How California Became a Leader in Zero Emissions Policies

California’s mighty Air Resources Board recently passed new regulations that essentially require all vehicles sold in the state to be electric, hydrogen-powered, or at least hybrid. plugin until the year 2035.

In addition, 17 other states have agreed to follow California’s lead, at least to some extent, on issues related to air pollution, many of these states could also adopt these requirements.

A central part of federal emissions regulations since the early 1970s has been the so-called California exemption.

California, unique among all 50 US states, has the right to set its own car emissions regulations.

No other state can do this, but other states can, if they wish, choose to follow California emission standards rather than less stringent federal standards.

States that have followed California’s lead in emission standards tend to be more densely populated, such as New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

But Nevada and New Mexico have also adopted them.

Together, these states account for more than a third of automobile sales in the United States and about 40% of its population.

It’s unclear whether all of these states, like California, will ban the sale of cars without a charging port or hydrogen tanks after 2035, but if some do, it could represent a large part of the country.

It might seem strange that one state—California—has so much power to set its own climate and emissions policies, and even have influence over other states.

The reasons for this go back over 50 years.

The main reason is that California has had air quality issues for various reasons for some time now.

“They had so many cars and those damn mountains,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor who teaches environmental law at Harvard University.

In addition to its sprawling urban and suburban areas that encourage driving and its mountain ranges that trap air — and pollution — parts of California also have lots of sun that spur chemical reactions that make pollution worse.

“I’m a third-generation Angelino, and I remember growing up as a kid when the skies were just…you could barely see across the street,” said Allan Marks, a Los Angeles attorney whose work involves renewable energy and transportation.

The stories of the California Air Resources Board and the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency that regulates emissions, revolve around two people you might not think are at the forefront of environmentalism, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

Both are now remembered as staunch conservative Republicans, and in modern America that often means being against environmental regulation.

But in 1967, it was Reagan, then governor of California, who approved the creation of the California Air Resources Board.

The new agency was created by the union of the California Bureau of Air Sanitation and the California Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board.

By this time, California had already enacted the country’s first tailpipe emissions regulations.

These early auto emissions regulations led to a push for federal standards to prevent other individual states from following suit, Lazarus said.

The fear was that eventually there would be as many as 50 different emissions standards and that a federal standard, the Clean Air Act of 1970, would be preferable.

“There were federal acts before the Clean Air Act, going back to the 1950s, that dealt with air quality,” Marks said. “But a lot of what the federal government was doing was just studying the problem.”

In 1970, President Richard Nixon also created the Environmental Protection Agency, which studies and regulates pollution of all kinds, combining work that had previously been done by several federal agencies. The EPA oversees and enforces the Clean Air Act.

“The big question of the 1970s is, ‘Should we surrender to our surroundings or should we make peace with nature and start repairing the damage we’ve done to our air, our land and our water? his State of the Union address that year.

By this time, the groundwork had already been laid for California to establish its own rules and this continued with the “California Waiver”, a part of the federal regulations that made this special exception for California. It has been renovated many times since then and usually without much fuss.

EPA administrators must have compelling reasons to deny the exemption, Lazurus said, and there have been attempts, but none have been successful in the long term.

California’s swell may have been a little strange, but it avoided what was seen as potential chaos.

In the worst case, automakers would have to comply with two sets of rules, but at least not three, four or even more different sets of rules.

At the time, environmental concerns did not cross clear party lines, Lazarus said. There were both Republicans and Democrats pushing for cleaner air and water.

Nixon’s actions, to some extent, were designed to prevent the passage of a political threat perceived by environmentalists, according to Lazarus, although he later changed course and fought some environmental regulations.

Another part of the Clean Air Act, passed in 1977, allows other states, if their air quality does not meet federal standards, to follow California’s stricter emissions rules as a way to improve air quality. They can’t just make their own stricter rules.

So far, 17 other states have chosen to meet California’s emissions standard, at least in part.

In total, they account for over 35% of all new car sales in America.

The auto industry has managed to work well within the current system, Marks said. It provided the stability originally sought with the creation of the Clean Air Act and California’s resignation.

“Manufacturers work very collaboratively with California, trying to figure out how to meet the standards, what the standards should be,” he said.
During his term, President Donald Trump called on the courts to abolish the California exemption.

That attempt failed, or at least failed, when Trump was removed from office in the 2020 election.

The administration of President Joseph Biden abandoned this effort, and in March 2022, California’s exemption was renewed once again.