Advanced Energy Perspectives

California’s love affair with the automobile is a long and well documented tale stretching from the freeways of Los Angeles up to where the redwoods tower over both Route 101 and the Pacific Ocean. Over the years, the state has endeavored to make this relationship more sustainable in the truest sense of the word. California pioneered the push for new low emission vehicles (LEVs) in the early 1990s. Then came the push for zero emission vehicles (ZEVs). Following Gov. Newsom's September 23 Executive Order (E.O.), the Golden State has signaled that it is ready for the next step as it aims to become the first U.S. state to ensure that all vehicles on its roadways are zero emission.

In the early morning hours of September 1, California policymakers frantically concluded a legislative session much in keeping with the disquieting, disorienting mood of 2020 and all its unforeseen complications. California continues to grapple with colliding crises – an enduring pandemic, economic recession, and a catastrophic wildfire season. But at least there’s now a stack of bills on the Governor’s desk, including two that would support and indeed accelerate California’s nation-leading push toward electric transportation – and which were AEE’s top priorities for this session.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the states, California boasted over half a million advanced energy jobs. In just a few months time, the state lost more than 100,000 of those jobs. As policymakers now grapple with plugging a $54 billion budget deficit, keeping local communities afloat, and upholding the state’s marquee policies, the stakes could not be higher. Given uncertainty around any federal stimulus package, AEE is providing California decision makers with recommendations for actions they could take now to move the state to economic recovery, with advanced energy at its center. That’s because advanced energy is  a tried-and-true engine of economic growth, in California most of all.

With numerous strokes of a pen weekend before last, Gov. Newsom decided the fate of the final batch of bills before him and closed out this year’s legislative cycle in California. Among those the Governor signed into law were all but one of the bills AEE actively worked on and shepherded through the Legislature this year. In all, it was a big year for promoting electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes. But there is more to come in advanced transportation and other advanced energy issues when lawmakers reconvene in January for the second year of the legislative session.

Just before the California Legislature adjourned for Summer Recess, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a historic wildfire fund package seeking to balance the welfare of  wildfire victims, investor-owned utilities (starting with PG&E, which is in bankruptcy proceedings due to its wildfire liabilities), and utility employees with a commitment to uphold California’s advanced energy leadership. The package navigated the formal legislative process in a matter of days to meet the Newsom Administration’s declared deadline of July 12, and most importantly, just in time to avert the looming threat of credit rating downgrades for the state’s other two investor-owned utilities, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.