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      Trump Team Plans Cuts at HUD Office That Funds Disaster Recovery

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      The Trump administration plans to all but eliminate the office that oversees America’s recovery from the largest disasters, raising questions about how the United States will rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities made worse by climate change.The Office of Community Planning and Development, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pays to rebuild homes and other recovery efforts after the country’s worst disasters, such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida.The administration plans to cut the staff in that office by 84 percent, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The number of workers would be cut to 150, from 936 when Mr. Trump took office last month.Those cuts could slow the distribution of recovery money to North Carolina and other recent disasters, depending how quickly they happen.“HUD is carrying out President Trump’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government to serve the American people at the highest standard,” a spokeswoman for the department, Kasey Lovett, said in a statement. The primary responsibility for rebuilding communities after major disasters falls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps state and local governments pay to repair or rebuild damaged roads, bridges, schools, water treatments plants and other public infrastructure. The agency also provides money to help repair damaged homes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      USAID Climate Programs Fighting Extremism and Unrest Are Closing Down

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      Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global warming are ensnared in the effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D.One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in the strategic port city of Basra, Iraq, where dry taps had caused violent anti-government protests. The aid group’s oldest program, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, ran a forecasting system that allowed aid workers in places like war-torn South Sudan to prepare for catastrophic floods last year.The fate of these programs remains uncertain. The Trump administration has essentially sought to shutter the agency. A federal court has issued a temporary restraining order. On the ground, much of the work has stopped.“They were buying down future risk,” said Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security and a former U.S. intelligence official. “Invest little today so we don’t have to spend a lot in the future when things metastasize.”The German government this week released a report calling climate change “the greatest security threat of our day and age,” echoing a U.S. intelligence report from 2021, which described climate hazards as “threat multipliers.”Some U.S.A.I.D. funding supported mediation programs to prevent local clashes over land or water. For instance, as the rains become erratic in the Sahel, clashes between farmers and cattle herders become more frequent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California’s Push for Electric Trucks Sputters Under Trump

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      The state will no longer require some truckers to shift away from diesel semis but hopes that subsidies can keep dreams of pollution-free big rigs alive.President Trump’s policies could threaten many big green energy projects in the coming years, but his election has already dealt a big blow to an ambitious California effort to replace thousands of diesel-fueled trucks with battery-powered semis.The California plan, which has been closely watched by other states and countries, was meant to take a big leap forward last year, with a requirement that some of the more than 30,000 trucks that move cargo in and out of ports start using semis that don’t emit carbon dioxide.But after Mr. Trump was elected, California regulators withdrew their plan, which required a federal waiver that the new administration, which is closely aligned with the oil industry, would most likely have rejected. That leaves the state unable to force trucking businesses to clean up their fleets. It was a big setback for the state, which has long been allowed to have tailpipe emission rules that are stricter than federal standards because of California’s infamous smog.Some transportation experts said that even before Mr. Trump’s election, California’s effort had problems. The batteries that power electric trucks are too expensive. They take too long to charge. And there aren’t enough places to plug the trucks in.“It was excessively ambitious,” said Daniel Sperling, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in sustainable transportation, referring to the program that made truckers buy green rigs.California officials insist that their effort is not doomed and say they will keep it alive with other rules and by providing truckers incentives to go electric.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Funding Freeze Raises a New Question: Is the Government’s Word Good?

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      As the Trump administration continues to withhold billions of dollars for climate and clean energy spending — despite two federal judges ordering the money released — concerns are growing that the United States government could skip out on its legal commitments.Typically, when the federal government spends money through a grant or a loan program approved by Congress, it signs a legally binding agreement, known as an obligation, to deliver the money. Companies, states and other recipients often spend millions of dollars to buy equipment, hire workers, build facilities and more, fully expecting that the federal government will make good on its promise to reimburse the funds.That expectation has been upended by the new administration.Following an order by President Trump, federal agencies, including the Energy Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department, have paused funding for a wide range of obligated grants related to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, sweeping laws that provided billions for climate and energy programs.In just a few weeks, the consequences have begun to be felt nationwide. School districts that planned to use promised federal dollars to buy electric school buses have seen their accounts frozen. Farmers and store owners that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money to replace old refrigeration systems or install solar panels are finding their requests for reimbursements delayed.Two federal judges have explicitly ordered the Trump administration to end its freeze and let the money flow again. On Monday, one of those judges, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court, said the White House was defying his order by withholding funds.Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at the George Washington University Law School, said the administration’s actions had jeopardized the integrity of federal contracting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California’s FAIR Plan Gets $1 Billion Bailout After L.A. Fires

