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A crane stands above the Ever Macro cargo container ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles on Sept. 13, 2025.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump does not have the authority to impose broad tariffs under the emergency act he has cited.
Tariffs have affected California ports, farms, businesses, workers and consumers.Trump cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as he set tariffs on goods from most countries around the world soon after he took office early last year. In a 6-3 decision, the court said only Congress has the broad power to impose taxes on Americans under the act.The state’s beverage industry was weighed down by tariffs, the analysis showed. California’s beverage exports of brewery, winery and distillery products fell more than 32% compared to the same period in 2024, from over $1.3 billion to $880 million through October, Payares-Montoya found. A big factor was that beverage exports to Canada fell to 16% in 2025 because of a boycott of American products and, which also was related to the president’s threats to annex Canada. The big drop came after beverage exports to Canada averaged almost a third of the state’s yearly total from 2010 to 2024. Most recently, TrumpIn a major blow against President Donald Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that he does not have the authority to impose the wide-ranging tariffs that have caused economic uncertainty in the state, nation and beyond. Trump cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as he set tariffs on goods from most countries around the world soon after he took office early last year. In a 6-3 decision, the court said only Congress has the broad power to impose taxes on Americans under the act. “The President enjoys no inherent authority to impose tariffs during peacetime,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr. and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. The White House did not immediately respond to CalMatters’ questions, including whether it plans to cite other laws. The Trump administration has the power to impose tariffs using other laws, but the president has used tariffs as an economic cudgel largely under the act that the Supreme Court has now said does not give him the broad authority to do so. American businesses and consumers have paid the bulk of the cost of the president’s tariffs, recent studies by researchers for theThe state’s trade activity with China dropped so steeply that it is no longer the state’s top trade partner, according to a recent Public Policy Institute of California analysis. Daniel Payares-Montoya, the researcher for the PPIC who based his analysis on International Trade Administration data, said trade with China has been declining since Trump’s first term, “but to see the dramatic fall, I wasn’t expecting it.” In 2024, imports from and exports to China comprised 20% of all California trade activity. In 2025, at least through October, that number fell to 13.4%. Mexico became the state’s top trade partner, followed by China and Taiwan. Payares-Montoya stressed that his analysis wasn’t causal: “I can’t tell what would have happened in the absence of ‘Liberation Day,’ or if Kamala Harris had won .” The state’s beverage industry was weighed down by tariffs, the analysis showed. California’s beverage exports of brewery, winery and distillery products fell more than 32% compared to the same period in 2024, from over $1.3 billion to $880 million through October, Payares-Montoya found. A big factor was that beverage exports to Canada fell to 16% in 2025 because of a boycott of American products and, which also was related to the president’s threats to annex Canada. The big drop came after beverage exports to Canada averaged almost a third of the state’s yearly total from 2010 to 2024. Most recently, TrumpOverall, the state saw a slight decline, 0.1%, to $459 billion, in the dollar value of imports and exports in the first 10 months of last year, the PPIC analysis found. Two of the nation’s busiest ports, in Long Beach and Los Angeles, ended up handling their highest and third-highest volumes of cargo, respectively, last year despite the uncertainty around tariffs. But exports decreased as retaliatory tariffs hit American farmers, too. A hydrogen-powered, rubber-tired gantry crane loads a shipping container onto a semi-truck at Yusen Terminals at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro on Feb. 11, 2025.Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said in a media briefing this week that soybean exports to China from his port fell 80% last year. “Virtually every agricultural commodity that we export was affected,” said Noel Hacegaba, chief executive of the Port of Long Beach, in an interview with CalMatters this week. The Supreme Court decision will spark what could be a chaotic process to return the tax revenue the government has collected, which totaled more than $264 billion in 2025. U.S. corporations including Costco, Alcoa and Revlon have sued the federal government over the tariffs, hoping to be first in line for refunds. In his dissent, Kavanaugh wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision is likely to lead to “serious practical consequences in the near term,” and that “refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the U. S. Treasury.”about possible refunds, saying that “it would be a complete mess, and almost impossible for our Country to pay. Anybody who says it can be quickly and easily done would be making a false, inaccurate, or totally misunderstood answer to this very large and complex question.”that the federal government could issue refunds if needed, though he questioned how businesses would handle possibly getting their money back:"Costco, who's suing the U.S. government, are they going to give the money back to their clients?" Costco, which filed its lawsuit in November, did not respond to questions by CalMatters, including about how soon it would seek refunds from the federal government. The Treasury Department did