Pushing back against the expected bill to phase out the sale of new gasoline powered cars under California’s emissions standards, Connecticut Senate Republicans offered a plan for a “cleaner and greener” Connecticut, which includes switching from California’s emissions standards to the less stringent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards.
“It is possible to make Connecticut both cleaner and greener, and it is possible to do that without onerous government mandates which hurt our most vulnerable residents; mandates like the one which made headlines across Connecticut all last week,” Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly said during a press conference. “Our better way solutions are realistic, reasonable and, most importantly, achievable.”
Among those ideas are making more fuel-efficient vehicles like hybrids available for tax credits, utilizing federal infrastructure dollars to reduce traffic congestion, investments in recycling infrastructure, and ensuring environmental fees paid on vehicle registrations go to environmental uses rather than to the General Fund.
But much of the discussion and plan is focused on the upcoming battle over electric vehicles and the California regulations that would require all new vehicles sold in the state to be zero emission vehicles by 2035.
“What it comes down to here is that the policy that has been brought to us by California to ban the sale of electric [gasoline] vehicles in the state over the span of a decade is impractical, it’s impossible policy. Even more so than that, it’s unaffordable,” said Sen. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, and ranking member of the General Assembly’s Environment Committee. “It’s essentially telling the residents of the state that we in government know better than them.”
Republicans and other organizations across the state have pushed back on Connecticut adopting California’s emission standards. Gov. Ned Lamont was forced to pull the regulation from the Regulation Review Committee after the administration learned it would fail to pass and plans for a special session to pass the regulation by a General Assembly vote were likewise scrapped, despite the overwhelming Democrat majority.
The Lamont administration’s environmental policies have become a point of contention over the years starting with an ill-fated push for highway tolls in 2019 and 2020, followed by a push for a cap-and-trade system for oil producers called the Transportation Climate Initiative in 2021. Both measures failed to gain enough public or political support.
The California emissions standards are a slightly different story, the legislature voted to adopt California’s standards rather than federal standards in 2008 and has since been following them, but California’s latest move has proven a bridge too far for many, and time is of the essence. Vehicle manufacturers need a three-year head start on emission standards and if Connecticut cannot decide whether to adopt the full California standards by end of session, the state may be forced to revert to the federal standards.
Saying they support electric vehicles, but not a mandate, part of the Senate Republicans’ plan includes developing more charging infrastructure with federal dollars.
“This is actual practical policy. What is trying to be done in a ban is impractical at the moment, as we sit here today the plan cannot be rolled out and there’s no answers to the plan,” Harding continued, referring the California standards.
Kelly said their plan had the support of number of business associations who opposed the electric vehicle mandate, including the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, and the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, as well as other associations who have been less vocal about the EV mandate like the Food Association, the DATTCO bus company and beer wholesalers.
Transportation emissions account for 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and are hindering Connecticut’s goal of reducing emissions to 45 percent below 2001 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below 2001 levels by 2050.
According to a DEEP presentation on greenhouse gas emissions, improved vehicle efficiency has been offset by people driving more and GHG emissions from transportation remain at roughly 1990 levels.
Although the number of electric vehicles on Connecticut’s roads and the number of charging stations has increased, EVs still only account for less than 1.5 percent of registered light-duty vehicles in the state as of 2023. EV purchases are dominated by Tesla models, which are not allowed to be sold in Connecticut because Tesla doesn’t use a car dealership model, although the company has begun selling their vehicles on tribal lands.
As the minority party, Republicans will likely face an uphill battle in getting their plan before a committee, however, as similar plans involving healthcare have rarely been brought forward for committee votes.
Connecticut Democrats are reportedly working on an updated plan to adopt the California standard. Some states, like Colorado, have partially implemented California’s standards without mandating all new vehicles be zero emission by 2035.
“We will continue our grassroots efforts to take this issue outside from under this capitol dome, outside to the streets and communities across our state of Connecticut because this issue is that important,” Kelly said.
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They just don’t take ideas from the public anymore. Only from lobbyists, big players like unions & large organizations. The US has a totally irrelevant law-making body.