiatives. Newsom campaigned against that measure, helping secure its defeat.

Prop. 4 made it onto the ballot after an extended legislative debate, with proponents arguing that the measure was essential to maintain and expand environmental investments. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature initially approved a $54.3 billion spending package called the “California Climate Commitment” in 2022, only to have to scale it back to $44.6 billion this year amid a budget deficit.

California voters had shown some recent reluctance to fund increased spending via bond measures. California primary voters, for instance, passed Newsom’s $6.4 billion mental health bond on March 5 by the slimmest of margins, 50.2%. That experience, Newsom said during a press conference earlier this year, “sobered, I think, a lot of the conversation up here,” and indicated that he was wary of backing another bond measure after suffering that near setback.

“The public wants to see results,” the governor told reporters during that May conference, before Prop. 4 was put on the ballot. Newsom has not endorsed the measure, and a spokesperson for him declined to say how the governor would vote on it.

A poll last month showed likely California voters supported the measure, though that support fell from an earlier survey. The Public Policy Institute of California’s October poll showed 60% would vote yes, 38% would vote no and 2% of voters were undecided. That was a slight decline from late August and early September, when the same nonpartisan think tank found 65% of likely voters would vote yes, 33% no and 2% undecided.

Lea esta historia en Español

From the glittery bling of its name, the golden mussel sounds like it could be California’s state bivalve. 

Unfortunately, the creature’s only connection to the Golden State is the fact that it is California’s most recently identified invasive species — and it’s a bad one, with the capacity to clog major water supply pipes. 

On Oct. 17, the tiny freshwater mollusks, which have already laid siege to waterways of southern South America, were found at Rough and Ready Island, near Stockton. Since then, state officials said, it has been in at least one other location, O’Neill Forebay, in Merced County. 

Its appearance in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the mussel’s first confirmed detection in North America, according to a news release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. 

It’s also very possibly just the beginning of a long battle ahead to slow its spread. The top concerns at the moment include potential impacts to the environment and to the Delta pumping stations that send water to 30 million people and millions of acres of farmland.

Unless it is contained and eliminated immediately, said UC Davis biologist Peter Moyle, there might be no getting rid of it. 

“If we’re lucky, and we stage a real eradication effort in the area where it’s presently found, it might not be too costly and would be worth it,” he said. 

But if such efforts fail, it could become a major problem for native species that the mussels outcompete for food.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife is already considering these worst-case outcomes.

“The species poses a significant immediate threat to the ecological health of the Delta and all waters of the state, water conveyance systems, infrastructure and water quality,” staff officials wrote.

The Department of Water Resources is already conducting vessel inspections in the hopes of preventing spread of the mussels. In the San Luis State Recreation Area, officials have been inspecting watercraft exiting O’Neill Forebay, San Luis Reservoir, and Los Banos Creek Reservoir, said Tanya Veldhuizen, the department’s special projects section manager. The inspections are to “ensure all water is drained from livewells and bilges to prevent spread of invasive species to other water bodies.”

The department, she said, is also taking heightened measures to protect the State Water Project — the system of pumps, pipes, and canals that exports water south from the Delta. This enhanced vigilance to mitigate “mussel biofouling,” she said, requires more frequent inspections, as well as cleaning and flushing. The mussels, she said, are likely to build up in screens, strainers, and trashracks.

A native of China and Southeast Asia, the golden mussel — taxonomically Limnoperna fortunei — fixes itself to underwater surfaces, forming thick “reefs” built of millions of the animals. They feed by filtering nutrients and plankton from the water and, by this passive action, can have devastating impacts. Essentially, they filter the nutrition out of the native food web. In Argentina and southern Brazil, where golden mussels appeared in the 1990s, they have pushed out other species and smothered river beaches and native vegetation. Scientists have watched them spread north as rapidly as 150 miles per year, and they fear the invaders will find their way into the world’s largest river system and the hottest hotspot of biodiversity on Earth, the Amazon basin.

They’ve also wreaked mayhem with underwater infrastructure, from hydroelectric plants to water supply systems. The mussels, for example, reportedly clogged the intake pipes of an urban water supply system in Brazil’s Lake Guaíba.

No one can be certain how the mussels got to California, but sources suspect they arrived the same way they are believed to have traveled to South America — in the bowels of commercial ships, where ballast water used to stabilize vessels at sea is often drained in the port of arrival.

