The Brief

Rooftop solar installations have plummeted in the city of L.A. in recent years, according to a data analysis by LAist and Crosstown LA.

It’s a trend across California after the state’s utility regulators cut incentives drastically in 2022.

But that policy change applied only to the big three investor-owned electricity providers — Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric. City-owned utilities, such as the L.A. Department of Water and Power, were not affected by that change.

So why has rooftop solar adoption dropped in L.A. city limits?

What the data say

LAist and Crosstown LA analyzed permitting data to understand how rooftop solar adoption has changed in the city over the past five years. We found that, after years of growth, rooftop solar permits in Los Angeles have dropped by nearly a quarter.

Permits for rooftop solar installations reached a high of 10,513 in 2022 but have since dropped to 7,967 in 2024. Through the first six months of 2025, there were 3,729. (The data analyzed across all years were city electrical permits classified as solar and noting an installation. Depending on how permits were classified, slight under- or over-counting is possible.)

Reasons behind the drop

LADWP customers still have a generous incentive to put solar panels on their rooftops — customers with net energy meters receive bill credits for the energy their solar systems send back to the grid. These compensation rates match the rates customers pay for their energy usage.

Comparatively, new rooftop solar customers in Southern California Edison territory get paid back about 75% less than the rate. While that change has reduced solar panel adoption, it is expanding battery storage, though slowly.

David Jacot, LADWP’s director of distributed energy solutions, said he's not sure why there’s been such a significant drop in installs, but he offered several theories.

“We think the market is somewhat saturated in terms of early adopters who have the interest and the means and have already largely installed systems,” Jacot said.

He added that rising household costs and inflation, which has raised the cost of solar panels themselves, may also be a factor. Lastly, he said, the changes to incentives at the state level have led to solar companies leaving the state. The Trump administration’s cuts to federal tax credits for solar will also slow adoption, Jacot predicts.

By 2018, LADWP also had phased out past incentive programs and paid out the last of rebates available to help cover the cost of solar installation. But Jacot said he doesn’t think that’s the reason for the big drop since 2022.

“2022 was the peak, so we don't think that not having an upfront incentive for solar systems necessarily had anything to do with the recent fall off,” Jacot said.

City utilities have never led in solar adoption 

The main driver of solar adoption across the state has been the high cost of electricity, said Severin Borenstein, director of UC Berkeley Haas Energy Institute. And municipal utilities, such as LADWP, have long had lower rates than investor-owned utilities such as Southern California Edison, which means residents are less likely to adopt solar.

“If you just look at LADWP’s rates relative to the investor-owned utilities, they have always been substantially lower,” Borenstein said. “For the last 25 years in the lifetime of rooftop solar, they’ve been substantially lower.”

LADWP’s rates are between 19 cents and 38 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on your consumption tier and time of year. Southern California Edison’s rates are between 27 cents and 72 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on time of use and climate.

Still, LADWP has far more generous net energy metering than most other municipal utilities, which is surprising, Borenstein said. There was a boost in solar installation as part of former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “Green New Deal,” but since then, political leadership hasn’t pushed for additional solar policy beyond net energy metering.

“ I think that municipal utilities have been much more resistant to generous rooftop solar policy subsidies than the investor-owned utilities, which take their direction from the California Public Utilities Commission,” Borenstein said. “And the CPUC is a statewide political organization and has been much more aggressive in subsidizing rooftop solar.”

But municipal utilities have never been leaders in rooftop solar adoption, “and they aren’t now,” said Borenstein.

Solar plus batteries seen as next step

As the largest public utility in the nation, LADWP can pull a lot of weight in the transition to clean energy and has set ambitious goals to run entirely on clean energy by 2035.

Rooftop solar can help with that while also reducing the need to build massive solar farms in the desert — in L.A., solar panels on rooftops, mostly people’s homes, currently supply about 7% of the city’s total energy use, Jacot said.

But Jacot said the utility is now turning its focus to residential batteries.

“ Frankly, we don't want to encourage solar-only projects at this point. We really want to get the batteries,” he said.