not respond to an email about how refunds would work.An overnight 911 outage throughout the L.A. County Sheriff's jurisdiction has been restored. It went down at about 6 p.m. Thursday before returning online about 13 hours later.The outage forced crews to redirect calls to local patrol stations' business lines to limit the impact on emergency responses. At 7 a.m. Friday, the Sheriff's Department said the problem was fixed. The department hasn't said what caused the outage, nor could it immediately determine the extent of its impact.Last year, the Sheriff's Department experienced problems with a separate dispatch system. It crashed about a month after the Palisades and Eaton fires, forcing 911 operators to write notes and use radio or phone to relay information to deputies.California is a national leader in data privacy. Yet state law has gaps that allow companies to collect and sell students’ data., a San Luis Obispo Democrat, is carrying a high-profile state bill that would add new protections for students. She says it’s important, especially as the Trump admin is trying to collect data about California residents’ In 2014, California became the first state in the country to regulate education technology companies directly, but being first comes with its drawbacks. “We didn’t have examples of what best practice was,” said Amelia Vance, the president of the Public Interest Privacy Center, a nonprofit organization. The law only applies to products that “primarily” serve K-12 schools and that are designed and marketed for students.For every aspect of a student’s life, there’s a tech company trying to digitize it. Inside the classroom, online tools proctor exams, create flashcards and submit assignments. Outside, technology coordinates school sports, helps bus drivers find the right route and maintains students’ health records. California has a number of laws aimed at protecting children’s data privacy, but those laws have exceptions that allow many tech companies to continue packaging and selling students’ personal information., a San Luis Obispo Democrat, is carrying a high-profile state bill that would add new protections for students. She says it’s important, especially as the Trump admin is trying to collect data about California residents’that prohibited technology companies from selling students’ data, targeting students in advertising, or disclosing their personal information. Then in 2018, the state passed another unprecedented bill that required all companies give California users certain privacy rights, such asBut as technology evolved and proliferated, privacy laws repeatedly fell short in protecting California’s students — at the same time that the federal government has tried to collect increasing amounts of personal information, Addis said.would restrict how AI companies use student data and create new data protections for college students. Some of Sacramento’s most powerful players are paying close attention to the measure, including the, which opposes it. Combined, these two groups spent nearly $8 million on campaign donations to state legislators or other political activities in 2024, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database. TechNet, a trade association that represents many of The proposal, Assembly Bill 1159, would close certain loopholes in the state’s 2014 education privacy law, but experts say it may not be enough to prevent companies from selling students’ data.Jen King is a privacy and data policy fellow at Stanford’s institute for AI, where she studies the tricks that companies use to gather users’ data and prevent them from opting out, sometimes known as “dark patterns.” In her personal life, she’s vigilant about avoiding online data tracking and maintains a landline in her Bay Area home to avoid giving out her cell phone number. King doesn’t want her children’s information available online or for any company to sell, though sometimes it happens before she can stop it. In the fall, King got an email about a platform called TeamSnap, which her 12-year-old son’s cross country coaches were using to manage the team’s roster. The company wanted her information, including her name, date of birth, gender, email address, and phone number. Once she logged in to the platform, she could see some of her son’s information, such as his name, email, and date of birth, were already listed. Photos and personal information from all of her son’s teammates were also available for her to see. "I was super irritated,” she said. “You don't need my birth date — I'm a freaking parent.” She acknowledged some personal information could be useful for a coach but said that other questions seem designed to help the platform sell information to data brokers and ultimately, to advertisers. Her 17-year-old son’s data is also on TeamSnap, she later learned, because his robotics team uses it. This month, when King tried to show CalMatters her TeamSnap account, a pop-up appeared, asking her if the company could track her activity across other apps and websites., but once a child turns 13, their data is generally treated much like an adult’s information, especially when that child is interacting with tech platforms outside of school. TeamSnap’s privacy policyit doesn’t knowingly collect personal information about users under 13 “without express parental consent,” though it says in some cases a team or organization may provide information on behalf of the child. California privacy law specifically requires certain large for-profit companies to get consent to collect data from anyone under 16. Often, consent happens when a user first opens a website and a pop-up appears, asking if the website can sell your data or track your cookies. If a teacher, coach, or other authority figure tells a student that they have to use a website or an app, then the student cannot realistically opt out, King said. They may be too young to understand how to opt out, she added. “Most 15-, 16-year-olds don't have any idea what this is about.” Even older college students may have little agency in the technology they use, especially if it’s