This practice has helped distribute aquatic species around the globe. While California shipping regulations prohibit ballast discharge with rules meant to keep it far offshore, unreported dumping and leakage may take place in state waters. Researchers at Cal State University, Long Beach, in an analysis of Southern California harbor pollution, reported that discharge “from the ballast tanks of ships, though illegal, does occur.”

Andrew Cohen, the director of the Center for Research on Aquatic Bioinvasions in Richmond, said he is not surprised by the mussel’s appearance in the Delta and has been expecting this for more than a decade. He said ballast water is routinely discharged in San Francisco Bay and the Delta.

Not everyone is particularly surprised, either. Moyle, for one, said he’s been expecting the golden mussel to arrive in the state for years. The California Delta, he noted, has been described as one of the most invaded estuaries in the world. It has been colonized by at least 185 foreign species, from Himalayan blackberries and fig trees to black bass, striped bass, and water hyacinth. According to one estimate, invasive species account for an astounding 95% or more of the estuary’s total biomass. The nutria — a large water-loving rodent from South America — has spread through the estuary in recent years amid concerns that it could, among other things, damage levees with its burrows. 

There are even some Asian bivalves already living in the Bay and Delta. The Eurasian overbite clam, for one, spread through the waterway in the 1980s. Biologists say the species has likely played a role in the downfall of native fishes by absorbing the tiny food particles that they depend on. The failed recovery of the Delta smelt, for example, has been linked to the spread of these clams.

Now, scientists fear the golden mussel could add to these pressures.

Cohen said that if the golden mussel is, in fact, spreading through the Delta, “our chances of eliminating it are essentially nil.”

But how thoroughly it will spread is unknown.

Moyle said the Delta is so heavily impacted already, and its food resources already claimed, by other species — notably the filter-feeding clams — that there may be no room for the golden mussel to move in. 

“The invasive clams take up a lot of niche space,” he said.

On the other hand, Moyle said, “it could be a super-invader” — an invasive species so adaptable and persistent that it replaces other invaders that came before it. The Delta’s average range of water temperatures and salinity, he said, are just right for the golden mussel.

But in such an ecologically ransacked place as the Delta, not everyone is concerned about another bump in the road. Brett Baker, a water attorney with the Central Delta Water Agency and a sixth-generation resident on Sutter Island — and a former biology student of Moyle — isn’t fazed by the golden mussel’s appearance. 

“I’ve heard alarms all my life about quagga mussels, zebra mussels, mitten crabs, and nutria,” he said. “I just don’t think there’s enough slack in the system, or enough niche space, particularly for a species that isn’t evolved to live here … I’m pretty sure we won’t be talking about the golden mussel in 20 years, but I could be wrong.” 

Governor Newsom has signed legislation delaying pollution control measures for oil and gas wells near homes and schools, pushing monitoring deadlines to 2030. This delay, prompted by regulators, affects over 2.5 million Californians, mostly in disadvantaged communities, who face heightened health risks. Read the full story.

Farmers can estimate the size of a harvest months in advance by counting the blossoms on their trees. Similarly, salmon fishers can cast an eye into the future by counting spawning fish in a river. Fishery managers are doing that now in the Sacramento River and its tributaries, and what they’re seeing could be a bad sign for next year.

The low count of returning adult salmon, made by the federally operated Coleman National Fish Hatchery, is preliminary, with several weeks left in the natural spawning period for the Sacramento Valley’s fall-run Chinook, backbone of the state’s salmon fishing economy. 

There is even some possible good news in the numbers — a large percentage of immature Chinook, called “jacks.” This demographic slice of the salmon population can be a predictive indicator of ocean abundance for the coming season, and it could be a sign there are more fish in the ocean than many expected — though officials say it’s too early to tell.

Overall, the unwelcome numbers, mirroring similar figures from last year, are alarming to people who fish, for they portend the possible continuation of the two-year-and-counting statewide ban on salmon fishing, imposed in 2023 following a weak spawning season. 

Already, the loss of revenue from the fishery shutdown has devastated the coastal fishing fleet, which is still waiting for $20 million in federal funds allocated for disaster relief early this year. 

R.J. Waldron, who took recreational anglers salmon fishing on his Emeryville charter boat Sundance for more than a decade, recently sold his vessel. The reduced income was too skimpy to pay the overhead costs of owning a boat and renting a slip. He said relief funds, had they been portioned out, would have kept him afloat. 

