‘Catching the Wave’ of Transportation Energy Change

It’s Time to Paddle Hard: Clean and Energy Efficient Transportation Technologies Are Needed Now

Look at the rising tide: California’s AB 32 – the Global Warming Solutions Act; Governor Schwarzenneger’s Low-Carbon Fuel executive order; The federal Renewable Fuel Standard; The CalSTEP Action Plan; Seven climate change bills in Congress.

Everywhere you look, a growing wave of serious work is building to address the need to reduce our climate impact through fundamentally cleaner and more efficient ways to power our economy, our mobility and our lives. The best scientific data suggests overwhelmingly that we have a limited time in which to act.

We must pay particular attention to mobility. Nationwide, transportation accounts for a third of global warming emissions. But in California, and in most urban regions, that number is as high 41 percent of the total. We will never reverse climate change or clean our air if we do not improve our vehicle technology and diversify our fuels.

This rising sea of concern is impressive and seems like an unstoppable flood of change. But it is incumbent on us all to make sure this concerned talk really turns into concerted action. And with so much activity in California, it’s fitting to use surfing language to define where we are: we have to start paddling harder to catch and ride this wave.

Just look on any resource shelf of any library and you’ll find the dusty remains of hundreds of past studies, reports and recommendations that have each warned us of the need for transportation change – and the way to achieve it. Each one was well researched and each one hoped to be the vanguard of a shift in behavior. Most sit waiting.

We cannot afford to miss the timing of this current wave or we risk it also passing us by. We must seize this timing to put meaningful actions into motion, including significant public and private investments over the next decade that lead to a new mix of fuels and vehicle technologies by 2020.

That’s why CALSTART and a coalition of over 45 green tech businesses are actively supporting the Clean and Energy Efficient Transportation Technology (CEETT) Assembly Bill 118 (AB 118) in California. Much of the CEETT bill’s framework comes directly out of the CalSTEP Action Plan and one of its ten recommended actions (see story page 1), the Clean and Energy Efficient Transportation Technology (CEETT) program. CEETT calls for a ten-year, $150-million a year investment in California’s transportation future to diversify its fuels and greatly increase efficiency of its vehicles.

California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and his staff reviewed CEETT as they developed their AB 118 incentive legislation this session. AB 118 is built on spurring innovation and partnership. It encourages investments in both research and development activities, and as well as vehicle and fuel infrastructure deployment. It envisions a portfolio of diverse, qualifying approaches with near- to medium-term commercial potential, including advanced hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles, efficient propulsion systems, light-weight materials, low carbon fuel development, and in-state renewable-fuel production. It is structured to do for energy efficiency and fuel diversity what the successful Moyer program in California has cost-effectively done for emission reductions.

We support this forward-thinking legislation. Indeed, we’re pleased that almost all of the CalSTEP recommendations are being used by thoughtful policy-makers as possible actions to take. Our goal is to help these leaders take the next steps to action. We welcome additional partners to join us in powering this timely effort – because we cannot afford to miss the timing on this critical wave.