Sorry rich people, you may not get public cash for buying this car.
The California Legislature passed SB 1275 (De Leon) last week, which would give the California Air Resources Board authority to eliminate the cash rebate incentive for wealthy people who buy electric vehicles. It would then use that revenue to increases the cash incentives for lower-income Californians.
I debated the merits of this approach on KPCC radio last month on the Airtalk program. My write-up of the debate is here. Meanwhile, Grist celebrates that electric vehicles won’t be “pretentious” anymore, as if the Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volt were glamor cars.
As I noted in my write-up, half of all Tesla Model S purchasers reported that the rebate made no difference in their decision. So why not use those funds for people who are truly on the fence without additional rebate money? The goal here for everyone should be to maximize the effectiveness of these limited rebate dollars and spur the greatest adoption possible of electric vehicles. The details will be figured out by agency experts, and that sounds fine to me. The governor has until the end of the month to sign.
Last year, the California legislature passed badly needed reform to change how agencies evaluate a project’s transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) was tasked with coming up with new guidelines for how this analysis should be done going forward. As I blogged about, the new proposed transportation metric, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), will inherently benefit infill projects and punish sprawl projects, because infill by its nature decreases VMT.
But you would never know that if you just read the misleading diatribe against the new guidelines by the influential large law firm Holland & Knight. Right off the bat, Holland & Knight attorneys get it wrong on both the legislation and the guidelines:
OPR proposes to dramatically expand CEQA by mandating evaluation and mitigation of “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) as a new CEQA impact and single out certain infill projects as the first category of projects that must comply with this new VMT regime before it becomes mandatory for all projects in 2016.
In fact, the opposite is true. The guidelines essentially exempt any project within a half-mile of transit — or in areas that are below the regional average VMT levels — from any transportation analysis under CEQA. And lest you think that’s a small area, keep in mind that almost the entirety of urban Los Angeles is within a half-mile of a high quality transit stop, due to the extensive bus network.
A little less of this, please
What OPR is actually doing is eliminating the existing “level of service” (LOS) transportation analysis (which basically means auto delay) from CEQA in infill areas first and statewide by 2016. OPR is then replacing it with a VMT study requirement only in areas with high average VMT. Projects in low average VMT or transit areas either won’t need to do any transportation study whatsoever or won’t need to mitigate at all. That hardly equals an “expansion” of CEQA. Furthermore, the 2013 CEQA legislation specifically required OPR to come up with a replacement for LOS and called out VMT as the most likely substitute.
Holland & Knight attorneys then attempt to scare infill developers and their advocates by claiming that the new metric will lead to additional litigation. First of all, as mentioned, most infill projects won’t even need a transportation analysis under CEQA anymore, eliminating expensive and contentious traffic studies. Second, these traffic studies already trigger litigation all the time under the existing LOS transportation analysis, so it’s not like these guidelines are ruining the wonderful world for infill under the status quo. And finally, and most importantly, the OPR guidelines make lead agency decisions as bulletproof as possible on how to analyze transportation impacts under the new metric. How? By giving lead agencies discretion to pick the VMT model of their choice and to use their professional judgment in applying it to projects. LOS analysis certainly doesn’t have that kind of legal protection, as traffic studies are challenged all the time based on their methodology and assumptions.
But Holland & Knight attorneys protest that lead agencies lack affordable and easy-to-use VMT models, leading to more uncertainty:
[I]t must be acknowledged that we have few, if any, models that purport to be able to accurately characterize VMT at a project-specific level for infill projects. The absence of such models will lead to increased study costs (at a minimum) and litigation/enforcement uncertainty as “NIMBY” opponents will have a new tool to use in CEQA lawsuits aimed at stopping or delaying a project.
The reality is that agencies around the state are using off-the-shelf VMT models all the time, most notably for local climate action plans and for regional plans under SB 375. This is not a new field, and dozens of models exist for lead agencies to use their discretion to use.
Finally, Holland & Knight attorneys complain that the measures required to mitigate high VMT levels “go beyond CEQA’s statutory scope and delve into socioeconomic and land use policy planning issues that the legislature has repeatedly declined to include in CEQA.” I disagree. OPR’s suggested mitigation measures are sensible and targeted to reducing VMT, such as by improving access to transit, providing transit passes and bike-sharing, and reducing or unbundling parking. Ultimately, how else could a project with high VMT mitigate this impact? The goal here, after all, is to reduce driving and to use CEQA as a tool to encourage that reduction where feasible.