“That would have helped me maintain my boat and basically ride the storm out until we get salmon fishing back — if we get salmon fishing back,” he said. 

Sarah Bates, owner of the San Francisco-based commercial vessel The Bounty, said she drew about 90% of her income from Chinook salmon sales prior to the closure and has helped make ends meet by fishing for other species, like black cod, shrimp and rockfish. Others, she said, have been targeting halibut.

Bates said the uncertain outlook has been disorienting for the men and women who shape their lives around a calendar year of fishing seasons and regulations.   

“A lot of us feel a little untethered,” she said.  

At least six more months may pass before financial relief arrives. Barry Thom, executive director of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission — which has helped facilitate the grant application process — said in an email that the federal funds could be distributed sometime in May and June of 2025.  

The odds of whether fishers will be returning to work by then still looks like a tossup. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Brett Galyean, project leader at the Coleman hatchery, described “really low” numbers of 3- and 4-year-old adult Chinook. As of Oct. 29, his staff had collected 4 million eggs from female fish — less than one-third the hatchery’s target of 14 to 15 million eggs.   

The spawning run is drawing toward the end, too, with new arrivals at the hatchery now “slowing down,” according to Galyean. 

At several other Central Valley hatcheries operated by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, facility managers have only just started counting salmon, an official said. This means overall numbers could still mount to promising levels. 

The low returns to Coleman, the state’s largest fish hatchery, reflect a long-term decline in Chinook salmon numbers regionwide. As many as 2 million adult Chinook historically spawned in the Central Valley’s rivers, and the fish were a keystone feature of marine and inland ecosystems. 

The industrialization of the landscape to produce gold, water, cities, and crops has sent salmon runs tumbling. While the Central Valley’s fish hatcheries — built last century to augment the wild stocks — release millions of baby Chinook each year, populations have dropped below fishable levels. 

In 2022 officials counted just 69,000 adult fall-run Chinook in the entire Sacramento Valley, with a moderate improvement last year. In the mainstem of the Sacramento River alone, a key spawning destination, annual returns have dropped below 4,000 adults — down from an average of almost 60,000 each year from 1990 to 2009.    

What ails California’s salmon is perennially debated. Water users lean on explanations such as invasive species, reduced floodplain habitat, and climate change. Fishery advocates often stress the importance of water, especially quantity and temperature. 

Bates said the Central Valley needs more aggressive floodplain restoration to provide feeding and refuge habitat for small fish, but that sufficient water is the key. 

“It’s the water — there’s no way around it,” Bates said. “The water conditions in the Sacramento River and the Delta no longer support juvenile salmon migrating downstream.” 

Sometimes, the outflow from Lake Shasta and into the Sacramento River during the spawning season is just a few degrees too warm — conditions that can abort millions of eggs and newly born fish and has become a recurring problem in recent years. Hot weather has played a role, though environmentalists say negligent management of the reservoir — especially failure to keep its water sufficiently deep into the late summer — is just as problematic.

As the young salmon migrate downstream, they face such perils as low flows, high temperatures, water pumps and predators. Thiamine deficiency, a relatively new and emerging ecological hiccup connected to the marine food web, has also impacted Chinook salmon. Climate change is a long-term threat.

Barry Nelson, policy representative for the Golden State Salmon Association, believes the main reason for the Sacramento’s salmon collapse has been inadequate river conditions downstream of Shasta, and low smolt survival. 

“We sterilized the Sacramento River,” he said. “We killed almost all the fish, and rule number one in fisheries management is, if you kill all the baby salmon, three years later you don’t have adult salmon.”   

As climate change drives dangerous heatwaves, California’s inland communities like Lancaster, Palmdale, and Fresno are experiencing more high-heat days, putting thousands at risk for heat-related illnesses. A recent report shows these cities, popular for affordable housing, are unprepared for rising temperatures. By 2050, they could see over 25 extreme heat days annually, up from single digits. Read the full story.

The California Air Resources Board announced on Nov. 7 that it was postponing its hearing and decision on the motorcycle rule.

At New Century Motorcycles in Alhambra, a handful of electric motorcycles are relegated to the back of the store, tucked behind the dirt bikes. The store sells one a month, at most, a salesperson said.  

