The March to Raise EV Fees Comes to California
CEQA Loophole Threatens the Environment and Public Health
AB 1414: Making Solar an Attainable Goal for More Californians
Create a Conservation Conversation
The March to Raise EV Fees Comes to California
By Kathryn Phillips
Negotiations on legislation to raise money to fix California’s transportation system—from its crumbling roads and pot-holed highways to its transit systems—have taken an odd turn for electric vehicles (EV).
On the table is a proposal that has lately been promoted in other states by oil companies and the organizations they fund: charging annual fees to drive battery electric vehicles.
As a number of outlets have reported, including Car & Driver, the New York Times, and a blog by Sierra Club’s own EV policy expert Gina Coplon-Newfield, about 10 states have adopted annual EV fees. This year at least half a dozen others are considering EV fees.
And now there’s California.
Two transportation infrastructure bills, SB 1 by Senator Jim Beall, and AB 1 by Assemblymember Jim Frazier, each include annual EV fees. The Beall bill proposes $100 a year, plus cost adjustments for inflation. The Frazier bill proposes $165 a year, plus cost adjustments for inflation.
Frazier’s bill isn’t moving for now, but the Beall bill has moved through three committees in the Senate and it appears it is informing the behind-the-scenes infrastructure package negotiations.
Senator Beall is no toady to the oil industry. He was unsuccessfully targeted by Big Oil in his last election because he’s a good vote on clean air and climate change. That’s what makes his proposal to do an EV fee challenging.
The argument Beall makes for an EV fee has to do with worries about how to raise money to pay for roads as EVs become more popular. He says that EVs should be sharing the cost for maintaining roads, a cost partly covered by taxes charged on gasoline and diesel fuel. Since EVs don’t pay those fuel taxes, they need to pay directly, and Beall believes $100 is a reasonable compromise since some at the legislature are asking that the EV fee be even higher.
Clean air advocates, including Sierra Club California, have agreed that ensuring that all vehicles help pay for infrastructure makes sense. But how much and when to pay is at issue, and the current proposal for a flat fee that is arbitrarily set is the wrong answer.
Specifically, an annual $100 per EV, before EVs have gotten a strong foothold in the auto market, will provide one more reason for people to be discouraged from purchasing EVs, particularly in the used car market. Also, the arbitrary fee level is not calculated to make sure it is logical and consistent with the state’s goals to encourage consumers to buy zero-emission vehicles.
Under the proposed approach in SB 1, it is actually possible for a fuel-efficient gasoline- or diesel-fueled car to spend less on gas taxes than the EV annual fee. (I know this because gas taxes for my commuter car add up to less than $100 a year.)
EV drivers do pay local utility taxes when they charge their vehicles, and some of those taxes go to maintaining local roads. On the larger issue of paying for the other infrastructure (like freeways) that EVs use, clean air advocates have proposed a solution.
As we wrote in a recent letter to Senator Beall and Assemblymember Frazier, that solution includes extending “a motor-fuels tax on an energy-equivalent basis to all transportation fuels to ensure that all users pay their fair share while retaining the incentive for consumers to buy more efficient vehicles of various types and to drive them efficiently.”
Coming up with the right way to calculate that tax will likely take longer than the next few weeks that the legislature has set to get its transportation infrastructure bill sewed up. So the first thing to do is take the EV fee out of the bill.
That way, California won’t inadvertently line up with other states whose EV fee policies are promoted by the forces that want to continue oil dependence.
And given that EVs still make up a small portion of the overall vehicle population here, removing the fee today won’t have a significant impact on revenue in the infrastructure bill.
You can help stop the EV fee by calling your state senator and assemblymember now and telling them to work to stop the EV fee. You can find who represents you in the state senate and assembly, and how to reach them, here.
CEQA Loophole Threatens the Environment and Health
By Kyle Jones
Two years ago, the California Supreme Court rendered a decision that has been a gift to developers of giant, unpopular projects and allowed them to slip through another loophole in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Now a legislator has come forward with legislation to tighten that loophole back up and give the public and the environment more consideration.
The bill, Assembly Bill 890, authored by Assemblymember Jose Medina, would restore the requirement that big projects do environmental reviews.
