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California’s Clean Air Act waiver may not be long for this world.
Nobody quite knows where Donald Trump stands on electric vehicles these days. While he’s reportedly coming for the $7,500 consumer EV tax credit and previously characterized the switch to EVs as a “transition to hell,” once Elon Musk threw his support behind Trump, the once and future president’s rhetoric has softened. But if past is prologue, Trump’s policies could still hammer one of Tesla’s primary income sources: the emissions compliance credits the EV giant sells to other automakers.
That windfall comes from California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle Program, which sets ambitious ZEV production and sales mandates that other states can then voluntarily adopt. Automakers earn credits based on the number and type of ZEVs they produce; they can either put those credits toward meeting their annual targets under the law or, if they have an excess, sell them. Since Tesla is a pure-play EV company, it has always generated more credits than it needs, while most other automakers need to buy credits to meet their emissions targets. Last year, selling credits represented about 12% of Tesla’s net income, and so far this year, it comprises a whopping 43%.
Underpinning this whole regime is California’s Clean Air Act waiver, granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which allows the state to set stricter vehicle emissions standards than those at the federal level due to the “compelling and extraordinary circumstances” it faces when it comes to air quality. During his first term, Trump sought to rescind portions of this waiver related to greenhouse gas emissions and the ZEV mandate, and his campaign stated that he will do so again. While the federal government’s comparably weaker emissions standards ensure that the credit market won’t disappear completely, eliminating the waiver would cause it — and Tesla — to take a major hit.
“Given that Tesla has no new major high-volume product that they’ve announced, not having access to these credits is only going to be harmful,” Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF, told me.
Tesla understands this — or at least it used to. The company strongly opposed the first Trump administration’s efforts to decrease penalties for automakers that fell short of federal fuel economy standards. “Tesla was in there in all those lawsuits arguing that the Trump administration was wrong and the penalty should be increased,” Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA, told me. As she explained, this is “evidence of how important that market is to them.” The higher the emissions penalties, the more automakers will rely on credits to avoid them.
Right now, California’s emissions targets are quite ambitious, and they’re poised to get even more so over the next decade, which would cause the credit market to heat up, too. With the introduction of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II program, 35% of all 2026 models sold must be ZEVs. These new vehicles, which include passenger cars, trucks, and SUVs, will start hitting production lines next year. The targets ramp up quickly from there — 68% of 2030 models must be ZEVs, while a full 100% of 2035 models must be zero-emissions. Besides California, 11 other states, plus Washington D.C. have signed onto these regulations.
Under Trump, all of these goals are likely gone — though it’s probable that they wouldn’t have been met anyway. Based on total retail sales so far this year, no states are selling a large enough percent of EVs and hybrids to comply with California’s forthcoming standards — not even California itself, which CNBC reports is sitting at 27% EV and plug-in hybrid sales. Toyota came out and called these standards impossible to meet, but there’s no indication that California is backing down.
The first time a Trump administration rescinded the state’s waiver, a number of automakers, including BMW of North America, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America, and Volvo agreed to abide by California’s original standards anyway, in exchange for an extra year to meet emissions targets and increased flexibility overall. The waiver ordeal ultimately got tied up in courts, and California’s regulations ended up being inactive for just two-and-a-half years, until Biden reinstated the waiver in 2022. Litigation is still ongoing, however, with a suit from an Ohio-led coalition of red states expected to end up in the Supreme Court.
Carlson told me we should know whether the court decides to accept this case in the next few months. At the heart of the argument is a question about whether California’s “compelling and extraordinary circumstances” extend to limiting climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions and not just smog-causing air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides or particulate matter.
“All states are affected by climate. [California]’s not unique in the way that it had unique air pollution problems,” Carlson told me, explaining the argument Trump and red state allies will likely make. “California is going to retort by saying, We have very compelling and extraordinary circumstances. We have drought, we have higher temperatures, our ozone pollution is going up. We have wildfires, we have water supply issues.”
While we know that the conservative Supreme Court is relatively hostile to aggressive greenhouse gas regulation, which side of the debate Tesla winds up on is anyone’s guess. Now that Musk is within Trump’s inner circle, he apparently has a number of personal business interests that he’d like to pursue. These include federal funding for SpaceX and Starlink, but perhaps most importantly regulations around Tesla’s autonomous driving system, which he views as the future of the company. Despite findings that these systems have caused hundreds of crashes and a number of fatalities, Musk said on an October earnings call that he is seeking a federal approvals process for autonomous vehicles. This could expedite the current system, which requires lengthy applications for every state.
