1

Heather Pendleton

Eileen Morris/Levi Watts

POLS 155 - THM

30 November 2017

The Drive For A Better Climate

Originally, my policy problem was air pollution in California and what we could do to

reduce it, but after going to the Town Hall event, I realized that was too broad of a policy area.

Some people in my small group at the Town Hall event brought my attention to the impact

gasoline powered automobiles have on the environment. I decided to narrow my policy to the

impact that automobiles have on California's air quality.

This problem should be addressed on a state level. My solution is to impose a state tax on

gasoline powered automobiles and provide incentives to electric vehicle drivers. Addressing this

on a state level seems to be the most appropriate.

The first argument in support of limiting gasoline powered automobiles is that

automobiles are the leading contributors to carbon dioxide emissions. The second supportive

argument in support of electric vehicles is that electric vehicles use half as much fossil fuels

compared to automobiles.

One argument that has been presented to me is that making electric vehicles is more

expensive than producing automobiles. This is false, it actually costs the same amount of money

to produce a gasoline powered automobile as it does the produce an electric vehicle. Another

argument is that in order to produce electricity, which powers EVs, you have to burn fossil fuels

anyway. While this is true, EVs use half the amount of fossil fuels as automobiles do, even when
 2

using fossil-fuel burning plants because EVs are twice as efficient at using and harnessing that

power.

Part 2: What has happened?

The Zero emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program is a program is designed to reduce emissions

from mobile sources, which account for about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in California.

(https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/zevprog.htm)

The Clean Cars Campaign. This is a non-profit comprised of public health leaders,

consumer groups, businesses, elected officials, faith groups, environmental organizations, and

other diverse constituencies that support the strongest possible standards for Californias

groundbreaking Clean Cars Program. Since 2016 California and Federal regulators that are part

of the Clean Cars Campaign have been conducting a full review of the Clean Cars program that

will help ensure automakers are on track to deliver clean cars by 2025.

(http://calcleancars.org/about/ca-clean-cars-campaign/)

The California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority

(CAEATFA) has a sales and use tax exclusion for qualified manufacturers of advanced

transportation products, components, or systems that reduce pollution and energy use and

promote economic development. (http://www.4secat.com/) These tax exemptions were first

brought to the Senate in 2010 and since then, new tax exemption bills have been introduced in

2012 and 2015. (http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/gme.htm)

In April, EarthJustice, an interest group that is an advocate for clean energy notified the

Trump Administration of its intent to sue the Department of Energy for delaying the steps needed

to ensure the implementation of the five energy efficiency rules. Before that, on March 31,

Earthjustice filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Energys efforts to decrease efficiency
 3

standards for ceiling fans that had standards that were previously published in January.

https://earthjustice.org/healthy-communities/clean-air

Part 3: How Can I Continue This Work? Action Plan

One action I can take to promote my policy solution is attend a local town hall meeting

and voice my concern on the use of automobiles within butte county (or my hometown, which

would be Placer county). I could speak of my particular issues, which is the emittance of

greenhouse gases being expelled into the atmosphere by automobiles. I would then state my

solution, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by implementing a tax incentive for

owners of electric vehicles and begin the process of replacing public transportation with green

transportation, that being transportation that is environmentally friendly. This would affect

government at a local level but these actions would hopefully influence other local governments

to take action.

Another action I could take is join the EarthJustice campaign called Right to Zero.

Right to Zero is fighting for California to implement zero-emissions policies that will hopefully

change the way Californians use energy. On Earth Justice's website I found out that the Right to

Zero has already influenced many large cities including Sacramento and Los Angeles, and LA

recently voted to invest in electric busses. The electric busses were the result of dedicated

Earthjustice members. The campaign offers ways to get involved, like tweeting a certain

politician or joining a letter writing party. Their campaign has already affected large scale local

government, as well as state government by passing SB 100 which aims to be 100 powered by

clean energy by 2045.

Another action I could take is bring up an incentive to city council. That incentive could

be for the city to provide free parking downtown for electric vehicles. This could also include a
 4

charging station that doubles as a parking space, and these spots could be placed in priority or

easy-access parking spaces. I would try to speak to our mayor, Sean Morgan about this prior to a

city council meeting, so I could sort of get my foot in the door before bringing up such a large

project before the council. This is clearly involvement with government at a local level.

