Bloomberg: California Considers Following China with ICE Ban

[McRat]

It doesn't matter. What matters:
(0) Being happy is good
(1) Pollution makes people unhappy
(2) Personal mobility makes people happy
(3) Freedom to choose makes people happy

What matters is whether and at what point the unhappiness caused by a free choice outweigh the happiness caused by free choice.

The obvious extreme hypothetical example would be vehicle A and vehicle B that differ only in that A produces more pollution than B. Should A be allowed to be sold?
If not, what difference must there be between A and B to allow A to be sold?

Just out of curiousity, did you ever have days where it hurt to breathe due to smog? Do you remember hearing the death counts on the news? No PE classes at school, some airports would close, 'temperature inversion' was like a tornado warning?

People who think air pollution is the critical issue of our times in the USA should have been alive back then. GHG are the issue today, not air quality. Air quality continues to improve. Seriously. With virtually no EVs on the road.

 

[nwdiver]

I'll admit, I'm not EV religious. I drive EV by choice. It is highly unlikely I'll become technology religious.

You're definitely 'free market' religious....

Some folk scoffed at HDTV: "no programming, no broadcast TV, too much bandwidth, a solution looking for a problem, too expensive, screen burn-in, etc". Now I'm digging the 4k clarity that makes HDTV seem primitive.

Technology always progresses. There is no reason to be a Luddite. It creates both problems and solutions in equal amounts it seems.

What eventually drove the HDTV switch over? The FCC. It wasn't the invisible hand that made digital television ubiquitous. It was the government.

 

[McRat]

You're definitely 'free market' religious....



What eventually drove the HDTV switch over? The FCC. It wasn't the invisible hand that made digital television ubiquitous. It was the government.

Really? We haven't watched conventional broadcast TV in well over 20 years. Our house is 20 years old and nobody in our area has a TV antenna.

 

[nwdiver]

Really? We haven't watched conventional broadcast TV in well over 20 years. Our house is 20 years old and nobody in our area has a TV antenna.

Norco, Ca isn't exactly representative of the US...

 

[mspohr]

Really? We haven't watched conventional broadcast TV in well over 20 years. Our house is 20 years old and nobody in our area has a TV antenna.

HDTV is on conventional broadcast as well as cable. The reason: FCC

 

[McRat]

HDTV is on conventional broadcast as well as cable. The reason: FCC

The FCC was providing guidance for an orderly digital changeover that was technology driven. The FCC didn't invent digital TV, they provided rules for its use.

From the linked article: "The new rules prohibit any further analog-to-digital switchovers until April 16 and require stations to air viewer notifications for at least 30 days before they cut their analog signals."

So they had to alter the rules to slow down the changeover temporarily.

This is kind of like what Jerry Brown is doing today. Slowing down the changeover.

 

[Skotty]

Incentives should promote the better, but honestly, I'm kind of against flat out bans unless absolutely necessary. Due to the slow inertia of climate change, we need to act now. But also due to the slow inertia of climate change, banning ICE's is a bit premature.

On that note, I heard about banning plastic disposable straws at restaurants? Again, overkill. Don't ban them. Just come up with some regulations to ensure they are recyclable and that they get recycled, maybe? I have to admit, the environmentalist mob is far less annoying and offensive than some of the other culture mobs, but it's still a mob. Be less mobby.

 

[nwdiver]

Incentives should promote the better, but honestly, I'm kind of against flat out bans unless absolutely necessary. Due to the slow inertia of climate change, we need to act now. But also due to the slow inertia of climate change, banning ICE's is a bit premature.

It's not really a ban on ICE... it's a ban on NEW ICE... there's plenty of used cars out there. If Cuba could get along without importing new cars for ~50 years I think the US make the used car market work for a few decades. We should have stopped building non-EVs years ago... the first rule of holes is to stop digging.

 

[McRat]

It's not really a ban on ICE... it's a ban on NEW ICE... there's plenty of used cars out there. If Cuba could get along without importing new cars for ~50 years I think the US make the used car market work for a few decades. We should have stopped building non-EVs years ago... the first rule of holes is to stop digging.

You think too small.
Just ban all passenger cars completely. I can walk to work, and I'm not even an ecoevangelical, I'm ecoagnostic.
EVs still use energy and minerals to produce, and the factory workers must use energy and food as well.
Then we can work on banning shoes.

 

[nwdiver]

You think too small.
Just ban all passenger cars completely. I can walk to work, and I'm not even an ecoevangelical, I'm ecoagnostic.
EVs still use energy and minerals to produce, and the factory workers must use energy and food as well.
Then we can work on banning shoes.

Solar/wind Powered EVs are cleaner than walking

 

[Big Dog]

It's not really a ban on ICE... it's a ban on NEW ICE...

'

But aren't newer cars much more efficient and less polluting than old?

Much better, IMO, is to start cranking up the gas tax. A quarter immediately, and say, a nickel every quarter. Use the cash to build out the EV infrastructure

 

[SageBrush]

Tax externalities. The market will take care of the rest.

 

[nwdiver]

'

But aren't newer cars much more efficient and less polluting than old?

Much better, IMO, is to start cranking up the gas tax. A quarter immediately, and say, a nickel every quarter. Use the cash to build out the EV infrastructure

Not anywhere near enough to justify the embedded energy cost of a new vehicle still dependent on fools fuel.

 

[AceSkywalker]

Several things to note:

1. Such a ban would probably exempt PHEVs - there will still probably be new vehicles sold and registered that burn dino juice, just less of them - Norway, the UK, and France's proposed bans on new cars exempt PHEVs.

