by Katy Grimes, E&E Legal Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As Appearing in the California Globe

Unreliable solar and wind power, electric vehicles, and other things that just don’t make sense

People are so bombarded with one narrative on “clean vehicles” and “climate change” that many are unaware that there are alternative clean energy sources, or automobile options other than electric vehicles, including clean, technologically efficient gasoline-powered cars that don’t generate carbon dioxide. Mazda says it is developing a car that would be cleaner to run than an all-electric vehicle. But these exciting developments get few headlines.

How did we get here?

In California, this all started with AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which initially set a 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal into law.

“In recognition to the threat to our environment, human health, and human society posed by global warming, California enacted AB 32 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly by 2020,” the 2006 committee analysis said. “ARB indicates that reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 means completely altering the types of cars Californians drive, and the fuels we use.”

However, as it was evident California would reach the 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by about 2013, the CARB moved the goalposts by creating a plan to rid the state of 85 percent of its 22 million internal combustion engine vehicles by 2050 through implementation of its Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which took effect in 2011 and requires a reduction in “carbon intensity” in all fuel.

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