The Brief

There is broad scientific consensus that pollution from human society is driving long-term changes in our climate. Those changes are already happening — more frequent and hotter heat waves, longer and drier droughts, more intense wildfires, among other extreme weather events.

But President-elect Donald Trump has called climate change “a hoax” and many Republicans increasingly downplay the threat it poses to human health and nature. The partisan divide on climate action has only grown wider over the last decade, according to the Pew Research Center.

Most Americans actually agree that global heating is a problem and that it’s going to worsen within their lifetimes without more action from governments, corporations, and society in general.

A brief history of Republicans and the environment

Environmental protection wasn’t always so politically divisive.

“The environmental movement historically is very much a Republican movement,” said Francisca Martinez, deputy chief of staff at the University of Southern California’s Schwarzenegger Institute.

Ronald Reagan

She pointed to how former Gov. Ronald Reagan established the California Air Resources Board, which regulates air pollution, in 1967.

“This was long, long before much of the country was really thinking about regulating air pollution and emissions,” Martinez said.

President Richard Nixon signed the federal Clean Air Act into law in 1970 and was instrumental in establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped California become a leader in rooftop solar by signing the Million Solar Roofs Initiative into law in 2006. That same year, Schwarzenegger also signed into law California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006. The landmark legislation set goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while growing the economy.

(

David Paul Morris

/

Getty Images

)

These are just a few examples, but there’s a long history of bipartisan support for environmental protection, Martinez said.

“It's not a new thing for a Republican leader to come in and lead on climate, and I think that's been lost throughout the years,” Martinez said.

Still it's something happening under the radar. For example, during Trump's last administration, nearly a third of some 400 state-level bills to reduce carbon pollution passed through Republican-controlled legislatures. And some Congressional Republicans are leading efforts to talk about climate action more.

What changed? 

Under his previous administration, Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protection rules and attempted to repeal dozens of others. He’s said he will gut the EPA, which is in charge of enforcing clean air, water and pollution regulations, among other things.

Martinez said a big reason for the increasing partisan divide on climate action has been disinformation and lobbying from the oil and gas industry influencing politics over decades — something that is now well-documented.

But Martinez said there's a broader communication problem too.

“If you are having issues paying your groceries, paying for gas, you're not going to be prioritizing something like climate change,” she said. “I come from first-generation everything. I come from an immigrant family that struggled to make ends meet in my childhood, so I can relate to that.”

But in reality, there’s a lot of common ground no matter people’s political beliefs or lived experiences.

“When you talk about [climate change] through the lens of air pollution…Nobody wants to breathe dirty air,” Martinez said. “When you talk about access to clean water, that's different. I think that resonates with more people.”

Finding common ground

Craig Preston would agree. The Costa Mesa resident is a lifelong Republican and chair of the Conservative Outreach Action Team for the nonpartisan, volunteer-run Citizens' Climate Lobby chapter in Orange County.

“If we think more long term, then I think we're more aware of how an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and so we're willing to put some money and effort into preventing harms,” Preston said.

Craig Preston, left, at a Citizens Climate Lobby event about the cost effectiveness of solar and battery storage, electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction stoves, and more.

(

Courtesy Craig Preston

)

“But if we're more short-term focused, if I'm living paycheck to paycheck, then people are just not able to really think long term because they're just trying to feed their kids today,” Preston continued. “So then the discussion is more focused on the economics and even the short term benefits of moving to a clean energy economy.”

For example, he said how solar panels or highly-efficient appliances, such as heat pumps and induction stoves can help people save money. He talks about how solar and wind power has gotten cheaper than fossil fuel power.

“I often bring an induction stovetop to my meetings, do a demonstration on how to boil water in 30 seconds, and then say, who wants to take it home and try it out for two weeks?” Preston said. “Just make it fun for people to move to an electrification economy.”

A banner at a Citizens' Climate Lobby event that Craig Preston helped lead.

(

Courtesy Craig Preston

)

He said he also emphasizes the resilience of cleaner technologies to cross partisan divides.

For example, he shared an anecdote of two friends who recently experienced the devastating flooding in Asheville, North Carolina, due to Hurricane Helene. Attribution studies found the rainfall was 10% heavier as a result of human-caused climate change.

