California Lawmakers Help Auto and Petroleum Industries

California is one of the states that many other states to look to for leadership when it comes to climate and environmental protects. Recently the state had been looking at requiring cars and trucks sold in the state to be at least 50 percent more fuel efficient than today by the year 2030. However, that approach appears to have just changed late Wednesday (September 9, 2015⁾ when this proposal was removed from a climate change bill that many thought was extremely ambitious.

The oil and gas industry spent millions of dollars on an intense campaign of legislators lobbying against the provision in the bill. Gov. Jerry Brown and other top California Democratic lawmakers made the announcement in a press conference Wednesday night. State Senate Democratic Leader Kevin DeLeon, the author of the climate change bill that included the fuel efficiency provision stated “We could not cut through the multi-million dollar smoke screen created by a single interest group with a singular motive and a bottomless war chest.”

U.S. automakers welcomed the move. They were worried that had the provision remained in the bill and the bill became law, it would have led to an even more aggressive set of electric vehicle sales requirements in the state. The provision was also seen as disruptive to the alignment between federal regulations and those of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the agency that monitors air quality in the state.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers released a statement on Thursday stating “We support Governor Brown’s and Senator De Leon’s announcement that they will no longer seek the 50 percent reduction in petroleum use in SB 350 and will amend out those portions of the bill as they undermine this unified national regulatory structure.” The Alliance is a Washington, DC-based trade group with 12 members, three of which are the Big Three from Detroit.