FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 17, 2022

CONTACT: Brooke Armour
(916) 553-4093

SACRAMENTO—Yesterday, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) issued its final Scoping Plan which creates a pathway toward carbon neutrality for California. While portrayed as a “plan,” broad ranging mandates from ARB will result from this 300-page document, which will have another significant impact on the California economy and family budgets.

The plan rightly includes important technologies like Carbon Capture. California companies continue to be leaders in investing in technologies to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. Technologies like carbon capture are an important part of the long-term solution to addressing carbon emissions capturing long term economic investment in California.

The plan ignores short-term, cost-effective solutions in favor of long-term, unproven aspirational goals. ARB—and the state’s—solution to reducing carbon emissions continues to focus on long-term, aspirational goals that focus solely on one resource-heavy and costly energy source—electricity. Instead of reducing carbon emissions now by investing in diversified technologies such as biodiesel and nuclear, which can use existing infrastructure at a reasonable cost to achieve significant carbon reductions.  Instead, the state continues to put all of its eggs in the long-term goal, which are significantly less likely to be achieved, especially given the lack of raw materials, reliance on unstable governments and foreign manufacturing, and instability in energy supplies. Electricity is a single technology solution; without a plan or investment in infrastructure, it will likely be unready for 2045 and beyond.

The plan will become the largest impediment to new affordable housing. As reported in the recent study, Anti-Housing CEQA Lawsuits Filed in 2020 Challenge Nearly 50% of California’s Annual Housing Production, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) continues to be a major barrier to new, affordable housing construction throughout the state. Increasingly, CEQA has been used to challenge and prevent critically needed infill development (a necessary component to reducing vehicle miles traveled), and the increased “goals” in the new Scoping Plan, will only exacerbate an already out-of-control housing crisis.

Most importantly, the plan represents a major cost increase for all Californians—with no plan or solution to pay for its ambition. Californians already pay the highest gas prices in the country, and California’s residential electricity prices remain the highest among the contiguous US, at 83% higher than the average for the rest of the US. As outlined in the October 2022 Energy Price Data report by the Center for Jobs and the Economy, the state’s regulations and policies are now costing California households and employers about $50 billion a year more for energy, compared to the average rates in other states, and far more compared to the lowest cost states. The Scoping Plan doubles down on these costly programs (whose costs are already going up without the additions of these further mandates) without addressing massive cost increases for working families and businesses.

The plan recognizes the threats posed by the state’s ongoing water crisis and wildfires, but includes no solutions to address either. The plan acknowledges that California can no longer rely on the annual snow pack to provide reliable and affordable water to California residents. Similarly, the plan acknowledges the impact of wildfires on greenhouse gas emissions. However, the plan provides no solutions to either crisis. A single wildfire can erase a year’s worth of carbon reduction from other sources—reductions paid for by increased costs on businesses and working families can all go up in smoke with one wildfire. Responsible forest management and significant investment in our water future are critically important and must be addressed.

The Scoping Plan is a California solution, not a global climate solution. Even if the plan is successful, and even if California achieved zero carbon emissions today, China and India combined are on course to replace that total six times by 2030, and that doesn't even begin to add in the rest of Asia, Africa, and Central/South America that hope to progress economically as well. No other state or nation has followed California. If we continue to create pathways that are unachievable and cost-prohibitive for other states and nations, we will fail at our goal to address global climate change.