BRINGING THE HEAT — Assemblymember Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood) is equally concerned with combating climate change and getting ready for its effects.

The San Fernando Valley Democrat and chair of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee has taken the lead on legislation aimed at reducing the deadly effects of extreme heat, carrying measures that spurred the creation of a state grant program for mitigation efforts and the ongoing development of the nation’s first heatwave ranking system.

Rivas points to her upbringing in the San Fernando Valley and electrical engineering background — which took her to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the engineering design team at Motorola — as driving forces behind her policy priorities. Her activism started in 2011, when she founded a nonprofit to support girls pursuing STEM careers.

Rivas recently spoke with POLITICO about extreme heat, policy priorities and her push to get climate change taught in schools.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

We saw budget cuts this year, including to some extreme heat programs. There’s hope that money will be recouped in a climate bond, but there are many groups hoping to fund their programs and limited resources. What are your priorities?

I’m chair of the LA County delegation, legislative members that represent LA County. I’ve hosted meetings with our members, but also in the county in partnership with some environmental organizations, to help identify the unique needs of urban areas like LA versus Northern California. And so I’ve been focused on making sure that, if there is a climate bond, LA and Southern California does get its fair share.

I am focused also on extreme heat. There were budget cuts. Well, I think this is urgent. It’s something that’s happening now. And now we have to wait for a bond, for it to be on the ballot. So we’re deferring this years from now by the time organizations get their funding, but every year summers are getting hotter. And so I have a sense of urgency when it comes to mitigating extreme heat.

We wouldn’t see bond funding kick in until 2025. So are you planning to carry extreme heat bills next year? And what are your policy goals for the second year of session?

I will definitely continue to work on how communities are adapting to climate change, and how the state can help communities adapt. The state has invested more and more in sea level rise, and I think we need to redistribute funding to ensure that we’re investing in issues that are affecting us now in other communities that aren’t affected by sea level rise.

How do we balance funding programs to mitigate climate change with those focused on adapting communities to extreme weather patterns that are already happening?

There has to be a balance, right? We need to invest in what’s happening today and also preparing for the future.

I remember years ago when it was about the polar bears. I just read an LA Times article that talks about a poll where Californians feel we should be doing more to respond to extreme heat waves, and over 75 percent say they’ve experienced extreme heat in their area. They want the state to do more. I think Californians realize that climate change is an urgent issue, and they want their state to respond.

WHOSE WATERS — Three tribes have designated nearly 700 square miles of ocean off the far northern coast of California as the first Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area in the United States.

In making the announcement today, the tribes said they were asserting their rights over unceded ocean where climate change, coastal erosion and offshore wind development threaten culturally important species like mussels, seaweed, salmon and shorebirds.

The designation hasn’t yet received state recognition.

The governments of the Resighini Tribe of Yurok People, Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation and Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria each passed resolutions in past months to create the Yurok-Tolowa-Dee-ni’ Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area.

The designation comes as the region is still healing from scars of the past, even as offshore wind developers swoop in. Tribes and environmental groups are embarking on large-scale ecosystem restoration to follow the removal of four dams on the Klamath River that have long damaged salmon habitat.

Megan Rocha, the executive director of the Resighini Tribe, said she hopes the state of California will eventually agree to co-manage the waters with the tribes as part of its goal to conserve 30 percent of coastal waters by 2030.

“It’s the perfect time to assert these rights,” she said.“Tribal stewardship is conservation.”

The tribes behind the effort have also invited three other tribal governments in the area to participate, including the Yurok Tribe.

The state of California has identified the creation of Indigenous Marine Stewardship Areas as a strategy to achieve its conservation goals and is in the early stages of developing related policies, said Department of Natural Resources spokesperson Lisa Lien-Mager.

ROADS DIVERGE — Heavy- and medium- duty trucks have reached a fork along the road to reducing emissions. Do they choose the electric path? Or do they go with hydrogen?

Policymakers and regulators across the country are sorting through decisions over the next couple months that could determine if millions of diesel rigs are replaced by trucks that use hydrogen-fuel cells, electric batteries or other technology, reports Mike Lee of POLITICO’s E&E News.

The industry is also weighing its options. Currently there are thousands of electric trucks on the roads, while their hydrogen counterparts are extremely rare. That may change as the Department of Energy soon doles out $8 billion for “clean hydrogen hubs” around the country and the Treasury Department releases guidelines for hydrogen production tax credits, which could bring down the cost and help expand the fueling station network.

Hydrogen fuel-cell trucks have a longer range than battery models and a shorter refuel time. Some environmental groups advocate for their expansion to increase options for trucking companies. Others argue that the best solution is to electrify everything, as battery trucks are cheaper to buy and charge, and most hydrogen in the U.S. is currently made from a carbon dioxide-intensive process (although policies have been proposed to change that).

The conversation is very much playing out in California, which has a goal to phase out diesel-powered trucks by 2042. According to a CEC dashboard, there were 272 electric trucks on the road in California at the end of 2022, and zero hydrogen trucks.

Calstart, a nonprofit consortium of zero-emission auto companies that includes hydrogen and battery electric members, is pushing to expand the electric truck charging network in California and around the country, as the vast majority of freight is shipped within the range of an electric semi. But policy director Orville Thomas also says the market share for hydrogen trucks could grow in the future.

“Big hydrogen trucks are just starting to roll out,” Thomas told Blanca. “A lot of it is now, ‘Can we get the hydrogen infrastructure in place?’”

In addition to expected federal funding, a bill recently passed in California that opens the Clean Transportation Program’s hydrogen fueling station carveouts to include medium and heavy-duty trucks, after light-duty hydrogen-fueled vehicles have struggled to take off. A handful of manufacturers like Volvo and Nikola have introduced new hydrogen models and CARB is providing double the incentive for hydrogen trucks as it is for battery electric.

CARBON CHANGE-UP — Dana Jacobs will be starting a new position as chief of staff at the Carbon Removal Alliance, a nonprofit founded earlier this year that brings together startups and investors to lobby for policies that support permanent, “high-quality” carbon removal. Jacobs was formerly the deputy director of communications at Carbon180, another Giana Amador-founded organization that advocates for carbon removal.

— How decades-old pollution from dirty dry cleaners continues to contaminate California groundwater.

— El Niño is very likely to stick around and get stronger, meaning it will be a wet winter for California.

— Forest carbon offset projects in California’s cap-and-trade program aren’t creating the additional emissions reductions they were supposed to, a new study says.