That’s because electricity demand goes up as the sun sets — just when solar panels stop generating power.

Before the end of this year, Jacot said, LADWP will launch a new battery incentive program through the state-funded Self-Generation Incentive Program to help low-income homes install solar plus battery storage. LADWP will distribute more than $30 million in incentives.

And that shift to batteries will also likely lead to a change in LADWP’s net energy metering, similar to what the state has done.

“The net energy metering program that we currently have will most likely get revisited in our next power rate action, but we don't have any timeline on exactly what that's going to look like,” Jacot said. “ In the meantime, we can pursue what we're doing on the battery side while [net energy metering] is currently operating as is.”

Erin Stone is LAist's climate reporter. Mallika Seshadri writes for Crosstown LA and is a USC graduate student.

California legislative Democrats are urging their congressional colleagues to shut down the federal government and block further funding to immigration enforcement agencies after agents shot and killed another civilian in Minnesota over the weekend.

At least 50 Democratic state senators and assemblymembers — more than half the party’s caucus — on Monday decried the slaying of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident and Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse who on Saturday was gunned down by federal immigration enforcement agents.

The lawmakers proclaimed their solidarity with Minnesota and other cities and states that have been targeted by federal law enforcement agents. They railed against what they called the Trump administration’s militarization of American cities as some wiped away tears.

The previously bipartisan spending package, which would fund the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate, where an increasing number of Democrats have vowed to filibuster it.

But California lawmakers warned that Senate Democrats, many of whom represent battleground states, might cave and give Republicans the votes they need to push the measure to President Donald Trump’s desk.

“This message is for Sen. Chuck Schumer,” said Assemblymember Liz Ortega, Democrat of Hayward. “Do your job. Stand for something. Don't fold again.”

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Democrat of Salinas, called for Schumer to “step aside” if he couldn’t keep his caucus in lockstep.

Rivas and his colleagues also had a message for Republican lawmakers.

“We need you to speak out. You cannot watch these videos coming out of Minneapolis, Minn. and think that this is acceptable,” Rivas said. “We need your voice, we need your solidarity, and standing up for American values.”

In reference to the fact that Pretti was apparently carrying a permitted weapon, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez of Los Angeles quoted a 2018 tweet from the late Charlie Kirk, which stated that the Second Amendment wasn’t for hunting or self protection, but “to ensure that free people can defend themselves if, god forbid, government became tyrannical and turned against its citizens."

“What do you call a masked agent killing people in the street? What do you call children being taken from families?” Gonzalez said.

He noted that the National Rifle Association condemned premature conclusions about the shooting as “dangerous and wrong.”

“Even the NRA is calling out the dangerous ignorance of federal officials trying to excuse the killing of Alex Pretti,” Gonzalez said. “When even staunch defenders of the Second Amendment recognize the need for accountability, we must listen.”

Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón addresses the media while flanked by Democratic members of the Senate and the Assembly at the Capitol Annex Swing Space in Sacramento.

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So far, California Republicans have targeted their criticism mainly at Democrats. Republican legislative leadership deferred to other members of their caucus when asked for comment.

Sen. Tony Strickland, Republican of Huntington Beach, said Democratic officials have created risky and unsafe conditions for both the agents and civilian onlookers through so-called “sanctuary” policies that limit local and state law enforcement from working with federal immigration agents. They argue that those policies create risky situations where civilians like Pretti feel they need to monitor and track officers.

“Stop the rhetoric that ICE agents are Gestapo, that they’re secret police, that they’re Nazis,” said Assemblymember James Gallagher of Chico, the former Republican Assembly leader who recently announced his bid for the special election to fulfill the final months of the late Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s congressional term. “This type of rhetoric is helping to contribute to the chaotic environment in places like Minnesota.”

Gallagher called Pretti’s death a “terrible thing” and called for an independent investigation and accountability.

Legislation calls for greater ICE oversight

Some lawmakers are committing to introduce new measures to curtail the power of federal agents.

