Comment Log Display

January 20, 2016

Mary D. Nichols
Chair, California Air Resources Board
Chairman’s Office
P.O. Box 2815
Sacramento, CA 95812

RE: Proposed Advanced Clean Transit Regulation

Dear Chairwoman Nichols:

On behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, I would like
to thank you for the opportunity to provide comment on the
development of the proposed Advanced Clean Transit (ACT)
regulation. As you know, California’s public transit agencies have
been ardent supporters of advancing zero emission bus (ZEB)
technology, and continue to be enthusiastic partners in the state’s
efforts to achieve the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
reductions and air quality goals. Southern California’s
transportation agencies have proactively taken steps to introduce
ever-cleaner technologies. However, the primary objective of
Southern California’s public transit agencies is to provide safe,
reliable and efficient mobility options to the region. We are
concerned that, if allowed to move forward in its current form, the
expensive ACT regulation may result in cuts in transit service.
Therefore, I am writing to you to express our concerns with the
current framework of the proposed ACT regulation, and to
respectfully request that you slow the advancement of the proposed
regulation and call for a meaningful study of alternatives. Moving
forward, we commit to working with you to ensure that encouraging
ZEB implementation does not compromise our ability to accomplish
our service objectives.

As proposed, the ACT regulation would mandate that a “modest”
fraction of bus purchases be ZEB technology, beginning 2018, and
transition all transit fleets to ZEB technology by 2040. From our
experience, ZEB technology neither offers the range, nor the
reliability to be operated in all conditions across our state’s
varied transit systems. Most critically, ZEB technology often
imposes significantly higher upfront capital costs than
conventional technologies, and unknown, but possibly higher ongoing
operating costs, which could strain our capital and operating
budgets. Therefore, without a robust lifecycle cost analysis, we
hold that any assertion by California Air Resources Board (CARB)
staff that the total cost of ownership of ZEB technology (inclusive
of the upfront capital costs of bus purchase and infrastructure
construction, bus operation and maintenance, workforce development
and training, midlife rebuild and bus disposal) may be less than
the total cost of ownership of conventional technologies is purely
speculative.

In addition, CARB staff has failed to identify funding options,
beyond a few small discretionary programs, which could adequately
support and sustain the long-term goals of the proposed ACT
regulation. The state funding options that have been identified
to-date, particularly those that rely on Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Fund (GGRF) dollars, are already oversubscribed; these funding
options are intended, per their enacting statutes and existing
guidelines, to support various forms of infrastructure development,
capital replacement and technology incubation that achieve
prescribed policy objectives – not just a ZEB purchase requirement.
Federal funding options, while bettered by the recent enactment of
the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, are similarly
limited and often dedicated to critical operations and maintenance
purposes. Additionally, CARB staff’s assumptions regarding the
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) contributions to initial bus
capital expenditures remain deeply flawed, as they assume Urbanized
Area Formula program funding will be available to cover 82 percent
of the costs of a bus no matter the costs of the bus; in fact, this
program’s funding disbursements are actually fixed relative to bus
capital costs. Without adequate dedicated funding, the costs of the
proposed regulation will likely divert already limited state and
federal funds from other critical transit uses.

The Chamber believes the costs of the proposed regulation may
result in service reductions that limit mobility, particularly for
transit-dependent and disadvantaged communities, increase traffic
congestion, and degrade our community’s economic competitiveness.
These service reductions may also reduce or negate the regulation’s
purported GHG and air quality benefits. On a statewide-level, this
regulation may limit the state’s ability to fund other projects and
programs that may net far greater near-term and long-term
environmental benefits, and conflict with current or pending
legislative guidance.

With these concerns in mind, we implore you to slow the advancement
of the proposed regulation to work through our concerns, and to
consider other regulatory frameworks for achieving our shared
long-term environmental objectives. We support, and urge you to
consider an alternative approach, recently endorsed by the
California Transit Association’s Executive Committee – the
“Proposed Framework for Incentivizing the Adoption of Zero Emission
Transit Fleets.” This proposed framework seeks to maintain
transit’s leadership in adopting and incubating clean technologies
to achieve even greater GHG emission reductions and air quality
improvements, while seriously taking into account the operational
limitation and financial constraints that transit agencies face.
Put broadly, the proposed framework is premised on the
establishment of technology neutral and performance-based emission
and petroleum targets, instead of the technology-forcing approach
of the proposed ACT regulation, which provide transit agencies with
the flexibility to implement the commercially viable, zero or
near-zero emission technologies best-suited to meet their
operational needs. As funding is a key impediment to the robust
implementation of zero and near-zero emission technologies, the
framework calls for CARB to identify and secure, for the sole
purpose of facilitating the transition to zero emission fleets, new
and ongoing state and federal funding. We believe that this
approach is prudent, and may lead to a more cost-effective use of
limited GGRF dollars.

In the coming months, we along with our stakeholder partners, will
continue to work with you to advance our common goal of cleaner air
for Californians. We believe we can find a collaborative way to
increase ZEB adoption in the state without placing undue burden on
public transit agencies
Thank you for your leadership and for your consideration of our
position.

Sincerely,

 
Gary Toebben
President & CEO