Cantor thinks it’s possible that Musk might be making strategic decisions about what fights to pick. “I wonder if there’s been so much focus on the autonomous vehicle regulations at the national level that it’s like, EV stuff be damned, I don’t really care, as long as I get my national AV authorization.“
After all, Tesla isn’t kicking up a fuss about Trump’s plan to go after the consumer EV tax credit, which Musk seems to think would cement the company’s dominant market position, on the assumption that less-experienced-makers will suffer more from the subsidy’s repeal. While looser emissions standards for Tesla’s competitors and reduced income from compliance credits seem like more of a clear-cut loss for Musk, perhaps it’s a hit he’s willing to take in pursuit of his broader goals.
At any rate, Carlson told me that an enduring rollback of California’s waiver will depend on competent administrators that are familiar with the complexity of the legislative process — not something Trump appointees are exactly known for. “The one thing that I can’t quite wrap my mind around is what the effect of Lee Zeldin combined with Project 2025 means,” Carlson said. Zeldin, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, has no experience running a government agency and little expertise in environmental policy.
“The effect of an inexperienced administrator, combined with potentially freezing out or even firing some of the most competent and skilled economists, scientists, etc, could totally undermine the ability to do this in a way that is legally sustainable and fast,” Carlson told me.
If you squint hard enough, maybe that’s the silver lining, here.
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Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.
“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
The announcement indicates that some in the anti-wind space are leaving open the possibility that Trump’s much-hyped offshore wind ban may be less sweeping than initially suggested.
In its press release, Van Drew’s office said the executive order would “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects,” leaving the door open to only a temporary pause on permitting new projects. The congressman had recently told New Jersey reporters that he anticipates only a six-month moratorium on offshore wind.
The release also stated that the “proposed order” is “expected to be finalized within the first few months of the administration,” which is a far cry from Trump’s promise to stop projects on Day 1. If enacted, a pause would essentially halt all U.S. offshore wind development because the sought-after stretches of national coastline are entirely within federal waters.
Whether this is just caution from Van Drew’s people or a true moderation of Trump’s ambition we’ll soon find out. Inauguration Day is in less than a week.
Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.
You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.
Aerial firefighters don’t have to imagine this terrifying scenario; they’ve lived it. Last week, a drone punched a hole in the wing of a Québécois “Super Scooper” plane that had traveled down from Canada to fight the fires, grounding Palisades firefighting operations for an agonizing half-hour. Thirty minutes might not seem like much, but it is precious time lost when the Santa Ana winds have already curtailed aerial operations.
“I am shocked by what happened in Los Angeles with the drone,” Anna Lau, a forestry communication coordinator with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, told me. The Montana DNRC has also had to contend with unauthorized drones grounding its firefighting planes. “We’re following what’s going on very closely, and it’s shocking to us,” Lau went on. Leaving the skies clear so that firefighters can get on with their work “just seems like a no-brainer, especially when people are actively trying to tackle the situation at hand and fighting to save homes, property, and lives.”
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Although the Super Scooper collision was by far the most egregious case, according to authorities there have been at least 40 “incidents involving drones” in the airspace around L.A. since the fires started. (Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has not granted any waivers for the air space around Palisades, meaning any drone images you see of the region, including on the news, were “probably shot illegally,” Intelligencer reports.) So far, law enforcement has arrested three people connected to drones flying near the L.A. fires, and the FBI is seeking information regarding the Super Scooper collision.
Such a problem is hardly isolated to these fires, though. The Forest Service reports that drones led to the suspension of or interfered with at least 172 fire responses between 2015 and 2020. Some people, including Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot and the founder of the drone-detection company Gargoyle Systems, believe the true number of interferences is much higher — closer to 400.
Law enforcement likes to say that unauthorized drone use falls into three buckets — clueless, criminal, or careless — and Fraietta was inclined to believe that it’s mostly the former in L.A. Hobbyists and other casual drone operators “don’t know the regulations or that this is a danger,” he said. “There’s a lot of ignorance.” To raise awareness, he suggested law enforcement and the media highlight the steep penalties for flying drones in wildfire no-fly zones, which is punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of $75,000.
“What we’re seeing, particularly in California, is TikTok and Instagram influencers trying to get a shot and get likes,” Fraietta conjectured. In the case of the drone that hit the Super Scooper, it “might have been a case of citizen journalism, like, Well, I have the ability to get this shot and share what’s going on.”
Emergency management teams are waking up, too. Many technologies are on the horizon for drone detection, identification, and deflection, including Wi-Fi jamming, which was used to ground climate activists’ drones at Heathrow Airport in 2019. Jamming is less practical in an emergency situation like the one in L.A., though, where lives could be at stake if people can’t communicate.
