California’s push toward cleaner vehicles may be in jeopardy under a second Trump administration.
Governor Gavin Newsom has a plan to phase out sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035, but President-Elect Donald Trump has pledged to stop the state’s vehicle regulation.
Some gas-powered car drivers say they never thought it was a realistic goal anyway.
“That’s a joke,” said gas-car driver Jeff Mulivhill. “It’s not going to happen.”
Mulvihill says he can’t see the correct infrastructure being put in place within the next decade.
“Manufactures need to build inexpensive electric cars, but until the charging infrastructure improves, you’re not going to have it,” said Mulvihill. “How do you charge a car when you live in an apartment and park on the street?”
Director of the Climate Program at UC Berkeley Law School, Ethan Elkind, admits that the 2035 goal may now be a lot more difficult than it was on Monday.
Elkind expects President-elect Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax”, to cut back funding for technologies needed to meet the state’s aggressive zero emission vehicle standards.
“We’re able to exceed federal standards because we get permission from the federal government to do that,” said Elkind about why California can set it’s own standards. “What happened in the first Trump administration is they tried to revoke passed permission.”
Trump specifically revoked the waiver from the Enviornmental Protection Agency that allowed California to limit tailpipe emissions from automobiles.
Elkind says the issue was being litigated and was never resolved before Joe Biden became president and restored the waiver. Now climate experts say it’s likely Trump could revoke it again.
“It might be that California is able to run out the clock over the next 4 years in litigations, but we’d lose a lot of time and vehicle manufactures need to have that certainty,” said Elkind. “They’re making that investment now in vehicles they’ll sell 10 years from now.”
For now, Mulvihill isn’t rushing out to buy an electric vehicle. But he might consider a hybrid for his next car.
“That’s a great intermediate and I’d actually like to see them do hydrogen,” said Mulvihill.
Elkind also mentioned that a lot of the U.S. vehicle market follows California standards, so the repercussion of slowing down the push towards zero-emission vehicles in California could impact other parts of the country.
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