electric vehicles
Protecting Consumers in the Electric Vehicle Transition
Paul Hanaoka via Unsplash
UC Berkeley paper highlights opportunities for California to strengthen consumer protections in the EV transition.
Guest contributor Jackie Dall is a UC Berkeley School of Law student (J.D. Candidate, ’27) Personal vehicles are one of the most significant financial commitments American households make, providing mobility and access to economic opportunity in most communities. The electric vehicle (EV) transition is underway and has the potential to directly impact consumers through the entire …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Trump Is Boosting Clean Energy Everywhere Else
It’s partly the Iran war. But there’s also another reason.
One of the winners from Trump’s presidency has been the clean energy industry. He’s had some success in his U.S. campaign to slow clean tech, but the global picture is quite different. If anything, Trump is boosting the energy transition outside the United States. We are still the world’s largest economy, but we’re only 15% of global GDP (measured by purchasing power parity). The rest of the world no longer dances to our tune.
The Iran War has been Trump’s most notable contribution to the global energy transition. Chinese solar exports doubled in a single month, an incredible surge. The war has been a sobering lessen to many countries about the dangers of relying on fossil fuels.
How, Exactly, Has Trump Gone After EVs?
A close look at the Administration’s wreckage, in six steps
The second Trump Administration has brought a flood of obstacles to the national effort to transition away from petroleum-powered vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs). These challenges have come in many forms across multiple levels of government; they are in most cases completely unprecedented, and in many cases legally dubious (to put it mildly). The push …
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CONTINUE READINGThe War and the Energy Transition
The Iran War it is hitting energy markets hard. Will that affect the energy transition?
The Iran War has been a big shock to the global energy system. It’s natural to wonder what the long terms will be. What it will lead to an orgy of oil and gas drilling, or will it speed up the energy transition? There are enormous uncertainties, and making confident predictions would be a clear mistake. In this post, I’ll try to unpack some of the issues and offer a semi-educated gas about the answers.
The Top Ten Things to be Thankful for this Year
It’s been a horrible year for federal environmental law, but there are hopeful developments elsewhere.
This is, if not the winter of our discontent, at least the late autumn. In terms of federal environmental policy, 2025 has been a disaster. Trump’s previous term in office pales by comparison. But all is not gloomy. Outside of D.C., there have been encouraging developments within the U.S. and globally.
Here are ten of those positive developments.
Abundance politics and climate politics
Recent issue polling shows the similar challenges facing both climate and abundance politics
This week a study of the popularity of a wide range of issues among the American public came out – and created quite a stir. Most of the attention focused on the unpopularity of various Democratic positions on race and gender identity issues. But here I want to highlight the results in two areas I’ve …
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CONTINUE READINGWhere Should EV Chargers Go?
California set an infrastructure milestone – but how can it reach ambitious goals for EV drivers?
As the California Energy Commission proudly announced this week, the state is now home to over 200,000 publicly accessible electric vehicle chargers. This milestone is worth celebrating, both in absolute and relative terms: California has far more individual public charging ports than gasoline nozzles, and with around 2 million EVs now on the road, around …
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CONTINUE READINGImmigration Law is Environmental Law
The recent ICE raid on a Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia highlights a problem in our visa system — and our politics.
Three weeks ago, federal and state agents conducted an immigration raid at a multi-billion-dollar Hyundai-LG battery plant under construction in Ellabell, Georgia and detained some 475 workers. About 300 of these workers were South Korean citizens. 14 were from China, Japan, and Indonesia. Another 145 were from Mexico and other Latin American countries. As has …
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CONTINUE READINGState Agencies Respond to Trump’s EV Threats
A solid list of proposals – are they enough?
The Trump Administration and Congress have spent much of the year attacking vehicle electrification efforts–everything from executive orders threatening electric vehicle policies and incentives (in the name of promoting “true consumer choice”) and the repeal of vehicle emission standards (backed by false claims of consumer savings) to the elimination of EV tax credits and manufacturing …
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CONTINUE READINGChina is Kicking Our Ass at Our Own Game
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
The first time I saw a Chinese-made EV on the road I was walking on a crowded sidewalk in São Paulo. It was a Saturday night this May, when the whole city seemed to be out enjoying the warm weather. A street rave took over an entire block so to keep moving, we pedestrians had …
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