June 28, 2018
June 28, 2018
Another summer, another command from Hick on High. Breaking out his best Barack Obama rule-by-executive-fiat pen, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed the erroneously titled “Maintaining Progress on Clean Vehicles” .
Load up your Nissan Leaf, the 21st Century family truckster. It’s California or bust!
Hick’s two-page executive order has more platitudes than substance and doesn’t cite any specific statute. Further, it mentions (ZEV) in the “Background, Need, and Purpose” but doesn’t include them specifically in the directive which states that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) shall adopt a low emissions vehicle (LEV) plan that mirrors California’s:
In order to maintain progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles sold in Colorado, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shall:
Develop a rule to establish a Colorado LEV program, which incorporates the requirements of the California LEV program;
Propose that rule to the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission during its August 2018 meeting for possible adoption into the Colorado Code of Regulations by December 30, 2018.
You read that right. Hick on High demands that it be done just days before he flees the Governor’s mansion and well ahead of the economic devastation his order will bring. Make no mistake, this is the kind of policy that hurts the least among us.
Since there is no directive telling CDPHE to exclude ZEVs, I’m going to assume an over-zealous Air Quality Control Commission won’t be able to put the brakes on its collective bureaucratic nannyism and will include ZEVs along with (LEV).
What exactly is the California dream car policy mandate?
published a good deconstruction on California’s clean car rules, which passed the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in January 2012 on a 9-0 vote.
From ICN:
To be sure, there have been changes to the 2012 rules but you get the gist. This won’t be easy or cheap.
If you are wondering who has a hydrogen car, me too. So, I looked it up. Apparently, Kroger has “” and .
And five years later, that pesky lack of consumer demand is proving troublesome. While California sells far more alternative fuel vehicle than any other state, those vehicles still only make up 3 percent of the total vehicles sold, according to . That’s a far cry from the 15 percent mandated by the CARB.
In fact, the Golden State is going backward:
The sales of hybrids and electric cars have flattened and, in some cases, lost market share in the last couple of years as more consumers , in large part because of on the part of conventional vehicles.
Cue lawmakers who believe the answer to solving the problem of bad government policy is more bad government policy. In 2017, California Assemblywoman Autumn Burke (D-Los Angeles) introduced a sales tax credit or kind of a cash for gasoline clunkers. The bill but not the problem.
Based on what California passed in 2012, Colorado won’t be “maintaining” anything. Instead, Hick on High has the pedal to the metal. He’s taking Coloradans careening over a California cliff off the Pacific Coast Highway. It might make a good Hollywood movie, but it’s horrible for working families who will have to pay the price. By CARB’s own estimate stated above, they will be paying far more for their vehicles, and we have no idea if the projected cost savings will ever materialize.
Native Californian and environmental activist Quinn Wolfe, founder of Californians Advocating for the Environment (CAFE) :
When did my fellow environmentalists let vanity vanquish common sense?
How else to explain the sight of so many overpriced electric cars, driven by the fewest among us, when most Californians neither have the money nor the means to eventually make enough money to buy a Tesla?
Then he went on to explain:
The problem is that the mandate is yet another transfer of wealth to the wealthy. It redirects tax dollars to subsidize the manufacture of Teslas at the expense of essential services like education, police and fire. It undermines the programs we can least afford to cut, while it rewards the very individuals who can afford just about anything.
If Hick wants Coloradans to pay more for driving their cars, he should be honest and ask for a tax increase. Forcing higher costs via regulatory rule making is a backdoor tax increase for lazy politicians, who would rather be campaigning and crowing rather than rolling up their sleeves and doing the hard work of convincing voters to pay more.
Unfortunately, unless someone legally or legislatively challenges the EO or we get a Republican governor, it might just be the price Coloradans have to pay for becoming East California.
We can’t be California on the cheap!