“Certainly this is a frustrating situation because so much of the power and the authority here is in the hands of the federal government in Washington, D.C., but that doesn't mean that the answer for us is to do nothing,” said Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, Democrat of Encino.

Gabriel plans to introduce a bill that would require the California attorney general to conduct an independent investigation into any shooting by federal immigration enforcement agents in the state, an extension of an existing law that already requires such investigations for shootings by local and state law enforcement. He will also co-author a bill with Assemblymember Juan Carrillo that would ban federal immigration enforcement agencies from using state resources to facilitate their operations, such as staging equipment and personnel on state property.

“We have to use every tool at our disposal, every lawful opportunity that we have to use our power, our authority to think of all of the different ways that we can push back,” Gabriel said.

Also on deck for a vote in the California Senate this week is Senate Bill 747 co-authored by Sen. Aisha Wahab of Hayward and Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who is running to replace Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi in Congress, that would allow Californians to sue federal agents for civil rights violations. The bill builds upon Wiener’s measure from last year that banned federal immigration enforcement agents from wearing masks, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law.

Wiener argued that the issue should not be partisan.

“This is really about everyone's rights under any federal administration,” Wiener told CalMatters on Monday. “Local and state law enforcement are already subject to civil rights liability if they violate someone's rights, and federal agents effectively are not,” he said.

“This is simply seeking to apply the same standards for all law enforcement.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Federal immigration enforcement authorities are facing scrutiny and widespread criticism over their tactics, including the lack of body-worn cameras, following the killing of two U.S. citizens by immigration officers in Minneapolis.

Several factors have led to this: Federal law does not mandate the use of body cameras by the two agencies tasked with leading the efforts to arrest and detain illegal immigrants — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Additionally, there is a shortage of cameras and a de-prioritization of body-camera programs in the second Trump administration.

This month, immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis — Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti – in separate incidents, and have since been confronted by large crowds of protesters and legal observers. The administration has defended the actions of the two officers involved in the shootings.

After Pretti's killing Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the VA nurse was committing an "act of terrorism" by "attacking" officers and "brandishing" a weapon. The video evidence and eyewitness accounts that have surfaced so far refute that assertion. There has been no evidence that NPR has verified of Pretti brandishing his handgun at any time during the encounter with federal agents.

"There is body camera footage from multiple angles which investigators are currently reviewing," a DHS official told NPR in a statement Monday. The investigation is being led by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, and supported by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. CBP will also do an internal investigation.

There are about 2,000 immigration officers rotating through Minneapolis for what the administration dubs "Operation Metro Surge." Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates have criticized the rapid deployment of ICE officers and Border Patrol agents, as well as the officers' tactics to control crowds and conduct arrests. Minnesota officials are suing the administration over these tactics. Criticism has also centered on whether officers are or should be using body-worn cameras that can document these incidents.

A shortage of body cams

ICE is struggling in Minneapolis to use body-worn cameras: first, there are none available in the area; second, officers deployed are not properly trained in their use.
In written testimony, Samuel Olson, field office director in St. Paul for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, said that body-worn cameras had not been implemented for ICE officers out of his office.

"To equip every ICE law enforcement personnel operating out of Minnesota with a BWC [body worn camera] device will require approximately 2,000 devices," Olson said, adding that ICE would also need 180 days to ship, install, and test the necessary equipment and train hundreds of law enforcement personnel on proper usage, maintenance, and storage.

Furthermore, there are no body-worn cameras "physically located" at the St. Paul field office and that the agency would have to ship in additional devices, potentially needing more than ICE nationally has.

"At this time, the ERO St. Paul Office is not scheduled or funded for BWC deployment. ICE law enforcement personnel out of the ERO St. Paul Offices are not properly prepared, trained, or equipped for an immediate deployment of BWC use," Olson said.

Customs and Border Protection has a slightly different situation.

According to court filings, body cameras "will be used to record official law enforcement encounters, except when doing so may jeopardize agents and officers or public safety."

