Latest news with #BlancaBegert
Politico
28-02-2025
- Automotive
- Politico
The Trump-sized hole in California's EV charger strategy
Presented by With help from Blanca Begert, Camille von Kaenel, Marie J. French, Catherine Allen, Melanie Mason and Jordan Wolman NEVI YOU MIND: California's electric vehicle charging network is largely insulated from the Trump administration's funding freeze, but it could bite the state where it needs the most help: rural areas. California had only gotten a little over 8 percent of the $384 million it was promised under the Biden administration's $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program when the Trump administration froze it Feb. 6. How much does $352 million matter in a state that's already invested more than $2 billion in EV charger build-out and has another $1.4 billion in state funds on the way? EV charging companies, state lawmakers and transportation experts say it all comes down to location. While California has by far the biggest charging network of any state — there are around 65,000 public EV chargers, according to the latest state data, four times more than the next-most-blanketed state, New York, which has 16,000 chargers — those stations are largely in urban centers like Los Angeles and the Bay Area where EV adoption has been highest. The NEVI program is designed to place charging stations no more than 50 miles away from each other along major highways. That means locations well outside city centers (think remote areas of the Central Valley or Northern California coast while you're on a road trip up Interstate 5). Alan Jenn, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies electric vehicles, said a NEVI funding clawback is likely to have little impact on areas with high EV adoption, where providers know there's going to be demand and will invest their own resources. But a loss of federal dollars will hurt efforts to increase charger accessibility in rural areas. 'These are less compelling for charging providers because they are built for access and not to make money,' Jenn said. 'Those are the ones that are going to suffer without the NEVI program.' Johannes Copeland, chief operating officer at Skycharger, a charger supplier that's won NEVI grants in California and New Mexico, said the loss of NEVI funding and Biden-era tax credits that help cover costs of building and operating chargers could force some companies to reconsider investing in rural areas, where there are no guarantees they'll ever be profitable. 'The riskier sites may not get built,' Copeland said. 'That's absolutely a risk in losing the money associated with the program.' And without those chargers, California faces an uphill battle to reach its ambitious goal of phasing out sales of new gas cars by 2035. Auto market analysts point to a lack of reliable public charging infrastructure as a key variable in California's plateauing electric sales over the last year. (EVs accounted for 22 percent of the new California car market last year, according to registration data released earlier this month by the California New Car Dealers Association.) Those sales numbers pose a problem for the state's EV sales mandate: Automakers say they can't hit the 35 percent sales mark for model year 2026, and are raising the specter that they might start sending less gas and hybrid models to California dealers, increasing demand and prices. California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph pushed back against that threat in a statement, calling industry arguments a 'misleading attempt to create an artificial crisis that undermines California's public health goals.' She said the Advanced Clean Cars II rule gives car manufacturers three years to make up EV sales deficits and that they can use credits earned through previous sales of ZEV models to stay in compliance. But the pace of EV infrastructure construction will continue to be a challenging narrative for state officials, who estimate the state needs 1 million public chargers by 2030, nearly seven times more what's currently available. Senate Transportation Chair Dave Cortese said NEVI in the short-term won't solve California's charging needs, especially for the 44 percent of residents who rent and largely don't have access to chargers at home. He said his bigger concern is the potential loss of jobs — from engineers to construction workers — if federal funding dries up. 'Every dollar we lose on the federal side is a dollar that's not going to go to a good paying job here,' he said. — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! CROSS-COUNTRY CONSTERNATION: A bipartisan group of New York representatives is pushing the state to back away from an EV mandate modeled after California's rule, POLITICO's Marie J. French reports. The lawmakers warned in a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that Advanced Clean Cars II, which the state adopted shortly after California finalized the emissions standard, will force car manufacturers to send fewer gas and hybrid models to stay in compliance. The rule requires that 35 percent of each company's total sales be electric and plug-in hybrid models, or purchase credits from other manufacturers to offset deficits. 