Comment Log Display

Dear California Air Resources Board,

As a longtime California resident I find your proposed amendments
to California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard to be a climate policy
failure that backslides on the state's role as a climate leader.
The program subsidizes combustion fuels to the tune of billions of
dollars per year and has no place in our toolkit of climate
policies for the 2020s. There is too much on the line for our
climate to get this critical program so wrong. 

Governor Newsom's budget proposes significant delays and cuts of
hundreds of millions of dollars to vital zero-emission
transportation programs, which makes it all the more urgent to use
the Low Carbon Fuel Standard to more fully support zero-emissions
transportation. Historically, California has thrown good money
after bad, and devoted 80% of the LCFS's $3 to 4 billion each and
every year to combustion technology. It would be irresponsible to
allow these funds to continue to languish on the climate sidelines,
instead of anchoring our transition to a zero-emissions future. 

The world has changed a lot since the implementation of the LCFS in
2009. Unlike the 2000s, we have a north star goal for our climate
and the air we breathe: zero emissions transportation.  Continuing
to invest the billions in revenue from the LCFS into harmful and
polluting biofuels that end up combusted, instead of electric
vehicles powered by clean energy, hampers our efforts to fight the
climate crisis while enriching oil companies and industrial
agriculture. 

I urge you to correct your course and modernize the program by
reflecting your consensus that the only way to meet air quality
standards is through eliminating combustion altogether, not piling
on billions of dollars in lavish incentives for combustion each and
every year. By focusing on real air pollution solutions, you could
add a clean air multiplier to the credits system, especially for
public fleets that transport many people at once, would deliver
major benefits for California's air quality and throw a lifeline to
cash-strapped transit agencies that low-income Californians depend
on for mobility. 

California has been a leader when it comes to the climate crisis.
If this is allowed to go forward it is not only a breach of trust
but a setback for the citizens of California and indeed the world.
We cannot meet our clean air and climate goals without harnessing
the power of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and overhauling this
multibillion-dollar program for our zero emissions future. 

Please act urgently and expeditiously to reform the program to
achieve our state's ambitious goals.

Sincerely,
Cassandra Pierson
6320 Canoga Ave Ste 1300  Woodland Hills, CA 91367-2600