California regulators on Tuesday vowed to strengthen their commitment to slashing harmful vehicular emissions as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to overturn the state’s pollution policies.
“Clean air efforts are under siege, putting the health of every American at risk,” said Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), on a Tuesday press call.
“California is continuing to fight back and will not give up on cleaner air and better public health — we have a legal and moral obligation,” she added.
Randolph spoke alongside the publication of a new CARB report that outlined ways the state could fight back: by accelerating zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) adoption via increased private investment, government incentives and changes in ZEV fuel pricing.
The report, submitted to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), identified these specific priority action areas and others relating to state regulations and ZEV procurement, as requested by the governor in a June executive order.
Chief among the CARB report’s priorities was ensuring that private investment continues to support the ZEV market. To do so, the agency recommended sustaining California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a program designed to reduce the carbon intensity of fuels, decrease petroleum dependency and achieve air quality gains.
As far as government incentives are concerned, CARB suggested that the governor and the Legislature consider backfilling federal clean vehicle tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of September. Those credits could take the form of point-of-sale rebates or vouchers and could be scaled to match state policy goals, per the report.
The agency also proposed creating an education pipeline for high-paying jobs in the clean transportation industry, as well as investigating opportunities to reinstate high-occupancy vehicle lane access for ZEVs.
Regarding infrastructure, CARB identified a need for collaborative buildouts of charging and refueling infrastructure. As for the price of fuels, the agency suggested implementing an electric bill crediting system for EV charging, while support Western grid regionalization and leveraging private investments to bring down the cost of hydrogen.
In the regulations area, the agency recommended advancing ZEV consumer assurance measures and working with local air districts on reducing “indirect sources” of pollution, such as warehouses or railyards.
The final priority, procurement, would benefit from the purchase of ZEVs for state fleets and support for doing so in local governments, according to the report.
The recommendations, Randolph said, serve to steer near-term actions and “ensure the state stays on track to meet its air quality and climate goals.”
Newsom’s June executive order — which mandated the CARB report — occurred after President Trump signed three congressional resolutions revoking California’s previously approved emissions rules. That approval had come from the Biden administration, which granted California a waiver to set stricter-than-federal rules via the 1970 Clean Air Act.
One such rule was the Advanced Clean Cars II standard, which sought to require that all cars sold in California would be zero-emissions by 2035. A second was the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, requiring 7.5 percent of heavy-duty vehicles to be emissions-free by 2035. A third, the Omnibus Regulation, focused on slashing nitrogen oxide releases.
Just last week — in an about-face on compliance with the Golden State’s standards — four major truck manufacturers sued California regulators over the latter two rules. Soon after, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that a voluntary “Clean Truck Partnership” between the companies and the state was “unenforceable.”
Then, Friday, the Department of Justice declared its intent to sue California about the same partnership, in a bid to “advance President Donald J. Trump’s commitment to end the electric vehicle (EV) mandate.”
Later that day, CARB only said that it would not comment on pending litigation.
On Tuesday, however, Randolph said that regardless of the federal government’s waiver revocation, California is continuing “to fight hard for the emissions reductions that can easily be achieved in the heavy-duty sector and are already being achieved.”
Referring specifically to the Advanced Clean Trucks regulation, she noted that “the actual adoption is way ahead of the compliance obligation in that regulation.”
“The market is there, and the market is moving,” she said.
Randolph also told reporters that CARB is already working on updating Advanced Clean Cars, with the idea that rulemaking processes can take two to four years. By starting now, she explained, the rule might “be ready, ideally, for a more receptive U.S. EPA.”
Slamming the current federal administration for “choosing to quit the race,” she stressed that “California is still in.”
“The world is accelerating forward toward cleaner vehicle technologies and is going to watch the U.S. fade into the rearview mirror,” Randolph added.
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