California Stands Firm on Clean Car Standards

Officials from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted unanimously to reaffirm the state’s clean car standards at their hearing in Riverside, Calif. – a city facing among the worst air pollution in the nation – giving an official green light to staying on course with the program.

The Board’s vote means that California will maintain existing standards for passenger cars and trucks — designed to lower smog, particulate matter, and carbon pollution being emitted from vehicles.  But the impact will be felt far beyond California because 12 other states also have adopted California’s standards, collectively protecting 113 million U.S. residents from dangerous pollution and representing over a third of the U.S. vehicle market (states include CA, CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA as well as DC).

Simon Mui, director of NRDC’s California Vehicles and Fuels, Energy & Transportation Program, noted: “Automakers know that weakening California’s clean car standards will be an uphill battle. But they continued testing the state’s resolve, arguing for weakening of the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) requirements, widely acknowledged as the most important program driving electric vehicles into the market . There are many reasons why the ZEV program should be tuned-up and strengthened rather than weakened. ARB confirmed this by revealing similar findings to NRDC’s — that the ZEV program would only deliver half as many vehicles as originally anticipated, meaning 2 million vehicles across clean car states would be required instead of the 4 million between 2018 – 2025, due to far more credits being generated than originally anticipated.”

Automakers such as Tesla, BYD, and Faraday Future testified or sent letters in support of a strong ZEV program.

Category: Featured, Green