Politics
California unlikely to meet landmark goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Wind turbines rise above an array of solar panels at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Tree Wind Farm and Solar Power Plant in Kern County’s Tehachapi Mountains.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
California is poised to fail to meet its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals by the end of the decade unless it can triple its efforts to reduce carbon emissions statewide, according to a critical new report.
Although the state has pledged to slash planet-warming emissions by 40% of 1990 levels by 2030, the state is not on track to meet that commitment, according an analysis by the nonprofit group Next 10 and Beacon Economics, an L.A.-based consulting firm.
Based on the most recent data available from the state, emissions have fallen just 11.5% below those of 1990.
“Policymakers have set this goal and now need to make difficult decisions about trade-offs if they want to meet it,” said Stafford Nichols, research manager at Beacon.
While pollution plummeted after stay-at-home orders were issued during the pandemic in 2020, the state’s carbon emissions increased by 3.4% the following year, according to the analysis.
That will make it harder to meet the goal set by state lawmakers in a 2016 bill known as SB 32.
Based on the trajectory of reductions since 2010, California won’t attain the mandated goal until 2047, according to report authors.
The rise in 2021 emissions was driven by an increase in electric power generation, the report said. Because of the drought that year, the state used less hydropower and compensated with more energy from natural gas-fueled power plants, Nichols said.
That year there was also a 7.4% jump in emissions from transportation as the pandemic restrictions were loosened. Not only did Californians get back in their cars in 2021, but more people avoided public transit. Ridership in 2022 was 40% below what it was before the pandemic, the researchers found, setting back the state’s progress in reducing passenger vehicle emissions.
The report, called the California Green Innovation Index, provides an annual snapshot of the state’s decarbonization efforts. Nichols said researchers had become frustrated as state officials have taken longer to release emissions data. The numbers from 2021 were released just a couple months ago, he said.
He said calculations using more recent data would likely result in the need for an even quicker pace of carbon reductions to meet the 2030 goal.
The chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board — the agency tasked with overseeing greenhouse gas reductions — has taken issue with the study’s conclusion and insists that California is on track to meet its goals.
“Our preliminary data show that in 2022 the emissions started to move back down,” said Liane Randolph, who was appointed to lead the board by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Randolph pointed out that even though the California economy rebounded in 2021 by 8%, emissions increased by just 3.4%.
“To me, that shows our programs are working,” she said. “It shows that we’re not only growing our economy, but we’re growing a fundamentally cleaner economy.”
Added Alex Stack, a spokesperson for Newsom: “We don’t shy away from ambitious goals, because that’s what it’ll take to make a difference. Our administration and CARB are taking the actions necessary to hit these goals.”
Details in the new report show how far the state has yet to go. The researchers calculated that the state had reduced emissions an average of 1.5% annually between 2010 and 2021. To reach the 2030 goal it would now have to reduce emissions by 4.6% a year.
California has only reduced emissions by more than 4% annually twice in the last two decades, and both years — 2009 and 2020 — were times of economic recession.
Despite the report’s prognosis, authors acknowledged that California is the third-most carbon-efficient state, after New York and Massachusetts. California’s carbon intensity is 8.8% lower than the national average, according to the report.
And while emissions from electricity production rose in 2021, they are still down more than 40% since 2000 and 12% since 2016.
The state also met its 2025 goal of having 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road two years early, although sales of electric vehicles dropped for the first time in more than decade late last year.
“While California is well-positioned as a leader on climate, there are substantial obstacles to accelerating our decarbonization efforts in an equitable way that benefits all Californians,” said F. Noel Perry, Next 10’s founder. “These are not insurmountable, but we need to act urgently.”
The researchers highlighted how California could eliminate emissions by finding ways to decarbonize the the state’s cement factories. That industry accounts for 2% of the state’s emissions. Greenhouse gases from the eight plants that produced nearly all of the state’s cement increased by 26% from 2011 to 2021.
While the California plants are marginally more efficient than the average American cement factory, they emit about 33% more pollutants than those in China and India, the report said.
The new report was not the first to detail how the state was falling short of its climate goals.
In a report released last year, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, which advises state lawmakers, estimated that emissions had been falling an average of about 1% a year over the last decade and would need to fall 4% annually. That report said the California Air Resources Board lacked “a clear strategy” for meeting the 2030 goal.
The agency’s “estimated reductions are driven primarily by assumptions developed by CARB, without specifying how those assumed outcomes might be achieved,” that report said.
Politics
EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after $1.2B deal scrapped
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EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas will remain open and is undergoing an operational upgrade, Fox News Digital has learned.
“Camp East Montana is NOT closing, quite the opposite,” an ICE spokesperson exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday.
“Rather, ICE has contracted with a new provider following Secretary Noem’s termination of the old contract inherited from the Department of War. ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.”
Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The spokesperson said the new contract will allow the facility to maintain what the agency described as the “highest detention standards” while expanding oversight.
According to ICE, the new contractor will also provide increased on-site medical care, additional staffing and a “PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan.”