required for class or residential life. At Stanford, for example, King said her undergraduate students are often required to create Facebook accounts for student groups. The same is true for parents. King said she reluctantly gave TeamSnap her personal information, including her name, email, date of birth, and the landline number for her home, because it was the only way to get updates about her son’s team.In 2014, California became the first state in the country to regulate education technology companies directly, but being first comes with its drawbacks. “We didn’t have examples of what best practice was,” said Amelia Vance, the president of the Public Interest Privacy Center, a nonprofit organization. The law only applies to products that “primarily” serve K-12 schools and that are designed and marketed for students. Many tech companies argue that their products aren’t primarily intended for students or at least that they were not designed or marketed that way. The language-learning app DuoLingo, for example, has, but the app is also popular for adults. Apps or technologies serving extracurricular programs or sports teams can claim they weren’t designed and marketed for the classroom, or that their use isn’t mandatory, said Vance. “You have this sort of black hole where there haven’t been protections.” Addis’ bill expands the number of education technology companies that fall under the state’s student privacy laws, but the language is murky when it comes to apps or online services used outside of class. In the case of TeamSnap, Addis’ communications director Alexis Garcia-Arrazola said the company would “most likely” fall under the scope of the bill if its technology is marketed to schools, if schools direct students to use it, and if the sports team is sponsored by the school. Public records show that Piedmont Unified School District in Alameda County, Tamalpais Union High School District in Marin County, and Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District all purchased versions of TeamSnap, but only the Santa Monica Malibu district responded to CalMatters questions about any privacy restriction imposed on the company. Brandyi Phillips, the chief communications officer for the Santa Monica Malibu schools, said the district has an annual subscription with TeamSnap, which is only available to sports staff and parents. She said there’s an agreement with the company “to protect District information and to prevent unauthorized access” but did not clarify if that agreement prevents the district from selling students’ information. Berkeley Unified School District, where King’s children attend school, did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about any contracts, purchase orders or agreements with TeamSnap. Locally, school districts and colleges have the power to negotiate the privacy terms of any contract they make with a technology company, but many websites and apps offer free versions that a teacher or coach might recommend without getting formal approval from their district.with Open AI, the company that operates ChatGPT, including an agreement that the company will not train its models on student data. Advocates for Addis’ bill say the same privacy restrictions should apply to any AI company with access to California student data, regardless of whether the company has an agreement with the student’s school district or college.Addis’ bill comes as privacy laws in California and across the country are in flux. In 2020, California voters approvedto create a new state agency to enforce data privacy rules and regulate the businesses that collect data. Advocates for the proposition contributed over $6.7 million to the campaign, compared to just over $50,000 contributed by the opposition, according to. The state agency that the proposition formed, now known as CalPrivacy, released new rules this year, restricting the use of automated decision-making technology, such as the use of AI to make admissions or hiring decisions. Those rules were originally stricter but businesses, lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom pressured the CalPrivacy board to. Separately, Congress is considering a bill that would require social media companies to prevent and mitigate children’s sexual exploitation, bullying, and self-harm. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is concerned that one version of the social media bill contains language that could Bonta’s office is responsible for enforcing many of the state’s existing privacy laws. In November, he said the state worked with Connecticut and New York to reach $5.1 million in settlements against Illuminate, an education technology company that uses data to track and evaluate students’ progress, such as their testing scores and developmental milestones. The company had a data breach, exposing “sensitive information” from over 434,000 California students, the state attorney general’s office said in It was the first time California successfully went after a company for violating the state’s landmark 2014 education privacy law. To increase enforcement, Addis’ bill contains a new provision — the right for students and parents to sue tech companies in certain cases for privacy violations. Business and technology groups have opposed the bill, arguing that the new regulations and the right to sue would stifle investment in AI-powered learning tools. King said that giving consumers the right to sue is often the only way to increase enforcement. Otherwise, the onus is on individual consumers to find concerning practices and try to opt out. Despite being an expert in data privacy, King said that she struggled at first to figure out how to delete her TeamSnap account, only later to discover that she needed to send an email to the company. She laughed at the irony, since it’s these kinds of dark patterns in user design that fuel part of her research. In academia, the strategy of trapping customers is sometimes called the “roach motel,” she explained, a reference to a popular television ad from the late 1970s for a cockroach