Still, the fact of the matter is that firefighters waste precious time dealing with drones when there are far more pressing issues that need their attention. Lau, in Montana, described how even just a 12-minute interruption to firefighting efforts can put a community at risk. “The biggest public awareness message we put out is, ‘If you fly, we can’t,’” she said.
Fraietta, though, noted that drone technology could be used positively in the future, including on wildfire detection and monitoring, prescribed burns, and communicating with firefighters or victims on the ground.
“We don’t want to see this turn into the FAA saying, ‘Hey everyone, no more drones in the United States because of this incident,’” Fraietta said. “You don’t shut down I-95 because a few people are running drugs up and down it, right? Drones are going to be super beneficial to the country long term.”
But critically, in the case of a wildfire, such tools belong in the right hands — not the hands of your neighbor who got a DJI Mini 3 for Christmas. “Their one shot isn’t worth it,” Lau said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Québécois firefighting planes are called Super Scoopers, not super soakers.
Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.
As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Friday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?
Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.
Read on for everything we know so far about how the fires started.
Six major fires started during the Santa Ana wind event last week:
Officials are investigating the cause of the fires and have not made any public statements yet. Early eyewitness accounts suggest that the Eaton Fire may have started at the base of a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison. So far, the company has maintained that an analysis of its equipment showed “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire.” A Washington Post investigation found that the Palisades Fire could have risen from the remnants of a fire that burned on New Year’s Eve and reignited.
On Thursday morning, Edward Nordskog, a retired fire investigator from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, told me it was unlikely they had even begun looking into the root of the biggest and most destructive of the fires in the Pacific Palisades. “They don't start an investigation until it's safe to go into the area where the fire started, and it just hasn't been safe until probably today,” he said.
It can take years to determine the cause of a fire. Investigators did not pinpoint the cause of the Thomas Fire until March 2019, more than two years after it started.
But Nordskog doesn’t think it will take very long this time. It’s easier to narrow down the possibilities for an urban fire because there are typically both witnesses and surveillance footage, he told me. He said the most common causes of wildfires in Los Angeles are power lines and those started by unhoused people. They can also be caused by sparks from vehicles or equipment.
At more than 40,000 acres burned total, these fires are unlikely to make the charts for the largest in California history. But because they are burning in urban, densely populated, and expensive areas, they could be some of the most devastating. With an estimated 9,000 structures damaged as of Friday morning, the Eaton and Palisades fires are likely to make the list for most destructive wildfire events in the state.
And they will certainly be at the top for costliest. The Palisades Fire has already been declared a likely contender for the most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. It has destroyed more than 5,000 structures in some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. Between that and the Eaton Fire, Accuweather estimates the damages could reach $57 billion.
While we don’t know the root causes of the ignitions, several factors came together to create perfect fire conditions in Southern California this week.
First, there’s the Santa Ana winds, an annual phenomenon in Southern California, when very dry, high-pressure air gets trapped in the Great Basin and begins escaping westward through mountain passes to lower-pressure areas along the coast. Most of the time, the wind in Los Angeles blows eastward from the ocean, but during a Santa Ana event, it changes direction, picking up speed as it rushes toward the sea.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told me that Santa Ana winds typically blow at maybe 30 to 40 miles per hour, while the winds this week hit upwards of 60 to 70 miles per hour. “More severe than is normal, but not unique,” he said. “We had similar severe winds in 2017 with the Thomas Fire.”
Second, Southern California is currently in the midst of extreme drought. Winter is typically a rainier season, but Los Angeles has seen less than half an inch of rain since July. That means that all the shrubland vegetation in the area is bone-dry. Again, Keeley said, this was not usual, but not unique. Some years are drier than others.
These fires were also not a question of fuel management, Keeley told me. “The fuels are not really the issue in these big fires. It's the extreme winds,” he said. “You can do prescription burning in chaparral and have essentially no impact on Santa Ana wind-driven fires.” As far as he can tell, based on information from CalFire, the Eaton Fire started on an urban street.
While it’s likely that climate change played a role in amplifying the drought, it’s hard to say how big a factor it was. Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published a long post on X outlining the factors contributing to the fires, including a chart of historic rainfall during the winter in Los Angeles that shows oscillations between wet and dry years over the past eight decades.
But climate change is expected to make dry years drier and wet years wetter, creating a “hydroclimate whiplash,” as Daniel Swain, a pre-eminent expert on climate change and weather in California puts it. In a thread on Bluesky, Swain wrote that “in 2024, Southern California experienced an exceptional episode of wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash.” Last year’s rainy winter fostered abundant plant growth, and the proceeding dryness primed the vegetation for fire.
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Editor’s note: This story was last update on Monday, January 13, at 10:00 a.m. ET.