It’s unfortunate that Holland & Knight attorneys are attempting to spread this misinformation to their clients and beyond. The state needs to leave behind the old framework of prioritizing autos over transit, bicycling, and walking. At the same time, CEQA should require sprawl project developers to account for their impacts on regional traffic and air pollution. VMT is the most sensible metric to accomplish these goals, and OPR’s guidelines are well thought out, with opportunity for continued refinement from stakeholder input. Yes, it will involve a new framework and some getting used to. Yes, LOS will still exist in some local plans and agency analyses. But this is the beginning of a long overdue transition, and Holland & Knight should cease with the misinformation and let the state move forward.
The big fossil fuel companies wanted to avoid paying for the carbon pollution from their products via California’s cap-and-trade program. They tried to scare California residents about the looming gas price increases. They found an ally in Assemblyman Henry Perea (D-Fresno), who introduced AB 69 to delay including fuels under the cap. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, the money for the fuel pollution allowances would fund transit and electric vehicle programs, among other pollution-reducing technologies.
Now good news: State Senate President Darrell Steinberg prevented Perea’s bill from even coming up for a vote. That avoids the messy political problem of forcing legislators to weigh in on this issue during an election year. As I wrote about, the gas price increase is likely to be negligible, and there’s no reason oil companies can’t simply absorb the cost from their $200 billion annual profits, rather than passing it along to consumers.
Steinberg wrote a forceful letter to Perea explaining his logic, worth reading in full. So now fuels will come under the cap on January 1st, and California will use the revenue from the pollution allowances to fund the ongoing transition to a cleaner, cheaper and more sustainable form of transportation. And once under the cap, it will be difficult for the oil and gas interests to remove it later. Overall, this is excellent news for California’s fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and bolster our clean tech sector.
The best hope we have on Earth for averting the worst impacts of climate change is a pretty simple formula: a huge amount of renewable energy, with surpluses stored in technologies like cheap batteries, and all our transportation running on electricity.
Well, actually there’s another solution: we could de-industrialize and return to the Stone Age. Or humans could die off suddenly from disease or war. But I prefer the first approach.
The critical piece to this energy and transportation transition is bringing the cost of these technologies down, and two articles this week indicate that we’re making progress. First, solar prices have come down dramatically, leading to huge new demand which is now causing a shortage of panels. Analysts don’t expect solar panel prices to rise in response, but it is prompting companies like SolarCity to invest heavily in new solar PV production facilities. Underlying this dynamic is the fact that panels now sell for 76 cents a watt, compared with $2.01 at the end of 2010 (including a 12 percent price drop just this year).
Second, wind prices are falling, making wind energy competitive with natural gas in some parts of the country:
After topping out at nearly $70 per megawatt hour in 2009, the national average levelized price of wind purchase agreements fell to around $25 last year, the [U.S. Department of Energy] report sad. That means wind electricity costs about 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, a highly competitive price in some parts of the country.
Finally, as I blogged about earlier this week, electric vehicle battery prices have dropped 40% since 2010.
This is all great news for the possibility of an economically painless transition to a sustainable economy. Credit so far is due to the private sector for the innovation and investment. But this is also a clear sign that government policies around the world to boost these markets are having success. On the solar and wind side, the federal government offers tax credits for investors, while many states have renewable energy mandates, financial incentives, and utility programs that reward customers for installing renewables. The federal government also provides a tax credit for electric vehicle purchases and loans and grants for clean technology startups (in some ways, the 2009 economic stimulus was Obama’s true climate change bill, given the support that legislation gave to game-changing companies like Tesla). And states like California offer cash rebates and other incentives for EV purchases, as well as a mandate for utilities to buy more energy storage.
Obviously we still have a long way to go, but the cost trends are very encouraging. And they should reinforce the political will to keep the incentives going while the private sector continues to do its part to bring down costs.
I posted a few weeks ago about the hydrogen fuel cell versus battery electric vehicle debate, citing alternative fuel expert Joe Romm’s evidence. Romm is back at it, highlighting the high costs and lack of environment benefits of hydrogen fuel cells:
The biggest problem hydrogen fuel cell vehicles face is that they deliver no obvious major consumer (or societal/environmental) benefit compared to the competition, but have a bunch of obvious consumer defects. These defects include high first cost, high fueling cost (compared to both gasoline and electricity), lack of fueling stations and lack of a nationwide fuel-delivery infrastructure — especially for renewable hydrogen.
