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.

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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.

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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“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.”

If you're online, anywhere adjacent to the World Cup, you'll see that the Argentina team, which will play England in the semifinals Wednesday, is attracting a lot of criticism.

It can be largely grouped into two categories: soccer and culture. In soccer, Argentina’s comeback win against Egypt last week prompted accusations, including from Egypt’s head coach, that the FIFA referees in that match favored Argentina.

Meanwhile, cultural clichés online accuse Argentines of being arrogant and looking down on other Latin Americans.

“I get sad,  I must say, that when I see that, it hurts me a little bit, to be honest,” said San Fernando Valley resident Roxana Lissa. She was born and raised in Argentina and moved to the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

But she's used to it.

“The thing about Argentines is we have such thick skin,” Lissa said.

California’s Argentine population has grown in the past couple of decades. The state is now home to the second-largest concentration of Argentines in the U.S. after Florida.

Exclusion by other Latinos

The negative comments are not new, but social media has fueled them into a firestorm.

Some Argentines in Southern California say they’ve not seen negativity this bad against their culture before.

Mariana Ferrero, who moved to the U.S. from Argentina when she was 13 years old, said the comments are opening old wounds of exclusion by other Latino immigrants in Southern California.

“What bothers me is [the criticism] goes beyond soccer. It's more of saying, "Oh, you're Argentinian. You're not a real Latina,'” Ferrero said.

She says many Latinos assume she’s privileged because she’s lighter skinned.

But Ferrero says her background is not like that at all. Argentina’s struggling economy led Ferrero’s parents to leave their home, their language and their country.

“We packed up. We came here. We lived with nothing in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, worked really hard, odd jobs,” she said.

Ferrero has some explanation for the hostility, however.

“I think some of it is just a perception that we come from a country that tends to be proud and tends to be loud and tends to be boisterous about our wins and about our accomplishments. And let me tell you, there's not many of them,” Ferrero said.

Since soccer prowess is one of those few wins, she says she and other Argentines are going to take this World Cup as an opportunity to be loud and proud.

IRL people love Argentines

Ferrero and Lissa say people who’ve visited Argentina gush to them about the warmth and hospitality of its people and the country’s beauty. And few people question that Argentina soccer star Lionel Messi is one of the greatest soccer players of all time.

“I was wearing my Argentina jersey,” Lissa said of a visit during the World Cup to L.A.’s Guelaguetza Oaxacan restaurant to watch Mexico play.

“People were coming to me and saying, 'I love Messi. I love Messi.' And I felt for the first time, 'Damn, I'm not being criticized,'” she said.

Pablo Baler, a professor of Latin American literature at CSU L.A., says the disconnect during this World Cup may be that people don’t believe Argentina represents the underdog soccer nations of Latin America anymore.

“At times, [the team] can feel more like a corporation than a national team, but the country it represents was in many ways the victim of the same imperial powers now competing for the title: France, England and Spain,” he said.

Baler grew up in Argentina and has many Latin American friends. He doesn’t believe the negativity against his homeland will tarnish its reputation. He said a Nicaraguan friend said to him this week that he’s proud Argentina made it to the World Cup semifinals because the team is “one of us.”

Topline

The background: In June, the City Council voted to establish the moratorium as city staff drafted a proposal for a permanent citywide ban. At the time, the moratorium was authorized for 45 days.

The issue first made its way to city hall earlier this year after a group of neighbors raised concerns that a proposed new In-N-Out in Culver City could hurt air quality and create safety issues for pedestrians.

Status of the proposed ban: Culver City staff wrote in a report to City Council this week that they’ve begun drafting a potential permanent ban on new drive-thrus citywide.

The proposal will first go to the city’s planning commission, a five-person body that makes recommendations to the City Council on development and zoning matters in the city, then head to the City Council for a final vote. Those dates have not yet been set.

One councilmember left door open for a different approach: At Monday’s meeting, Councilmember Albert Vera, who was among the four votes supporting the moratorium extension, said he would be open to seeing recommendations from the planning commission that don’t ban drive-thrus citywide outright.

The contractor building the long-awaited LAX People Mover project has filed a lawsuit alleging the city of L.A. breached its contract in several disputes.

In the suit, filed with the L.A. County Superior Court on July 9, LINXS alleges the city is misplacing blame in construction-related disputes and refusing to extend contract deadlines. LINXS also alleges it’s owed additional payment for the work as a result of the delays.

The project, a 2.25-mile-long elevated train designed to transport riders between airport terminals and local transit, is currently undergoing testing. Work on the train is scheduled to be complete “in a few months,” according to a June interview with Los Angeles World Airports CEO John Ackerman on the L.A. in a Minute podcast.

Chief among the disputes detailed in the lawsuit is one involving repairs to faulty electrical equipment in the system that powers the train, resulting in testing delays last year. LAist reported on this dispute last November and in April.

A spokesperson for LINXS said it has attempted to engage in “extensive good-faith efforts over the past two years” to resolve the ongoing contractual disputes.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that manages LAX, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. They added that the agency remains committed to “delivering a safe, durable and reliable” train as soon as possible.

The L.A. City Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In its lawsuit, LINXS said that by not granting the contractor’s compensation and time-extension requests, the city is attempting to evade accountability for the delayed train, which was once expected to open in 2023 and is nearly a billion dollars over budget.

