Transportation

Making Electric Vehicles More Accessible for Lower-Income Californians

New policy report on solutions to improve equity in EV deployment | Webinar May 24

Join us for a webinar to discuss the report findings and EV equity solutions with state, local, and industry leaders on Tuesday, May 24 at 1pm PT. RSVP here. Today, the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law and the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law …

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Responsible EV Batteries

Building a supply chain that drives electrification while advancing human rights and environmental protection

On April 4, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the mitigation chapter of its Sixth Assessment Report (view the full report here). The report’s diagnosis is stark—the window to address climate change is narrowing, and more quickly than we realized. Governments need to deploy mitigation actions rapidly to address the scale and urgency …

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Why Energy Conservation Will Remain Crucial

Even after switching to clean power, we’ll still need to limit energy use.

If we switch to renewables, we won’t need to worry about saving energy. Right? Wrong! One reason to save energy is to limit carbon emissions from the energy we  use. That’s going to important until the energy system has been completely cleaned up. But energy conservation is important for reasons that go beyond the direct …

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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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Pollution Control as Climate Policy

Tightening air quality standards will also reduce carbon emissions.

The Biden Administration is slowly grinding away at an important regulatory task: reconsidering the air quality standards for particulates and ozone.  Setting those standards is an arduous and time-consuming process, requiring consideration of reams of technical data. For instance, a preliminary staff report on fine particulates (PM2.5) is over 600 pages long. When the process …

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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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Breaking Up with Fossil Fuels

It’s not us. It’s you.

WORLD: Thanks for the card. . . . But I think we need to talk. FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY: About what? W: About us. FFI: About us?? Can’t it wait until some other time? This is Valentine’s Day, and I’ve made plans for us.  Big plans. W: The pandemic has given me a lot of time …

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New Report: How to Reduce Rail Transit Construction Costs and Timelines

New CLEE study recommends options for better project delivery in California and beyond + expert webinar January 27

A new study from the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law released today identifies the primary factors underlying cost and schedule overruns for rail transit construction and presents policy recommendations to overcome key barriers. Improving rail transit delivery is critical for meeting climate and equity goals, given …

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What Does the Future Hold for the American Gas Station?

The end of the gas car will eventually leave 100,000 stations behind.

Gas stations have been fixtures in our world for a century or more. There are even books of photos of picturesque gas stations, some futuristic, others quaint. We’re transitioning into a world dominated by electric vehicles. What does the future hold for these icons of the fossil fuel era? There are now about a hundred …

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