Romm also describes the significant price decreases seen over the past few years in lithium ion batteries:
[M]assive amounts of money were poured into improving batteries and related components, not just by governments, car makers and clean energy venture capitalists, but also by portable device and phone manufacturers who wanted to improve performance while cutting costs. The results in the case of batteries have been impressive:
Between these highly encouraging battery cost reductions and the corresponding steep mountain to climb on hydrogen fuel cells, I continue to wonder why California just invested $50 million in this dubious technology.
Dr. Michael Mann, one of the country’s leading climate scientists, has been harassed, threatened, and berated for his views that human actions are contributing to global climate change. But not just from anonymous commenters on websites — from leading publications like the National Review Online. After being compared to Jerry Sandusky and having the credibility of his work questioned, Mann finally has had enough. He is suing Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) blog and Mark Steyn at National Review Online for defamation.
Can’t defame this membrane, says Dr. Mann.
So what is defamation and how do you prove it? To be sure, this is not my area of legal expertise. But the basics are fairly straightforward. As an overview, defamation means a public attack, based on false facts, on a person’s professional character or standing on an issue of public interest. The attacks have to cause damage to the plaintiff.
You can defend yourself against charges that you defamed someone by proving that you spoke the “truth.” You can also defend yourself by saying it was just an “opinion” as opposed to fact, although some jurisdictions have eliminated that distinction.
In this case:
Mann alleged that four phrases in Simberg’s post were defamatory: “data manipulation,” “academic and scientific misconduct,” “posterboy of the corrupt and disgraced climate science echo chamber,” and accusing the Penn State professor of molesting his data and thus being the “Jerry Sandusky of climate science.” He also cited a subsequent CEI press release that called his research “intellectually bogus.”
Trevor Burris of Forbes penned a full-throated defense of National Review and the other defendants, arguing that their words amounted to nothing more than name-calling:
While some of these phrases might be impolitic and unprofessional, they are not defamatory. Pugnacious rhetoric is still protected by the First Amendment, especially in matters of public debate.
Furthermore, he thinks the lawsuit will hurt the cause of climate change advocacy:
Proponents of the theory of catastrophic climate change should think twice before they support Dr. Mann’s lawsuit. In fact, anyone who engages in vigorous intellectual debate should be afraid that Mann’s lawsuit wasn’t immediately dismissed as a nuisance suit that is attempting to stifle First Amendment-protected speech. If Mann wins this lawsuit, he or his friends could easily find themselves on the other side of a defamation suit. Climate-change catastrophists consistently accuse climate-change “deniers” of intellectual and professional malfeasance.
I disagree. First, the comments against Mann aren’t just name-calling — they are name-calling to further false challenges to Mann’s work. They misleadingly call into question the accuracy of Mann’s research and methodology. In reality, there’s no real scientific debate on the overall facts. Sure, you can debate the scale of the warming and the precise amount of impact that human activity is having, but an astounding 97% of scientists have reached consensus on the overall issue. The courts should rightly investigate how factually plausible the challenges to Mann’s work are.
But should climate advocates be afraid of riding the defamation tiger, in case it turns around and bites them, as Burris suggests? I think there’s nothing to fear from judicial scrutiny if advocates label the fossil fuel-funded campaigns against their work phony and misleading. After all, a court wouldn’t sanction someone for calling people crazy who deny that smoking causes lung cancer or HIV causes AIDS. These are areas of broad scientific consensus with overwhelming supportive evidence. The link between human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and global warming is as equally supported.
Burris also seems to miss the point that this is a debate about science and numbers — not just values or general opinions. He cites Paul Krugman as potentially slanderous for calling Paul Ryan‘s budget a “fraud,” but Krugman has substantial evidence to back up his assertion that the Ryan budget was filled with misleading numbers that contradicted its stated effect. Like the Ryan budget, the dispute over Mann’s work is based on hard numbers, not intangible values or perspectives. Courts should be well-suited to see through these kinds of ideologically motivated, phony attacks.
Most importantly, from a purely strategic perspective, a court victory here would be a major public relations win for climate change advocacy. For climate deniers to lose in court would send the signal to the public that they are not to be trusted. That’s a great headline and PR win for climate change advocates, confirming a narrative that advocates have been emphasizing for years. Of course, a court loss for Mann could have the opposite effect, but given the facts, I think Mann may be on safe ground here.
I’m all in favor of a debate about climate science, but it can’t be a debate where journalists intentionally print misleading and false attacks based on transparently phony evidence. That stenography of lies is precisely the dynamic that sets back climate advocacy — and not this lawsuit.
