Politics

  • Record-breaking electric-car parade in Cupertino, California. Photo courtesy of Plug In America.

    California leads the way when it comes to electric-car adoption in the U.S. That's due in large part to a zero-emission vehicle mandate that requires the largest-volume automakers to sell cars without tailpipes, combined with a generous state purchase incentive that encourages residents to buy them. But local governments have also played an important role in ensuring that the deployment of large numbers of electric cars goes smoothly. DON'T MISS: Speedy growth of electric cars will challenge automakers When it comes to electric cars—and other anticipated shifts in the transportation...

  • BMW M3 M Performance exhaust
    Auto lobby again asks to redo emission rule, to new EPA chief Pruitt this time

    Lobbyists for the world's automakers continue to ask the new presidential administration to revisit an EPA decision to finalize emissions standards through 2025. Just days after the November election, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers wrote President-Elect Trump to ask that he reverse the...

  • 2017 Nissan Leaf
    State fees, penalties on electric cars proliferate this year

    Several different states have continued to propose new fees for electric-car owners as a way to pay for road repairs. The fees are typically meant as a substitute for the gasoline taxes that, because they don't buy gas, electric-car owners don't pay. Advocates have criticized these fees, saying...

  • The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]
    Auto industry split over halting, changing fuel-economy rules

    Just days after the presidential election, automaker lobbyists urged Donald Trump to loosen pending emissions and fuel-economy standards. Shortly after the election, a lobbying group wrote Trump asking him to change or delay an EPA decision that kept planned emissions standards for 2022 to 2025 in...

  • Gas pump
    Carmakers ask Trump to review EPA rules, use discredited job projection

    Just days after the presidential election, an automaker lobbying group wrote Donald Trump asking him to change or delay an EPA decision that kept planned exhaust-emission standards through 2025. Now executives of 18 automakers have sent a second letter, asking the same thing—and echoing a...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    What White House faces if it tries to roll back fuel-economy standards

    Donald Trump won the U.S. Electoral College and swept into the White House on a varied platform that included significant promises to cut regulation and reduce government involvement in a wide variety of spheres. The day after his election, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers sent him a letter...

  • 2017 Nissan Leaf

    What if gasoline and diesel cars and light trucks were simply eliminated altogether from the new vehicles sold in a state? Residents of one state in the U.S. may, eventually, find out. California already leads the nation in promoting zero-emission vehicles, but the Golden State may soon take that policy a step further. DON'T MISS: Will California lead the green-car resistance? (Dec 2016) Speaking at the annual VerdeXchange conference in Los Angeles, Mary Nichols, chair of the powerful California Air Resources Board, said the state is now pursuing a goal of 100 percent zero-emission light-duty...

  • Ford CEO Mark Fields at CES 2015
    Emissions rules could cost 1 million jobs, Ford CEO tells Trump: what's behind that number? (further updated)

    Among his actions during a whirlwind first week in office, U.S. President Donald Trump met last week with the CEOs of U.S. automakers Fiat Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. He met on two consecutive days with Mark Fields, CEO of Ford, in fact. Fields was part of a group of manufacturing...

  • Gas pump
    Public supports fuel-economy regulations, including Trump voters

    Regardless of political persuasion, there are some issues almost everyone can agree on. One of them, for example, is likely gas prices. It's hard to imagine anyone who enjoys paying more every time they fill up their car. DON'T MISS: Emissions/MPG rules could cost 1 million jobs, Ford CEO tells...

  • China
    China happy to become world's climate-change leader if U.S. lags

    Under the administration of President Barack Obama, the U.S. joined the rest of the world and took a leading role in global efforts to avert irreversible climate change. But that seems unlikely to continue under the Trump administration, which has nominated climate-science deniers to numerous key...

  • President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy DoD)
    U.S. to pull out of Paris climate-change agreement under Trump

    As seemed likely from the day Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, the country will pull out of the global Paris Climate Agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The move had been signaled even before the election by the new president's choice of noted climate-science...

  • The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]
    Trump EPA: climate science still live, gag order remains, grants unfrozen (updated)

    Following the removal of all mentions of climate change from the White House website, the new administration has apparently trained its sights on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA and a handful of other government agencies are now reportedly under gag orders: employees are forbidden...