Motorcyclists have long loved their noisy, gas-powered machines that allow them to ride long distances on highways and remote roads with few fueling stops.

Now, in a nationwide first, California is planning new rules that ramp up sales of zero-emission motorcycles in its quest to clean the air and battle climate-warming gasses.  

The regulations would impose a credit system for manufacturers so that 10% of motorcycles sold in California would be zero-emissions in 2028 and 50% in 2035, according to the state Air Resources Board. At the same time, a tighter standard for new gas-powered motorcycles would ratchet down their emissions for the first time in more than 25 years. 

Under the proposed rules, more than 280,000 new electric or hydrogen motorcycles would be sold in California by 2045 — about eight times more than the total on its roads now. Electric motorcycles make up only 1% of current motorcycle sales.

The state Air Resources Board will vote on the proposed rules on Nov. 7 after a public hearing.

Motorcycles are more often used for recreation than for daily commutes, and they collectively emit far less pollution than gasoline-powered cars and diesel trucks. But a mile driven in a gas-powered motorcycle emits far more pollutants than a mile in a new gas-powered car — for the reactive gases that form smog, it’s a whopping 20 times more per mile, according to the air board.

In a state with the worst smog in the nation and unsafe levels of dangerous fine particles, air-quality officials say no source can be left unregulated: All vehicles powered by fossil fuels need to be cleaned up and transitioned to zero-emissions.

State officials hope more motorcyclists will be interested in the benefits that  battery-powered motorcycles have to offer: low fueling costs and less maintenance.  

But many motorcyclists point out California’s inadequate network of public charging stations and the limited range of electric models that are unsuitable for long-distance rides. They worry that the rule will limit the bikes they can choose in the future. Others say it could fill an untapped market for urban motorcyclists interested in fast bikes for short commutes. 

“There is no infrastructure for electric vehicles,” Michael DiPiero of the American Brotherhood Aimed Towards Education of California, which represents motorcyclists, said in written comments to the air board. “We cannot support the needs we currently have for electricity as it is.” 

Rob Smith, a motorcyclist from Santa Monica, owns an electric car and considers himself an environmentalist. But he’s not ready to switch to electric motorcycles — and he doesn’t think most motorcyclists are, either. They’re expensive, silent and have top ranges of about 100 miles.

“I do think it’s the future, I just don’t know about that timeline,” Smith said of the Air Resources Board’s proposal. “This is going to just hit a niche. Can you get to 50% with just that niche?” 

Harley Davidson and the Motorcycle Industry Council, a group that represents manufacturers, didn’t respond to a request for comment about the proposed rules.

State officials said the regulation strikes a balance by moving toward electrification of motorcycles and catching up with European standards for gas-powered motorcycles yet still allowing California consumers to have a range of choices. 

“We realized we couldn’t push to 100% because there will probably be some circumstances where zero-emission motorcycles won’t have access to infrastructure to plug up their bikes,” said Annette Hèbert, the air board’s deputy executive officer who oversees mobile source rules at its Southern California office.

Motorcycles make up less than half of 1% all vehicle miles traveled in California. But even though they’re a “very small part of the state’s overall transportation sector,” they contribute an “outsized portion of smog-forming pollutants,” air board officials said.  

“Motorcycles (emissions) may look small when taken by themselves, but when you consider the additive effect to all those other small sources together, you can see why we’ve got to hit every little piece,” Hèbert said.  

If California is to finally have healthy air as well as make progress in combating climate change, “we need to have this paradigm shift, because that’s the only way we’re going to get there,” she said.

Tons of air pollution would be eliminated 

Californians breathe some of the nation’s unhealthiest air and vehicles account for the majority of that pollution. The Los Angeles basin has for decades topped the list of cities with the worst ozone, a key ingredient of smog, according to the American Lung Association. Ozone and particle pollution can trigger asthma and heart attacks, as well as other diseases.

The motorcycle regulation would lead to an estimated $649 million in savings from reduced mortality and avoided hospitalizations and illnesses associated with motorcycle emissions, according to the Air Resources Board.  

By 2045, the rules are expected to eliminate about 20,000 tons of reactive gases and nitrogen oxides that form smog, and 33 tons of fine particulate matter. That would be about half of the emissions from all California motorcycles.

California is proposing a tiered credit system for manufacturers. Companies that produce high speed, freeway-capable motorcycles with large battery capacities — those that typically produce the most emissions — will get the most credits. Low-speed bikes with low range will get the least.  