Back in 2013, there was significant discussion about reforming the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), with the business community and its attorneys arguing that CEQA is nothing more than a litigation tool for opponents of new projects. Some environmentalists and labor unions countered that CEQA is necessary for decision-makers to adequately assess the environmental impacts of new projects and mitigate negative outcomes where feasible.
So of course the result of this debate was to streamline environmental review of a new basketball arena in downtown Sacramento.
But when California legislators passed SB 743 (Steinberg), they included an important provision related to CEQA review of project transportation impacts. Despite CEQA having an “E” for “Environmental,” transportation impacts basically meant auto-delay, or “Level of Service” (LOS). If your project slowed traffic anywhere, that was a negative impact, even if you were building a bus rapid transit line or new infill development that would reduce sprawl and traffic overall. Sprawl projects benefited, and infill and transit was penalized.
SB 743 directed the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to ditch this counter-productive LOS metric for something like a “vehicle miles traveled” standard (SB 743 gave OPR discretion to evaluate other metrics, too). OPR just released their draft proposal for the SB 743 guidelines and has settled on VMT.
Bus rapid transit shouldn’t get dinged for slowing cars
Why VMT? In short, the overall goal of our development patterns should be to provide housing, jobs and retail/services within convenient access of each other, without forcing long and frequent drives and creating more pollution. If we can reduce traffic overall, we’ve succeeded. VMT is the best and simplest metric to determine progress. Free VMT calculators exist, and many lead agencies already use it to calculate greenhouse gas emissions from projects.
Under the new proposed guidelines, OPR directs lead agencies to find less than significant transportation impacts if a project is located 1/2 mile from high-quality transit or in areas of less than the regional average for VMT. Local governments can set more stringent requirements if they want, but this will be the new floor. By 2016, OPR will phase in this standard across California, not just in infill areas.
The statute — and OPR — is basically trying to give infill projects a pass on transportation impacts under CEQA, while simultaneously dinging sprawl projects for creating more regional traffic. As Streetsblog LA observed:
When the state measured transportation impacts of a project based on car delay, it was fighting against its own environmental goals. Using LOS, it was easier and cheaper to build projects in outlying areas where individual intersections would show less delay resulting from new development. At the same time it was much harder and more expensive to build in dense areas where there was already a lot of traffic, and where measured LOS impacts would require expensive mitigations or reduced project size — but also where higher density would make transit, walking, and bicycling more viable transportation choices.
Planning expert Bill Fulton also noted:
Almost as bold as the proposal to switch to a VMT standard is OPR’s suggestion that expanded roadways in congested areas – currently often a mitigation under CEQA – should actually be examined as a possible growth-inducing impact under CEQA.
So while the focus now is on making infill projects easier to get entitled, the real action will be to slow or stop sprawl projects under CEQA, using the new VMT provision. Perhaps that’s why the big builders are worried about this change to VMT. In any event, the guidelines are not final, and OPR welcomes comments, which are due by October 10th. Yet while we can expect changes, the overall framework of VMT is unlikely to change, for the betterment of the state.
The fight over keeping transportation fuels under California’s cap-and-trade program is heating up. Assemblyman Henry Perea (D-Fresno) has an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle today arguing that delaying the fuels phase-in is a moral imperative to keep gas prices from rising:
Californians have a right to live healthy lives in a clean environment. But in areas like the Central Valley, people need to drive long distances, and thus would be affected disproportionately by rising gas prices. Delaying this action for three years to create greater public awareness and time for a more thorough discussion about viable climate change policy is not only responsible, but imperative to protect those most vulnerable.
But economist Severin Bornstein at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business notes that the likely price increase for a gallon of gas will be 9-10 cents, which could be offset by the following consumer measures:
- Drive 70 mph instead of 72 mph on the freeway. That difference would improve your fuel economy by about 2.5%. The savings are much larger if you actually drive the speed limit.
- Buy a car that gets 31 MPG instead of 30 MPG. That will get you more than a 3% savings in fuel cost, more than offsetting the price increase.
- Keep your tires properly inflated. The Department of Energy estimates that underinflated tires waste about 0.3% of gasoline for every 1 psi drop in pressure.
The real motivating force for Perea’s efforts seems to be politics, and particularly the scare tactics of the oil and gas industry. As E&E Publishing reported last week (subscription required) from a Sacramento event on climate policies:
Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D) appeared in Perea’s stead and defended his position, saying that elected officials are under more scrutiny than appointees and have to respond to the will of the people as well as political pressures. If gasoline prices rise, Assembly members, who run for office every two years, will be punished, he said.
