The Brief

The Trump administration's plan to undo a landmark finding that climate pollution threatens public health and welfare poses lots of risks for corporate America.

The Environmental Protection Agency's endangerment finding has served as the legal basis for federal climate regulations under the Clean Air Act since 2009. The finding concludes that the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere endangers people's health and the well-being of communities. Reaching that determination was a prerequisite to set limits for the pollution. Getting rid of that authority would lead to the repeal of "all greenhouse gas standards" at the federal level, according to the EPA, amounting, it says, to "one of the largest deregulatory actions in American history."

Companies have long complained that the government's efforts to rein in heat-trapping pollution are impractical. But a lot of businesses want the EPA to be in charge of setting national standards of some kind, according to proponents and legal experts, because it helps shield them from lawsuits and creates a predictable environment in which to make big, long-term investments.

"I look at what the administration wants to accomplish with regards to our national security and winning the AI race — we want to have expansive energy production. We have that opportunity. We can do that affordably, and we can do it while we're managing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions," says Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, whose members include major electricity producers and a trade group for the natural gas industry.

"I would like to focus more on that, than changes to these regulatory policies," Jacobson says, "which will cause disruption in planning and moving forward with projects we need today."

Jeff Holmstead, an environmental lawyer at the firm Bracewell, says he doesn't know of any major industry groups that pushed the EPA to reverse its position on the dangers posed by climate pollution.

"Several of them have opposed it," says Holmstead, who was an EPA official under then-President George W. Bush. "And I know that a number of companies were trying to persuade the administration not to do it."

The American Petroleum Institute, a trade group for oil and gas companies, told NPR that it "continues to support a federal role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions."

The EPA said in a statement to NPR that Congress never authorized the agency to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin "has long been on the record that the climate is changing," the agency said. "EPA's proposal is primarily legal."

The Trump administration said this spring that it was reconsidering the endangerment finding as part of a sweeping initiative to roll back environmental rules. At the time, Zeldin said the goal was "driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion."

Public hearings on the EPA's plan are scheduled for this week.

Rain from Hurricane Ian in 2022 floods a street in Charleston, South Carolina. Neighborhoods in Charleston are flooding more often as climate change raises sea levels and drives more intense rainstorms.

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Companies use EPA regulations as a defense in lawsuits

Environmental advocates, public health experts and former EPA employees say the Trump administration's proposal contradicts a long-standing scientific consensus that climate pollution, mainly from burning fossil fuels like oil and coal, is raising global temperatures and driving more intense storms, floods and wildfires that threaten communities.

Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist whose work is cited in the EPA proposal and in an Energy Department report on the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, said in an online posting that the Trump administration "cherrypicks figures and parts of studies to support a preconceived narrative that minimizes the risk of climate change."

The EPA said in a statement to NPR that it "considered a variety of sources and information in assessing whether the predictions made, and assumptions used, in the 2009 Endangerment Finding are accurate and consistent" with the agency's authority under the Clean Air Act. The Energy Department said in a statement that its climate change report "critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence — not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous Presidential administrations."

The impacts of rising temperatures are being felt in communities around the United States. And states and localities have filed dozens of lawsuits in recent years alleging fossil fuel companies misled the public for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels. The lawsuits seek money to help communities cope with risks and damages from global warming.

Those cases have been filed in state courts. In some instances, the EPA's current regulation of climate pollution has helped protect oil and gas companies from litigation.

A state judge in South Carolina recently dismissed a lawsuit that the city of Charleston filed against companies in the oil and gas industry, in part because, the judge said, greenhouse gas emissions are an issue for the federal government to deal with.

"One of the main defenses that the oil companies are raising in these lawsuits pending in state courts is that there is preemption by the federal Clean Air Act," says Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School. "If the federal Clean Air Act is no longer regulating greenhouse gas emissions through EPA, then that defense could go away."

Weakening a defense used by the fossil fuel industry could expose companies to more legal risk, Holmstead says. "There [are] plenty of people out there who want to bring lawsuits," he says, "and it seems like this would just invite a lot more litigation."

Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer for Chevron, says the EPA's proposal to stop regulating climate pollution doesn't affect the oil and gas company's defense. Regardless of what the Trump administration does, the Supreme Court has already ruled that greenhouse gas emissions are covered by the federal Clean Air Act, Boutrous said in an emailed statement to NPR.

But Trump administration supporters think the Supreme Court is poised to overturn that ruling.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, said in written comments to the EPA that the Supreme Court "wrongly decided" the 2007 case in which it labeled carbon dioxide as "air pollution" under the Clean Air Act. The group notes that the five justices in the majority on that case are gone from the court. The comments were submitted on behalf of four California businesses and trade groups, including a company that uses natural gas boilers to make tomato products and a trucking association whose members are subject to EPA climate regulations.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Environment in May. The EPA has proposed undoing a landmark finding that climate pollution threatens public health and welfare.

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Regulatory debate highlights tensions on the right

Holmstead says it's a toss-up what the Supreme Court would do now.

The court historically has been reluctant to reverse prior rulings, Holmstead says. But he says the court's conservative supermajority "probably would agree that Congress didn't clearly intend for EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions."

Such a ruling could create havoc for businesses, according to a trade group for electric utilities. In a 2022 Supreme Court brief, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) said that having the EPA regulate climate pollution creates an orderly system for cutting emissions while minimizing economic impacts on consumers and businesses. Rolling back the agency's authority could expose companies to a flurry of environmental lawsuits, the group said, adding: "This would be chaos."

"Industry really has accepted the endangerment finding. They have accepted that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are pollutants and that something needs to be done with that," says Jim Murphy, director of legal advocacy at the National Wildlife Federation, a conservation group.

But in the conservative movement, "there's an element out there that just wants to pretend that [climate change] is not a problem," Murphy says, "and that this is something that snowflakes and soft folks on the left are screaming about."

EEI said in a statement to NPR that it supports EPA "establishing clear, consistent regulatory policies that drive energy infrastructure investment and strengthen America's economic and energy security."

The fact that the EPA is moving ahead with its plan to stop regulating climate pollution despite serious concerns from corporations highlights a growing divide between the business and ideological wings of the Republican Party, says Holmstead, who under George W. Bush's administration ran the EPA office that develops air pollution regulations.

"Traditionally, Republican administrations have believed in trying to reduce the regulatory burden, but I think they've paid more attention to the concerns of the business community," Holmstead says. "And I don't want to suggest that the Trump administration is impervious to those concerns. But for ideological reasons, they are doing a number of things that U.S. business is not supportive of."
Copyright 2025 NPR

A piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected to slam into the moon on Wednesday, according to scientists.

The piece is expected to hit the moon around 2:35 a.m. ET at more than 5,000 mph according to analysis by Bill Gray, who develops software that tracks objects in space. It is part of the rocket's upper portion and about the size of a five-story building.

It was part of the Falcon 9 rocket that carried two lunar landers and scientific instruments to the moon in January 2025.

The piece is expected to hit a sunlit side of the moon facing Earth, which will be partially illuminated, in the northwestern portion near the Einstein Crater, according to Gray. The impact could leave a crater at least 17 meters in diameter, he said.

SpaceX did not intend for the defunct piece to hit the moon, according to the Associated Press. NPR reached out to SpaceX for comment but has not received a response.

Brent Garry, a project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, said the orbiter will pass over the region before and after the impact to get a sense of any changes to the surface.

"After the impact we might have a little bit more knowledge of where it is. We can do some additional targeting about a week after the impact and get some targeting over where the site is," Garry said in June during a discussion about the upcoming impact held by NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute.

The impact may not be visible. Even a plume of dust may be difficult for professional telescopes to pick up, according to some researchers.

"Rocks ejected by the impact may form a 'plume' that will be visible against the dark background once they're off the moon," Gray wrote on his website. "As with much in science, the answer is 'we don't know; let's find out'... . Maybe we'll see rocks ejected from the crater."

But some researchers also say that while viewing may be challenging, it could be visible with sensitive telescopes. It also presents an opportunity for scientists to get a glimpse of impacts to the moon.

"Given these are so rare, I would encourage people who are interested and aware of the risks to take a look," according to Ben Fernando, postdoctoral fellow and researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who was part of the discussion.

