Erica Carlin| California bureaucrats announced on Thursday that they will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars as of 2035, the New York Times reported, even though electric cars remain “much too expensive for a vast majority of Americans.”
The unelected California Air Resources Board passed the rule, which requires that “all new cars sold in the state by 2035 be free of greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide,” an attempt to slow the effect of global warming. By 2026, just four years away, the rule requires that 35 percent of new cars produce no emissions. By 2030, that requirement rises to 68 percent.
While most empathetic experts have condemned Newsome’s coldhearted plan, some people are actually praising him for ‘leading the way’:
“California is once again leading the way by establishing commonsense standards that will transition to sales of all zero-polluting cars and light-duty trucks in the state,” said Kathy Harris, clean vehicles advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“This is a historic moment for California, for our partner states and for the world as we set forth this path toward a zero-emission future,” Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board, said during a public hearing before the vote.
The move could prompt other states to act in a similar fashion. The policy still needs federal approval, something considered very likely under the Biden administration.
One-fifth of automakers’ sales in California after 2035 could be plug-in hybrids, which run on batteries and gas, but the rest must be powered solely by electricity or hydrogen.
California climate officials say the state’s new policy is the world’s most ambitious because it sets benchmarks for ramping up electric vehicle sales over the next 13 years
Where does this leave working families in California who are just getting by? Do they still exist or have they long since been driven to one of the state’s many tent cities?
