California Air Resources Board set to vote on controversial emissions program

California Air Resources Board plans to vote Friday on a key climate program aimed at cutting planet-warming emissions from transportation fuels.

The program has a wide range of critics – from environmentalists to the oil industry – with some analysts believing that proposed changes to the government’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) could lead to increases in prices at the pump by as much as 65 cents per gallon.

The proposal would increase the state’s emissions reduction targets and fund charging infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles. It would also phase out incentives to capture methane emissions from dairy farms to turn them into fuel.

But environmental groups have criticized the program for promoting the production of biofuels, which come from sources such as plants and animal waste, saying the government should focus more on supporting electric vehicles. They argue that the proposal fails to adequately address these concerns.

Oil industry officials, state lawmakers and others said the agency has not been transparent about how proposed upgrades could raise gas prices.

Last year, agency staff released a cost-benefit analysis that found the original proposal could have increased gasoline prices by 47 cents per gallon by 2025. But staff have not repeated the analysis since they later updated the proposal, and the agency maintains that. cannot accurately predict gas prices.

“If you’re going to ask drivers to pay a lot, which is what this program proposal is going to do, I think you need to be able to prove that it’s worth paying for,” said Danny Cullenward, a climate economist. with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Gas prices in California average $1.47 per gallon higher than the national average, mainly due to gas taxes, the highest in the country.

Some state lawmakers say new policies to lower carbon emissions standards will hurt everyday residents.

“This will have a direct impact on wallets. Is now really the right time to move forward with these kinds of regulations? Or should we put a little moratorium and let Californians breathe,” Republican state Sen. Rosilisi Ochoa Bogue said in an interview last month. .

Gas prices could rise by as much as 85 cents per gallon by 2030 and $1.50 per gallon by 2035, Cullenward estimates. Cullenward said his numbers and estimates, originally released by board staff, are not an apples-to-apples comparison, in part because his forecast uses 2023 dollars while theirs uses 2021 dollars.

Jody Mueller, chief operating officer of the Western States Petroleum Association, said the group generally supports the program but wants the agency to be more transparent about how it drives up gas prices.

The California Air Resources Board says the program will ultimately reduce the cost of clean transportation fuels.

The agency first approved the low-carbon fuel standard in 2009, and it was the first standard of its kind in the country. It’s part of California’s overall plan to achieve so-called carbon neutrality by 2045, meaning the state will remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it emits. In recent years, the state has adopted a policy to phase out the sale of new cars, trucks, trains and lawn mowers that use fossil fuels.

A CARB spokesperson released a statement that said, in part: ” Low Carbon Fuel Standard “is an effective climate and air quality program that has successfully reduced the state’s use of fossil diesel fuel by 70%, spurring the development of cleaner fuels that give consumers more options.”

“Actually, we evaluate that the program will reduce transportation costs by 42% over the next 20 years by increasing the number of options that are also better for the environment and public health,” the statement added. “It’s good for consumers and good climatic effect”

Sunchet Bhat, chief commercial officer of EV Realty, an electric vehicle infrastructure company, called the program “one of the most powerful transformational policies” aimed at accelerating the transition to electric vehicles.

The vote comes a day after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom votes. called the State Legislature into special session to champion some of California’s environmental and other liberal policies ahead of former President Donald Trump’s second term.

“CARB’s rationale for this version of the LCFS as a fuel-burning bridge to the transition to net-zero emissions needs to be reconsidered in light of the profoundly changed landscape we suddenly find ourselves in this week,” Adrian Martinez, deputy managing attorney for the environmental nonprofit. Earthly justice speaking of Trump’s election victory.

In 2019, the Trump administration stripped California of its ability to enforce its own tailpipe emissions standards. President Joe Biden later restored the state’s authority, a move that was upheld by a federal court.

Future challenges from the Trump administration could lead to lengthy legal battles, said David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.

“In the meantime, I think we still need something … to accelerate the development of electric vehicles and electric vehicle infrastructure,” Pettit said. “LCFS is the way we can do that.”