An obstacle that might and has become prevalent is people who say that while we could

implement a tax, or a tax incentive, for people who dont use electric or environmentally friendly

modes of transportation, there would be no point to doing that. It has been brought up that the tax

is so small that it wouldnt collect enough money to implement any eco friendly policy or

precautions (like electric busses). To this I would argue that the amount of people who are using

petroleum powered automobiles is more than enough to help fund eco friendly action programs,

and once people begin switching over to electric vehicles the need for immediate action will

dwindle.

Another obstacle that has presented itself is that increasing electric automobile is difficult

because there isnt a large market for it. Not that many people are buying EVs mostly due to

how few options are currently on the market and to the belief that they are more expensive than

motor vehicles. It is true that the options are currently limited, but that can change if we start

educating people on the benefits of EVs which include high mileage and free charging stations.

The thought that producing EVs is more expensive than making motor vehicles has proven to be

false and engineers are currently working on ways to drive (pun intended) down the cost of

producing them and believe that by next year EVs will be cheaper than traditional cars, which I

found from an article on telegraph.co.uk.

Part 4: What did you learn this semester?

 5

The Town Hall Meeting experience was nothing I had expected it to be but Im glad that I

had the experience to attend it. I learned a lot more about my policy area and was able to expand

my general knowledge on air pollution. After listening to what members in my small discussion

group had to say about pollution and carbon emissions produced by cars, I decided to change my

policy area, and narrowed it down from simply reducing common air pollutants in general, to

narrowing it further down to reducing the amount of Carbon dioxide that it produced by

automobiles.

Assignments that we were given to us in class aided my growth in becoming an aware

and active member in societal politics because it forced me to become aware of how certain

policy was being carried out. In the beginning I didnt pay much attention to these assignments

and merely wrote down information without fully processing it but as the weeks wore on I came

to realize that these assignments we were doing actually had a purpose and related to the real

world, thus I was able to begin learning about government and start familiarizing myself with

big political players. One assignment I liked in particular was when we were asked to research

political players in our policy areas. I started researching California Governor Jerry Brown and

how he has played a role in affecting air pollution policy, here is an excerpt from that

assignment. California Governor Jerry Brown and President Donald Trump have clashed in the

policy area of Climate change. President Trump made the decision to leave the Paris Agreement,

due to his belief that climate change is a hoax. Governor Brown's reaction to this was less than

pleasant, he stated that Trump's decision to leave the Paris Agreement was "misguided" and

"insane", but Brown doesn't have any power over foreign affairs so he really can't take any

immediate action against this objectively poor decision Trump has made. While Brown can't

make any drastic policy moves yet, he can perform acts of resistance. Brown has been working
 6

on implementing various environmental bills and legislation that are geared towards combating

climate change and reducing air pollution. Brown is a huge player in the advocacy for educating

and combating climate change and it definitely shapes the way our State is viewed and how it

functions.

I also found a few interest groups that I support and want to get more involved with. One

of these interest groups is the Earthjustice group, who are advocates for many different programs

that aim to stop climate change, improve the general health and wellbeing of people in America,

and inform the public on ways to get involved and make a difference. Earthjustice makes it very

easy to get involved on whatever level you are comfortable able with, whether thats just sending

an email to a representative or attending a rally.

Works Cited

DriveClean. PEV Resource Center, www.driveclean.ca.gov/pev/Related_Sites.php.

Equalization, California State Board of. CAEATFA Sales and Use Tax Exclusion. Board

of Equalization, State of California, www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/gme.htm.

 7

Research council, National. Overcoming Barriers to Deployment of Plug-in Electric

Vehicles. The National Academies Press, 2015.

shanhan, zachary. 67 Organizations Push Northeastern & Mid-Atlantic Governors &

Governors-Elect To Promote Electric Cars. EV Obsession, 20 Dec. 2014,

evobsession.com/67-organizations-push-northeastern-mid-atlantic-governors-

governors-elect-promote-electric-cars/.

Tovey, Alan. Electric Vehicles to Cost the Same as Conventional Cars by 2018. The

Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 19 May 2017,

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/19/electric-vehicles-cost-conventional-cars-

2018/.

Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program. California Environmental Protection Agency Air

Resources Board, www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/zevprog.htm.

Zero Emissions California: This Is How We Do It. Earthjustice, 10 Oct. 2017,

earthjustice.org/features/right-to-zero