Transportation

The Transport Decarbonisation Alliance at COP27

Call to Action on Active Mobility and Deep Dive on Clean Trucks

Last month at COP 27 in Egypt, CLEE partnered with the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as chair of TDA, to convene experts to discuss some of the major next steps in clean transportation. While avoiding the worst of climate change requires a rapid increase in the pace of …

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Does the New Climate Law Expand Regulatory Authority?

It’s not the game changer some people think, but IRA could help in several ways.

There’s been a lot of recent talk about whether the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) indirectly overrides West Virginia v. EPA.  The answer to that is probably “no.”  However, some IRA provisions will help lawyers  defend certain regulatory actions. IRA may also have an important framing effect when courts are considering the reasonableness of agency actions. …

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A Three-Prong Attack on Carbon Emissions

A trio of new laws will power the energy transition.

Passage of IRA was clearly a big deal, with nearly $380 billion devoted to climate and other environmental issues.  But IRA is only one of the three big climate bills passed in the ten months.  The three represent a concerted effort to accelerate the energy transition. The earliest was the Infrastructure Act last November.  In …

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Regan Hits His Stride

Under Administrator Michael Regan, the Biden EPA is beginning to churn out important new regulatory proposals.

The Trump Administration left a trail of regulatory destruction behind it. Cleaning up the mess and issuing new regulations is Priority #1 for the Biden Administration. Under EPA head Michael Regan, the effort is beginning to pick up steam. EPA has begun the year with several major new regulatory efforts.  No one of them is …

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Washington State Steps Up

A new law is the latest sign that the future is electrical, not oil.

On the weekend weekend, Governor Jay Inslee signed a major transportation bill. The most dramatic feature of the bill is that it will mostly ban new gas cars in Washington as of 2030. That puts Washington ahead of California, Massachusetts and New York, as well as Canada and Japan. Washington’s deadline is tied with Israel, …

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Environmental Justice, Truck Pollution, and the Biden EPA

How will EPA integrate EJ into its rule making? The answer remains murky.

EPA recently released a notice of proposed rulemaking for pollution from new heavy-duty vehicles. I was interested to see how environmental justice figured into the analysis, looking for clues about how the Biden Administration plans to make EJ part of decision making.  What I found wasn’t very enlightening. Perhaps they’re still trying to come up …

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 Carrying the Freight

Decarbonizing trucking comes with some unique challenges.

A quarter of carbon emissions from transportation come from heavy-duty trucks. They are also disproportionate sources of air pollution.  Addressing these emissions will be challenging and will require a multi-prong strategy. For distances under a few hundred miles, electrification offers the most promising solution.  California and fourteen other states plan to make 30% of new …

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Mary Nichols’ new role at the Emmett Institute

Mary Nichols speaks at UCLA Law

This post is co-authored by Daniel Melling, communications manager at the Emmett Institute The New York Times reported last week that the Biden administration is preparing to restore California’s waiver to set greenhouse gas auto emissions standards stricter than the federal government’s rules. It’s the latest episode in a regulatory saga stretching back to the …

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The Climate Bill inside the Infrastructure Bill

The US takes a major step forward on the path to carbon neutrality.

Late Friday, the House passed Biden’s infrastructure bill. As the Washington Post aptly observed, the bill is the biggest climate legislation to ever move through Congress. It also attracted key support from some Republicans, which was essential to passing it in both houses of Congress. Biden is pushing for an even bigger companion bill, but …

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New California Report on State Climate Policies Released

Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee Recommends Focus on Transportation, Affordability, Allowance Banking, Allowance Supply and the Effects of Overlapping Policies in the Regional Electricity Market

The California Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee released its annual report yesterday making recommendations about California climate policy. I serve as the Vice Chair of  the committee and as the Speaker of the Assembly’s appointee. Our report makes five recommendations: that the state focus on the affordability of its carbon policies, with special concern about …

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