California’s biofuel bias is hampering its EV future. Can that change?

Controversies Surrounding California Air Resources Board’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard

Part 1: Introduction

One of California’s marquee programs for cleaning up transportation emissions is at a crossroads. Decisions made in the next few months could set the decade-and-a-half-old Low Carbon Fuel Standard on one of two very different paths.

One path, favored by fossil fuel and renewable natural gas interests, would lock in a market scheme that currently extracts billions of dollars per year from Californians at the pump and subsidizes crop-based and cow-manure-derived biofuels.

That would be a disaster, according to environmental advocates, who point to a growing body of scientific evidence showing that this approach, if extended until 2045 as proposed, would cause these biofuels to grow at a scale that would harm the climate and the environment.

The other path, proposed by environmental groups, transportation-decarbonization analysts, and climate and energy researchers, would limit the scope of unsustainable biofuels in the program and instead reorient it to support what experts agree should be California’s primary clean transportation pathway: electric vehicles.

To date, roughly 80 percent of LCFS funding has gone to combustion biofuels rather than electric vehicles. That’s simply incompatible with the state’s EV ambitions and needs, said Adrian Martinez, deputy managing attorney of nonprofit advocacy group Earthjustice — and the imperative to reduce emissions from transportation, which account for nearly 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’ve got to eliminate our reliance on combustion,” he said, but “the program as designed will continue to provide lucrative incentives for combustible fuels well into the future.”

Part 2: The Role of the California Air Resources Board

The regulator in charge of the LCFS program — and this high-stakes decision — is the California Air Resources Board. CARB’s board, which comprises 14 voting members, 12 appointed by the governor and two by the state legislature, holds a host of responsibilities around California’s energy transition. Those include shaping the state’s nation-leading EV policy, as well as determining its broad plans for achieving long-term greenhouse-gas reduction goals.

Critics say the LCFS program’s increasing support for biofuels is in direct contrast to both the EV targets and the climate goals also overseen by CARB — and that the program has been captured by deep-pocketed industries trying to greenwash the continued use of combustion fuels.

CARB has a chance to reform the program with an upcoming vote, initially set for this month, but now postponed to an undetermined future date. But its pathway to fixing the problems that plague LCFS is murky and messy at best.

Right now, the staff managing the LCFS program hasn’t given CARB board members an opportunity to pick a climate- and EV-friendly alternative. Instead, a December staff proposal provides only one option for the board to vote on later this year: a set of policies that Earthjustice forecasts would direct $27 billion over the coming decade toward biofuels and worsen effects on the climate, the environment, and the prices that Californians pay at the pump.

CARB does have another option, however — an alternative proposal laid out by CARB’s Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, created to advise the board on environmental-justice issues.

Part 3: The Need for Reform

That proposal would cap the fast-growing share of crop-based renewable diesel flooding the state. It would also end the unusual structure that now allows biogas produced by dairy farm manure to offset a much higher amount of carbon emissions than any other source of alternative fuels.

And, importantly, it would make the core of the program — its carbon-offset marketplace — function in a much healthier way, proponents say. A torrent of cheap, polluting renewable diesel and dairy farm biogas credits have dragged down the price that LCFS credits can fetch for avoiding emissions, diluting the incentive to deploy new climate technologies and sapping what could be a key funding source for EV infrastructure in the state.

“The stakes are very, very high,” Martinez said. “That’s why you see so much attention focused on this — and a very broad and diverse coalition that is pushing for more systemic change to the program, versus more modest tweaks that will really just keep this market owned and dominated by fossil fuel interests.”

A history of the LCFS program

California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard was born out of AB 32, the 2006 law that created the state’s carbon cap-and-trade market. Much like carbon markets, LCFS is meant to make companies pay for their carbon emissions by buying credits from technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

The program requires all fossil fuels refined and sold in California to meet increasingly stringent carbon-intensity targets. In practice, fossil fuel producers have to buy a bunch of LCFS credits from low-carbon transit sources operating in the state in order to comply. The goal is to create a system that taxes planet-warming fossil fuels to fund cleaner transportation alternatives.

But the LCFS has strayed from its initial focus on vehicle electrification and “advanced” non-crop-based biofuels to become “a swag bag for venture capitalists, big oil, big agriculture, and big gas, increasingly coming at the expense of low- and moderate-income Californians.” That’s how Jim Duffy, a 13-year veteran of the agency who served as branch chief of the LCFS program from 2019 to 2020 and retired in 2022, described the evolution of the program in comments filed with CARB.

Under the LCFS regulation adopted in 2009, dairy-manure-to-biogas projects did not receive special treatment compared to other sources of methane such as landfills and sewage treatment plants, Duffy wrote. Similarly, diesel fuels made from crops like soybeans were considered “only marginally better than fossil diesel.”

But in the years since, “the LCFS was revised to provide additional and unnecessary support to landfills and first-generation crop-based biofuels” and “to mitigate the methane problem created by the dairy industry itself,” Duffy wrote — despite the fact that evidence increasingly suggests that both sources harm the planet far more than they benefit it.

The result has been an increasing share of LCFS credits being supplied by renewable diesel and dairy-generated biogas.

Why renewable diesel is threatening CARB’s climate and credit goals

Take renewable diesel, a fuel made from fats and oils processed to be identical to fossil diesel fuel. The U.S. increased production of the fuel by 400% between 2019 and 2022, and it is set to double it again this year, according to Jeremy Martin, senior scientist and director of fuels policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Unlike ethanol and biodiesel, which can only

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
• SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
• SDG 13: Climate Action
• SDG 15: Life on Land

The article discusses the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program and its impact on transportation emissions, climate change, and environmental sustainability. These issues are directly connected to the SDGs mentioned above.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• SDG 7.2: Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
• SDG 9.4: Upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes.
• SDG 11.6: Reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.
• SDG 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning.
• SDG 15.2: Promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests, and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally.

These targets are relevant to the issues discussed in the article, such as increasing the share of renewable energy, upgrading infrastructure for sustainability, reducing environmental impacts of cities, integrating climate change measures, and promoting sustainable forest management.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

Yes, the article mentions several indicators that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets:

• Percentage of LCFS funding allocated to combustion biofuels versus electric vehicles
• Reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by 25,586 tons by 2045
• Cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 560 million metric tons by 2045
• Public-health cost savings of nearly $5 billion by 2045
• Share of renewable diesel as a percentage of total diesel fuel use in California
• Amount of renewable diesel produced and consumed in California
• Extent of deforestation caused by the cultivation of crops for renewable diesel

These indicators can be used to track progress towards the targets and assess the effectiveness of the LCFS program in achieving sustainable energy, infrastructure, and environmental outcomes.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Behold! This splendid article springs forth from the wellspring of knowledge, shaped by a wondrous proprietary AI technology that delved into a vast ocean of data, illuminating the path towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Remember that all rights are reserved by SDG Investors LLC, empowering us to champion progress together.

Source: canarymedia.com

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