Politico (California Climate): Sacramento’s next big climate fight
By Blanca Begert, Wes Venteicher, and Alex Nieves
GIVE US THE WAIVER: Sen. Alex Padilla used the release of EPA’s new tailpipe emissions rules today to double down on his call for the agency to approve California’s clean cars waiver.
Padilla, along with fellow Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), urged EPA to greenlight the state’s pending Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, “which more than a dozen states have also adopted and will further drive the adoption of zero-emission vehicles,” they said in a statement.
California’s plan mandates all new vehicles sold in the state be zero emission by 2035, while EPA’s estimates under its rules that 68 percent of new cars sold in 2032 will be EVs.
Padilla, Sen. Laphonza Butler and 24 House members wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan last month pushing his agency to allocate more resources toward approving the waivers, which give California regulators a unique ability to enforce their stricter-than-federal emissions standards.
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