The agency said the updated agreement also strengthens ICE’s direct oversight of operations at the El Paso-area facility.
“Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said.
El Paso immigration facility faces scrutiny but ICE says Camp East Montana is upgrading, not closing, after the $1.2 billion contract termination. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The news that the facility will remain open comes after The Washington Post reported that the facility could face closure amid scrutiny over operations.
A document was distributed to ICE staff, the Post reports, indicated that the agency was drafting a letter to terminate the facility’s $1.2 billion contract at an unspecified date.
ICE officials, however, characterized the contract termination as a deliberate effort by Noem to raise standards and improve services.
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Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas, as a bus enters the detention center. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The facility, located at Fort Bliss in Texas, has been used to house thousands of detainees as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
ICE did not immediately provide details on the identity of the new contractor or the timeline for full implementation.
WASHINGTON — Russia is emerging as one of the few early economic beneficiaries of the war with Iran, as disruptions to energy infrastructure drive up demand for Russian exports and the world casts its gaze to the Middle East and away from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its European counterparts slapped severe sanctions on Russia in March 2022, barely a month into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The effect was a stranglehold on Russia’s exports, depriving Putin’s war effort of at least $500 billion, experts say. But over the last week, as President Trump’s war in the Middle East choked energy markets worldwide, the White House began easing its restrictions on Moscow.
“It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” California Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said on X, demanding the Trump administration reverse course. “Russia is giving intelligence info to Iran that helps Iran target American forces.”
Crude droplets rained over Tehran after Israeli airstrikes decimated oil depots, draping the Iranian capital in a dense smog. Iranian counterattacks have also targeted refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Crude oil prices have surged, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has all but ceased, sending energy importers in search of alternate sources.
Those spikes are giving Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, a rare advantage. After spending a decade as the world’s most sanctioned nation over his aggression in Ukraine, Putin is finally starting to regain some leverage in global markets.
“In the current economic situation, if we refocus now on those markets that need increased supplies, we can gain a foothold there,” Putin said at a meeting at the Kremlin on Monday, according to Russian state media. “It’s important for Russian energy companies to take advantage of the current situation.”
On March 4, the Treasury Department issued a temporary 30-day waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. The appeal by the Trump administration was described as a way to ease demand for Mideast oil, but was criticized as a reversal of sanctions placed against Putin meant to deny him the capital needed to fund his occupation of eastern Ukraine.
Now, Moscow is poised to press that advantage further, after Trump said Monday he will further lift sanctions on oil-producing countries to ease the trade friction and reintroduce additional oil and gas supplies. The only countries with U.S. oil sanctions are Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
“So, we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Doral, Fla. “Then, who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on — they’ll be so much peace.”
The surprise concession to Moscow comes as reports suggest Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. personnel.
Trump’s announcement followed an unscheduled hourlong call with Putin about the situation in the Middle East.
The war has also set the stage for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.
“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”
Putin is unlikely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf, according to Robert English, an international foreign policy expert at USC. Instead, Putin is expected to play his position carefully, reap the economic rewards, and keep focused firmly on Ukraine at a time when key air defense systems are diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf.
“Russia is winning the Iran-U.S.-Israel war, at least so far. Oil and natural gas prices have soared, filling Putin’s Ukraine war chest,” he said. “Russia is gathering forces for a big spring offensive in Eastern Ukraine, and it’s not even front-page news.”
Ukraine has dispatched drone interceptors and ordered its anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks. Zelensky’s allegiance may not pay off, English said.
“When will Ukraine see the benefits of helping the U.S. with anti-drone technology? No time soon, apparently,” he said.
Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf energy supplies could bring the largest windfall to Russia, the Associated Press reported, citing energy analysts.
The economic turmoil caused by the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system, particularly its lingering dependence on Russian fuel.
Despite sanctions, the European Union remains a major purchaser of Russian natural gas and crude oil. Russian gas accounted for approximately 19% of E.U. gas imports in 2025. Allied Europeans have agreed to completely stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas, oil and pipeline gas by late 2027.
Putin expressed no desire Monday to rescue the European market now that U.S.-Israeli escalations and Iranian retaliation have choked oil production and shipping. The Russian president instead proposed to divert volumes away from the European market “to more promising areas” like the Asia-Pacific region, Slovakia and Hungary, which he said were “reliable counterparties.”
European leaders have been criticized for being “stunned, sidelined, and disunited” since hostilities began in late February. Excluded from the initial military planning by the U.S. and Israel, Europe entered the conflict with gas storage at only 30% capacity, the lowest levels in years. Instead of bold action, English said, European leaders have quarreled over internal divisions and rivalries.
“Sky-high energy prices are the underlying cause of many of these frictions, as Europe struggles now more than ever to find affordable alternatives to the cheap Russian petroleum,” English said.
Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, told European leaders in Brussels on Tuesday that rising energy prices and the world’s shifting attention risk strengthening the Kremlin at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.
“So far, there is only one winner in this war,” Costa said. “Russia.”
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
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President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
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