In Trump vs. California, Mary Nichols unlike any other negotiator

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated California's projected target for zero-emission vehicle sales by 2025 and 2030.

Mary Nichols was in classic blunt mode last week, calling the latest Trump administration challenge to Obama-era auto-emission targets "a piece of crap" and dismissing as "nonsense" industry claims that fighting pollution costs too much.

"Give me a break," Nichols said ahead of a California Air Resources Board symposium in the Los Angeles suburb of Riverside. She picked on General Motors' CEO to dismiss the argument that tough clean-air rules render cars unaffordable. "As long as Mary Barra makes more than ten times what I do in a year, I'm really not interested in what she has to say about poor people." (For the record, Barra's compensation last year was 132 times the $166,710 Nichols earns; Barra declined to comment.)

As the head of the board, the 73-year-old Nichols is arguably California's most powerful weapon in its war with President Donald Trump over the state's plan to combat climate change and have automakers toe the California line.

If they've done their research, the administration officials meeting with her Wednesday won't be fooled by her demeanor -- unfailingly polite -- or by her pulling a favorite trick to break the ice: showing up with a Tupperware container of chocolate-chip cookies.

Under Nichols, CARB "is a beast of an agency," said Cara Horowitz, a University of California at Los Angeles law professor. "The fact that they could create these California emission regulations from whole cloth, and lobby to have them propagated nationwide, is a testimony to her judgment and power as a leader."

Of course, Nichols' skills and plainspoken style earn her accolades from environmentalists. "It's hard to imagine anybody being better at what she does," said Roland Hwang, transportation director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

What's interesting is that she has more than a few fans in the auto industry. "When we walk out of a meeting with Mary, we know where we stand," said Bill Craven, senior manager of U.S. regulatory affairs for Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz unit. "We need certainty, and Mary Nichols gives us that.''

Some executives are eager to make a deal with California before Governor Jerry Brown leaves office in January, when Nichols is also scheduled to make her exit, because of concerns their successors may lack their clout and willingness to compromise.

If the next governor doesn't keep Nichols at CARB, then "somebody with the same leadership skills to really weigh the environment and the economy" is needed, said Cathy Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association. "We need both."

Nichols is in Washington to discuss an upcoming proposal from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency to significantly alter federal auto-efficiency targets.

A draft provided by the staff of Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, recommended freezing fuel economy at a 37 miles per gallon fleet average from 2020 through 2026. That would be down from the roughly 50 miles per gallon end goal for that span, which was agreed to when Barack Obama was president.

The draft also laid out legal arguments for attacking California's unique authority under the 48-year-old U.S. Clean Air Act to set its own tailpipe standards for greenhouse gas emissions, which are followed by 12 other states.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt defended the administration's position in a recent Bloomberg Television interview, saying California shouldn't be allowed to "dictate" air quality goals for the rest of the country. California, 16 other states and the District of Columbia responded with a lawsuit seeking to block Pruitt's proposed changes on May 2.

What's still an unknown, Nichols said, is "the extent to which the companies are able or willing to have a candid conversation with California about what they need prior to reaching an agreement with the federal administration."

Her goal, she said, is to continue to link California's clean-air rules with Washington's, as the state has done since 2009. But "if the federal government is doing something that is illegitimate or does not make sense, we will not go along with it.''

In 1972, Nichols argued the first lawsuit filed to force the EPA to carry out the Clean Air Act. She was 27 and a lawyer with the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles.

In those days, a dense brown smog shrouded the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of her L.A. home, burning lungs and forcing school kids to stay indoors during frequent "ozone alert'' days.

Brown, in the first of his four terms as governor, appointed Nichols to CARB in 1975. The U.S. mandated catalytic converters that year. It was one of the pollution-control measures that, combined with regulations the state issued, proved so successful that California hasn't had an ozone alert in 15 years, according to Richard Corey, CARB's executive officer.

Progress that people could actually see created a deep reservoir of support when California started regulating carbon dioxide to fight climate change in 2006.

Nichols left CARB in 1983 for high-profile jobs, including running former L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1986 and writing clean-air rules for Bill Clinton's EPA in 1993. She returned as CARB chairman in 2007 at the request of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Since then, she's promoted low-carbon fuels, renewable electricity, energy-efficient buildings and battery-powered school buses and cargo-handling equipment. She's studying how to manage forests and farmland so they'll capture and hold more carbon.

There's still a long road ahead; the San Gabriel foothills, after all, are often surrounded by a pinkish haze. To comply with pollution targets the U.S. has mandated for 2031 -- which Pruitt hasn't challenged -- nitrogen oxide emissions in the L.A. basin will have to drop by 80 percent.

To get there, and simultaneously reach its CO2 reduction goals, the state has no choice but to ramp up sales of zero-emission vehicles, including battery-powered cars, plug-ins and fuel cells, said Stanley Young, an ARB spokesman.

California has already ordered an increase for ZEVs to go from 4.7 percent of total car and light-truck sales last year to about 8 percent by 2025. The state is considering additional increases by 2030.

When Nichols meets the federal officials today, she'll be playing both offense and defense. The Trump administration "is certainly not going to stop climate change," she said. "But there's also not a whole lot they're going to do to make it worse -- because we can prevent them from doing most of it."