Comment Log Display

Dear California Air Resources Board,

We must preserve our  planet NOW! 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 IMMEDIATELY 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. 

We must have sensible policy. 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,
Janet Bergamo
Piru, CA 93040