California weighs next steps if emissions caps rolled back

CHICAGO — Even as California professes optimism in its legal fight against President Donald Trump’s rollback of tailpipe emissions limits, the state is eyeing a fallback plan that could test how much its residents are willing to sacrifice to fight climate change.

Trump has proposed gutting the state’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas discharges from cars and trucks. State officials say that if he succeeds, they could take other steps to make gasolinepowered cars costlier to operate and to restrict their access to California highways, while at the same time of-

fering even bigger subsidies and other perks for batterypowered vehicles.

“We’re looking at other ways to reduce pollution by regulating either the purchase or use of cars and light trucks that don’t involve setting standards on the vehicles themselves,” said Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board. “That could be a whole bunch of things. Limits on registrations. Fees and taxes.”

The only impediment would be persuading residents to foot the bill. So far, 60 percent of the state’s likely voters think emissions standards should go higher, even though most expect that fighting climate change will increase gasoline prices, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last month. Slightly more than half say they’d pay more for electricity from renewable sources.

“We’ve been tracking how people feel about reducing greenhouse gases during very good economic times and very bad times,” Mark Baldassare, the institute’s director, said. “We’ve seen consistent

results, so this is one area where public opinions in California are settled.”

But the state never gets a blank check, Baldassare said. A case in point is a Republican-backed initiative on the November ballot to revoke a recent 12-cent-per-gallon increase in gasoline taxes, plus higher fees on diesel engines and vehicle registrations. The proceeds would be earmarked for road building, but so far the vote is too close to call, Baldassare said.

“People are conflicted,” he said. “The desire to cut taxes is pretty much an instinct lots of voters have. But traffic is also bad, and they want something done about the roads.”

On Aug. 2, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency proposed capping federal fuel economy requirements at a fleet average of 37 miles per gallon starting in 2020. Under Barack Obama-era mandates, the average would have risen to roughly 47 mpg by 2025. This fuel economy freeze would cap emissions standards, too. The agencies also proposed revoking California’s authority to set greenhouse gas limits more stringent than the federal government’s, and to require

the sale of electric cars.

California, 16 other states and the District of Columbia have already filed a lawsuit challenging the rollback’s scientific underpinnings. State officials promised another lawsuit if Trump finalizes his plan to eliminate the state’s ability to set tougher greenhouse gas regulations than federal standards.

Nichols said she’s optimistic about the state’s legal position. But she also described her fallback plan of limiting registrations or adjusting fees.

“These are all tools governments can use. They’re less effective and politically acceptable, but they do exist,” Nichols said.

Nichols is banking on a deep reservoir of support for the state’s clean air policies. Two out of three California adults — including all income and education groups — say climate change is extremely or very important to them personally, Baldassare said. This compares to one out of two in a nationwide ABC News poll in June, and it’s a difference that reflects the routine exposure of Californians to droughts, wildfires and triple-digit temperatures, he said.

In other poll responses, 62 percent of likely California

voters say they want the state to set its own climate change policies, not the federal government, and half say these will result in more jobs for the state. Fifty-three percent say they approve of California Gov. Jerry Brown’s handling of environmental issues, or double the rating for Trump.

But it has been only 15 years since Californians chased Democratic Gov. Gray Davis from office in a recall. He didn’t help himself by tripling car registration fees less than 10 days before the vote.

The practical challenges of enacting such policies will be magnified, at least initially, when Brown, 80, leaves office in January after serving as California’s governor longer than anyone else. Nichols, 73, recently had her term as head of the Air Resources Board extended until 2020, but she has said publicly she’ll stay only if the next governor wants her.

“Whoever wins, we’ll be going from a governor who’s had four terms to one who hasn’t even been in office one day,” Baldassare said. “There will be a steep learning curve in terms of working with the Legislature.