Charging Forward—or Sliding Back?The Fight for a Just Transition in Lithium Valley One Year Later

Photo courtesy of Manuel Pastor

California just broke a record. Nearly three in ten new cars sold in the state in the third quarter of 2025 were zero-emission vehicles, the highest share ever recorded. While the demand was partly driven by the sunsetting of federal tax credits for new EV purchases, analysts also think the fundamentals are in place: consumer interest in clean transportation remains strong, and California continues to lead the nation toward a more sustainable future.

But even as the state accelerates toward electrification, Washington is putting on the brakes. The Trump administration has rolled back federal clean-energy programs, cut EV infrastructure funding, and opened new channels of support for fossil fuels. At the same time, it has taken an equity stake in the Nevada-based Thacker Pass mine, which is developing an environmentally destructive hard-rock lithium mining operation over the objection of environmental organizations and most local Native American tribes. In short, the race to build America’s clean-energy future has become a contest—not just between technologies or regions, but between competing visions of what a transition to clean transportation and energy means. And nowhere are those tensions more visible than in California’s Lithium Valley, the geothermal-rich region around the Salton Sea that our book Charging Forward spotlighted last year as a microcosm of the broad climate challenges we face.

From Promise to Pushback

A year ago, we argued in Charging Forward that the clean-energy transition would only be part of a “just transition” if the communities living at its frontlines were full partners in shaping it. That principle is being tested now in the fight over the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power Project being spearheaded by one of the major would-be producers, Controlled Thermal Resources.

In September 2025, Comité Cívico del Valle (CCV) (‘Civic Committee of the Valley’) and Earthworks released The Devil is in the Details, a powerful report detailing deep community concerns with the project’s Environmental Impact Report. They argue it underestimates the risks to water supplies, ignores air-quality and toxic-waste implications, and fails to safeguard sacred Indigenous lands around the Salton Sea.

But this is not just a story of opposition. A new regional coalition, Valle Unido por Beneficios Comunitarios  (‘United Valley for Community Benefits’), is pressing for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) that would guarantee tangible returns to frontline communities such Niland, Westmoreland and Calipatria. The coalition is committed to securing a CBA with all the major companies pursuing lithium extraction, while ensuring the highest environmental mitigation measures in projects and developments in the region. The fight highlights what was foreshadowed in the documentary A Better Next Big Thing by our colleague Jacob Kornbluth: to ensure that clean energy doesn’t reproduce the extractive dynamics of the past, “community benefits” shouldn’t be about handouts after the fact, but about shared governance from the start.

Imperial County’s Stalled Lithium Valley Plan

Imperial County’s ambitious Lithium Valley Specific Plan (LVSP) is supposed to help further shared governance by offering a blueprint for managing the region’s transformation — a 51,000-acre plan for clean-energy industry, infrastructure, and community development around the lithium extraction sites. But nearly a year after the draft was released, the LVSP remains unfinished and over budget. The county extended public comments into May, and in July approved another round of funding that brought the contract’s total cost above $3.2 million. The accompanying Environmental Impact Report still hasn’t been finalized.

As San Diego State University builds out a state-funded $80 million STEM facility in the region to support lithium related research and education, its president recently expressed concern that the delay has bred frustration and risk. Developers want certainty, community groups want safeguards, and both are losing faith in the process. Without a completed plan, every project becomes an ad hoc negotiation, weakening oversight and eroding public trust.

Thacker Pass, Arkansas, and the Battle for Lithium’s Future

While California tries to balance the speed of the market with the speed of trust, other regions are racing full speed ahead. The Thacker Pass mine in Nevada is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of national policy, but the joint venture between Lithium Americas and General Motors has been criticized for its extensive surveillance and monitoring of multiple community, Indigenous, and environmental groups opposed to the environmentally destructive project. The Trump Administration recently took an equity stake in the operation, effectively turning the federal government into a shareholder in the most damaging form of commercial lithium extraction.

Meanwhile, a new frontier is opening in Arkansas, where companies are tapping the Smackover formation for direct lithium extraction. This geological formation has long been exploited for oil and gas extraction. The Standard Lithium/Equinor project recently received a $225 million DOE grant and published a positive feasibility study showing promising results. The Arkansas Lithium Technology Accelerator was launched this summer to support down-stream lithium supply chain companies, and even gas-giant Chevron is getting into the game with a pilot well in the region, their first commercial foray into lithium extraction.

Little wonder that the interest is there: despite the Trump administration’s effort to take us back to dirty fuel, automakers know the future lies in EV’s. Globally, electric car sales were more than 17 million in 2024, accounting for more than 20% of all cars sold.  Nearly half of all cars sold in China are EVs, and emerging markets in Asia and Latin America saw electric car sales expand by over 60% in 2024. This resilience highlights a central contradiction of the moment: while federal policy veers toward fossil retrenchment, market and consumer momentum continue to accelerate the clean transition from below.

The Crossroads of Power and Justice

One year after Charging Forward was published, the tensions it explored have become sharper than ever. The Salton Sea’s geothermal brine remains uniquely rich, but its high-temperature and complex chemistry makes extraction challenging and commercially uncertain. Lower-temperature brines in Arkansas may be easier to manage, and Nevada’s environmentally destructive projects now enjoy federal backing. Lithium Valley can’t assume it will be the nation’s lithium hub by default — it must prove it can deliver both production and justice.

Bridging that divide is more complex than ever. Communities in Imperial County are organizing for fair treatment. Imperial County’s long-promised development plan languishes, while rival regions advance their own lithium strategies. Federal policy has swung toward fossil favoritism, seeming to buck clear trends in global and other markets.

The big question now isn’t whether the clean-energy transition will happen: it will. But the question is where, how, and for whom. The outcome will depend on whether communities like those around the Salton Sea can secure a real voice in shaping the industry that will transform their landscape, and whether California’s momentum can withstand federal retrenchment and competitive headwinds.

Charging Forward argued that a just transition must be built, not assumed. One year later, that remains the challenge. The race is on, and it’s not just about who extracts the lithium first: it’s about who builds the future right.

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This article was originally posted to the USC Equity Research Institute’s blog on October, 30 2025. Reprinted here with permission.