California has adopted the most aggressive climate change policies in the country, including a pledge of net zero carbon emissions by 2045. Many of these policies are made by California’s Air Resources Board (CARB), which consists of 16 political appointees. CARB’s mission is to protect public health by effectively reducing air pollution while considering the effects of their policies on California’s economy. But CARB’s policy choices don’t align well with its mission. The benefits of their policies don’t appear to outweigh the costs, and some of their policies don’t effectively reduce air pollution. CARB’s choices drive up energy costs substantially and seem to reflect the personal preferences of its members rather than the best interests of most Californians.
CARB’s latest two policy decisions highlight these issues. In October, CARB increased the stringency of its Advanced Clean Trucks program by requiring that 7% to 11% of vehicles weighing 8,500 pounds or more be zero-emission vehicle beginning next year. If manufacturers don’t meet those targets, they must buy carbon credits from others that do.
Recreational Vehicles (RVs) fall under the directives of the Advanced Clean Trucks program. However, RVs are remarkably poor suited as zero-emission (electric) vehicles, given their weight, the lack of charging stations in the destinations where they are intended to be used, their need for extra power for towing smaller vehicles, and the cost of their replacement batteries. Put differently, cost-effective zero-emission technology for RVs is probably years away. CARB is aware of this but has still adopted this new regulation for the industry.
The upshot of the new regulation is perhaps a de facto ban on new motor home registrations in California, according to the RV Industry Association. This is because there are no existing EV chassis for RVs, and the manufacturers who produce the chassis do not appear to be willing to take the risk of having to purchase carbon credits at an unknown market price. So, they may simply stop selling RV chassis altogether in California and expand operations elsewhere.
The economic implications of this regulation, including the potential to halt RV sales in the state, are supposed to be recognized by CARB, according to its mission statement. But they are not: “Any claim that this would limit or ban or do anything specific to RVs is just factually inaccurate,” said Air Resources Board spokesperson Lys Mendez.
What is the climate benefit of de facto banning new RV sales in California? Virtually zero. California is responsible for less than 1% of global carbon emissions, and there were fewer than 6,000 RVs shipped last year to California, a state with over 35 million registered vehicles. Moreover, CARB’s mission statement requires that their choices effectively reduce air pollution. This requirement does not appear to be satisfied, and not just because eliminating RVs doesn’t move the carbon needle. Rather, electric vehicles produce an enormous amount of particulate pollution from tire and brake wear, due to their heavy battery weight. Batteries in the largest EVs weigh around 1,800 pounds and produce about 1,850 times the amount of particulates per mile than does the exhaust of internal combustion engine–powered vehicles.
Particulate emissions raise the risk of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, heart attack, strokes, diabetes, premature birth, and dementia. This means that CARB is explicitly increasing the risk of many diseases in return for reductions in other emissions that may have less benefit. The standard approach to evaluating such trade-offs is a cost-benefit assessment, but CARB’s 2019 cost-benefit study of its programs does not appear to consider particulate emissions from EVs.
Similar issues also arise with CARB’s decision this month to further reduce the carbon content of California’s unique gasoline blend. Liane Randolph, Air Resources Board chair, said, “We cannot afford to continue with the status quo. The climate crisis is accelerating.”
But California can’t do anything about the climate crisis on its own. One climate economist estimated that the new fuel standard could raise gas prices by 85 cents by 2030, and $1.50 by 2035. “If you’re going to ask drivers to pay a lot, which is what this program proposal is going to do, I think you need to be able to make the case that it’s worth paying for,” noted Danny Cullenward of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and vice chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market (cap-and-trade) Advisory Committee. “What concerns me most about this is I think a lot of the things that are being credited do not actually help the climate.” It is understandable that those who serve on CARB have strong views about climate. But that doesn’t mean they should force the high costs of those preferences on others.
CARB estimated last year that gas prices could rise 47 cents per gallon in 2025 but have been unwilling to update that estimate. When investigative reporter Ashley Zavala recently asked Gavin Newsom about whether he would require that CARB update their estimates, Newsom ducked the question and instead focused positively on the fact that there are seven times more green energy jobs in California than fossil fuel energy jobs. But Newsom’s statement is an economic fallacy. For a given amount of production, we want to use fewer workers, not more, so that human resources can be released to produce other goods and services. And for all those green energy jobs, solar and wind power account for just 28% of California’s electricity production.
Around the same time as CARB’s RV and gasoline blend decisions, Phillips 66 announced it would be shutting down one of its California refineries based on concerns about the future of California’s energy markets. The refinery account for about 8% of the state’s refining capacity. This will further raise gasoline prices and increase the number of green energy workers relative to fossil fuel workers, all of which should make for a very happy CARB and Governor Newsom. And less happy California drivers and would-be Winnebago owners.