'Many New Yorkers, especially those in rural and underserved areas, will be left without affordable options if the supply of internal combustion engine (ICE) and hybrid vehicles diminishes as the mandate progresses,' the letter reads. That argument mirrors an ad campaign launched Monday by the California New Car Dealers Association, which calls for California to pause enforcement of the EV mandate to give 'infrastructure, consumer demand, and market readiness' time to develop. EVs accounted for 22 percent of the new California car market last year, according to registration data released earlier this month by the car dealers, but the share is as low as 10 percent in New York and other states that follow the regulation, automakers pointed out last year. Officials in both states are rebuffing calls for an enforcement pause, calling the claims about potential vehicle shortages 'misleading.' — AN, MJF FAIR OR UNFAIR: Do you live in Truckee, Placerville, South Lake Tahoe, Big Bear Lake or Fallbrook? Your ZIP code saw the highest increase in FAIR Plan policies since 2020, according to a data analysis by POLITICO's Catherine Allen. The insurer of last resort has been absorbing much of the state's highest-risk properties following the retreat by other insurers — long before the Los Angeles fires caused losses so great it said it would need to bill the entire market to pay out its claims. Check out more of Catherine's subscriber-only data analysis here. — CA, CvK ANOTHER CARB DELAY: The California Air Resources Board is blaming environmental justice groups for its failure to embark on a rulemaking to both promote and regulate carbon capture technology that was supposed to be done by the start of this year. 'It makes no sense that advocates who dislike [carbon capture utilization and storage] and [carbon dioxide removal] were advocating for reduced resources or no resources two years ago to recently express concerns that we've made little progress on the rulemaking,' said industrial strategies division chief Matthew Botill at a workshop on SB 905, Sen. Anna Caballero's 2022 law to set up a carbon capture and removal program in the state. Advocates say they oppose the deployment of carbon capture and direct air capture projects, but they're supportive of the rulemaking — provided CARB implements the parts they negotiated for as the law was being developed. On Monday, they sent a letter to Assembly and Senate budget subcommittee chairs asking that no new carbon capture projects move forward in the state until CARB finishes the part of the rule that requires community protections from things like co-pollutants and pipeline ruptures. 'We are not opposed to CARB getting resources to implement SB 905, but we are opposed to giving CARB additional resources without clear legislative direction to fully implement the community protections,' reads the letter, signed by 24 groups, including the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. Botill said the rulemaking has lagged because of budget constraints on staffing, where CARB currently has just two limited-term people dedicated to the rule. In 2023 the agency got $3.6 million annually for three years and this year re-upped their request for an additional $2.2 million in 2025-26 and $4.3 million for the next four years. Sen. Ben Allen, chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy, said he would have questions. 'Their frustration is not unfounded,' Allen said of the EJ groups' letter. 'I would look forward to hearing from CARB about their plan to utilize the ongoing funding that has been previously provided to them for SB 905 implementation.' — BB SPOTTED: Los Angeles Councilmember Traci Park on a flight from LA to Sacramento, part of her journey to Paradise, California. The councilmember, who represents the Palisades neighborhood that was ravaged by wildfire last month, was up for a fact-finding mission on fire recovery to Paradise, which endured its own destructive blaze in 2018. Park met with representatives from city government, business groups and philanthropy to discuss lessons learned about their rebuilding efforts. — MM NEW SAPLING: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced today that Tom Schultz will serve as Forest Service chief after Randy Moore steps down from the position Monday. Schultz, who has managed state forests and rangelands in Idaho and Montana, had been tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as chief of staff for natural resources and environment at USDA but will instead take the reins of the Forest Service, which manages 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands. — JW — Read the texts between DOGE's man at Interior and a Bureau of Reclamation employee during a visit to California last month. — The Karuk Tribe has entered into a first-of-its-kind agreement with state officials to practice more cultural burning. — Rising electricity costs aren't just a problem for California politicians. They're also a problem for Trump.