One friend had a diesel backup generator and was stranded for 11 days, during which the generator ran out of fuel. The other friend had solar and battery storage and was able to support neighbors since their power stayed on.

“Just an example of the resiliency we need, because climate change is here,” Preston said. “We recognize market forces and clean energy are something people aren't opposed to, and so going into a clean energy future is good for their grandchildren, good for their children, good for themselves.”

Trusting the science 

Buena Park resident Dominic Bendinelli grew up in a Republican household and led his college’s Republican student group. But since Trump’s first election in 2016, he said he feels like “a Republican in exile.”

“I feel like the party has moved away from me, rather than me moving from the party,” he said.

He’d grown up spending time outdoors and has long had a love of nature, but he didn’t learn much about climate change until a biology course in college.

This graph compares atmospheric samples in ice cores as well as more recent direct measurements, showing how atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased dramatically since the Industrial Revolution.

(

Courtesy NASA

)

He said the science denial that has taken over the mainstream Republican party has been “devastating” — and a reason for that feeling of exile. His work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has only solidified that feeling.

“Scientists are not this giant organized group of people who are all driven to do one thing,” Bendinelli said. “They're my co-workers, they don't have hidden agendas, they don't care about politics really at all, generally. A lot of scientists tend to just focus on their own work, really passionate and smart people who dedicate their lives to studying things. And I hope that we as a country can get back to trusting those kinds of people.”

Particularly as a young person — he’s 29 — Bendinelli said addressing climate change feels more personal.

Dominic Bendinelli on a recent trip to Vienna, Austria.

(

Courtesy Dominic Bendinelli

)

“I absolutely feel like my life will be greatly impacted by climate change and that's not even to mention the life of any future children I may have,” he said. “I think we somehow need to build that coalition of leaders from both sides to really start seeing some strong movement in this country.”

Bendinelli said he’s not hopeful for that to happen under a Trump administration. He’s especially concerned about Trump’s proposals to dismantle the EPA and repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act, which has primarily benefited clean energy projects in red states and generated hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“When you can really get down to people's concerns…that's when we can come together because we tend to have the same concerns…we just maybe don't have the same solutions,” Bendinelli said.

He said those concerns include things like the economy and quality of life and that climate action can be a part of addressing those concerns, for example, by helping people save on electric bills through efficient appliances, bringing good-paying jobs, and protecting the natural spaces we all love.

“People across the country,” he said, “if given a very clear choice of ‘would you like to protect the environment around you, or would you like to destroy it’... that would be a really easy decision.”

Pollution isn’t partisan

Elizabeth Fenner grew up in Westchester in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 80s, when smog pollution was at some of its worst.

She remembers playing in an AYSO soccer game one day and afterwards she and her teammates all came off the field coughing.

“We just didn't know the damage that smog was doing to us,” Fenner said. “I grew up with stinging eyes…there was that thick blanket of smog that we all just lived in.”

Fenner, who now lives in West Adams and works as a library aide, identifies as conservative and a climate advocate. She doesn’t support Trump, but is a registered Republican.

Elizabeth Fenner, a conservative climate advocate in Los Angeles.

(

Courtesy Elizabeth Fenner

)

“I grew up in a liberal environment with conservative parents,” Fenner said. “So I just had this thing of, what's the real story here? It's something in between.”

She said she hopes Democrats and Republicans can find some common ground when it comes to climate action, but she doesn’t think it’ll happen anytime soon.

“The two parties have been at each other's throats for decades now — ‘If you're going to do one thing, I'm going to do the absolute opposite,’” Fenner said. “But one thing I think is that a Democratic supermajority does not create heaven on Earth here in California.”

She said that’s why she hopes people with different political views can approach each other with “humility and curiosity.”

“The impasse is that anyone that doesn't know me well and finds out I'm conservative and registered Republican believes I'm a Trump-voting conservative, and that I want to ban books, and that I am against transgender rights, that I'm ‘drill baby drill,’” Fenner said.

“I'm not OK with that,” Fenner added, “but my values are towards incremental change, small government, jobs, and the economy. I think we can work with that….but let's work together towards solutions.”

The University of Southern California board of trustees has appointed interim president Beong-Soo Kim to be its 13th full president.

