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Pritzker restates longtime opposition to California-style mandated zero emissions standards, saying he prefers ‘carrots over sticks’ at least for now

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Illinois

* From Gov. JB Pritzker’s appearance at the Illinois Farm Bureau’s 2022 candidate forum…

Q: With California on the verge of passing a law that would mandate all electric electrical vehicles by 2035 and multiple states are possibly ready to follow, can we have your commitment to ensure that Illinois consumers have the choice in what type of vehicles we drive and we do not follow California’s lead?

Pritzker: I had the opportunity to sign on to that pact and didn’t. So that should give you some indicator. Look, do I think we ought to see electrification? Yes, of course, I’ve encouraged that I think it’s a good thing for us to electrify. But it is going to be gradual, it is going to take time. Illinois is not going to snap its fingers and require you to go buy an electric vehicle tomorrow.

* The governor today…

So we want to work our way obviously toward having zero emission vehicles on the road. That’s why we’ve provided some incentives for people who want to go out on their own, make that decision. I personally think now is not the right time for us to do that. Having said that, that’s ultimately the goal. So the question is, it’s not so much joining another state in their standard. It’s just a question of we ultimately need to replace fossil fuel-emitting vehicles in this country. And so we want to be a part of that in the state of Illinois. And we again, we’ve created incentives rather than, you know, sort of carrots rather than sticks to move people in the right direction

* NFIB: Rep. Gonzalez Pushes for Illinois to Outsource its Vehicle Emissions Standards to California: The bill, if passed, would require the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) to adopt and maintain rules implementing “the motor vehicle emissions standards of the State of California” in Illinois, effectively outsourcing an important area of Illinois’ transportation and environmental decision-making to California officials.

* Trucking group says it will sue if IL adopts CA emissions standards: The Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association and the California Trucking Association have filed lawsuits against similar legislation. Hart said they expect to sue in Illinois if Gonzalez’s bill becomes law. “You cannot have a state submit itself and its laws and policies to another state agency that is over 2,000 miles away,” Hart said.

* IL Corn Growers Association Urges Put the BRAKES on HB1634: Last week, Illinois state lawmakers tried hitting the gas to incorporate California’s extreme vehicle emissions standards into the Midwest. HB1634 allows California to govern Illinois Vehicle Code and would essentially require: 35% of new light duty vehicles including cars, SUV’s and pick-up trucks sold must be electric by 2026. By 2035, 100% must be electric. Mandates that 75% of all new heavy- duty truck sales and 40% of class 7 and 8 tractor sales must be zero emission by 2035. Requires new trucks sold to be zero emission starting in 2036. Requires used trucks owned by medium and large fleets also be zero emission by 2042.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 3:25 pm

Comments

They should not use California mandates here. If they want to do something productive, they should add funds to the Illinois rebate program for buyers of electric cars. The program ran out of funds almost immediately after it was implemented.

Comment by DuPage Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 4:01 pm
Electric cars cannot be the only climate solution - public transportation and active transportation are much more climate friendly and could see a lot of improvement and investment. If we want green transport, there is a lot of work to be done there. Instead of changing an ICE car into an E-Car, change an ICE car driver into a transit rider.

Comment by Incandenza Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 4:15 pm
Bringing the California emissions here would hurt the Cairo Port project, as well as shipping across the State. One of the draws to this project has been Corporations that have already, and that are considering, changing their shipping methods from overseas. Some have already switched to bringing cargo through the Panama Canal and into ports such as New Orleans in order to avoid the mess that has been created in California ports. The draw to the Cairo Port project is that it would allow ships to unload the shipping containers onto specially built boats to then transport them up the river to be off loaded onto rail cars and trucks for distribution to their final destination. By bringing those same anti trucking policies here, it removes that incentive.
The same can be said about trucking of ag products produced here and trucked across the country.

Comment by SOIL M Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 4:19 pm
Working class people, especially in the south side of Chicago, are not able to afford EVs. It’s not yet practical for small businesses, especially those in Latino neighborhoods.
It doesn’t take a college degree to know this

Comment by HarveyGuy Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 5:04 pm
Another thing Illinois could do is build the I-57 to I-65 expressway. That would cut down on a lot of diesel trucks stop and go traffic jams.

Comment by DuPage Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 5:18 pm
Carrots are usually more expensive than sticks. I still don’t understand why we have tax expenditures associated with selling motor fuels that are required under federal mandate.

Every time we create a carrot we create a new carrot lobby and we’re still going to be dangling that carrot long past the benefit that the carrot brings to public policy. In the worst case scenarios, the carrot starts to become a defining platform position for a political party regardless of the harm for carrots, or the carrot becomes a ‘third rail of politics’ and costs us billions of dollars.

===could render thousands of farm vehicles “illegal and worthless,”===

I am really tired of these yahoos at the Farm Bureau relying on people to know nothing about farming when they’re advocating for irresponsible policy positions.

A combine’s operational life is usually around 4,000 to 5,000 hours. Depending a lot on the tractor, you probably expect around 3,000 to 4,000 hours and if you only drove the tractor to church on Sundays and performed all of the maintenance as recommended, maybe 5000 hours.

A lot of this depends on use, but you should expect one of these big ol’ farm vehicles to make it a decade, and in the best of circumstances two decades — not that any farmer really knows from personal experience because if someone is doing commercial commodity crop they’d probably be selling their existing tractors/combines and buying a new one or new to them every few years.

===The current standard, as of Jan. 1, prohibits diesel-fueled vehicles model years 2010 and older, with a gross vehicle weight rating of 14,000 pounds or greater from traveling on California roadways, unless they upgrade the engine.===

So the California legislation impacts vehicles that are already near or at the end of their operating life cycle unless they upgrade their engines.

An engine that would probably need to be replaced by now.

The only people who might see a real impact from this legislation are hobby farmers that don’t drive their vehicles on public roads.

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 8:32 pm
And this is a personal opinion, I don’t think farmers really need any more government support or any extra tax incentives.

We are at the point that we need to be having a real conversation about holding commercial farmers responsible for the sheer amount of pollution that is running off of their farm land so that the lazy way of farming is more expensive than the responsible way of farming.

This industry is literally poisoning our rivers and watersheds and now we’re talking about giving them “carrots” to purchase new vehicles that are less destructive to our climate too?

Maybe there should be a real conversation about holding the agricultural industry accountable for the damage they do without any regard for the future of our civilization.

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Feb 27, 24 @ 8:41 pm
Good move. The grid itself is nowhere near ready for that type of mandate.

They need to prioritize updating the grid for multiple reasons and charging is just one of them.

With Chinese balloons, solar flares, and other possibilities our grid could easily go because it’s not well built.

Comment by The Dude Wednesday, Feb 28, 24 @ 6:00 am
I’m not sure where Candy Dogood is getting these facts about modern agribusiness. For the extremely large farms, she is likely right about the replacement timetable for most of their machinery, but even 5,000+ acre farms I know of have older machinery performing certain critical roles.

As for the lifespan of combines and tractors, I guess the ones we have at our 800+ acre farm operating year in and year out are obsolete. We’ve got a 1974 1066 tractor where the hour meter hasn’t worked since before I was a teenager with way more than 5,000 hours, a 7220 tractor near 8,000 hours, and a 2388 combine near 5,000 hours. There is no current plan to replace these machines due to the astronomical cost of new equipment and our ability to perform maintenance and repairs to keep them going strong.

Comment by Actual Farmer Wednesday, Feb 28, 24 @ 10:27 am