"For purposes of Operation Metro Surge, CBP personnel who are equipped with and trained in [body cameras], have been instructed to have their body-worn camera on their person for use in operations," said Kyle Harvick, deputy incident commander with Border Patrol overseeing border patrol operation in Minneapolis during "Operation Metro Surge."

Changing policy on body cameras

In 2021 Congress mandated ICE work with the Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to design a pilot program for body-worn cameras. A 2024 report says the agency expected body cameras to be implemented agency wide by September 2025.

This was a part of a broader Biden administration executive order to expand the use of body cameras to federal law enforcement.

When President Donald Trump began his second term in 2025, he rescinded Biden's executive order related to body camera use by federal law enforcement. The office tasked with helping to oversee the ICE pilot program was also depleted.

The use of body cameras has surfaced several times during the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. In Chicago, District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order in October ordering federal agents conducting immigration enforcement in her district to activate their body cameras if they have them and unless exempted by agency policy. An appeals panel in the seventh circuit later overturned Ellis' order, which also included broader limits on use of force.

In order to address concerns about the lack of body cameras, lawmakers in the House recently passed a spending bill that would provide DHS with $20 million for cameras for ICE and CBP. But the bill only mandates the money be spent -- it does not mandate the use of the cameras.

After the latest deadly shooting, the broader package is in limbo. Senate Democrats are seemingly more resistant to passing the package, which would fund the entire federal government.
Copyright 2026 NPR

SoCal is going to get slightly warmer this week, and there's a chance that it's going to be windy come Wednesday.

In Orange County, coastal areas will see highs around 61 degrees. Meanwhile, in L.A. County, the beaches will be a bit warmer with highs from 69 to 75 degrees.

More inland, the valleys and the Inland Empire will see highs from 69 to 75 degrees. We can expect similar temperatures in Coachella Valley, but in the Antelope Valley, it will be chilly, with highs from 55 to 63 degrees.

Children’s Hospital of Orange County is now the latest Southern California medical provider to stop offering gender-affirming care, blaming investigations and escalating actions from the federal government.

The hospital, as well as other hospitals in San Diego and Riverside counties under the Rady Children’s umbrella organization, has said that it will stop offering gender-affirming care to patients under 19 effective Feb. 6.

The decision has forced patients to scramble to find healthcare in a span of two weeks or risk complications from a forced withdrawal from hormone therapy.

The backlash from community members has been swift after dozens of protesters recently hit the streets outside CHOC’s hospital in Orange to rally against the decision.

CHOC said it’s making the decision under duress to preserve funding for all its patients amid proposed federal rules that would pull all Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to people under 19.

“This was a very difficult decision, made to ensure we can continue serving all children and families across the communities we serve,” a CHOC spokesperson said in a statement to LAist.

But parents of CHOC patients who attended a rally Saturday opposing the move said that they were not consulted by hospital leadership for the decision. Some said they would have advocated for CHOC to preserve its gender-affirming care clinic if they were.

Security guards stood watch over the rally from the roof of an adjacent CHOC-owned building.

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Haley Horton, a mother who carpools with trans youth CHOC patients, said the clinic’s planned closure was a “business decision.”

“ I know my son's nurse who's at this hospital doesn't want that happening,” Horton said. “I know the doctors at this hospital don't want this to happen.”

The background behind the decision

An ongoing concern for hospitals is the potential that their Medicaid and Medicare funding will be revoked if they offer gender-affirming care to minors.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are currently in the middle of a public comment period for two proposed rule changes that would defund gender-affirming care for youth, and restrict all Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide the care.

Those rules have not taken effect and are expected to be challenged by LGBTQ+ legal rights organizations.

A CHOC spokesperson also confirmed to LAist that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office had launched an investigation into the hospital. Legal experts interviewed by LAist have referred to subpoenas and investigations launched by the federal government as “scare tactics,” and say that it’s possible they won’t hold up in court.

According to TransFamily Support Services, a San Diego-based organization that also protested the closure of Rady Children’s Hospital’s clinic in San Diego, the hospital system will continue to offer services like hormone replacement therapy to people 19 and older even though the clinics are closing.

