Bob Tippee
From the land of the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) soon will come further sacrifice of transportation economics to environmentalist fancy.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) must adopt regulations achieving "maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction" of carbon dioxide from cars and light trucks under a law Gov. Gray Davis is expected to sign.
It would be the first state action against vehicle emissions of CO2, a greenhouse gas. Other states have regulated CO2 from power plants.
This comes from the state that in 1990 attempted to mandate a ZEV share of the vehicle market: 2% in 1998, 5% in 2001, and 10% in 2003.
Not even the California government can force citizens to buy things they don't want. And they don't want ZEVs, which are too small, too limited in range, and too expensive.
Because ZEV market penetration comes nowhere close to the targets set in 1990, CARB has had to ratchet back the ambition. The program's "underlying goal," which CARB insists never changed, is "seeing increasing numbers of ZEVs in the vehicle fleet."
So a mandate for 10 percent of annual vehicle sales has become hope for a simple increase in numbers. Seems like a change from here.
But why quibble? The program flopped.
Undaunted by failure, California politicians now have given CARB responsibility for reducing automotive emissions of CO2.
So CARB will tell automakers how to make autos. Given the board's record with ZEVs, this proposition should give California motorists no comfort.
If the anti-CO2 law takes effect, owning and operating a car or light truck in California will become very expensive.
And in return?what?
By how much does California hope to reduce its share of global emissions of CO2, now estimated at 7%, by forcing up the cost of transportation? And how might the reduction affect average global temperature, given that science can't predict how temperature changes as a function of greenhouse gas concentration?
Questions such as those won't stop California from making a new mistake in the name of the environment. But they might keep states with more sense from duplicating the error.
(Online July 12, 2002; author's e-mail: [email protected])