Low-income drivers must be helped by state in the push for zero-emission vehicles

For California to reach the “tipping point” to get enough zero emission vehicles on our roads to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas air pollution and slow climate change, we need to get our disadvantaged communities in the driver’s seat.

California crafted the Clean Cars 4 All (CC4A) program to do just that, and to help to improve air quality in some of our most impoverished and polluted communities. Through financial incentives, Clean Cars 4 All, has helped more than 10,000 low-income drivers swap their old, gas guzzling, polluting cars for newer plug-in vehicles.

To be even more successful, this popular program needs more money, not less. However, the administration is considering changes to CC4A that will siphon dollars away from the families in disadvantaged communities — the very people that the program was designed to assist. Now is not the time to dilute our commitment to these communities.

According to the American Lung Association, California continues to have the worst air quality in the nation. People of color and those in poverty are among those more likely to live where the air can make you sick, and where children are affected every day by poor air quality.

California families that struggle to make ends meet have little discretionary money for a new car, let alone a plug-in vehicle. For them, there’s barely enough money for gas with prices hitting record highs and little or nothing left for proper vehicle maintenance.

The average age of cars on our roads today is 12.2 years old and nearly a quarter are models 2004 or older. Data shows that 10.66% to 17.25% of these cars fail smog tests, depending on the model year.

These are the same old cars that you will find in our most polluted communities. In 2013,California created a tool to identify the top 25% of census tracks most vulnerable to poverty, environmental degradation and poor health. The following year, the Legislature passed SB 1275 (De Leon), which created the CC4A program that now has a long track record of providing solutions to families who need help accessing cleaner cars. The scrap-and-replace program offers up to $9,500 toward newer, cleaner vehicles. Qualified participants must live in a disadvantaged community within the five air quality management districts where the program is currently offered and have a household income at or below 400% of the federal poverty level.

Beyond cleaner air, secondary benefits of CC4A are many. Participants can use the money they save on other family needs, instead of on an older vehicle’s maintenance or higher gas expenditures, not to mention the relief that comes from obtaining a reliable car. Here’s where proposed changes for the CC4A program will have a significant negative impact on low income and poor air quality communities. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) would not only expand CC4A statewide, but also drop the disadvantaged community residency requirement.

At the same time, the expansion would overlap five existing programs that maintain the residency requirement. In other words, two CC4A programs will be operating in the same location, at the same time, but with different criteria and rules.

Furthermore, CARB proposes to allocate $250 million to the statewide expansion while funding for the existing programs won’t be determined until later this summer. But without additional funding above the $50 million that Gov. Newsom’s May budget proposed, the programs will receive far less than what’s necessary to meet their operational needs. Many of these programs have more applications in the pipeline than money to cover them.

If enacted, the proposed budget proposal will leave disadvantaged communities on the side of the road while CARB’s expansion plan, with its conflicting rules and criteria, will leave participants bewildered. Additionally, because CC4A will be offered in all ZIP codes, affluent communities will be allowed to participate, redirecting resources from lower income families who need it most.

The fix is simple. Include the disadvantage-community residency requirement in the statewide program and distribute the proposed funding formula more equitably to the worst air quality districts. The program needs to be easily understood and equitably managed to encourage participation so that older polluting cars from disadvantaged communities can be retired.

CARB currently lacks the capacity to expand CC4A in a way that ensures funding finds the targeted families. We can and must expand CC4A statewide without doing harm to communities that need it most.

State Sen. Anna Caballero’s 12th District covers the westside of Fresno County, Madera and Merced counties, and stretches west into the Salinas Valley.