Comment Log Display

Dear California Air Resources Board,

Your proposed amendments to California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard
are 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 wild 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 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 expeditiously to reform the program to achieve
our state's ambitious goals.

Sincerely,
Terence Leach
Amado, AZ 85645