“We might recognize the price of oil is something that is set by the world commodity markets, but do the people understand this?” he asked. “If the price of gas spikes and the press picks up on it … and people start tying it into these regulations, it will not matter what the truth is.”
“They can’t vote [Air Resources Board Chairwoman] Mary Nichols out of office, but you know who they can vote out of office?” he asked.
Keeping transportation fuels under the cap will have significant benefits for the working poor as well as for the environmental and economic climate in California. Auction revenues from the program will fund public transit, low-carbon transportation options, and affordable housing, while the slight increase in gas prices may spur efficiency gains to reduce emissions that often harm low-income communities the most. Perea’s effort to delay the fuels phase-in is a step backward for all Californians, and I hope the legislature see through this counter-productive attempt to weaken California’s otherwise successful climate program.
California recently committed to spending $50 million on 28 public hydrogen fuel cell charging stations, throwing gasoline (bad pun) on the fire of a growing debate: electric vehicles vs, hydrogen fuel cells as the carbon-free vehicle technology of the future. California policy makers seem to think it may be both, based on their spending to support the two technologies.
Hydrogen “fool” cell?
But the evidence to date suggests that hydrogen fuel cells, which automakers like Toyota are committed to, may actually be “fool cells,” as Tesla CEO Elon Musk calls them derisively. Joe Romm, expert on alternative fuels from the US Department of Energy and author of a 2004 book on the debate, takes a strong position against hyrdogen fuel cells. His point? The fuel (hydrogen) will come from dirty sources for the foreseeable future, compared to clean, electric-powered battery vehicles:
Converting cheap fracked gas into hydrogen is very likely going to be substantially cheaper than practical, mass-produced carbon-free hydrogen for decades, certainly well past the point we need to start dramatically reducing transportation emissions (which is ASAP).
For EVs, on the other hand, unsubsidized renewable electricity is already directly competitive with grid electricity in many parts of the country — and poised to continue dropping in price. In places where carbon-free power is on the rise, such as California, the electricity is already far less carbon intense than the nation as a whole. That’s why EVs in a state like California is already super-green.
In terms of climate change impacts, Romm is clear:
So from a greenhouse gas perspective, there is no competition between pure electrics and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. EVs win hands down and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
I’m all in favor of fostering competition among promising clean vehicle technologies, but Romm’s critique points to the significant environmental disparity between these technologies, at least in the short term. In addition, there is a huge expense associated with developing an entirely new fuel infrastructure for hydrogen. EVs, by contrast, can access ubiquitous electricity throughout our developed areas. It’s also disappointing to see California commit to spending so much public money on a technology that consumers are not demanding, particularly given the ongoing need for investment in new EV charging stations in the state.
EVs certainly have a ways to go in terms of decreasing costs and increasing battery range. But automakers are making progress and consumers are responding. If companies like Toyota think hydrogen fuel cells are a better deal for California drivers and the environment, then let them spend their own money to prove it.
On the heels of my blog post last week about the growth in local PACE financing programs for clean energy, California is unveiling a massive 17-county PACE program today. As I discussed in the original blog post, PACE programs give building owners access to capital for clean energy improvements, such as rooftop solar and energy efficiency upgrades and appliances. The owners pay the money back as an assessment on their property tax bill.
In 2010, the federal government essentially quashed residential PACE with an unfortunate regulatory ruling calling into questions mortgages with PACE liens. However, today’s announcement represents a significant bounce-back for PACE. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports:
17 California counties will announce the launch of the nation’s largest PACE program yet, CaliforniaFirst. Backed by a new insurance fund created by the state, they are confident they can put the federal government’s concerns to rest. And cut energy use in the process.
“We always knew that this could be a very powerful tool to help people save energy and save money,” said Cisco DeVries, CEO of Renewable Funding, an Oakland company that will run CaliforniaFirst. “It’s exciting and it’s gratifying to see this come back around.”
The 17 participating counties represent 14 million residents, more than a third of California’s population. Bay Area counties taking part include Alameda, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Solano. San Francisco and Sonoma counties already have their own PACE programs.
The implications could be huge. Not only does it mean a lot more local energy efficiency improvements and economic savings, it means more local jobs, contributing to a growth industry of labor and business leaders that is becoming more politically powerful. It could also disrupt industries like solar leasing. After all, if you can buy your own solar array with semi-annual payments spread out over years that are less than your savings, why lease and not get the full value of the system?
Let’s hope this announcement will also encourage the feds to change their misguided policy, once they see their fears of mortgage losses will not materialize. Overall, it’s a good sign for California and the country.