Kim was named as the interim leader in February 2025 and began the role this summer. He most recently served as USC’s senior vice president and general counsel, and as a lecturer at the law school. Prior to joining USC, he worked at Kaiser Permanente and was a federal prosecutor for the Central District of California.

Kim succeeds Carol Folt, who was brought on to stabilize the university following a series of scandals under the administration before hers. She formally stepped down from her role in July, following criticism of her ability to handle student protests and concerns over fiscal stewardship.

Soon after his term began, Kim oversaw the university’s effort to manage a $200 million deficit, which also led to hundreds of layoffs.

“We did have to make some difficult decisions last year with respect to our budget and layoffs,” Kim told LAist. “And I'm really pleased that as a result of those difficult decisions, we're now in a much stronger financial position and really for a number of months have been really focusing on the opportunities that we see on the horizon.”

In a call with LAist, and joined by USC board chair Suzanne Nora Johnson, Kim touched on bright spots and some of his priorities. He also touched on the relationship between USC and the Trump administration before a sudden ending to the call.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

LAist: You've talked about addressing the mass layoffs and budget challenges. What do you see as the way forward?

Beong-Soo Kim: Our research expenditures have actually been going up over the last year, over the last couple of years. We're focusing on: How do we provide the best possible educational value to our students? We're focusing on how to maintain and strengthen our academic culture of excellence, open dialogue and engagement with different viewpoints.

And we're also really kind of leaning into artificial intelligence and asking questions as a community about how we incorporate AI responsibly into our education, into our operations, into our research. And there are obviously a lot of important ethical questions that we're working on, and it's really an quite an exciting time to be in the position that I'm in.

What are you excited for?

Well, a couple things that we're really looking forward to are, as part of the anniversary of the United States, we're going to be hosting a National Archives exhibition [of] founding documents in late April. We're also looking forward to helping host the L.A. Olympics in 2028. We have our 150th anniversary coming up in 2030 as a university.

So there's a lot that's on the horizon. We also have the Lucas Museum opening up across the street later this year and, of course, George Lucas is one of our most beloved Trojan alumni. So there's so much vitality, so much energy on the campus right now.

USC has, for the most part, avoided the sort of conflicts that the University of California system and elite private institutions across the country have had with the Trump administration. What can you share about how you plan to manage USC’s relationship with the federal government?

Well, we really make an effort to engage with all levels of government, as well as foundations, the private sector, community groups. That kind of engagement is really more important nowadays. Universities can't just go off on their own. It's important for us to partner and find opportunities to work with others. And that's what we've been doing.

And that's part of the reason why I think that our research has continued to go strongly. And I give a lot of the credit to our faculty and researchers who can continue submitting grant applications and continue to do research in areas that are critically important to the benefit of our community, our nation, and our world. And I think that we -—

Suzanne Nora Johnson: —Actually I'm so sorry, but we have to complete the board meeting, and we've got to run. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. We'll be in touch. Bye. Thanks. Bye.

Huntington Beach will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision striking down the city’s controversial voter ID law.

What’s the backstory?

Huntington Beach voters approved a measure in 2024 allowing the city to require people to show ID when casting a ballot. That contradicts state law — voters in California are asked to provide ID when they register to vote but generally not at polling places.

The ensuing court battle

The state and a Huntington Beach resident promptly sued the city over the voter ID law and won an appeals court ruling striking down the law. The California Supreme Court declined to review the decision earlier this month. The state also passed a law prohibiting cities from implementing their own voter ID laws.

Then, the City Council voted unanimously this week to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.

Does the city have a shot?

The Supreme Court gets 7,000 to 8,000 requests to review cases each year. The Court grants about 80 of these requests, so the city’s chances of getting the court’s attention are statistically slim.

There’s also a question of whether or not the city’s voter ID case meets the Court’s criteria for review — SCOTUS addresses questions of federal law. Mayor Casey McKeon said it does, in a news release, noting a 2008 Supreme Court decision that upheld a state’s voter ID law — in Indiana. But Huntington Beach is a city, and the question in its voter ID case is whether or not a city can implement its own requirements for voting, even if it clashes with state law.

Go deeper

• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Huntington Beach clashes with California over voter ID requirement in court
• HB Mayor defends Voter ID measure as Gov. Newsom seeks to ban it
• Listen 26:32

  The Trump Administration wants your confidential voter data. What’s behind their battle with CA and other states?