Politico
25-02-2025
- Business
- Politico
Sacramento's sausage-making comes for plastics
Presented by With help from Alex Nieves and Blanca Begert IN A PLASTIC WORLD: California is on the cusp of a potentially society-transforming climate policy change — and having some cold feet. We're not talking about electric cars, massive solar farms or corporate emissions reporting: We're talking about making producers recycle their plastic packaging. CalRecycle is facing a March 7 deadline to submit to the Office of Administrative Law its rules implementing Sen. Ben Allen's SB 54, a 2022 law that requires thousands of companies to reduce their single-use plastic packaging by 25 percent and pay to recycle or compost all their products, or else it has to start over. By one environmental group's estimate, the law could save 115 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over a decade, equivalent to shutting down 28 coal-fired power plants. But the companies that will have to carry out the program are pushing back, saying that the rules as written are both too costly and setting them up to fail. 'I feel like we're prioritizing expedience over getting it right,' said Rachel Wagoner, the head of CalRecycle until last March and since December the California executive director for Circular Action Alliance, the organization CalRecycle selected to set up the recycling program on behalf of all producers. (She's said she's following state rules banning her from lobbying her former agency for a year.) A broad coalition of business and farming groups, including Circular Action Alliance, signed on to a Dec. 14 Chamber of Commerce letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom outlining some of the concerns. Among them: The rules as drafted would cost much more than initially estimated (CalRecycle has estimated that as many as 13,615 manufacturers would have to participate and pay a total of $500 million per year beginning in 2027) and don't allow for new technology that could help process tricky materials. On the other side, environmental groups and 14 lawmakers including Allen are pushing CalRecycle and the governor's office to proceed with the current draft rules, even if they acknowledge the rules may not be perfect. They say that negotiations with industry leading up to the law have already settled some of those concerns, including by disallowing controversial chemical recycling. 'We need a strong foundation on which to base future actions,' the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Newsom this month. 'Stay the course.' Both sides argue that California's mantle of environmental leadership is at stake. California wasn't the first state to pass a bill setting up an 'extended producer responsibility' program for plastic packaging (that title went to Maine in 2021) nor will it be the first to formally approve the industry's plan for compliance (Oregon just claimed that title last week by approving a plan by Circular Action Alliance). But California has the largest market and the most detailed rules so far, attracting outsized attention from other states and countries. Just last year, the state of Minnesota and the European Union passed EPR laws that borrowed from California's approach, said Anja Brandon, the director of plastics policy at Ocean Conservancy. 'That adds to the crux of this moment that we are in, where we want to see California stand by this groundbreaking law that it passed,' she said. Newsom spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said his office was 'considering all options.' 'California is committed to achieving the goals of SB 54 — to cut down on plastic pollution — and we take stakeholder input very seriously,' he said in an email. 'We are considering all options for how to move forward to successfully implement this ambitious program.' CalRecycle spokesperson Melanie Turner said Monday the agency was still working to finalize the rules by March 7. On Tuesday, Wagoner, Brandon and a bevy of other advocates from either side will testify to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on the concept of extended producer responsibility. Expect SB 54 to come up, as well as philosophical debates about what EPR is at its core: 'Something we hear from industry often is if you get too prescriptive, you shy away from EPR, and that's just not true,' said Brandon. 'EPR is defined by holding producers accountable for the whole life cycle of their product.' — CvK Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! THE BILLS ARE IN: Friday was the deadline to introduce new bills in the Legislature. All told, 2,350 bills have come in, 226 more than by the cutoff deadline last year, according to attorney and lobbyist Chris Micheli. Here are some of the newest ones that caught our attention: CAP-AND-TRADE: We still don't know what the legislature is planning to do on cap-and-trade, where reauthorization past 2030 is a stated priority for the year, but the spot bills are in. Watch these spaces: SB 840 from Sens. Monique Limón and Mike McGuire and AB 1207 from Assembymember Jacqui Irwin. You can also watch the Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change Policies hearing on Wednesday where lawmakers will be discussing changes to the state's carbon market. LITHIUM BATTERY FIRES: Fires at battery plants are hot — literally, and in the Capitol. The Assembly Committee on Emergency Management introduced AB 1285, which would require the State Fire Marshal to develop fire prevention, response and recovery plans for utility-grade lithium storage facilities. That measure