Greg Pierce

Luskin Center for Innovation experts uplift the work of about 50 students a year | UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation supports 50 students each year with research, mentorship, and fellowships advancing equity and sustainability.

We @luskininnovation.bsky.social don't get much, if anything, done without the support and partnership of our students.

Check this out to see a bit about their recent work, and ways to support in the future.

innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/2025/08/04/l...

Important work, nuanced implications and nice to see @luskininnovation.bsky.social colleague @rachelconnolly.bsky.social's broader work on wildfire-mortality estimates referenced here.

Watching California's SB 1221 pilot projects to decarbonize whole neighborhoods? The gas utilities have submitted their initial system maps and priority neighborhood proposals for CPUC review, and these submissions are largely coming up short. 🧵

Argh: "However, we find that pollution increased downstream from mid-sized hog AFOs, which were exempt
from the updated regulations. Given the growth in the
number of mid-sized facilities relative to large AFOs, we
estimate that the regulation had little discernible impact
on overall water quality"

I can't.

Great work by my colleagues @luskininnovation.bsky.social & CCSC @ioes.ucla.edu, projecting ongoing customer bill impacts of electrifying in LA.

(Full disclosure, I was involved)

New job alert! Interested in applied research increasing our understanding of water resilience, nature based solutions and rewilding? @exeter.ac.uk we are looking for a Technical Specialist, working with me and others in Geography and @uoe-creww.bsky.social

jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

this work saved millions of lives in 2021, won the Nobel Prize in 2023, and is cancelled in 2025

New law will allow Illinois municipalities, fire districts to charge lift assist fees for congregate care facilities Every Illinois municipality and fire protection district will soon have the ability to charge fees for lift assist services to help deter non-emergency lift assist calls and recover associated costs.

A few semesters ago, one of my public finance students did their final project on a fire district. Non-emergency lift assist calls were something like 50% or more of calls—where no revenue could be recovered. And likely the result of nursing homes not wanting to incur liability to pick someone up.

Documents reveal Los Angeles County’s meager budget for disaster response Los Angeles County is no stranger to catastrophes. It has declared 74 disasters in the past 20 years and often hosts major events, such as the Summer Olympics in 2028.

Really important story here about the shockingly (even to me) small operating budget for LA county emergency management — $15 million.

This is the most populous county and one of, if not the highest, risk counties in the country. The irresponsibility of this!

www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

So many “musical chairs” situations in the energy transition (what @gruberte.bsky.social and @shastingssimon.bsky.social call the “mid transition”)! Before long, it’s not gonna be cheap or convenient to have the last ICE car, the last fossil heating on your block.

NEW: A federal judge has demanded NSF explain in court how the UCLA grant suspensions are not in violation of her June order that restored grants to UC scientists

Brief description: this project aims to inform re-oriented water and air quality public messaging around wildfires by centering community perspectives and experiences regarding personal environmental risks in the January 2025 LA fires, including reliance and trust in media and information sources.

The team: @rachelconnolly.bsky.social, myself and @mullinmeg.bsky.social @luskininnovation.bsky.social
working with Silvia R. González of @uclalppi.bsky.social
in partnership with Michael Rincon & members of @psr-la.bsky.social

Thanks to the UCLA Center for Community Engagement for sponsoring a new seed grant "Supporting Communities’ Understanding and Trust in Public Information on Environmental Pollution Exposures Post-Fires"

communityengagement.ucla.edu/faculty/ucla...

Thanks, we'll be working on this for at least the next 2, probably 5 years!

Hydrology Paper of the Day @gregspierce.bsky.social @edithdeguzman.bsky.social @mullinmeg.bsky.social on understanding the sociohydrology of wildfires in the Los Angeles area: impacts of climate change and water systems underdesigned for firefighting; urban expansion; and the need for resilience.

Feasibility and Applicability of Emerging Utility-Led Innovations in Addressing Affordability

If you're interested in our Water Research Foundation project report "Feasibility and Applicability of Emerging Utility-Led Innovations in Addressing Affordability," check out the below webinar:

August 21, 2025: 12-1 PM PT.
Registration below.

www.waterrf.org/resource/fea...

Fascinating, especially the exclusion of domestic well owners from both prospective fees and a vote on them.

@fkearns.bsky.social

'Something beyond normal': Local candidates in Arizona embrace Trump playbook While local governments had largely been spared from partisan politics, MAGA-inspired City Council members are changing the norm in the Phoenix area.

I'm glad to see this issue get some press. One thing noted in this story is Scottsdale cancelled their sustainability plan, as reducing land fill waste and minimizing water use were viewed as liberal overreach that infringes on people's lifestyles. There is partisan way to take out the trash now.

bbklaw.com/resources/la...

Another big step back via CA courts in rational & fair water utility ratemaking.

Apparently, too much to ask judges to grasp the very basics of operations.

With gems like: "The City could not prove that only the reservoir water (as opposed to a co-mingled supply) was distributed to that tier."

EPA aims to revoke ‘endangerment finding’ underpinning power, auto sector climate regs The effort to end greenhouse gas-related rules that address climate change will likely face "significant legal pushback,” according to research firm Capstone.

Despite Lee Zeldin's lies on CNN this morning, the consequences of eliminating EPA's Endangerment Finding go well beyond the auto sector or "mobile sources." They effect the agency's regulation of the power sector as well. (1/2)
www.utilitydive.com/news/epa-end...

Tomorrow at @descansogardens.bsky.social !

Elon Musk’s DOGE Burned Through $21.7 Billion of Taxpayer Cash A report added up all the costs associated with DOGE and found it wasted billions by paying employees not to work, cancelling projects and more.

Waste, fraud and abuse:

"The Department of Government Efficiency generated some $21.7 billion in waste across the federal government in the first six months of the year, according to a new report from the minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI)."

Every time I see "AGI" I think of acute gastrointestinal illness, and I'm not changing.

If you're a UCLA researcher (PI, grad student, etc) with an NSF, NIH or other suddenly suspended grant, please email or DM me.

I'm trying to confirm what the suspension letters say and how extensive the NIH suspensions are.

Email: Mikhail at calmatters dot org

Had me at "bespoke water storage"

For six months, I've said that threats to economic data have been more collateral damage than intentional harm.

No longer.

Firing the head of the BLS is five-alarm intentional harm to the integrity of US economic data and the entire statistical system.