The contractor warned in its lawsuit that without an extension of contract deadlines, it might be forced to repay lenders who financed the project as soon as this fall. In that case, the contractor said in its lawsuit that it could become “insolvent and unable to perform,” adding that possibility would have “catastrophic consequences.”

Dispute over metering cabinet

Last February, staff from Los Angeles World Airports and the city’s Department of Water and Power directed LINXS to repair equipment in a metering cabinet that had degraded due to moisture and debris, as LAist previously reported.

LINXS completed the repair work, which required power to be partially shut down between February and July 2025. That temporary power disruption delayed critical testing of the technology that allows for central control of the People Mover’s systems.

LINXS said last year, and also in the current lawsuit, that the repair work is not in its scope of work. As a result, the contractor has said it's owed compensation and a minimum of a 141-day extension to complete construction.

“Since then, [Los Angeles World Airports] has stonewalled the discussions of [LINXS’] compensation and a time extension,” the contractor alleges in its lawsuit.

LINXS, citing information it received from a public records request, alleges the issue stemmed from an instance where LADWP opened the metering cabinet in September 2024 to rectify design issues with the equipment contained in it.

Whereas past disputes between LINXS and the airport were resolved through settlements that have so far totaled hundreds of millions of dollars and resulted in schedule extensions, the dispute over maintaining electrical equipment has been uniquely contentious.

“Other relief events that we’ve dealt with up to this point … we could agree there were some things that were not totally within LINXS’ control,” Jake Adams, an airport executive who is overseeing $5.5 billion in LAX upgrades, said in an interview with LAist in April. “This relief event is very different. We believe there is absolutely no merit to this claim.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the contractor is owed additional time and money for several other ongoing disputes, including that Los Angeles World Airports is refusing to sign a power agreement with LADWP for solar panels installed as part of the People Mover project and that workers on separate airport projects have “demolished” work LINXS completed for the train.

What’s the status of the People Mover?

The People Mover is operating in a testing phase where it simulates how the train will operate when it begins shuttling travelers between airport terminals and the L.A. Metro system.

The testing of the train won’t be impacted by the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports told LAist.

A hearing on the case filed last week has been scheduled for December, according to the L.A. County Superior Court’s website.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will pause non-urgent vehicle stops after two deadly shootings in less than a week, Maine Sen. Angus King's office tells NPR.

King spokesman Matthew Felling says the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the policy shift. Maine Sen. Susan Collins also posted Tuesday on X that she had called for change.

"I spoke with DHS Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops," she wrote.

DHS told NPR in a statement that it will not "disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics," and it's unclear what this change will look like in practice.

The most recent death happened Monday in Biddeford, Maine, where ICE agents tried to pull over the car of 26-year-old Joan Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national.

"The vehicle attempted to flee the scene, and fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon," DHS said in a statement. However, the agency has not provided any evidence to back the claims. The agents were not wearing body cameras.

Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by agents in Houston after they attempted to pull him over. The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo tried to use his van as a weapon, prompting an agent to fire their weapon. But passengers in the van have disputed this account.

Paul Hunker, the former chief counsel of ICE in Dallas, told NPR the standards and principles of when to discharge a firearm are clear.

"I was an attorney for the officers — the person has to pose an imminent threat of harm to use deadly force," Hunker said.

He said whether the person poses an imminent threat is always from the perspective of the officer.

DHS policy

The Department of Homeland Security's policy says deadly force cannot be used solely to prevent someone from fleeing … unless the person poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm to the agent or others.

DHS accused Salgado Araujo of weaponizing his car against the ICE officer. In Maine, the agency said Durán Guerrero posed a public safety threat.

But in these cases, there hasn't been video evidence to back up those allegations.

The latest development has been welcomed by former DHS officials who said a reset is needed in order to regain the trust of the public and ensure no more lives are lost.

"That person could flee and present a big danger to people around them … that's one of the reasons I think there are few vehicle chases because of the danger and the harm that could happen if one of those goes bad." Hunker said.

He said in the past, ICE's preference has been to assume custody of the undocumented immigrants who were already in jails, making it safer for the agents.

Sarah Saldaña, a former ICE acting director under President Barack Obama, said the shift in policy is a good start.

"I think it's a very practical thing to do until the agency can get its officers more properly trained and attuned to what their effort is," Saldaña said. "Immigration enforcement should not be a deadly endeavor — it should be a method by which to make sure that people are complying with the law."

Despite the shift in policy, there are a lot of outstanding questions about what led to the fatal shootings of Salgado Araujo in Houston last week, and of Durán Guerrero in Maine this week.

None of the federal immigration agents were wearing body cameras, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

After the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, DHS vowed to quickly deploy body cameras to federal immigration agents nationwide.

But that hasn't happened.

The agency is blaming Democrats in Congress and the partial government shutdowns for this. But it is, again, vowing to deploy body cameras for all agents in the next 60 days.

That footage would have been key to knowing whether the agents followed protocol or not, and to hold the agents accountable, said Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the nonprofit National Police Accountability Project.

"Luckily in both instances there were witnesses, independent witnesses, that observed some things and were able to share some information," Bonds said. "But it's really hard to be able to hold ICE agents accountable in any manner if all we're getting from DHS right now is kind of vague statements about the car being used in a way that was either threatening the ICE agents or, in the case of Maine, threatening the public."

Bonds said the public needs to keep demanding answers and independent investigations to create a change in policy — like the pause on traffic stops made public Tuesday.

NPR's Meg Anderson contributed reporting.