comes after fires at Moss Landing Power Plant, the world's largest battery storage facility. It joins Assemblymember Dawn Addis' AB 303, which would ban energy storage facilities from environmentally sensitive areas or within 3,200 feet of schools and homes and reverse a 2022 measure that accelerated the permitting process for them. GAS STOVES: Freshman Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is taking Republicans' latest swing at efforts to ban gas appliances, a climate policy that's sparked a national culture war in recent years. His bill, AB 1238, would block state agencies and local governments from adopting or enforcing any rule or ordinance that prohibits the use of gas stoves in residential or commercial buildings. CPUC HEARINGS: Assemblymember Joe Patterson's AB 1273 would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission from placing utilities' rate-increase applications on its consent calendar, which means they get voted on without discussion. If you haven't tracked the CPUC lately, the public comment period is typically filled with fiery speeches opposing rate increases, and you may be surprised how much ends up on the consent calendar. COMMUNITY SOLAR: Assemblymember Chris Ward is back with a bill to force the California Public Utilities Commission to do what he always wanted on community solar — make it more accessible by reimbursing it in a way that accounts for its full cost savings to the grid. Last year the CPUC, tasked with implementing Ward's 2022 law AB 2315 to boost community solar, rejected a proposal from the solar industry, environmentalists and a ratepayer advocate group to let renters buy credits in small solar projects and access savings like the ones people get from installing rooftop solar. The commission instead voted through a proposal closely aligned with one introduced by utility Southern California Edison that expanded existing subscription programs from the state and utilities and created a new program using federal funds that are now in question. At the time, they argued their proposal was more cost effective. Ward told the CPUC that its plan was 'outdated,' 'commercially unworkable' and 'wholly inconsistent' with his 2022 law. The new bill, AB 1260, would amend the program to be more in line with his intentions and use a pricing formula to account for more of the cost savings of community solar, like reducing the need for electrical wires to travel long distances. WHAT MORE: What other bills do you think will be big this year? As always, please let us know. BRB, MOVING TO OAKLAND: The cities of San Jose, Palo Alto, Orinda and Half Moon Bay and the unincorporated parts of Mendocino, Sonoma and Napa counties got some bad news from California's rollout of its new local fire hazard zone maps today. In those places, the number of acres categorized at very high fire hazard and therefore subject to fire-resistant building codes and risk disclosure requirements for home sales jumped significantly from the last update in 2011. The reason is Cal Fire's more sophisticated modeling that accounts for factors like the winds that blew embers across LA neighborhoods last month and that will move 1.4 million acres statewide into the two highest fire risk severity areas. Take San Jose for example: In 2011, it had 3,310 acres classified at very high risk. The new data suggests 7,142 acres are at very high fire risk. The data released today covers the Bay Area and the North Coast and represents part two of Cal Fire's four-part rollout after inland Northern California. The Central Valley and Central Coast are scheduled for March 10, and Southern and Eastern California for March 24. The local jurisdictions must still formally adopt the maps, though they can make changes as they see fit. One city got some good news: Oakland, the site of a deadly firestorm in 1991 that kicked off many modern urban fire preparedness efforts. In 2011, it had 10,838 acres categorized as at very high fire risk. Today's data showed only 1,945 acres in that category, with another 5,151 at high or moderate fire risk. — CvK TURNING TO THE AIRWAVES: The auto industry is taking to the court of public opinion with an opening shot at California's electric vehicle mandate. The California New Car Dealers Association announced today that it's funding a digital and television ad buy, kicking off the lobbying effort with a three-minute spot on a newly launched website. The campaign calls on the California Air Resources Board to pause enforcement of the Advanced Clean Cars II rule to give 'infrastructure, consumer demand, and market readiness' time to develop. It also asks state officials to adopt a 'balanced, phased approach' to the EV transition, though it stops short of detailing a specific policy plan. Spokespeople for Newsom and CARB didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Most automakers — with Stellantis as the notable exception — have been opposed to ACCII, which requires them to sell increasing percentages of electric vehicles annually, before effectively banning the sale of new gas cars by 2035. But the ad buy is the industry's first major attempt at spreading that message to California residents. (The dealers' association said it will reveal the other 'businesses, trade groups, and consumer advocates' that are part of its coalition later.) The ad buy also comes as the Trump administration is attempting to overturn ACCII through the congressional review process. — AN BACK TO ACCI: The Supreme Court has set an April 23 hearing date for a long-simmering case around a previous iteration