Companies comply with the rule by producing zero-emission motorcycles for credits or trading their credits with other companies. A manufacturer, for instance, could comply with its 50% target by making and selling 25% electric motorcycles and then purchasing credits for the remaining 25% from an all-electric motorcycle company. Manufacturers would also get bonus credits for producing and selling zero-emission bikes before 2029. 

Additionally, starting with 2029 models, the regulation will require new gas-powered motorcycles to follow more stringent European Union standards for exhaust emissions and use better on-board engine diagnostic equipment to detect faults in their emissions systems.  

Several manufacturers, including Harley Davison, Ducati and Kawasaki, already make electric bikes, and some companies, like Zero and Verge, build exclusively electric bikes. Energica, an electric bike startup, recently filed for bankruptcy due to increased costs and supply issues.  

An electric motorcycle purchased in 2020 cost on average $5,365 more than a gas-powered one. State officials estimated an electric bike would save $215 annually in fuel and maintenance costs. 

State officials said electric motorcycles may also appeal to low income motorcyclists who live in apartments and find charging an electric car near their residence more difficult. Less expensive electric motorcycles may be small enough to take inside apartments to charge or come with removable batteries that can be charged overnight. 

But officials stressed that the regulation’s intent isn’t to convert car drivers to motorcyclists. Instead, it’s an added option for motorcyclists looking for a more cost effective mode of transportation.  

Are electric motorcycles ready for prime time?

At a Harley Davidson dealer in Marina Del Rey, Live Wire brand electric motorcycles are visible as soon as customers enter the showroom. The dealer sells two or three electric Live Wire motorcycles monthly, said Justin Fraiser, a sales representative at the dealer. 

“There are a lot of people in the Harley world stuck on combustion engines,” Fraiser said. But he’s not one of them. “It’s the evolution of things. Eventually, it’s gonna happen.” 

Smith, the motorcyclist from Santa Monica, said he thinks electric motorcycles are the future, but they’re not quite ready for “prime time.” 

Smith said California has been a leader in climate solutions “for good reason.”  He said he cares about reducing emissions and protecting the environment. He is a partner in a venture capital firm that invests in startups that make electric bikes. 

But he prefers his “loud and obnoxious” Ducati motorcycle for its better range (up to 200 miles) and for safety reasons — car drivers can hear him coming behind them. 

Smith said the state should focus on cutting emissions from new motorcycles with internal combustion engines and was pleased to hear that was part of the regulation. 

Karen Butterfield, a motorcyclist from San Diego, agreed that, for her, an electric motorcycle won’t work. 

She’s a member of the Southern California Motorcycling Association, which gathers for long-distance trips, from Mexico to Canada and throughout the U.S. They ride for hundreds of miles without stopping, something that an electric one couldn’t do with existing charging network problems. 

But she said there’s a massive untapped market in young riders because she thinks electric motorcycles are generally easier to use.  

“I think it’s a good thing for motorcycling in the sense that a smaller electric bike would help people get into motorcycling,” she said. “The generations that are coming seem to be more environmentally conscious too, which is a good thing. I think there’s a market there, they just need to find it.”  

Adrian Martinez, an attorney for climate advocate Earthjustice, said the organization supports the proposal, but called it conservative. The group was pushing for 100% electric motorcycles in a similar timeline. 

“California has such dramatic air pollution problems that we’ve realized that we aren’t in a position to pick and choose,” Martinez said. “We basically need to get to zero emissions everywhere feasible.” 

But some motorcyclists believe that mandating electric motorcycle technology isn’t necessary for a vehicle that produces relatively small emissions compared to other vehicles. People ride motorcycles as a hobby, to socialize with other motorcyclists and ride in the mountains or other remote areas. 

Some people ride motorcycles as their main form of transportation, and electric motorcycles may appeal to those folks, but it’s a small percentage, said Chris Real, president of DPS Technical, a technical services company for motorcyclists. 

Real said he thinks the regulation “won’t move the needle at all” in reducing emissions because most motorcyclists don’t put many miles on their bikes. 

“Some consumers will adopt it, and some consumers won’t,” he said. “So very regional consumers, urban consumers that only ride you 20 or 30 miles, it won’t impact them at all. But for somebody that has to make a 100 mile commute or something, that’s not going to be viable.”