"To be clear, this is not something that you're going to see by pointing a pair of binoculars at the moon, but if you have the right equipment and the right time…why not take a look?"
Copyright 2026 NPR

The largest food assistance program in the U.S. is undergoing a massive overhaul. But even before the most drastic changes take effect, more than 4 million people are estimated to have already lost the critical food aid between last July and April — many of whom are children.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, has seen a rapid and consistent decline in participation since last July, the same month that a sweeping Republican tax and spending package became law. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act included major changes to the food assistance program. At the time, the White House called SNAP "bloated" and said it was failing its mission to serve as "temporary help for those who encounter tough times."

Starsky Wilson, the president of the Children's Defense Fund, a child advocacy group, says he has been alarmed by the speed of the tax law's impact.

"We're upset about how quickly this has happened," he says. "There are some supports that are still staged to go away later this year. So there could be an even greater sense of desperation among children and their families as we come to the end of this year."

The food assistance program has already begun tightening eligibility. But the biggest shift, the restructuring of SNAP's funding model, starts in October. Each state will soon have to pay millions in additional costs to keep the program going. Food policy experts warn that these new costs could drive states to scale back or withdraw from SNAP. If that happens, neither food banks nor existing government programs would have the capacity to fill the gap, according to Wilson from the Children's Defense Fund. 

" There's no replacement for SNAP if a state gets rid of it," he says.

Here's how the program works, where things stand and what's changed.

Changes in eligibility

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, more adults need to prove they work or volunteer for at least 80 hours a month to access food benefits. These work requirements now apply to veterans, homeless individuals, young adults aging out of foster care, parents with a child between 14 and 17, and people between 55 and 64.

Changes to work requirements alone are expected to reduce SNAP participation by 2.4 million people in an average month over the 2025-2034 period, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Last summer's tax law also cut food stamp eligibility for certain immigrants. While almost all recipients are either native-born or naturalized citizens, a tiny fraction are noncitizens, according to federal data. Members of that small group — refugees, people seeking asylum and victims of domestic abuse or trafficking — are now no longer eligible for federal food aid.

The current fallout

Last year, an average of 42 million people received food stamps to use toward groceries each month. That's about 1 in 8 Americans. As of April, the total is now 37 million people, according to preliminary data from the Agriculture Department.

Nationally, SNAP participation is down by 11% between last July and April, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a left-leaning think tank. So far, the biggest impact has been in Arizona, where SNAP enrollment is about half the size it was a year ago, or over 400,000 fewer participants. For the first time, there are more Arizonans visiting food banks each month than enrolled in food stamps, according to the Arizona Food Bank Network.

"We think of ourselves as the canary in the coal mine," says Natalie Jayroe, the CEO of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. "We are showing the rest of the country a really scary scenario."

Alongside Arizona, some of the steepest declines took place in Louisiana, Florida and Oklahoma. The CBPP also reviewed data from 19 states that provided numbers of children on SNAP and found that in those states alone, over 1 million kids have lost food benefits since last July.

What's driving the decline 

In a July statement, the Agriculture Department told NPR that participation for food benefits tends to fluctuate and the drop isn't representative of any one policy. Back in late April, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also spoke about the decline, adding that it's possibly a good sign.

"A lot of it is people taking the program that shouldn't have been, and then a lot of it is just a better economy," she said on Fox Business.

Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at CBPP, is skeptical of this assessment. She points out that over the past year, unemployment has largely stayed flat while food prices continue to go up.

" What that's telling us is that this is not happening because fewer people need help affording groceries. It's the result of these policy changes," she says.

According to Bergh, part of the issue is that many state agencies are struggling with staffing pressures and paperwork backlogs, especially amid efforts to prevent errors on food aid applications and avoid new federal penalties.

"People are calling and calling, and they can't get through to anyone," she says. "Or they're being asked for more and more and more documentation of every aspect of their lives, and maybe they don't have a way to document everything."

That's in line with a survey conducted by the Urban Institute and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA). Out of 39 states that responded to the survey, 15 states said they were prioritizing payment accuracy over benefit timeliness.

More drastic changes to come

One of the most consequential changes from last year's tax law is the upcoming cost burden on states.

