“It shall be a goal of the state that 100 percent of in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks will be zero-emission by 2035,” reads California Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order N-79-20, issued on September 23, 2020.
This month President Trump rolled back the California rule, based on his executive order “to eliminate the electric vehicle (EV) mandate and promote true consumer choice, which is essential for economic growth and innovation, by removing regulatory barriers to motor vehicle access; by ensuring a level regulatory playing field for consumer choice in vehicles.” Newsom was quick to push back. (RELATED: Trump Reverses Newsom’s Ban on Gas Cars)
“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues,” said the governor in a statement, “and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process. We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters.” This tangle will be of interest to drivers coast to coast. (RELATED: Trump’s Electric Vehicle Rollback Helps Consumers, Won’t Hurt Climate)
Newsom might have attracted similar attention if he ordered that by 2035 all new cars should be convertibles equipped with manual 6-speed transmissions, holding at least five passengers, and painted purple. The enormous breadth of driver needs and preferences has evidently escaped the governor’s attention, and it’s not quite true that EVs are “zero-emission.” (RELATED: Threatened With Legal Action, State Makes U-Turn on Electric Truck Mandates)
The manufacture of EV batteries requires huge energy inputs, the mining process is highly destructive to the environment, and EV battery disposal also raises environmental issues. So the need for tradeoffs finds little if any place in the governor’s EV-only plan, which comes up short in other ways.
Electric vehicles must be charged, and California’s electric grid is already under stress. In 2022, the state told EV owners not to charge their vehicles between 4 and 9 pm., the most convenient time for commuters to plug in. In March, the state claimed 178,549 public and shared chargers statewide, but when it comes to nuclear power plants, the state is down to one.
France, by contrast, deploys 18 commercial nuclear power plants with a total of 57 reactors. The low cost of generation has made France the world’s largest net exporter of electricity, with yearly gains of more than €3 billion.
Newsom bases his EV-only plan on “climate change” but shows little grasp of the literature and differences of opinion among scientists. After raging wildfires in 2020, Newsom proclaimed, “the hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier … something happened to the plumbing of the world. Climate change is real and exacerbating this.” For Newsom, climate change is statist superstition in service of a political agenda. In California, it’s not just for cars.
Beyond Newsom’s EV Agenda
Newsom signed a bill that requires stores to maintain a “gender neutral” children’s section or face fines. Attorney General Rob Bonta urges shoppers to act as informants, a practice of socialist regimes such as the German Democratic Republic. The state has also targeted the workers. (RELATED: The Golden State Unleashes the Anonymous Snoop Dogs)
The governor signed Assembly Bill 5, by San Diego Democrat Lorena Gonzalez, a veritable declaration against the independence of rideshare drivers, truckers, freelance writers, editors, and even musicians. In the style of the EV mandate, the governor wants workers to get only the jobs the state wants them to have. So no mystery that so many workers are leaving.
Long before AB-5, California’s government monopoly education system forced students into the schools the government wanted them to attend, not the schools their parents would choose, given the opportunity to do so. The last school-choice initiative in California (Proposition 174) came in 1993. Republican Governor Pete Wilson failed to support it, and the measure failed.
It was once said that “as California goes, so goes the nation,” and the tax revolt of the late 1970s (Proposition 13) did influence other states. In 1996, through the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209), Californians ended racial preferences in state education, employment, and contracting. That also set a standard for other states, but not for Newsom.
The San Francisco Democrat promotes DEI hiring and has done nothing to lower Californians’ heavy tax burden. Last year, he teamed with former Governor Jerry Brown to remove a measure similar to Proposition 13 from the 2024 ballot, for which it had already qualified.
Newsom now envisions a state — and perhaps an entire country — where you get only what the government wants you to have. Calling this socialism may seem strong, but such a plan is contrary to sound economics, personal choice, and the liberties of the people.
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Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
