Democrats Torn Over Pursuing Low-Carbon Fuel Policies

lot of greenhouse gases coming out of my tailpipe. What if it weren't a lot, though, What if we could make it so that there weren't so many of those heat trapping emissions that are coming out of my car? Well, apparently we can. Gasoline with low or at least lower carbon intensity exists, and as of now, there are three states that incentivized fuel producers who make it. That's three

out of fifty states. Surely there are other climate mighted states that want to get in on this, right Well, that's the topic of today's podcast, and to discuss this, we have on Bloomberg Law reporters Zach Bright. Zach wrote a story about why blue states are trying to pass new low carbon fuel standards and failing and I wanted to figure out what's going on here, But first I wanted to figure out exactly what low carbon fuel really is.

So these standards that I covered are standards that certain places, states in particular, have put into place to lower carbon emissions from transportation vehicles. And basically what that means is that these states want fuel providers to require their fuels to have lower carbon outputs, and they do that by

giving you know, fueld providers that do that credits. And that's what a low carbon fuel standard at the basic level is, you know, awarding fueld providers gas stations that offer lower carbon options to eventually you reach a certain lower limit. And it sounds like there are a lot

of different ways to do that. I mean, we were talking before we started recording, but there's a national renewable fuel standard that requires gasoline providers to add a little bit of ethanol or maybe more than a little bit of ethanol into fuel. But I get the sense that on the state level it's a little bit different. Can you go into that. Yeah, So that's right. We have a national renewable fuel standard. I think it was put

into place about a decade and a half ago. And that basically requires fuel providers to put a certain amount of ethanol, and that's a by volume standard. So the goal there as an oh, we want less carbon emissions, it's oh, we want our gasoline or diesel fuel to contain a certain amount of ethanol. The low carbon fuel standard is i would say, a bit newer in the sense that it's primarily targeting emissions for the sake of climate change. And right now we don't have a national

standard that's a low carbon fuel standard. Some say, oh, we can make the renewable fuel standard into a low carbon fuel standard, or we could have a separate one. But right now three states have low carbon fuel standards. Two of them are active, one in Oregon, in California, and Washington was the third to kind of move forward their lower carbon fuel standard, which is set to take

effect next year. That's a really important point. I want to sort of labor that a little bit that the National renewable Fuel standard that requires adding ethanol, which we should say is made from corn essentially to gas, was not made for environmental reasons necessarily. It was. It was created to reduce the demand on fossil fuels as a way to like stretch, you know, fossil fuels, and this was at a time when the price of fossil fuels actually as as it is now, was very very high.

It sounds like that's not the that's not the point of what these states are doing. The low carbon standard. This actually has environmental goals here, right, So the renewable fuel standard had an environmental component, but I think it was just the ethanol requirement or the bio fuel requirement. But actually a low carbon fuel standard doesn't limit fuel options to ethanol. You know, it can be any type of fuel. If you can make a fuel with even another fossil fuel, so long as it meets this lower

carbon output that achieves you know, what they want. So let's get to really the meat of your story here, which is that, as you mentioned, we have three states all on the Pacific coast, California, Oregon, and now Washington who have enacted these types of state level fuel standards. But there are also a lot of other states, specifically states that are controlled by Democrats, that try to do this as well and failed. What's going on here, wire?

You know, for every state that enacts this, wire, so many more trying and failing. Yeah, that's a that's a great question. So Washington had some trouble enacting their own low carbon field standard. They were successful, but initially they wanted to link it to a gas tax. And I'd spoke to one expert and he told me that, you know, there's kind of three broad reasons why lowcrmon field standards

kind of face these obstacles. The first one is that lawmakers and opponents are concerned that, you know, a low carbon field standard is going to add to gas prices. That's a fear that proponents of a low carmon Fiel standards say, you know, that's not really going to happen. But that's I mean, that has a lot of traction these days, you know, where like the you know, you see headlines about the price of gas like every day practically. That's definitely right. So there is that kind of perception

problem in actuality. The studies that I found the Oregon Environmental Department, I think they had looked at their low carbon field standard. They found it added sent per gallon two gas. Not that much. Yeah, And then there was another studied and they found that in California their low carbon fuel standard added twenty two cents per gallon, so it's a little more yeah. Yeah, So you know, take

those studies how you will. But you know, the advocates in Washington had said, you know, this isn't going to be a problem. It's really the global actions that affect gas prices. Right. The second reason that these low carbon field standards have kind of not gained traction in these other states is because there isn't really a lot of profit to be made from them. So in Washington, for example, there they passed a cap and trade program last year that's generating a lot of revenue, some of which is

actually going to funding this low carbon fuel standard. But the low carbon fuel standard it self, it's self sustaining, but it doesn't give you any profit to do something else with. So it's a little part of a song. It's not generating revenue for someone. No one's no one's kind of getting rich off of this, right. And the third problem is that environmentalists are actually sometimes in position

to low carbon field standards themselves. Yeah, and I want to get even more deep into that because that was something that I thought was so interesting in your stories, that it's not that you have in these blue states. You know, Republicans blocking these these new standards. Although you know Republicans are opposed, you also have environmentalists who were not really into it either, and that combination is what's stopping them from from becoming law. Explain the argument there.

