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Environmental groups defend clean car plan

The COVID crisis has slowed the rule-making process, but MPCA will press ahead with tougher emissions standards aimed at bringing more electric cars to Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency sees more electric cars in your future and cleaner air, the basic point of a proposed rule to adopt California vehicle emissions standards for new cars sold in this state.

The Covid crisis has delayed the schedule for officially publishing the new rule, which will trigger the formal public input process. But the MPCA is still pressing ahead the proposal to adopt tougher emissions rules, which would require more low-emission and zero-emission vehicles to be sold here.

"Getting more cleaner cars on the road is part of the solution that we need to essentially get everyone breathing the same clean air," Madi Johnson of MN 350, remarked Tuesday during a roundtable discussion with environmental organizations and Sen. Scott Dibble.

"Some people say you can just go to another state, just order a car from another state. Why would we want to be exporting those dollars out of Minnesota?" Sen. Dibble explained.

Proponents assert LEV and SEV cars make even more sense in Minnesota where a good portion of the electricity is derived from renewable resources.

"You can think of that as, with the power you're buying for your plug-in cars, really the cleanest form of transportation you can have," Nels Paulsen of Conservation Minnesota added.

RELATED: Walz moves on tougher clean car standards

So far other states have adopted California's stricter standards, which require better gas mileage for new vehicles. The addition of more LEV and SEV cars will, in theory, bring the state's average vehicle emissions in line with those targets.

But Capitol Republicans and the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association opposes the change. They argue that natural market demand, rather than government mandates, should determine what cars are sold here.

"Minnesota is not California. We have cold weather here, and that lowers the performance of the batteries in these fully electric cars," Scott Lambert of MADA told KARE.

He noted that the top-selling vehicle in California is the Honda Civic, whereas the highest seller in Minnesota is the Chevrolet Silverado. He said currently electric cars make up one and a half percent of all new cars sold in Minnesota, and the goal of the proposed new rule would raise that figure to eight percent of new vehicle sales. 

"Just putting more vehicles on the lots of dealers means we'll have to carry more inventory, which we have to pay for," Lambert said.

"But if consumer demand is very low, and consumer demand is very low for a bunch of different reasons. We can't create demand out of nothing."

Senate Republicans recently told MPCA Commissioner Laura Bishop they believe the legislature should be in control of setting emissions standards. They pressed her to schedule public hearings in rural areas of the state where the idea faces more opposition.

Commissioner Bishop said most states that have adopted the California standard did it through the administrative rule-making process, and that state law empowers the MPCA to set clean air standards.

One argument environmentalist offer is that tailpipe exhaust from gasoline-burning vehicles adds to the air quality problems that especially affect those with asthma and other respiratory issues.

"The number of air quality alerts has grown recently. This places a burden on people who have asthma, but also adds a huge burden on healthcare costs in Minnesota," Dr. Mike Menzel of Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate said in Tuesday's roundtable.

Josh Houdek of the Sierra Club noted studies that have shown health problems associated with fossil fuel pollution in urban interstate corridors have fallen disproportionately on lower income Minnesotans and people of color.

Dibbled added, "It should be no surprise that folks in those communities suffer from high rates of asthma and cardio and respiratory diseases," Dibble added.



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