Transportation

How Much Credit Can California Take for the Electric Vehicle Revolution?

New CLEE report responds to criticism over how the state quantifies policy impacts.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the state’s lead agency on zero-emission vehicle policy, from its first-in-the-nation mandate on automakers to produce zero-emission models to its wide-ranging incentive programs, among other policy approaches. But in 2021, the California State Auditor released a report criticizing how CARB measures the effects of its zero-emission vehicle policies. …

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Accelerating Freight Decarbonization

A Guide to Zero-Emission Zones in Cities

The Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA) is a collaboration among countries, cities, regions and companies with the goal of accelerating the global transformation of the transport sector towards a net-zero emission mobility system by 2050. CLEE is actively supporting California Air Resources Board (CARB) with its TDA presidency through research and strategic coordination. Together with various …

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Can the New Climate Laws Transform our Transportation Infrastructure?

Flyer for Emmett Institute 2023 Symposium Panel 3: Transportation Case Study: Decarbonizing Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, listing Hilary Norton of California Transportation Commission and FAST, Beth Osborne of Transportation for America, and Regan Patterson of UCLA Engineering as panelists and Jonathan Zasloff of UCLA as moderator

The IIJA and IRA will spend a lot of money on transportation—but whether they’ll create fundamental change in our infrastructure or continue business as usual will depend on how that money is used.

This is the last in our series of posts previewing the Emmett Institute’s 2023 Symposium, coming up on April 12. Check out the first post, introducing some of the big questions around the IIJA and IRA, the second post, on transmission infrastructure, and RSVP for the Symposium here! Transportation is one of the most complicated …

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The Buildout Begins

New billion-dollar factories to produce EVs and their batteries are popping up across the country, with important political implicationss.

There’s been a surge of new EV and battery manufacturing projects in the past year. According to NPR, “In 2022 alone, companies announced more than $73 billion in planned projects — more than three times the previous record, set in 2021.” We read a lot about the rapid expansion of EV and battery manufacturing.  It …

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Keep on Trucking

A new rule will clean up exhaust from new diesels, a major health threat.

Last week, EPA finalized its new rule imposing emission limits on new heavy trucks. The new regulation was clearly a massive undertaking. EPA’s formal announcement of the new rule is 1100 pages long. The accompanying summary of comments on the proposed rule and EPA’s responses is another 2000 pages. This is partly due to the …

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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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