Current Climate: DOGE Cuts Are Undermining Wildfire Readiness

Current Climate brings you the latest news about the business of sustainability every Monday. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

Aggressive federal budget cuts by Elon Musk’s DOGE team, empowered by President Donald Trump, have devastated agencies including USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with the Department of Education in the crosshairs. But it also appears to be impacting vital services including wildfire preparedness, a troubling development in the wake of Los Angeles’s devastating, wind- and drought-fueled blazes and ahead of what’s likely to be another bad fire season.

The confusion spurred by Musk’s chainsaw approach to budgets and staffing, including a freeze on money already appropriated by Congress, has created disarray at agencies responsible for battling fires, according to an investigation by ProPublica. Federally supported fire crews in California are unsure how long they’ll be able to continue their work; others sent to aid proscribed burns in Florida were sent back; and hiring of seasonal workers has also been halted for now, the report said, citing interviews with a dozen firefighters and people who assist with those efforts.

“Uncertainty is at an all-time high. Morale is at an all-time low,” said one federal wildland firefighter who, in addition to numerous federal employees, asked not to be named because of fear of retribution by the Trump Administration.

In response, a bipartisan Senate bill introduced by Montana Republican Tim Sheehy and California Democrat Alex seeks to create a new “National Wildfire Service,” to address current and past shortcomings.

“We can all agree that the federal government must do a better job protecting our people, property, public lands, and communities from wildfires, and this bill will go a long way in streamlining our wildland firefighting efforts and best leveraging all available resources,” said Sheehy, who ran the country’s largest operator of Super Scooper aircraft before becoming a Senator.

The Big Read

Tesla Faces Protests, Vandalism And Boycott Threats Over Musk’s MAGA-DOGE Rampage

Trump voters loved the idea of Elon Musk taking a meat cleaver to the federal government. But now that the Tesla CEO is rampaging through the halls of DC swinging a chainsaw, public sentiment is shifting. And it's starting to ding the Tesla brand.

The company’s Loveland, Colorado, store was vandalized on Feb. 7, the third time in a month, with “offensive and hateful” graffiti, while about 50 people gathered in San Luis Obispo, California, outside a Tesla shop to protest federal budget cuts by Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE. A similar protest also occurred in San Diego over the weekend. The billionaire CEO’s bizarre, Nazi-style salute at a Trump victory celebration last month spurred protestors in the Netherlands to paint swastikas and anti-Musk sentiments on a company store in The Hague. Musk derided comparisons to the Sieg Heil salute as “dirty tricks,” saying “the ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”

In Germany, police are looking into whether groups that projected an image of Musk giving the straight-armed gesture onto the side of Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory, along with the phrase “Heil Tesla,” broke laws against displaying Nazi symbols. There’s also been a call for a Tesla boycott in Poland. Trump’s tariff threats on Canada have also led to calls for boycotts of its electric vehicles, as well as Musk’s X social media platform and Starlink, in that country.

Investors are spooked too. Since Tesla stock peaked at an all-time high of $479.86 on Dec. 17, the stock plummeted 25% through Feb. 14.

Read more here

Hot Topic

Chuck Templeton, managing partner at S2G Investments, on climate-conscious investment opportunities

Given that the environment for cleantech investing has changed under the new administration what areas look like promising bets?

What we may see is that there's interest in better-for-you food brands, given some of the perspectives from the current administration. How do we get toxins, harmful chemicals and microplastics out of our food? That's a big discussion that's happening and we're very excited about that. And then from the ag standpoint, can we figure out how to make either conventional products much more efficient and effective or help biologics be successful? Maybe using AI to solve some of these problems that Mother Nature has taken tens of thousands, if not millions, of years to figure out - while also acknowledging we need to address the associated energy requirements there.

The application of technology into ag, I think is, only accelerating. We're going to need to find more efficient ways than what we've been doing for the last 150 years. With new tools and technologies now at our disposal, we have the potential to unlock solutions that were previously beyond our reach in taste, nutrition, and affordability. At the same time, farmers can be more profitable.

Do investments related to electric vehicles and clean energy remain compelling right now?

With EVs, we think that most people believe, on average, they are a better driving experience. So we do think that EVs will continue to grow and find new niches in lots of applications like trucking, logistics, and robotics.

Same with wind and solar, particularly with storage. We've done all the 1.0 stuff in this respect. Now as we take it to the next level, the focus shifts to optimizing storage, peak shaving, efficient transmission, and refining how the energy grid functions. How do we make sure that we don't have these peak periods that we can't handle? Now we're getting to the scale where we see those problems acutely and there are opportunities for entrepreneurs to go to solve.

Additionally, we think there's a huge opportunity in decarbonizing shipping. Shipping is international and the world wants more energy-efficient and cleaner options. Ocean intelligence is another area that we’re excited about. There's tremendous potential in accurately capturing and understanding what’s happening in the ocean and knowing how to use that data to turn the ocean from a victim of climate change to a mitigator and solution. The ocean is an under-explored and untapped opportunity.

And then there’s adaptation. We are going to need to think about the solutions we have for a warming planet. So while mitigation continues to be a priority, we see opportunity in shifting investment resources toward adaptation. We've spent a lot of time thinking about that over the last year and how we can identify and pursue more opportunities in that space. Right now about 5% to 7% of investment in this space is around adaptation. We think that there are opportunities to do more of that.

What Else We’re Reading

Scientists harness AI to protect whales. Researchers at Rutgers University-New Brunswick have developed an artificial intelligence tool that will help predict endangered North Atlantic right whale habitats, guiding ships along the Atlantic coast to avoid them. It’s designed to prevent deadly accidents and inform conservation strategies and responsible ocean development. (Nature Scientific Reports)

Tesla Board Chair Robyn Denholm has done extremely well for herself in the past year—largely by selling off most of her shares in the electric car company. She unloaded over 65% of her shares and options in the past 12 months, yielding $168 million before taxes–benefitting from the stock’s spike following President Donald Trump’s election victory in November. (Forbes)

Ford’s CEO says Trump policies may lead to layoffs. The automaker has invested heavily in factories to produce batteries and electric vehicles in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, Chief Executive Jim Farley said at a conference in New York. If Republicans repeal Biden-era legislation that allocated billions of dollars in subsidies and loans for the projects, “many of those jobs will be at risk,” he said. (New York Times)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterates a pledge to more than double the country’s current renewable energy capacity to 500 gigawatts. Modi said at the India Energy Week 2025 that the success of the drive, and indeed his country’s wider ambitions would be rooted in what he described as “key five pillars”: resource availability, a skilled workforce, economic strength, political stability and strategic geography. (Forbes)

The U.S. smashed clean energy records last year. Can it keep up the pace? Developers plan to add even more solar, wind and battery storage capacity in 2025, but the Trump administration isn’t making that easy. (Canary Media)

The SEC moves to kill climate disclosure rule. Acting chair Mark Uyeda directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to pause its legal defense of a rule requiring companies to make climate disclosures. (New York Times)

More From Forbes