Before, the federal government split the bill 50-50 with states to cover administrative expenses, such as paying and training staff at state agencies. But starting in October, the federal government will only pay 25% of those costs while states will have to shoulder the remaining 75% of operational expenses.

Furthermore, in October 2027, the federal government will no longer cover the full cost of food benefits. States will also need to chip in if their error rate — a measure of overpayments and underpayments — is at or above 6%. Almost half of states may each owe $100 million or more because of penalties tied to their error rate, according to the think tank CBPP.

The Agriculture Department has argued that improper payments totaled $10 billion last year. It's important to note that an error rate largely reflects unintentional mistakes by state agencies or food stamp recipients, according to CBPP's Bergh.

"It largely reflects unintentional mistakes by state eligibility workers and participating families," she says. " So someone made a typo or a state worker misapplied a policy or a family didn't understand what information they needed to report and when."

SNAP experts say it takes time to lower those rates, which is why some local officials are urging the federal government to delay the new penalties.

Through all of these changes, the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality estimates that on average, states will need to spend two to three times more on SNAP to keep the food assistance program running — which could result in higher taxes or other state budget cuts.

In the same survey conducted by the Urban Institute and the APHSA, 29% of states said they may consider further narrowing eligibility for food assistance, while 11% said they may need to withdraw or pause the program altogether if the new costs become too burdensome.

" There's really an existential crisis in the future of SNAP," says Lexie Kuznick, the director of policy and government relations for APHSA.

Changes to SNAP have ripple effects — not only on low-income Americans, but also across food banks and grocery stores, according to Kuznick. The National Grocers Association estimates that the drop in shoppers receiving food aid will reduce grocery store sales by nearly $88 billion nationwide through 2034.

"Groceries are a significant cost in the lives of low-income families, and it truly is a lifeline for them to be able to meet their family's needs," Kuznick says. "We also know how critical the benefits are for entire communities."
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

A pioneering California law meant to sharply limit use of the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol has been blocked by a federal judge who said it probably violates the First Amendment.

In a preliminary injunction issued earlier this month, U.S. District Judge William Hayes halted enforcement of SB 343 after food, packaging and retail groups sued, finding that key provisions were “unconstitutionally vague” and likely infringed protected commercial speech. Enforcement of the law, passed in 2021, was expected to start this fall.

The decision is a blow to environmental advocates, who had hoped to remove the familiar symbol from a huge array of plastic products, in line with a statewide study showing that only a fraction are widely collected and actually recycled. SB 343 said only goods and packaging accepted by recycling programs serving at least 60% of Californians and then actually sorted for recycling — not collected and thrown away — could bear the chasing arrows.

Hayes’ constitutional reasoning surprised supporters of SB 343 because similar arguments against environmental marketing regulations have historically struggled in court.

“The First Amendment protects free expression, not a corporation’s right to commit consumer fraud,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. “We see this exact playbook every time the plastics industry is asked to stop misleading the public — they suddenly hide behind the Constitution.”

In his decision, Hayes applied a standard four-part test to determine whether SB 343 would unduly restrict companies’ speech rights. The law passed the first two tests handily, as it regulates “potentially misleading” speech and was intended to serve California’s legitimate interests in reducing consumer confusion and improving recycling rates.

The next tests are where the law ran into trouble. Hayes, siding with the industry trade groups, argued that the legislation would not advance those “legitimate interests.” Rather than encouraging companies to redesign their products and packaging to comply with California’s real-world recyclability criteria, the law would prompt them to remove the recycling symbol altogether, the judge said.

Products recycled at a rate below the 60% threshold that the law requires would no longer make it into recycling bins, which could in theory leave more of them bound for the landfill.

Hayes said a less stringent regulation could have better advanced California’s goals. For instance, the state could have passed a law requiring more descriptive qualifiers alongside the recycling symbol. He offered a hypothetical example of a label explaining that an item is “accepted by recyclers in the greater Los Angeles area but nowhere else in California.” Such a label would provide consumers with more and better information, he argued, but would not be allowed under SB 343.

Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the nonprofit National Stewardship Action Council, said the judge’s reasoning reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the problems facing California recycling systems. People are throwing too much stuff into their blue bins, she said. In addition to not actually being recyclable, much of this refuse — including plastic bags and other plastic films — can gum up sorting machines, causing operational delays and creating safety risks.

