California is taking its first steps on the path toward recovery. Thanks to bold and swift state and local leadership, we have avoided what could have been a much worse public health catastrophe. Now, as we begin to slowly reopen our communities, we must apply that same leadership to a robust economic recovery that puts our state, businesses, and workers on a stronger footing than when the pandemic began.
The fast track to that future of clean air and improved public health is zero-emission transportation programs instituted at the local, state and federal level.
We know this works. California achieved its status as the world’s fifth largest economy by betting big on clean energy and climate solutions. Today, our state has a proven track record of delivering major benefits to the economy by enacting public health protections that drive business innovation, investment and jobs in clean energy and electric transportation.
California policy promoting electric vehicles has made the state a global leader in researching, designing, manufacturing and exporting clean transportation products, services and technologies. Electric vehicle technologies were California’s second most valuable export in 2019. The industry supported 275,600 jobs statewide in 2018 and prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, electric vehicle industry employment was growing almost twice as fast as jobs in general. And these are good jobs – paying an average annual wage of around $90,000, well above the average $68,500 for all other industries.
These workers are an integral part of California’s economy—with production factories for electric cars, buses and charging infrastructure located across the state from Auburn to Fremont to Lancaster to the City of Industry.
The crisis has stalled much of this work, hurting businesses, contractors and workers at all levels of the industry. To get shovel-ready projects back on track and create new ones, the state cannot slow down or stop implementing critical standards that create market certainty for clean vehicles and the critical infrastructure to support them.
The rubber meets the road in four ways.
1) State leaders and the Governor’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery can ensure the economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis is both green and equitable. To achieve job stabilization, we need to create market certainty in the state’s thriving, cutting-edge clean transportation sector, which is poised to put people back to work – especially needed by frontline communities, underemployed veterans and those formerly incarcerated.
2) The California Air Resources Board is expected to adopt the nation’s first Advanced Clean Truck standard, which is intended to grow the electric heavy-duty truck market in California by ramping up manufacturing with the goal of putting 300,000 of them on the road within 15 years. We urge the board to adopt the standard as a market signal to create jobs. And, this is not just an economic issue. Pollution-free trucks help California’s most at risk populations breathe easier. The value of clean air has never been more clear, with research illustrating that long-term exposure to air pollution dramatically increases the risk of COVID-19 mortality.
3) For Los Angeles, where the new truck standard can help allow the amazing regional air quality experienced during this crisis to continue, it puts us on the path to achieving Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Transportation Electrification Partnership’s Zero Emissions Roadmap that aims to make 60 percent of delivery trucks and 40 percent of drayage and short haul trucks are zero emissions by 2028.
4) Finally, we urge California’s federal delegation to support a strategic recovery in Congress, including the Transportation Electrification Partnership’s $150 billion stimulus proposal to boost electric vehicle manufacturing, charging, transit, innovation and job training.
Policy, job creation and advanced training are closely linked. California has a head start with initiatives like the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program that has prepared thousands of California electricians for the shift to electric transportation.
This means that electrical contractors and electrical workers are ready to be put on the front lines of this recovery. And the innovation of our entrepreneurs—like those supported at LACI—will be unleashed to determine the additional mobility and clean energy solutions needed to meet our clean air and climate targets.
We ask that our governor, legislators and CARB stand strong in support of zero-emission transportation solutions, which are a backbone of California’s economy. Doing so will deliver clean air, long-term economic growth and stable jobs.
Matt Petersen is CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, chair of the Transportation Electrification Partnership and board chair of Climate Mayors. Bernie Koltier is executive director on the Labor Management Cooperation Committee for IBEW-NECA California & Nevada.