of California's clean vehicle rules. The court will hear Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, an oil industry lawsuit filed in 2022 shortly after the Biden administration reinstated Advanced Clean Cars I — the emissions waiver Trump's EPA revoked in 2019, Lesley Clark reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Lawyers for the industry argue California should not have unique privileges to set stronger-than-federal emissions standards, a carve out under the Clean Air Act the state has held for more than 50 years. The D.C. Circuit issued a unanimous decision last April that industry groups and Republican-led states lacked standing to bring their claim because they failed to show that tossing out the waiver would fix the injuries they say occurred. The Supreme Court hearing comes after it rejected a Trump administration request to delay the hearing to give EPA time to reassess the 'soundness of the 2022 reinstatement decision.' — AN SHOPPING FOR WIND: California is moving ahead on offshore wind despite Trump's plans to kill the industry. The CPUC today directed the Department of Water Resources to initiate centralized state procurement for various types of clean energy under a deal negotiated and signed into place in 2023. It's still a long way away. Solicitations for geothermal and the 7.6 gigawatts of offshore wind the state will be trying to buy won't open until 2027. — BB — The firefighter union's backlash to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' decision to sack the city's fire chief is adding to her political headaches, writes our Melanie Mason. — Some Yosemite National Park staffers hung an upside-down American flag off El Capitan this weekend to protest the Trump administration's job cuts. — Vistra began a two-week process to disconnect batteries at its Moss Landing plant after they burned in a fire last month.
Politico
19-02-2025
- Automotive
- Politico
CRA around and find out
With help from Blanca Begert and Camille von Kaenel FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS: Does Congress have the power to overturn California's vehicle emissions rules? The Trump administration is about to find out. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Friday he would send a trio of California's clean-vehicle rules to Congress to overturn — a widely expected move following President Donald Trump's Day 1 executive order to roll back California's electric vehicle-boosting policies. Except that the rules Zeldin targeted aren't supposed to be subject to the Congressional Review Act, the mechanism that lets Congress overturn rules passed in the last six months of the previous administration (which Trump has already proven adept at using, tossing 16 Obama-era regulations in his first term). At least, that's what federal agencies like the Congressional Research Service and U.S. Government Accountability Office have said. There's notably a Government Accountability Office opinion from last year (commissioned by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee) saying Congress can't review EPA's actions on the waivers, let alone revoke them, because they don't count as 'rulemakings.' And EPA approved one of them, California's Advanced Clean Trucks zero-emission sales mandates for truck manufacturers, last April, meaning that one, at least, is outside of the CRA's six-month review window. So: to the courts! 'Their attempts to do illegal things are, of course, a standard feature of this administration and its members,' said Craig Segall, a former executive officer at the California Air Resources Board who now does environmental policy consulting. 'In that sense, it's unsurprising.' CARB didn't respond to a question on whether it would sue but reiterated its position that 'consistent with 50 years of EPA practice across Republican and Democratic administrations, and the GAO's analysis in 2023, EPA waivers are not 'rules' subject to the Congressional Review Act.' While Trump's EPA pulled back the state's passenger vehicle tailpipe rules during his first term, making him the first president to revoke an already-issued California waiver, lawmakers have never attempted to weaponize the CRA, which then-President Bill Clinton signed in 1996, against them. But testing the legal bounds of presidential power is part of the Trump administration's playbook to reshape U.S. policies across the entire executive sphere and beyond. 'The big question is, are they willing to try to apply the statute to something that is exempt under the statute?' asked Ann Carlson, a former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under former President Joe Biden and a professor at UCLA. The actual congressional blow will likely come from Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), a former state lawmaker and first-term member from suburban Sacramento, who told us today he plans to introduce a resolution as early as Friday to start the review process. 'California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued this gas car ban unilaterally,' Kiley said. 'It affects not only California, but a bunch of other states as well, so getting Congress involved and saying, why don't we put this to a vote, I think that makes perfect sense.' Senate Republicans won't be far behind. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, chaired by Capito, said in a Friday post on X that 'the Trump EPA is complying with the law and giving Congress the opportunity to reject California's effort to impose its EV mandate on all Americans.' Auto industry response has, so far, been muted. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the main car manufacturer trade group, and the Engine Manufacturers Association, which represents heavy-duty truck companies, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on EPA's move. One notable outlier was the Specialty Equipment Market Association, a group that's been active in its opposition to the Advanced Clean Cars II rule in particular, which sets sales targets for zero-emission cars. 'During the November election, voters resoundingly rejected candidates who support electric vehicle mandates, only to see their voice suppressed in the final days of the Biden administration when a waiver was granted to California to prop up its radical, economy-killing Advanced Clean Cars II policy,' Mike Spagnola, president and CEO of SEMA, said in a statement. 'Today, Congress has the opportunity to make right by the American people.' — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! TUNNEL VISION: Newsom got one (little) step closer to getting his big Delta tunnel project shovel-ready last week — and he's making sure people know. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a permit detailing when and how the proposed Delta Conveyance Project, a tunnel rerouting water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta south to farms and cities, can cause harm or kill endangered fish. Newsom, deep in his stand-off with Trump over California's water management, cast it as a win: 'California doesn't have to choose between safeguarding endangered species and protecting our water supply — this permit demonstrates we can do both,' he said in a press release. The project still needs several approvals, including a change in water rights by the State Water Resources Control Board, which kicked off its series of hearings on the topic today. The hearings will continue through the summer. — CvK GASSED UP: California gas prices are going up, and a refinery outage in Martinez might be to blame, Newsom's gas price watchdog said Friday. The California Energy Commission's Division of Petroleum Market Oversight sent Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas a letter noting that gas prices have increased by an average of 38 cents per gallon following a Feb. 1 fire at PBF Energy's refinery in Martinez. 'Since this incident, gasoline prices on the San Francisco and Los Angeles spot markets have increased considerably,' DPMO Director Tai Milder said in the letter. 'Crude oil and environmental program costs do not explain these price increases.' PBF officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. — DK JOBS NUMBERS: The feds are shedding workers left and right (though the left is much more vocal about it). Firings at the Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Farm Service Agency are affecting the agencies' work on reducing wildfire risks and helping farmers arrange financing ahead of the spring planting season, as Marc Heller reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Dems are sounding the alarm. Republicans are more muted — although Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime member of the Agriculture Committee, told reporters Tuesday that if mass layoffs mean some services won't be delivered, 'I expect those positions to be filled.' A few more dispatches from around our neck of the woods: The National Park Service has rescinded job offers for roughly 2,000 seasonal hires and perhaps fired around another 1,900 probationary employees, as Heather Richards reports. Yosemite ranger Alex Wild said, 'I honestly can't imagine how the parks will operate without my position. I mean, they just can't.' Meanwhile, some 30 employees of the Bonneville Power Administration — the Energy Department's hydropower agency in the Pacific Northwest — were rehired after being fired last week, Holly Otterbein reports. 'When they come into these departments and agencies, they're firing people, and then they're moving on, and then they come back and say, 'Oh shit,'' said Mike Braden, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 928. 'They had no idea what we did. They said, 'Oh, they're the elite.' They got to be doing labs and stuff. No, we actually control power in the Pacific Northwest.' — DK WHAT'S NEXT FOR LITHIUM VALLEY: The Salton Sea region sits on enough lithium to produce nearly 400 million batteries and transform the country's auto fleet. But will California be able to take advantage of it? What does the election of Trump mean for the lithium boom? And how will the changes planned for the region affect local communities? Join POLITICO's California climate reporter Blanca Begert on Wednesday for a discussion with Chris Benner of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Manuel Pastor of the University of Southern California, two experts with a new book out about the region. The event is on Feb. 19 at 12 p.m. at the UC Student and Policy Center, one block from the Capitol in Sacramento. Register here. Make it a double header by hitting up the California Energy Commission's workshop on its 'Lithium Valley Vision,' which is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. — The New York Times writes about California's stalled electric truck plan. — Rep. (and former Insurance Commissioner) John Garamendi and current Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara exchange jabs in the Los Angeles Times. — Firefighters battling the Eaton Fire saw Southern California Edison's power lines spark new fires despite their requests to turn the lines off, a review of radio traffic by NPR found.
