Lawmaker to withdraw California zero emissions vehicle bill

Assemblywoman Autumn Burke says she will withdraw her California zero emissions bill after multiple groups opposed the plan. The Sacramento Bee photo.

Automakers, oil industry, labor oppose California zero emissions bill

By Rory Carroll

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 18 (Reuters) – A California lawmaker on Thursday said she will withdraw a bill that would have required 15 percent of new car sales be zero emission vehicles by 2025 due to opposition from automakers, the oil industry and labor.

“With just a week and a half to move the bill through, there just wasn’t enough time to overcome the opposition,” Allison Ruff, a spokeswoman for bill author Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, told Reuters in an email.

Burke plans to meet with stakeholders and introduce a new version of the bill in 2017, Ruff said.

The move will not affect the state’s zero emission vehicle program, which seeks to help the state achieve its goal of putting 1.5 million zero emission vehicles on California roads by 2025.

The California Air Resources Board has for years operated a program designed to speed the commercialization of zero emission vehicles in the state, a regulation that has been adopted by nine other states.

The program includes a clean car credit system, which has been criticized by environmentalists and electric car manufacturer Tesla, who say the system suffers from an oversupply of credits.

They have argued recently that auto manufacturers can meet their sales target by submitting credits instead of building and selling cars in the state.

(Reporting by Rory Carroll and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)