California Hopes to Pave Way with Emissions Law Gov. Davis says "Greenhouse Gas" Bill to be signed today "is an example for others to follow"

July 22, 2002 (from the Sacramento Bee)

Gov. Gray Davis today plans to sign a bill making California the first state to regulate vehicle exhausts linked to global warming -- atmospheric change that threatens to shrink water supplies, raise sea levels and worsen wildfires.

The new law will require automakers to reduce climate-altering gases from cars, minivans, passenger trucks and sport-utility vehicles sold in California, beginning with 2009 models.

Proponents are counting on other states and, perhaps, countries following California's lead in reducing the global threat. "It is a good beginning and a good example for others to follow," Davis said Friday, confirming his intention to sign the bill.

A June poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows 81 percent of Californians favor the bill. Automakers and other opponents argue that the changes needed to reduce emissions will render the larger pickups and SUVs unaffordable to many consumers.

State air regulators said they envision rules ranging from smoother-rolling tires that cut friction and gas consumption to accelerated production of the low-polluting hybrid gasoline-electric cars and SUVs. Proponents contend that most of the changes will improve driving performance and yield fuel savings that will more than offset the extra costs of the pollution controls.

"Time after time California has proven that improving the environment is consistent with improving the economy, and this bill is part of that legacy," said Russell Long, executive director of the Bluewater Network, an environmental group based in the Bay Area that initiated the bill.

The legislation is unprecedented in that it broadens the scope of vehicle emissions regulation beyond pollutants shown to cause direct harm to people, such as cancer-causing diesel soot and smog.

The "greenhouse gas" bill before Davis targets carbon dioxide, methane and other auto emissions that are not hazardous to breathe but are believed by most scientists to trap the Earth's heat, like the glass panels of a greenhouse. This "greenhouse effect" raises the atmospheric temperature, which can lead to changes in sea levels, water supplies, crop production, disease and wildfires.

The legislative debate leading to the bill's slim passage showed how the controversy over global climate change has shifted. The big oil and coal industry campaigns to block the Clinton administration from signing the international Kyoto treaty to curb greenhouse gases torpedoed the premise that most global warming observed in the past 50 years is caused by human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and cars.

In the California debate, by contrast, none of the opposing interest groups -- automakers and dealers, chambers of commerce and the farm lobby -- challenged the evidence of human-induced climate change. "Most scientists, including some Nobel laureates who will be with us Monday, believe global warming is no longer theory; it is a scientific reality. And the scientific community believes it is urgent that we act," Davis said in announcing bill-signing ceremonies scheduled today in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

That said, the measure by Democratic Assemblywoman Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills was the most contested bill in the legislative session. It cleared the Senate last month by one vote. In a big-money campaign of broadcast and newspaper ads, opponents cast the bill as a ploy by utopian Sacramento bureaucrats to force Californians out of their coveted SUVs and minivans into smaller, less-safe vehicles. "I'm scared to death, and you should be too," America's most televised car salesman, Cal Worthington, warned in ads by the California Motor Car Dealers Association.

The only way to lower carbon dioxide exhausts, unlike other vehicle gases, is to cut fuel consumption. That fact led opponents to suggest that air pollution regulators would raise gas taxes, impose fees per miles driven and lower speed limits. The state Air Resources Board, which regulates auto emissions, does not have the power to impose any such controls. Pavley amended the bill to make that clear.

Much of the media coverage and debate on the bill have focused on its consequences to consumers, not the threat of global warming to California -- much to the frustration of state environmental officials. "Please, do me a favor," implored state Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Winston Hickox, addressing a press briefing Friday. "Ask something about the consequences to California's economy and its watersheds."

Cal-EPA officials explained how a slight rise in the Earth's temperature would shrink the Sierra snowpack, a critical source of California's water supplies. "I don't understand why there aren't a whole lot of people in the Central Valley that aren't seriously concerned about this problem and its consequence to them rather than worrying about whether they can buy a pickup in six years," Hickox said.

Opponents argued it was foolhardy for a single state to try to control a planetary problem at the expense of its consumers. The bill's supporters -- including many cities, municipal water and power utilities and green-minded entrepreneurs -- make no pretense that the California mandate alone will have any measurable effect on global warming. The state generates less than 1 percent of the world's human-generated carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

California, however, has pioneered several automotive emission controls, such as unleaded gasoline and catalytic converters now standard in the United States and other developed countries. "Some members of some industries view these regulations in California as a cancer -- if you don't kill it here, it will spread throughout the country," said James Boyd, former executive director of the air board and a Davis appointee on the state Energy Commission. "That explains the viciousness of the campaign against the bill," Boyd said.

Hickox said some Northeast states have indicated they would put in bills similar to California's. The California bill directs the state air board to adopt by 2005 regulations that achieve "the maximum feasible reduction of greenhouse gases emitted by passenger vehicles." It does not numerically set the amount of greenhouse gas reduction to be achieved, nor does it specify how to attain it.

The air board, composed of 11 appointees of Davis and former Gov. Pete Wilson, would make those determinations. Board officials said they would hold extensive public hearings and consultations with auto industry and environmental representatives. The regulations would not take effect before 2006, giving the Legislature a year to amend the law if it wishes.

Though automakers and dealers vehemently opposed the legislation -- and nearly killed it -- state officials predicted the industry will end up touting the environmental controls in sales pitches, much as air bags are promoted today. "Unfortunately, there is a sad history of denial by the auto industry of the ability to produce (pollution-cutting) technology that has proven to be not true when the rubber meets the road," Boyd said.