Posts Tagged: vehicle

Opinion

Time to cut emissions from ride-hailing companies

An Uber car in traffic. (Photo: Cristi Croitoru, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: With the pandemic finally abating, people are moving around more, and business is picking up for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. So the timing is right for the California Air Resources Board to curb the pollution coming from those fleets. Fortunately, CARB’s agenda for its Board Hearing on Thursday includes a well-crafted measure called the Clean Miles Standard which will do just that.

Opinion

Prioritizing vaccines? Think of public transit workers

A worker gives directions as motorists wait in lines to get the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine in a parking lot at Dodger Stadium in L.A. (Photo: Ringo Chiu, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: As the leader of the association representing California’s public transit agencies and the head of the state’s largest union representing public transit workers, we strongly urge Gov.  Newsom and state and local health officials to provide priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine to public transit workers.

News

Feds target California farm for deadly vehicle crash

Migrant laborers work a Salinas, Calif., strawberry farm during harvest season. (Photo: David Litman, via Shutterstock)

For the second time in recent months, the U.S. Department of Labor has extracted penalties from a California farm business blamed for the deadly crash of a vehicle transporting migrant field workers to their jobs. The Labor Department announced this month that Fisher Ranch LLC — a major produce farm near Calexico, close to the Mexican border — has agreed to pay $49,104 for violating the Migrant Seasonal Workers Protection Act. The case stemmed from a March 2017 van crash that killed one laborer and hurt six others.

News

Gas tax fuels 2018 political fight

Traffic on the 405 in Los Angeles, the nation's busiest freeway. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)

California’s new gas tax hike to fund billions of dollars worth of overdue road repairs has only been in effect for a little over a month but Republicans are already trying to overturn it. On Nov. 1, Senate Bill 1, signed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in the spring after a fierce political battle, increased the excise tax on gas by 12 cents a gallon and the excise tax on diesel fuel by 20 cents a gallon.

Opinion

Engaging Latino voters in California

A Latino political rally in Los Angeles. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)

OPINION: Starting later this year, a new law will begin to automatically register to vote millions of people who are getting (or renewing) a driver’s license in California, unless they opt out. Over time, this law is expected to dramatically increase the number registered voters in California and many political experts believe it will have huge implications for future political campaigns.

News

ARB, Tesla at odds over rebate cuts for electric vehicles

New Teslas at the company's factory in Fremont. Photo: Steve Jurvetson

Electric vehicles costing more than $60,000 may be eliminated from a major rebate program and the rebates themselves would be reduced to a fifth of their current level – moves that would cut popular Tesla Motors’ models from the rebates.

News

Budget details costs for immigrants’ licenses

Providing up to 1.4 million driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants will cost $65 million for the Department of Motor Vehicles during the first six months after the law takes effect January 1, 2015, according to Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget plan. DMV plans five new temporary offices to handle the load.

News

PPIC: Crime up with realignment

Property theft in California increased in the first year of correctional realignment, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California highlighting the policy’s possible effect on future crime rates. Under realignment, the state shifted responsibilities to the counties — including the incarceration of some state prisoners — and gave them money to cover the costs.

News

Electric vehicles are the future — right now

California’s pioneering Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) requires fuel producers such as oil firms and refiners to gradually reduce the average “carbon intensity” of the state’s transportation fuel mix, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions that increase the risks from climate change. The LCFS will provide credits to make electric vehicles even more affordable. Despite a fierce campaign by the fossil fuel industry to delay it, the clean fuel standard is already helping California transition to clean, non-petroleum transportation fuels, while attracting new investment and creating new jobs.

News

A critical look at the Low Carbon Fuel Standard

In the movie Thelma and Louise, the two hapless heroines clasp hands and hurl their turquois Thunderbird over a cliff and into an abyss of certain death.  It’s become an iconic moment in American film, a noble if extreme solution when all hope is lost.

 

California is about to hurl itself over a cliff

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