How President Trump Aims to Dismantle Environmental Protections

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a sweeping executive order, Donald Trump has taken aim at efforts by states, including California, to set their own environmental policies. At risk are key components of California’s fight against climate change including its cap and trade program to control carbon emissions and efforts to promote electrical vehicles. Trump’s order is just the latest in his moves to reverse climate change policies, including halting government research funding and gutting environmental agencies. As his head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin has said, the administration is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” We’ll talk about the impact of Trump’s approach to the environment and how California could respond. Guests: Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law; podcast host, Climate Break Sonia Aggarwal, CEO, Energy Innovation - a non partisan think tank based in San Francisco that provides research and analysis on energy and climate policy; special assistant, to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment in the Biden administration. Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times Abigail Dillen, president, Earthjustice - a public interest law group focused on the environment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:01.2	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in today for Alexis Madrigal.
1:03.7	Coming up on forum, President Trump is stepping up his attack on climate policy, this time
1:08.8	with an executive order that takes aim at states like California
1:12.1	for setting their own environmental rules. Big pieces of the state's climate strategy are at risk,
1:17.9	like its cap-and-trade program, and the push for electric vehicles. It's part of a larger
1:23.0	rollback. Trump's been cutting research funding and gutting environmental agencies. We'll look at how
1:28.4	California can respond. That's next after this news.
1:52.0	Welcome. Welcome to Forum. I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in today for Alexis Madrigal. California has gone a long way on its own on climate policy, you know, setting tougher emission rules, investing in clean energy, trying to speed the
2:02.4	transition to electric vehicles. But the Trump administration is trying to halt all of that.
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