While electric vehicle makers Tesla and Rivian have laid off workers and watched stock prices slide, one company in Georgia has emerged as the country’s top-performing EV maker. Blue Bird, whose familiar yellow buses have been a fixture at schools for nearly a century, has leaned into the electric transition and doubled its stock price since January. The company is also adding new safety features to buses, and its workforce joined a union last year, two things that could add costs and slow sales. In a wide-ranging Better Planet interview, Blue Bird President Britton Smith described how the company is defying some conventional business wisdom. “I would say we're breaking a lot of the norms,” Smith said. 

EVs and the batteries that power them are among the growing clean-energy technologies that many analysts say will dominate the 21st century economy, and in Massachusetts, state leaders are making a play to make the state a leader in climate tech. Governor Maura Healey’s Mass Leads Act would put $1.3 billion over ten years into building on the state’s research strengths, policy leadership and entrepreneurial culture around clean energy. Massachusetts has some of the country’s strongest targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao told Better Planet that investment in climate technology will ensure that the state grows its economy while cutting carbon pollution. “The best way to fight climate change and to hit these ambitious targets is through innovation,” Hao said. 

In climate news elsewhere, two rulings last week from the U.S. Supreme Court have serious implications for the government’s ability to control greenhouse gas emissions, and the decisions continue a trend of actions by the High Court that make it harder for environmental regulators to enforce rules. 

The Washington Post reported on a 6-3 ruling Friday that does away with a long-held precedent on environmental disputes that come to the courts. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the court overturned the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine that said that courts should generally defer to a regulatory agency’s interpretation of law. The Post reported that legal scholars and environmental lawyers say the ruling will make it easier for hostile judges to “block regulations aimed at addressing air pollution, combating climate change and protecting endangered species.” 

In a 5-4 ruling the previous day, the court said the Environmental Protection Agency could not limit air pollution that drifts across state borders—a measure known as the “good neighbor rule.” The New York Times reported that the justices took the unusual step of ruling while the case was still pending in appeals court. The rulings are just the latest in a string of blows from the High Court, weakening the foundations of environmental action and preempting the EPA’s enforcement abilities, the Times reported. Last year, the court struck down a proposed EPA rule on wetlands protections known as the “Waters of the United States” before the regulation had even been finalized. In 2022, the court embraced a challenge to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, curtailing the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.  

Stay with Better Planet for the latest on climate change and climate solutions. This week, we’ll learn what opinion polling tells us about climate voters and hear why one billionaire investor is bullish on clean technology.