2. I am very suspicious about increasing regulations and increasing taxes on essential items like transportation. California is already a very, very expensive place to live in, even if you're making 6 figures annually. The state would need to tread very carefully to not step on those that don't make enough money and can only afford very used cars.

3. Pessimistic point of view - such legislation won't pass the state legislative branch. California passed a new gas tax by a narrow margin, and its resulted in stuff this: Gas tax triggers 85,000 signatures to recall Orange County Sen. Josh Newman – Orange County Register. Passing a blanket ICE ban would be so heavily politicized - I'd wager it would be political suicide for those who vote for it.

4. Another pessimistic POV - the conservative Federal government, conservative states, and fossil fuel companies won't like this one bit. Expect California to get hit with a tsunami of lawsuits and legal challenges to the ban. There's also a chance that the ban could generate enough political capital and momentum to have the Clean Air Act edited to strip the CARB of its regulatory power.

 

[miimura]

This kind of "ban" doesn't have to be an outright ban. You just add escalating fees on the vehicles you want to discourage. Make it like a Gas Guzzler Tax with progressively lower threshold to trigger the tax. California is a big enough place that out of state license plates really stick out. CHP already has a process for reporting vehicles that operate for an extended period in the state with out of state plates. Just like you have to pay sales tax in order to register a used car, you would have to pay the Gas Guzzler Tax before registering a car that was originally purchased out of state.

 

[miimura]

You can also balance the "First Registration" Gas Guzzler Tax vs. Annual Registration Gas Guzzler Tax to determine how fast you want the existing used vehicles to be retired. I think the annual registration GGT will not be very effective in the big picture because those cars would just be sold out of state and would continue to impact the environment somewhere else. If the motivation is to reduce criteria emissions in CA, it would be effective to just push those vehicles elsewhere.

 

[SageBrush]

Pessimistic point of view - such legislation won't pass the state legislative branch. California passed a new gas tax by a narrow margin, and its resulted in stuff this: Gas tax triggers 85,000 signatures to recall Orange County Sen. Josh Newman – Orange County Register. Passing a blanket ICE ban would be so heavily politicized - I'd wager it would be political suicide for those who vote for it

OC is an aberration in CA

 

[McRat]

OC is an aberration in CA

No it's not, and the sad case of Josh Newman shows the world how crooked Jerry Brown and the California state legislature are.

The recall gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot, so Jerry and Friends pushed through an ex post facto law that halted the recall election. Ex post facto laws in California are not unusual.

That's how things work in California. If the voters want something, screw them. It's what the rich and powerful in Sacramento want, not the taxpayers. They are the sheep grown for fleecing. The gas tax was a way to tax the lower income residents without the backlash. It would have been quicker and more effective to just add value based registration taxes, but those are risky.

In case you thought it helps EVs, they raised taxes on EVs and EV charging even more than gas.

 

[mspohr]

No it's not, and the sad case of Josh Newman shows the world how crooked Jerry Brown and the California state legislature are.

The recall gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot, so Jerry and Friends pushed through an ex post facto law that halted the recall election. Ex post facto laws in California are not unusual.

That's how things work in California. If the voters want something, screw them. It's what the rich and powerful in Sacramento want, not the taxpayers. They are the sheep grown for fleecing. The gas tax was a way to tax the lower income residents without the backlash. It would have been quicker and more effective to just add value based registration taxes, but those are risky.

As much as you would like to fit this into your narrative that all government is crooked, Orange County is different. It's where we put all of the regressive Republicans.
Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente (home to the Richard Nixon Library).
"It is also known for its political conservatism—a 2005 academic study listed three Orange County cities as among America's 25 most conservative, making it one of two counties in the nation containing more than one such city. "

Rich people always remember to "think of the poor people" when it comes to gas taxes but the fact is that the middle class and the rich are hit hardest by gas taxes for their big SUVs and trucks (and they can afford to pay them). Poor people take public transportation or are most likely to have an old small car if they have a car. Gas taxes are the best way to implement a "carbon tax" on transportation fuel.

 

[McRat]

As much as you would like to fit this into your narrative that all government is crooked, Orange County is different. It's where we put all of the regressive Republicans.
Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente (home to the Richard Nixon Library).
"It is also known for its political conservatism—a 2005 academic study listed three Orange County cities as among America's 25 most conservative, making it one of two counties in the nation containing more than one such city. "

Rich people always remember to "think of the poor people" when it comes to gas taxes but the fact is that the middle class and the rich are hit hardest by gas taxes for their big SUVs and trucks (and they can afford to pay them). Poor people take public transportation or are most likely to have an old small car if they have a car. Gas taxes are the best way to implement a "carbon tax" on transportation fuel.

In the last election 8.5% more Hillary votes were tallied than Trump votes in Orange County. Which is puzzling to be honest and goes against 70 years of voting for conservative candidates. This is one of the reasons folk talk about rigged elections. Highly suspicious, and if CA wasn't so heavily liberal, it probably would have been investigated.

Trust me, millionaires do not care about how much tax you put on our fuel. Drop in the bucket. Tax our freakin' >$100k cars, >$80k SUVs and pickups based on value, yeah that stings. But when it was tried before we recalled the perp and that's how we got Arnold as a Governor.

How does that work?
Increase my fuel tax $1 a gallon (massive jump), and assuming I drive something new, it gets well over 15 mpg even SUVs. So I'm paying $2 a day if that to drive a day. Heck our toll roads can be over $20 one way.
Tax my market value of my $100k car at 1% per year, and that's $3 a day. Gas tax is nothing, and it's not $1 increase.