trap.If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.California Public Utilities Commission President Alice Reynolds, left, listens to public comment during a meeting in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2023. Reynolds is set to leave office and will be replaced by John Reynolds.The governor elevated a former self-driving car company lawyer to lead the California Public Utilities Commission, promising a renewed focus on cost cutting.The state’s primary utility regulator is under new management. Gov. Gavin Newsom promoted Commissioner John Reynolds to president of the California Public Utilities Commission this week as part of a “new phase” of Newsom’s effort to address sky-high power bills.California has a mandated goal of reaching 100% carbon-free energy by 2045. At the same time, state residents pay the second-highest electric rates in the U.S. after Hawaii, The state’s primary utility regulator is under new management. Gov. Gavin Newsom promoted Commissioner John Reynolds to president of the California Public Utilities Commission this week as part of a “new phase” of Newsom’s effort to address sky-high power bills. Former President Alice Reynolds will be reassigned later this month to a board of governors position at the California Independent Systems Operator. The two Reynolds are not related. “The appointment underscores a renewed focus on cutting costs and improving performance as extreme heat, wildfire risk and upgrades to the electric grid drive new demands on the system,” Newsom’s office said in a Reynolds’ focus in this position, the release said, will include lowering utility bills through oversight, making sure money spent on infrastructure does not run aground of affordability and ensuring “utilities deliver results for ratepayers–without slowing California’s clean energy progress.” California has a mandated goal of reaching 100% carbon-free energy by 2045. At the same time, state residents pay the second-highest electric rates in the U.S. after Hawaii, Reynolds was appointed by Newsom to the utility commission first in 2021 and again in 2022. Before that, he served as managing counsel for autonomous vehicle company Cruise. Reynolds faced criticism in 2023 for his time at Cruise, when safety incidents led the International Brotherhood of Teamsters toOutgoing president Reynolds was appointed the commission’s top position in late 2021 after three years as Newsom’s senior energy advisor. Newsom called her “one of my most trusted advisors on energy policy” in his release. Newsom also this week appointed Christine Harada to the board to fill the open commissioner seat. Harada was most recently the undersecretary of the California Government Operations Agency, and served as a senior advisor in former president Joe Biden’s Office of Management and Budget.The Supreme Court said President Donald Trump's tariffs policies under IEEPA are unconstitutional, dealing a major blow to the president's signature economic policy.At issue in the case were the implementation of Trump's campaign pledge to impose massive tariffs on foreign imports. In some two dozen previous cases, the Supreme Court has been largely receptive to Trump's claims of presidential authority, but those victories came on the Supreme Court's emergency docket, allowing Trump policies to take effect on a temporary basis while the litigation played out in the lower courts.The U.S. Supreme Court said President Trump's tariffs policies imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unconstitutional, dealing a major blow to the president's signature economic policy. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 6-3 opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. Writing for the court's majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said Trump lacked the peacetime authority to use IEPPA to pose tariffs. "In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it," Robert wrote, concluding Trump has not. Trump had argued persistent trade imbalances and the flood of fentanyl coming into the country presented national emergencies and pose a threat to national security. During arguments before the court last year, Trump's lawyers had said the president possessed the authority to issue tariffs. Roberts rejected that argument."When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints," he wrote."It did neither here." Justice Kavanaugh, who wrote the principal dissent, noted that the court's decision had opened up a can of worms. "The United Sates may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the IEEPA tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others," he wrote. As of last December, the government collected more than $130 billion in revenue from the tariffs. Kavanaugh pointed out that the"Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers." At issue in the case was the implementation of Trump's campaign pledge to impose massive tariffs on foreign imports. After his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order that initially imposed a tariff of at least 10% on goods from most countries doing business with the United States. Goods from countries like China have been hit with much higher tariffs — up to 145%, though they have since come down. Imports from allies like Canada and Mexico have been taxed at 25%; Canada's rate was later increased to 35%. But the up-and-down, fluctuating tariffs around the world spooked American businesses, prompting a court challenge, contending that the president had exceeded his authority in imposing the tariffs. In some two dozen previous cases, the Supreme Court has been largely receptive to Trump's claims of presidential authority, but those victories came on the Supreme Court's emergency docket, allowing Trump policies to take effect on a temporary basis while the litigation played out in the lower courts. In contrast, the tariff cases are the real deal, with the court having ordered full briefing and expedited arguments in the case, and offering the justices the first real opportunity to say"no" to the president.
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