The hospital did not respond to a direct question from LAist asking the hospital what provisions were being made for families who now have two weeks to find another health care provider in an extremely precarious market. When Children’s Hospital Los Angeles closed its gender-affirming care clinic last July, administrators gave families a six-week off-ramp to find another provider, and many doctors wrote out prescriptions to tide people over for months.

What families are saying

Horton has been in touch with the families she knows with trans teenagers who are patients at CHOC. She told LAist that those families did not attend the weekend rally in order to protect their mental health as they “scramble” to find alternate care.

The rally also drew turnout from elected officials and public figures, like Tustin School Board Trustee Allyson Muñiz Damikolas.

Muñiz Damikolas said she came out on behalf of her kids, who are also patients at CHOC due to a complex medical condition, and to support trans youth nationwide.

Chris Kluwe, a former NFL player turned political advocate who’s running to represent Huntington Beach in the state assembly, said CHOC’s leaders were “cowardly bureaucrats who aren't willing to stand up and do the right thing” in the face of a “tyrannical federal government."

Chris Kluwe, who's running to represent Huntington Beach in the state assembly, showed up to rally against the CHOC clinic's closure.

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OC LGBTQ+  groups denounce the move

“ I'm a transgender woman and I'm here to tell you that denying people this gender affirming care doesn't make gender dysphoria go away,” said Stephanie Wade, chair of Lavender Dems of Orange County. “All it does is make it metastasize into suicidal depression. And I've been there. I dealt with this as a child. We can't take this away from kids.”

Wade pointed to studies that show that trans youth who are denied access to gender-affirming care are more likely to attempt suicide.

Stephanie Wade of Lavender Democrats was one of many local LGBTQ political leaders attending Saturday's rally.

Felicity Figueroa, the chair of the Orange County Equality Coalition, called on hospital leadership to consult with the families and doctors, especially given that the proposed federal rules have not yet taken effect.

 “They're saying it's gonna affect the other kids who aren't LGBTQ,” Figueroa said. “But are they asking the parents of the other kids if they're willing to throw their neighbor's kids under the bus just because of a [possibility]? That's the thing. They aren't listening.”

Lasting concerns 

Brit Cervantes of OCGAPNet, an advocacy organization for gender-affirming providers in Orange County, said the closure of CHOC’s clinic would likely have ripple effects that could reverberate for years.

“ There's going to be a time where we exist beyond this administration, and we will have to work to rebuild this trust with our patients after we abandon them.  That is a very long lasting impact,” Cervantes said.

Cervantes, a medical professional, said that discontinuing hormone therapy can lead to major complications akin to what menopausal women experience.

In addition to the effects on local adolescents, the rally’s organizers also pointed to what they saw as a wider-scale erosion of rights and norms under the second Trump administration. It took place on the same day that ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis.

Speakers at the rally outside CHOC blasted the hospital leadership for capitulating to the Trump administration.

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Kanan Durham, executive director of the Huntington Beach-based nonprofit Pride at the Pier, linked the closure to “blackmail, intimidation and state violence” happening at other levels of the federal government, including the actions of immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis.

“ Suggesting that evidenced-based health care that is supported by every major institution in the Western world is medical fraud is to set a foundation where the government can decide who is allowed to have health care and who is not,” Durham said. “They are making decisions based on their own moral judgements. And if that's where they're coming from, then any American, anybody living in this country has their health care under risk.”

The backstory

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which was the largest provider of pediatric gender-affirming care in the country, closed its Center for Transyouth Health and Development last July, affecting even patients over 19.

That was followed by other providers who said they’d stop or pause certain types of health care for trans youth, including Kaiser Permanente’s ongoing pause of gender-affirming surgeries and certain implants for people under 19.

Advocates say these closures are making it harder and harder for trans youth in Southern California to find the care that they need.

Pride at the Pier, OCGAPNet and TransFamily Support Services are also soliciting signatures for an open letter to CHOC and Rady’s leadership asking them to reverse their decision.

To weigh in on the CMS rule changes, visit this website.