“People are wish-cycling, they’re so desperate to recycle,” Sanborn told Grist. “We have to pull all this [contamination] out, which is very labor-intensive, and then everybody wants to know why their bills go up.”

Industry groups welcomed the injunction, saying it would prevent California from “censoring truthful information on packaging.”

Scott Hochberg, general counsel and litigation director for the nonprofit Earth Island Institute, said he’s seen free speech challenges to environmental rules many times before. Big polluters have frequently invoked the First Amendment to oppose regulations that require them to disclose information — like their greenhouse gas emissions — or tone down statements about their sustainability.

“What’s relatively new and concerning is when these arguments succeed and states are blocked from implementing common-sense initiatives to protect their residents,” he said.

A lawsuit Hochberg’s organization is pursuing against Coca-Cola illustrates the same debate. It alleges the company presents itself as a “sustainable and environmentally friendly company” despite its outsize contribution to plastic pollution. Coca-Cola argued that statements about its sustainability efforts — including plastics recycling — were protected political speech rather than commercial advertising. A federal judge rejected that argument in 2024.

The companies that sued California didn’t make that same distinction. Their suit is more like one filed in 1992 that sought to block a California law restricting the use of terms like “biodegradable,” “ozone-friendly,” and “recyclable.”

A judge upheld the law, ruling that it would not stifle free speech because corporations could still use a restricted word or phrase as long as they included qualifiers explaining how, where, or under what conditions it applied.

The injunction against SB 343 leaves California with few easy options. Hayes’ ruling suggests the state faces a difficult road if the case proceeds to trial. Lawmakers could amend the law to address some of the judge’s concerns, though that may be unlikely given the politics surrounding the issue. California could also appeal the injunction, but the lower court would still have to decide the case on its merits.

Earth Island Institute and Californians Against Waste announced on July 27 that they are joining California as defendants. Hochberg said he hoped to provide the court with more information “about how the recycling system actually works.” Losing the lawsuit will make it harder for other states to pursue similar labeling regulations, he said.

It could also jeopardize California’s nation-leading extended producer responsibility law, which shifts responsibility for collecting, recycling, and reducing plastic packaging from taxpayers and local governments to the companies that produce it. It relies on the same definition of recycling and is currently being challenged by a separate lawsuit.

Whatever happens next, Sanborn said she’s ready to work with industry to come up with other solutions — including legislation to clarify labeling rules at the national level.

“We can and should work together to solve this,” she said. “But you should not have the right to lie to people.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/accountability/is-the-recycling-symbol-free-speech-a-judge-just-ruled-it-could-be/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.

Los Angeles Unified School District leaders say they are confident they can persuade county officials that the district can avoid a projected cash shortfall and remain under local control, and are preparing for budget cuts, possible furloughs and school consolidation.

A July 2 letter from the Los Angeles County Office of Education found that LAUSD met the criteria for a “Lack of Going Concern,” meaning the district’s financial plan does not show it can meet its future cash obligations. County officials project Los Angeles Unified will face a $231 million cash shortfall in 2027.

The finding, which also comes after the district failed to make sufficient cuts during the 2025-26 budget, triggered a 45-day period for LAUSD to revise its current fiscal plan for the coming school year. The county has appointed an expert to work with the district during that process. If Los Angeles Unified does not make adequate changes, a county advisor would be appointed, giving the county authority to overrule district decisions.

Like many California districts, LAUSD’s financial challenges stem from a combination of declining enrollment, the expiration of Covid relief funding and rising operative costs. Enrollment fell 3% during the 2025-26 school year in Los Angeles, reducing state funding tied to student attendance. Still, the amount LAUSD has received from the state has increased over the past three years.

The county’s letter also cites a series of union contracts reached this spring that will cost the district more than $2.5 billion over the term of the contracts. Union leaders have disputed the severity of the district’s financial crisis.

Superintendent Andrés Chait said during a press conference last week that the county office of education wants the district to prove it can implement its proposed savings, including possible furloughs, and explain its alternative cost-cutting options.

“I just think it’s really important for board members to take very seriously the process that this state has in place to ensure that every district is fiscally solvent,” said Yolie Flores, president and CEO of Families in Schools, a nonprofit focused on student success. A former LAUSD board vice president, Flores was also appointed to the district’s new revenue task force.

