Re: California Moves toward phasing out gas-fueled vehicles
To the editor: Thank you for your detailed article on the California Air Resources Board decision to phase out sales of gas-powered automobiles. The ridiculous pushback from Western States Petroleum Board was to be expected. Hopefully, many more states will follow California’s lead which will serve to further accelerate the auto industry’s conversion to electric vehicles.
August 2022 will go down in history as the most momentous month for the environment. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act which included $369 billion in climate legislation followed by California’s EV decision shows that our governments are finally taking climate change seriously. As a bonus, the drafters of the IRA included language giving the EPA authority to regulate carbon emissions which the Supreme Court recently ruled was missing from previous legislation.
The piece of legislation that is still missing in our climate arsenal is a national tax on carbon emissions. California has had a carbon pricing program in place for years, as have most European countries. It’s time for Congress to follow the advice of its own economists and enact legislation placing a fee on fossil fuels that is, in turn, refunded to consumers.
Barry Engelman, Santa Monica