California's big new Executive Order to slash oil consumption in transportation -- 50%+ of CA's climate contribution here: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/9.23.20-EO-N-79-20-text.pdf

My thoughts below.

First, here's the official statement: https://www.nextgenpolicy.org/nextgen-california-responds-to-governor-newsoms-executive-order-on-the-climate-emergency-this-puts-us-on-the-right-track/

Skipping over the "Whereas" clauses, here's the actual order:
- Set state goals and direct ARB to implement regs to get to 100% ZEV sales and offroad equip by 2035, HD trucks 2045
- Interagency coordinated ZEV strategy (this is actually a HUGE deal)

This is probably my favorite part -- direct the State Transportation Agency to do climate aligned infrastructure.

- Develop a Just Transition framework based on the recent Berkeley Labor Center report on high road clean economy jobs

- Develop a oil drillsite clean up strategy by the end of next year

Otherwise it emphasizes the need to do a good job and expedite existing rulemaking efforts, such as the one at CalGEM that hopefully will result in CA finally implementing drilling safety buffer zones.

Note that the Gov. also teased more EOs coming soon. That makes sense! Transportation is more than half our GHGs, but less than all. We need to address commercial and residential buildings, Ag, heavy industry, etc. We need to accelerate efforts on electricity, too!

OK so: Let's talk about what 100% ZEV sales in CA by 2035 means. CA is currently 50% of the national EV market. EVs are CA's #2 export. 75% of all EVs sold in the US are made in CA.

Californians buy about 2m cars each year. Right now 8-10% of those are EVs. We are talking about taking an existing durable goods industry and scaling it up 10-11x over in 15 years. An industry currently dominated by CA.

That is, to use a technical term, a fuckload of new work, jobs, factories, etc. Maybe they get built here, maybe somewhere else. It's up to us and our policy choices!

But while CA is currently 50% of the EV market in the US, it is only about 1/10th of the national car market. And it would be very dumb to bet that CA transforms completely while the rest of the US does nothing.

So if CA demonstrates a high-road approach to scaling this industry, it could become by default a national model. It would have transformational effects that go way beyond the direct GHG reductions here.

And those GHG reductions here are nothing to sneeze at. Getting to 100% ZEV sales in 2035, along w the other things in this order, could be worth about 2x as much as getting our electricity emissions to zero (which we currently plant to do ten yrs later).

So it is fair to say that this is a big fucking deal.

ALL THAT SAID...

Getting the state to carbon neutrality in 2045 requires removing all the gas-burning machines. That creates a 10-year window to phase out the old ones. But the average car stays on the road 15 years, and there is a long tail.

So we will need a scrap and replace program, too.

For a hell of a lot of relatively new, probably pretty functional cars.

My current car is a 2008 model. It is 13 years old. If I bought it in 2034, I'd have had to scrap it by now, so to speak.

My hope is that, by that time, new personal car ownership is no longer the norm. That the "capacity factor" for old cars become very low, and that shared mobility, transit, ebikes, etc become the new transportation norms.

That won't happen without major major changes in how we spend "highway" funds. Like we need to stop spending them on highways. This order takes a hugely important step in that direction by mandating a "fix-it-first" approach.

It also means we need to make commuting unnecessary/shorter/suck less. That means changing our development patterns. Lots of your favorite liberal blue cities don't want to do that! It will be hard!

Transportation is a weird sector. It doesn't exist for its own sake. It's there to fulfill a need. We can serve the need better, but we can also change the nature and level of what we need it for.

OK you probably stopped reading these a while back. Gonna stop here for a while. Might come back, bc honestly I have barely scratched the surface of this beast of an EO. SO much packed in here.