Gov. Gavin Newsom called for California to commit $6.1 billion this year toward creating a zero-emission vehicle infrastructure to clean up the air and reduce greenhouse gas being released to the atmosphere.
That would add to the $3.9 billion the state committed to last year, and is part of a plan to deploy $37.6 billion over the next few years to fundamentally change how transportation impacts on the environment. The new $6.1 billion commitment is part of Newsom's 2022-2023 state budget proposal.
“The future happens here first. We’re in the future business,” Newsom said at a press conference Wednesday.
California has been the tip of the spear in experiencing the effects of climate change, suffering through record heat waves, droughts, atmospheric rivers and extreme fire conditions, Newsom said.
He added that California is also the tip of the spear with climate change solutions, including his executive order in 2020 that mandates all new cars sold in California starting in 2035 be zero-emission vehicles.
Newsom said over half of the greenhouse gasses released in California come from either oil extraction or out of the tailpipe of a vehicle.
“You can’t be serious about lowering greenhouse gas without improving transportation,” he said.
“Companies won’t come here unless the state invests the money into the industry,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat from Menlo Park, who spoke at the press conference, which was outdoors in the parking lot of Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) Ford Greenfield Labs campus in Palo Alto.
“The future is electric, and we’re making it easier and cheaper than ever before to go electric. That means more assistance to help folks buy clean cars and more charging stations in more communities throughout the state,” Newsom said. “California is eliminating our dependence on oil and providing a blueprint for the entire world on how to aggressively fight the climate crisis while growing the state’s clean energy economy.”
He said clean transportation must also be accessible to all, and he said the state’s Clean Cars 4 All program will get $605 million in rebates for low-income residents to acquire electric cars or zero-emission vehicles.
“To achieve California's climate goals, we must focus on the needs of the most polluted and underserved neighborhoods,” said Alvaro Sanchez, vice president of policy at The Greenlining Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for more inclusive and sustainable economic policies. “We must do more to address the underinvestment” in low-income communities of color, Sanchez said.