Politico
14-02-2025
- Automotive
- Politico
The other car company in Trump's ear
With help from Blanca Begert LEANING INTO THE TURN: The world's largest automaker is going all-in on President Donald Trump's anti-electric-vehicle policies. And no, we're not talking about Tesla. Toyota has taken the most aggressive stance of any major car manufacturer against policies aimed at bolstering EV growth. It's aligned with most of the industry in opposing California's waiver to set stricter-than-federal emissions standards — but it doesn't even want to keep the carrots. It wants to get rid of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, even while the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the industry's main trade group (of which it's a member), is lobbying hard to keep the tax credit in place. 'Artificial mandates and subsidies aren't working,' former Toyota COO Jack Hollis, who retired last month, wrote of California and federal rules and incentives alike in a Wall Street Journal op-ed shortly after the election. (A spokesperson for Toyota declined to comment for this piece.) It's all part of the company's bet that hybrid technology is here to stay, even as its competition shifted focus to electric models. That gamble — at least in the short term — looks to be paying off. 'For where they are right now, Toyota has made a good bet,' said Jessica Caldwell, an auto market analyst for Edmunds. 'I think they realize that this is a transitionary time for the transportation industry.' Toyota remains the best-selling car brand in the U.S. and California, according to registration data released earlier this month by the California New Car Dealers Association. The company accounted for more than 16 percent of the state's auto market last year, a slight uptick from 2023 and five points ahead of second-place Tesla. American drivers are also starting to gravitate toward hybrids — a space Toyota has dominated since the introduction of the Prius in 1997 — at a higher rate than EVs, according to Edmunds, which tracks auto sales. Hybrids accounted for nearly 10 percent of sales nationally last year, two points ahead of EV sales, despite the two vehicle types holding nearly identical market shares in 2022 at around 5 percent. Few market analysts predicted that outcome just a few years ago, as Toyota's strategy of eschewing EVs drew criticism that the company was falling behind the times. 'Time to move on from hybrid cars,' Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk said in a 2022 post on X. 'That was a phase.' Auto market researchers say Toyota is still likely on the wrong end of long-term EV adoption trends, which are poised for an uptick as more electric models hit the market and prices drop and as chargers become more available and reliable. The brand currently offers just one fully electric model, the bZ4X, with a couple more on the way. 'Will they still be hitting consumers where they need to be in five years and in 10 years?' Caldwell said. 'The question is will they continue to evolve with the market.' How quickly those advancements will happen likely depend on the Trump-sized wrecking ball in the White House. The Trump administration's move to suspend federal EV charger funding has already pushed states like Vermont and Colorado to suspend or slow down their charger construction — though California says it's chugging ahead — and the elimination of the $7,500 tax credit is likely to hurt EV demand. 'The stuff that's happening now will definitely affect consumer confidence in the technology, so there will certainly be some kind of effect,' said Alan Jenn, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies electric vehicles. In the meantime, Toyota's outspoken approach on lobbying the Trump administration has turned it into a climate villain among environmental groups, a big swing from the company's image as a green darling after the Prius' success. Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit, protested the company at the D.C. Auto Show last month, shortly after releasing a report that found Toyota is the top contributor among automakers to Republicans who deny climate change. — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! WHAT ABOUT TRUCKS?: Federal funding for passenger EV chargers may be in limbo, but not for EV trucks, California officials assured antsy manufacturers today. Officials from the California Energy Commission and the California Department of Transportation said at a workshop that they don't expect delays in disbursing $67 million to build electric and hydrogen-truck-fueling stations along Interstate 5. That funding is part of a $102 million joint award from the Biden administration to California, Oregon and Washington for a West Coast-wide network. 'Last week, many of you may have seen that directors of state departments of transportation received a memo from the Federal Highway Administration,' said Jimmy O'Dea, a Caltrans assistant deputy director. 