The bill responds to the aftermath of the California Supreme Court ruling in August 2014 that local government can collude with developers to bypass environmental review by using election law. In the case, Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court of Tuolumne County, the Supreme Court held that developers can avoid CEQA’s environmental review by qualifying a project for the ballot and having a friendly city council vote to allow the project outright—no CEQA, no ballot, just unmitigated pollution.
To take advantage of the loophole, developers are only required to collect the signatures of 20% of the voters in a county, or 10% of voters in a city during the last gubernatorial election, a negligible amount of signatures given that these elections tend to have lower turnouts than presidential elections.
CEQA requires state and local agencies to publicly disclose information about the environmental impacts of proposed development projects and to propose and adopt measures that would reduce any negative impacts. CEQA was designed to make protecting the environment a requirement for all development projects.
The loophole allows for developers to build without disclosing and lessening their impacts, meaning new projects can pollute air and water without alerting residents. The ultimate burden of dealing with these problems will be borne by the public, not the responsible parties.
Asm. Medina has witnessed the effects of the loophole in his district in Southern California’s Moreno Valley. There, the World Logistics Center project has already exploited the loophole and, when complete, will add 68,000 vehicle trips, including 14,000 trucks a day, which would generate as much as two tons of emissions in an area already suffering from some of the worst air pollution in the nation.
The court-created CEQA loophole must be closed to protect public health and the environment. Sierra Club staff and volunteers are working to help AB 890 become law.
AB 1414: Making Solar an Attainable Goal for More Californians
By Edward Moreno
California’s legislature is preparing to consider making a temporary good idea a permanent fix to encourage broader rooftop solar adoption.
In 2013, Senator Mark Leno, with the aid of some of our expert Sierra Club members, including Kurt Newick, took on the issue of unchecked permitting fees associated with the installation of rooftop solar systems with Senate Bill 1222.
These building permit fees, assessed by cities and counties, generally pay for the cost of the project plan examination and on-site inspection. But back in 2013 it was clear that the fees had become exorbitant and a barrier for broader adoption of solar energy in certain areas of the state, especially in low-income communities.
SB 1222 prohibited a city or county from charging an unreasonable permit fee, placing the cap at $500, unless it could be demonstrated that a higher fee was needed to cover costs of service. However, this solar customer protection is set to expire in 2018.
Sierra Club and a number of solar energy advocates are now working with Assemblymember Laura Friedman to extend the protection. Her AB 1414, would continue to require a cap on permit fees associated with residential and commercial photovoltaic solar power installations indefinitely. The bill would also lower the existing permit fee cap from $500 to $350 for residential installations and protect solar thermal and ground-mounted photovoltaic installations from unchecked permitting fees as well.
Nearly 4.7 million homes have gone solar in California and the number continues to rise. As improvements in solar technology drive costs down, the “soft costs,” including permitting fees, remain high accounting for 53% of a typical residential solar system price tag. By establishing a permanent permit fee cap and reducing the existing permit fee cap, these projects become more affordable and ultimately increase access to solar power across income levels.
Greater access, especially in disadvantaged communities where there is great potential for adoption of solar power, will drive California closer to meeting renewable energy and climate goals.
Create a Conservation Conversation
By Meg Gunderson
Who doesn’t enjoy a robust conversation with friends? Especially if it involves some food and beverages in a comfy living room or on a shaded patio.
And if the conversation revolved around the latest successes to protect California’s air, water, land and wildlife, you would feel energized by the end of the evening.
You can have an evening like this by helping organize house parties for Sierra Club California. It’s a relatively easy way to do something invaluable to keep California in the forefront of exceptional efforts to preserve our environment and make a contribution to stopping climate disruption.
We need a volunteer to help put on enjoyable events where party attendees hear about the latest environmental issues at the state Capitol and how they impact our energy, air, water, and natural areas. The house parties occur at various times throughout the year in various locations statewide.
The house party volunteer would work with the house party hosts and fundraising team, over a period of six to eight weeks, to deliver invitations and follow-up with potential attendees and assist with party preparations.
We need a volunteer who is personable and detail-oriented; event planning experience is a plus. Most of the work can be done on a computer or phone.
If this opportunity appeals to you, please contact me, Meg Gunderson, at meg.gunderson@sierraclub.org.
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