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      The move will likely lead to higher costs for households across the state, and may push more insurers to leave, intensifying a home insurance crisis.California’s home insurance plan of last resort, designed for people who can’t get coverage on the private market, does not have enough money to pay claims from the Los Angeles wildfires and is getting an infusion of cash from regular insurers.State regulators said Tuesday that they will allow the program, known as the FAIR Plan, to collect $1 billion from private insurance companies doing business in California to pay its claims. That is likely to drive up insurance costs for homeowners across the state.The situation marks a perilous new stage for California’s home insurance market, which had already been reeling from wildfires made more frequent and intense by climate change. Facing growing losses, major insurers like State Farm were already pulling back from the state, making it harder for homeowners to find coverage.Now the pressure to leave will be even greater.The $1 billion assessment is the largest since the FAIR Plan was created in 1968, and the first time since the 1994 Northridge earthquake near Los Angeles that the FAIR Plan has faced claims it can’t pay on its own. The fee will be divided among insurers based on their market share, as required by state law.“The number one priority right now is that the FAIR Plan pay out its claims,” Ricardo Lara, California’s insurance commissioner, said in an interview. “The FAIR Plan, the way we’ve set it up, is doing what it’s supposed to.”As of 2023, the state’s largest insurers by market share were State Farm, Farmers Insurance Group and CSAA Insurance, according to data from AM Best, a company that rates the financial strength of insurers. Other major insurers in the top 10 included Liberty Mutual, Allstate and Travelers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trading Hope for Reality Helps Me Parent Through the Climate Crisis

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      When I gave birth to my first child, in 2019, it seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. He came out white and limp, his head dangling off to the side. People swarmed into the hospital room, trying to suction his lungs so he could breathe. Hours later, my husband and I stood in the NICU, looking down at this newborn baby, hooked up to wires and tubes.We had spent months talking about how to protect him from various harmful influences, and here we were, an hour out of the gate, dealing with a situation we hadn’t even considered. Had his brain been deprived of oxygen for too long? Would there be lifelong damage?That night in the hospital, I learned the first lesson of parenting: You are not in control of what is going to happen, nor can you predict it. This applies to your child’s personality, many of his choices and to some extent his health. It also applies to the growing threat of climate change.The climate crisis is bad and getting worse. Here in Oregon, we’ve endured several severe heat waves and wildfires in recent years. As the impacts compound, it’s clear a lot of people around the world — many of them children — are going to suffer and die.Globally, one in three children is exposed to deadly heat waves, and even more to unclean water. A study estimated wildfire smoke to be 10 times as harmful to children’s developing lungs as typical pollution. Researchers also concluded that nearly every child in the world is at risk from at least one climate-intensified hazard: extreme heat, severe storms and floods, wildfires, food insecurity and insect-borne diseases.If you are someone like me who has children and lies awake terrified for their future, you should not let hopelessness about climate change paralyze you. In fact, I would argue that right now the bravest thing to do — even braver than hoping — is to stop hoping.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Administration Move to Freeze E.V. Charger Funding Confounds States

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      A new federal order that freezes a Biden-era program to build a national network of electric vehicle charging stations has confounded states, which had been allocated billions of dollars by Congress for the program.In interviews on Friday, some state officials said that as a result of the memo from the Trump administration, they had stopped work on the charging stations. Others said they intended to keep going.In Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has welcomed federal money to build 19 E.V. charging stations, Breanna Badanes, a spokeswoman for the state’s Transportation Department, said Friday that “it’s safe to say we’re not sure” how or whether the state will build more.“Those stations will continue operating, but as far as what comes next, we’re in the same boat with everyone else, just trying to figure it out,” she said.The Feb. 6 memo signed by Emily Biondi, an associate administrator at the U.S. Transportation Department, said that the administration was “suspending approval of state electric vehicle infrastructure deployment plans.” The memo singled out the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, which was authorized under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.A national network of fast charging stations was part of President Joseph R. Biden’s Jr.’s effort to combat climate change by accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawsuit Seeks to Block New York’s Climate Change Law Targeting Energy Companies

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      Emboldened by President Trump, West Virginia and other states are challenging a law that makes corporate polluters pay for past emissions.Twenty-two states, led by West Virginia, are suing to block a recently approved New York law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay billions of dollars a year for contributing to climate change.Under the law, called the Climate Change Superfund Act, the country’s biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions between the years 2000 and 2024 must pay a combined total of $3 billion annually for the next 25 years.The collected funds will help to repair and upgrade infrastructure in New York that is damaged or threatened by extreme weather, which is becoming more common because of emissions generated by such companies. Some projects could include the restoration of coastal wetlands, improvements to storm water drainage systems, and the installation of energy-efficient cooling systems in buildings.The measure, which was signed into law in December, is slated to go into effect in 2028.At a news conference on Thursday unveiling the legal challenge, the attorney general of West Virginia, John B. McCuskey, said the legislation overreached by seeking to hold energy companies liable in New York no matter where they are based.“This lawsuit is to ensure that these misguided policies, being forced from one state onto the entire nation, will not lead America into the doldrums of an energy crisis, allowing China, India and Russia to overtake our energy independence,” Mr. McCuskey said in a statement.West Virginia, a top producer of coal, is joined in the lawsuit by 21 other states, including major oil, gas or coal producers like Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and North Dakota. The West Virginia Coal Association and the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia are also among the plaintiffs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More