ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Bring more to Colo. with ZEV policy

There are two compelling reasons for Colorado to join California and nine other states in mandating auto manufacturers to sell more zero-emission vehicles: climate change and air quality.

Pretending that both don’t pose a significant threat to Coloradans’ quality of life now and in the future is to willfully disregard science at the expense of human health and the environment. Zero-emission vehicle standards won’t solve these problems and, certainly, they won’t help overnight. Rather, this is one piece of a complex puzzle that must be put together to address air quality and greenhouse gases.

Transitioning our combustion engine vehicles to electric cars that get their energy from large-scale power plants that burn coal and gas more efficiently is an important puzzle piece. Increasingly, utility companies are finding ways to switch to renewable energy sources, too, making electric vehicles even cleaner. Zero-emission vehicle standards will mean a wider variety of electric vehicles for sale in our state and more on the road.

The Front Range is out of compliance with federal air quality standards, due in part to tailpipe emissions that create ground-level ozone on hot days. Ozone can not only exacerbate the health problems of existing asthma patients, but long-term, high-level exposure also can cause asthma and lung damage. We must respond.

In 1990, California responded to its smog problem with a suite of laws. Over time, it has amended those laws, and nine other states have adopted its policies through Section 177 of the Clean Air Act. The Air Quality Control Commission in Colorado is on the verge of adopting the zero-emission vehicle standards.

To be clear, this plan has flaws. If California were to make drastic changes to the standards, we would then be forced to either also make those substantial changes or drop the program. (And vehicle manufacturers that have invested money to come into compliance with the rule might not take that kindly.)

We don’t like ceding our authority to California, and we think it’s time that California looks long and hard at creating an adopting states’ advisory panel that has a significant influence in the future of these rules. It’s a fair way to approach this broken system. The good news is that small changes to the system — those that don’t impact the nature of the original federal waiver that California was granted — won’t be forced on Colorado.

The law also obfuscates the true cost of implementation. We like public policies in which a direct line can be drawn between cost and benefit. In this instance, it’ll cost auto manufacturers more to comply whether they are pricing their electric vehicles to sell more or they are buying credits from other manufacturers to comply. But those costs are hidden.

Colorado should mandate that the price of zero-emission vehicle credits sold between auto manufacturers be made public every year so that we can track the cost of implementing this policy. The benefit will be easy to track. We’ll know the program is working if electric vehicle sales increase rapidly in this state.

It’s true that the standards are not perfect.

However, they remain our only option. As the Trump administration continues to unwind federal efforts to curb emissions, we think the pros of adopting this policy now outweigh its cons.