With new leadership in the White House and re-election of a governor who has made clean energy a priority, will North Carolina pick up speed toward becoming the Green Roads State? Let's check the road map!
Among a number of environmental disappointments, President Trump began the process to roll back vehicle emission standards, including California’s authority to set its own vehicle emission standards, though now it's unlikely that these actions will come to fruition. In addition, under Trump, a federal tax credit for electric vehicles expired and the administration did nothing to promote an electric vehicle charging network, relying on states to lead on clean transportation.
When Joe Biden takes over the presidency in January 2021, he is expected to make several changes to support vehicle electrification. First, he supports providing consumers a $7,500 tax credit for buying an electric vehicle. And he has a plan to build 500,000 charging stations across the United States - a crucial component of connecting electric vehicles to the grid - as well as move the federal fleet procurement system toward 100 percent zero emission vehicles.
Biden also supports higher fuel economy standards. The timing of Trump’s final EPA rule on auto emissions may make it difficult to reverse course, but Biden’s administration could easily make its case for restoring Obama-era fuel efficiency rules that were to be in place until 2026. It remains to be seen how Biden plans to execute the reversal, but doing so would have a positive impact on climate change, air quality and transportation affordability.
In North Carolina, the climate and clean energy executive order Cooper announced two years ago (pictured) aims to increase the number of registered, zero-emission vehicles (EVs) in North Carolina to at least 80,000 by 2025. As of March 2020, North Carolina had 12,000 EVs registered, or 15 percent of the way toward the goal.
With driving down due to the pandemic, the N.C. Department of Transportation has seen a significant revenue decrease as income from motor fuels taxes, highway use taxes, and Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) fees. In turn, that's slowed progress toward the EV goal.
One bright spot is the partial approval the N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC) gave for Duke Energy’s pilot program to install EV charging stations across the state. Originally proposed at $76 million in April 2019, the final version includes only $25 million because the NCUC said Duke Energy failed to show why the full pilot program was needed.
In other positive news, of the total $31 million in Phase 1 VW Settlement funds, $3.4 million was allocated by the N.C. General Assembly to install DC fast charging across the state. And in mid-July, North Carolina signed on as one of 15 states pledging action to collectively get hundreds of thousands of zero-emission trucks and buses on U.S. roads.
Between Duke Energy's EV pilot program and the Biden charging network proposal, North Carolina could see a fair boost in its clean transportation infrastructure in the coming years - especially if we gain EV charging stations in each of our state parks.
The N.C. Sierra Club is committed to reducing carbon emissions in North Carolina and clean transportation is one of the most important ways forward. At the state and federal levels, we'll redouble our efforts in the coming four years to gain significant miles on this journey!