Why are environmentalists opposed to this? I mean, I face value, you'd hear lower carbon fuel and you'd think that's a no brainer for an environmentalist. No, that's exactly what I thought. You know when I first reported on this is you know, a low carbon fiel standards sounds like an environmental solution.

But I spoke with and some environmentalists, some environmental advocates, and they said that a low carbon field standard is actually kind of a policy of the nineties where you know, it will lower carbon emissions over time, but the climate goals that we need to meet now, they say, are you know, a lot bigger, and we need to do something like move to zero emission vehicles. And what a low carbon fuel standard actually does is it provides fossil fuels,

you know, with prolonged use. You know, we're still going to use gasoline and diesel, just maybe with lower carbon outputs. And so they're saying, we want a bigger jumps. That's so fascinating. And you know, I we see this happening a lot where you have environmental activists and specifically climate activists kind of debating about do we pursue this policy that lowers the carbon footprint of fossil fuels or do

we try to pursue in eliminating fossil fuels altogether. And it's I don't think there's a good answer, I mean, and this is just another example of that where you could argue that they're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But on the other hand, you can kind of understand why they would. You know, a climate activist would want to eliminate fossil fuels full stop as

soon as possible. Yeah, I would say this is a really interesting issue because sometimes it can fall on partisan lines where you can have Republicans, for example in New Mexico,

and complete opposition, but then also Democrats. Some Democrats who might be skeptical of this market based approach might also oppose this, and so for that reason, you know, some environmentalists do want a low carbon fuel standard, and some fuel groups actually want it too, because they can sustain their business with lower carbon fuels that are still at

the end of the day, gasoline and diesel fuels. But at the same time you also have environmentalists saying, you know, this isn't enough, we want more, and you have environmentalists and Minnesota, for example, there was a group of twenty two who wrote a letter saying that a low carbon fuel standard would impact the immediate environment by encouraging more

agricultural production on you know, natural ecosystems. And so that's another issue that you know, this thing brings about, and that's to clarify, hear, more agricultural production, meaning growing more corn to make more ethanol. That's something that I think a lot of environmental activists have talked about that the renewable fuel standard creates other environmental impacts if you you know, uh, you know, take out grassland or forests and grow corn

for it exactly. Yeah. Uh. And the other thing we should note is that, I mean, these are this is not a situation where these gas uh, these fuel standards are going down by a lot. This is really close. Specifically in New Mexico. I think your story wrote that the fuel standard lost by one vote in the House.

That's literally one vote, right, So it was actually it was a tie vote or you had thirty three to thirty three and a House of seventy with four abstentions or at least non presence, and you had Democrats outnumbering Republicans by nearly two to one in that chamber. It's a blue state, right, So, and the governor was pushing for this. Governor Michelle Juhan Grisham was really you know, advocating for this as a central part of you know,

their climate policy. And this was the second time they were going at it, and so, you know, this has been something that just you know, critics and you know, some experts have said, you know, it's kind of a flawed policy because it doesn't produce enough rewards and people just don't think it's enough. Okay, finally, where are we headed in the future. Do you see this as being

kind of dead? I mean, you know, yes, we have three states, including a new one, you know, adopting this, but it sounds like we also have several other states you know, running into a wall here trying to get this past. Do you think this idea has kind of you know, it's not going to be expanding or do you think that that the proponents of this idea will

try different tactics and keep trying. I think there's going to be continued action, and I think there's definitely arguments on both side where you could say, oh, look at what happened in Washington. They tried, they tried again, they got a low carbon fuel standard that's going to be something that over the next twenty years or so, it's going to lower transportation fuel emissions from auto vehicles by twenty percent. But on the other hand, you could say, well,

look at New Mexico and look at New York. They had their state budget and they didn't incorporate a low carbon field standard that was you know, pushed by lawmakers and environmental advocates and other groups, but also opposed by lawmakers and environmental advocates and other groups where they say strange bedfellows exactly. Yeah. And in Minnesota, you know, they had a Climate and Energy Omnibus bill and they're still studying it, and so I think, you know, there's potential

for that to move forward. But you know, if I had to bat on it, I would say, you know, it's more likely than not to fail. So to sum it up, not dead, but probably on life support, right, Yeah, you know it really it really depends on the state the situation and you know how people fall on it. All right, Well that was Zach Bright, environmental reporter with Bloomberg Law. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thank you, David. And that's it for today's episode of

Parts per Billion. If you want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We use a pretty easy to remember handle. It's at environment. Is that at environment? I'm a David B. Schultz. That's b as in runs batted in. Hopefully the Washington Nationals will find a few more of those. Today's episode of Parts for Billion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Partsfer Billion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagle and is edited by Zach Sherwood and Chuck McCutcheon.

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