  • National Plug-In Day 2012: San Francisco, with 60 Nissan Leafs in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

    California continues to lead the United States, and in some ways the world, in efforts to reduce and eliminate harmful emissions from road vehicles. Following the lead of Governor Jerry Brown, the state legislature and regulatory agencies have set aggressive goals to reduce emission of climate-change gases, primarily carbon dioxide. That will be accomplished by boosting the number of zero-emission vehicles sold in the state, either battery-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell cars and light trucks. DON'T MISS: Electric cars improving fast, CA should raise zero-emission requirements: report Now...

  • Photovoltaic solar power field at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee
    More than two-thirds of Americans accept climate science, regardless of Trump

    The new U.S. administration has made it clear that it does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change. From President Donald Trump down through his nominees for key roles—Scott Pruitt for EPA adminstrator, Rick Perry for Department of Energy head, and others—key elected and...

  • Tesla and SolarCity energy storage array on Ta'u, American Samoa
    Energy storage batteries face biggest test in California

    From the perspective of both renewable-energy advocates and electric utilities, grid-scale energy storage offers many potential benefits. By storing energy in battery packs for later use, energy storage can make intermittent renewable sources like solar and wind into more reliable forms of power...

  • The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]
    Action on climate change 'harmful, unnecessary': Trump White House

    If there were any doubt that U.S. policy on climate change would change drastically under President Donald Trump, it should have been laid to rest shortly after noon yesterday. Following inauguration ceremonies for the 45th president of the United States, the Obama White House website was replaced...

  • National Plug-In Day 2012: San Francisco, with 60 Nissan Leafs in front of the Golden Gate Bridge
    Electric cars improving fast, CA should raise zero-emission requirements: report

    For 50 years now, California has been at the very forefront of reducing vehicle emissions. It was doing so before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was even formed, and its powerful Air Resources Board has been a vital force in getting plug-in electric vehicles onto the state's roads...

  • Grand Teton, Wyoming
    New bill in coal-producing Wyoming would ban renewable energy for utilities

    While renewable-energy use has grown substantially over the last few years, the regulatory environment remains volatile. Some states have worked hard to stimulate renewable energy, supporting infrastructure projects and offering incentives to consumers who install home solar arrays. But others have...

  • 2015 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel HFE

    It's been a busy week for U.S. agencies as they release information on their final actions before a new administration takes office. Yesterday the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly opened a criminal probe into the actions of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles over the emission certification of its diesel engines. The investigation follows an announcement Thursday by the EPA that FCA failed to disclose eight separate software routines that affect the engine's emissions. DON'T MISS: EPA says Ram, Jeep diesel emission software violates Clean Air Act That failure to disclose auxiliary emission-control...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    EPA finalizes emission rules through 2025; no change from existing levels

    Seven days before the advent of a new presidential administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has locked in planned auto-emission standards through 2025. The emission limits tie directly to fuel-efficiency rules issued by the NHTSA, effectively requiring those rules to stay the same...

  • 2014 Tesla Model S in China
    China to loosen electric-car rules for foreign makers, because they didn't work

    It has long been official Chinese government industrial policy to dominate the world's production of lithium-ion battery cells and to establish a commanding electric-car industry. This would not only position the country in crucial industries of the future but give it a way to start attacking the...

  • China
    China's five-year budget for renewable energy: $360 billion

    Despite a recent downturn, the Chinese government is moving full-speed ahead to invest heavily in renewable energy. The country's national regulators have already promoted renewable energy as a possible cure for the country's notoriously-bad air pollution. But China has placed more emphasis on...

  • wind farm
    Clean energy to grow, coal to fade, regardless of Trump EPA plans

    President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicates that his administration will pursue radically different energy policies from its predecessor's. Pruitt is a climate-science denier, and has sued the agency he...

  • Indianapolis, by Flickr user ellenm1 (Used under CC License)
    Indiana too slaps electric cars with $150 fee for not using gas

    A bill before the Indiana legislature would add an annual fee for electric cars.

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