District officials and independent experts say LAUSD’s fiscal challenges have been building for years and are not unexpected. They’ve also warned that the district will likely need to make difficult spending cuts to restore its long-term financial stability, and that additional state funding alone is unlikely to solve its structural budget problems.

“Now we’re in a situation where this constriction is still happening, but now the artificial floor is gone,” said Stephen Aguilar, a professor of education at the University of Southern California. “So now, we’re falling through to the basement, and we’re sort of in this emergency period.”

Painful cuts are expected

The district’s most difficult decisions are expected to come over the next several months. Board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said schools will receive their budget allocations for the 2027-28 academic year this fall, and the board will discuss workforce reductions needed to balance the budget.

She also said that the district must carefully manage workforce reductions so high-needs schools aren’t disproportionately affected by staff turnover.

The board will also need to weigh other cost-saving measures, including furlough days — a prospect Ortiz Franklin acknowledged could feel like a “slap in the face for our labor unions” — and possible changes to employee health benefit contributions.

Ortiz Franklin also questioned whether the district could successfully save $200 million by reassessing contracts with outside vendors, as some of the items being procured cannot be made in-house.

Looking beyond the immediate budget crisis, she said school consolidation is likely unavoidable as enrollment continues to decline, with those conversations expected to begin this fall.

The board will meet Aug. 11 in a likely closed session meeting to start discussing its fiscal recovery plan.

“The superintendent is clear that these are ambitious strategies, and that the board needs to not only be aware of them but also weigh in, given that we are elected to represent the voices of our communities,” Ortiz Franklin said.

“And we want to do our best to make sure we continue to do that, and don’t have a fiscal advisor appointed, so that we lose the ability to make decisions on behalf of our community who elected us.”

LAUSD’s financial situation

Education finance experts say the findings of the county office of education are serious, but not unusual. Districts across California have faced similar fiscal challenges, and many have restored their financial footing after county intervention.

“Unfortunately,” Flores said, “it takes a threat like what L.A. Unified is now experiencing for them to make the decisions that they should be making to show that they are fiscally responsible as a board and as management.”

The board received a similar letter when Flores was on LAUSD’s school board during the height of the Great Recession.

“I just got here, and that’s all we were doing is cutting, cutting, cutting,” she said. “Feeling the impact of what that would mean for our families and for children. … It was a long year.”

Michael Fine, the CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, said the debate over whether union contracts pushed the district into its present predicament misses the larger issue. The concern, he said, is whether the board approved contracts without clearly explaining how it would pay for them.

He said that the district should have been more transparent. In July, the parent group Oleada, Inc. published findings from a public records request revealing a series of written warnings from LACOE to Los Angeles Unified dating back to April, months before the school board approved its fiscal stabilization plan.

“It’s when the board says, ‘I’m going to approve these contracts, even though I don’t know how I’m going to pay the bill,’ that’s where the problem is,” Fine said. “It’s not with the negotiations themselves. It’s not with the deal that was made.”

Despite his criticism, Fine said he does not believe LAUSD is beyond recovery.

“I’m normally the one worrying. I’m normally the one on behalf of all district staff all night figuring out or thinking through ‘Uh-oh, do we have a district in trouble?’ ” Fine said. “I’m not feeling that for L.A. right now because I truly believe this is well within their ability to address.”

California unlikely to come to the rescue

For months, LAUSD and its labor unions have lobbied lawmakers in Sacramento for additional education funding. But education experts say new state funding, while helpful, is unlikely to solve the district’s underlying fiscal problems.

Much of that advocacy — including from other districts — has focused on the $3.9 billion of Proposition 98 funds that the state has withheld, Fine said.

Even if the state releases those funds, Fine said, LAUSD’s share is unlikely to make up for the shortfalls. And because the funding may come with restrictions, the money may not come in the form LAUSD needs.

“We should be able to invest in our schools. However, that always has to come with the understanding that we can’t artificially raise the floor again,” Aguilar said.

“Because then, what you’re essentially doing is you’re kicking the can down the road, and I think this time it won’t even travel as far if you kick it.”