'This memo, this letter, only applied to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.' That program, commonly called NEVI, is former President Joe Biden's $5 billion EV charger program — $384 million of which is earmarked for California — that the Trump administration has moved to suspend. The assurances came during a workshop where automakers like Honda and charging companies raised questions about whether the truck funding is at risk. 'There's some concern that funds that haven't been contracted may not come to fruition. So if that's the case, have y'all contemplated maybe funding this program from different pots of money within the states?' asked Priscilla Hamilton, a Honda representative. — AN HIGH-SPEED CRITICISM: California's high-speed rail project is back in Republicans' crosshairs. Most of the state's Republican caucus signed a letter to Trump today, thanking the president for his threat to investigate the decades-old project to connect Los Angeles to the Bay Area and blasting the state's High-Speed Rail Authority for cost overruns. 'By all metrics, the High-Speed Rail is a colossal failure,' the letter reads. The letter points to a report released last week by the high-speed rail's inspector general that says the project likely won't meet its 2033 timeline for launching service between Bakersfield and Modesto and criticizes the agency for not completing a risk analysis. 'This begs the question: Why has the HSRA deliberately not completed a risk analysis of a plan that has and will continue to cost taxpayers billions and billions of dollars?' the lawmakers asked. Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters last week during a visit to Washington, D.C., that he spoke to Trump about the project and welcomed more federal scrutiny of it. — AN NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE: California voters are fairly certain that climate change contributed to the Los Angeles wildfires. Their feelings on Trump's water policies and high-speed rail are more up in the air. A new Emerson College poll of 1,000 registered California voters released today found that 70 percent of respondents believe that climate change contributed to recent wildfires that devastated portions of Los Angeles County. Voters were more split on Trump's executive order that directed the Army Corps of Engineers to release water from federal reservoirs, nearly flooding farmland in the Central Valley. Just over half (52 percent) said the policy was bad for the state, while 48 percent thought it was a good thing. But 72 percent of Democrats thought it was bad, while 83 percent of Republicans thought it was good. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they believe California's high-speed rail project is still a good use of state funds. (There was a similar partisan split, with 57 percent of Democrats and 17 percent of Republicans endorsing it.) — AN ELECTRIC YEAR: Pacific Gas & Electric is delivering for shareholders, the company reported in its fourth-quarter earnings call today. Shareholder profits last year were a record-high $2.48 billion, at $1.15 per share, as compared to $2.24 billion in 2023, at $1.05 per share. The company also increased its earnings projections for 2025. CEO Patti Poppe said the utility has continued prioritizing wildfire mitigation, hardening 366 miles of lines in high-risk areas last year, though she did have to assuage investors about how wildfires might impact the utility's bottom line. 'It seems clear that timely reforms are needed to extend the AB 1054 framework given evolving views of a worst case fire,' said Poppe, referring to the bill that established the state wildfire fund that utilities can tap to cover their costs for fires that started after 2020. 'We hear loud and clear the market's concern about risk exposure beyond the $21 billion wildfire fund as well as implications for the utility liability cap.' Environmental groups and ratepayer advocates are drawing a link between the profits and six consecutive rate hikes the California Public Utilities Commission approved for PG&E in 2024. 'At a time when we need urgent investment in clean, affordable energy, PG&E is padding its bottom line while ratepayers foot the bill,' California Environmental Voters CEO Mary Creasman said in a statement. They'll be watching the CPUC's proceeding next month to evaluate the rate of return structure for utilities and working with lawmakers on bills to address energy affordability. So far this week, a few have come in, including two Tuesday from Sen. Steve Padilla that would authorize pilot projects and accelerate permitting for energy transmission. One Wednesday from Sen. Aisha Wahab would cap investor-owned utility rate increases to no more than the consumer price index and increase utilities' responsibility for paying into the wildfire fund. — BB — Sen. Dave Cortese is on a mission to stop California from exporting its old diesel trains. — In an unusual step, U.S. EPA won't test the soil after cleaning up debris from the Los Angeles fires. — The Trump administration fired thousands of federal workers today, including most or all of the 2,000 probationary employees at the Department of Energy.
