I am writing to urge the board to accelerate the timetable for
requiring new car sales in CA be all electric vehicles so that this
requirement becomes effective in 2030 and NOT 2035. As the board is
surely aware, the climate crisis facing our state and planet is
only accelerating in its intensity and impacts upon our people and
communities. The time to act was decades ago, and any luxury we may
have had to move slowly on this issue has vanished. Time and speed
are of the essence now, and while moving up the timetable to
require electric vehicles will be costly, we literally have no
choice. We frittered away years of inaction or incremental action
so that we have placed ourselves into the current predicament. We
cannot wait until 2035, but must push the effective date to 2030.
This will be difficult, and it will be costly, and will require a
lot of rethinking among state leaders, consumers, and car
manufacturers. But, again, we have no choice. Moving more slowly is
no longer an option, and I urge, no, I insist, that the board adopt
more aggressive target dates. This is necessary for the health of
the environment we all depend upon, it is necessary for the health
of those who breath our air, and it is necessary for our planet if
we are to leave it in any shape for our children and their children
to survive. If we need to devote huge amounts of our tax dollars to
this effort, then we need to do it. Raise my taxes, if you have to,
or do whatever is necessary to spare us the complete collapse of
the already fraying ecosystem we all depend upon.
I hope and pray that you will do the right thing and adopt a
2030 deadline for the transition to electric vehicles. Do it for my
children, that they may have a future.
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