If it’s action you seek, look to the states
By: Douglas Phelps
Tags: California, Plastic Pollution, Clean Energy

If it’s action you seek, look to the states

In case you missed it, California acted to phase out gasoline-burning cars by 2035, New Jersey lawmakers passed the nation’s strongest plastic pollution bill, and Michigan committed to net zero carbon pollution by 2050.

Electric car charging (Photo credit: Department of Energy via Flickr, Creative Commons)

In case you missed it, California acted to phase out gasoline-burning cars by 2035, New Jersey lawmakers passed the nation’s strongest plastic pollution bill, and Michigan committed to net zero carbon pollution by 2050.

Progress is possible — even when the national picture is chaotic. And that’s why many of The Public Interest Network organizations prioritize state action.

We believe Justice Louis Brandeis got it right when he affirmed that states are laboratories of democracy. States remain the very best places to pilot innovative policies whose impacts can echo across the country for decades.

Take Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order making California first in the nation to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. This state action, which Environment California and CALPIRG called for with the launch of a joint campaign in February, builds off one of the most successful climate experiments we’ve conducted in our state laboratories: CALPIRG helping to win Clean Cars standards, “the nation’s first greenhouse gas emissions standard for cars,” in 2002.

Over the course of a decade, state PIRGs and our state environmental organizations followed CALPIRG’s lead and helped win Clean Car standards in 13 states. This wave of victories culminated in adoption of the standards at the national level in 2009. The results — along with lower tailpipe emissions and more breathable air — were improvements in electric vehicle technology. These advances set the stage for Gov. Newsom’s groundbreaking new order, which came, crucially, despite the Trump administration’s attacks on Clean Car standards themselves.

California’s action will make it easier for a Biden administration to fulfill campaign promises to develop standards surpassing the Obama-era Clean Cars program and to meet a national goal of 500,000 new charging stations by 2030. And in the event of a second Trump administration, California’s action also makes it harder to stall or reverse America’s climate progress.

Action in leadership states can create a ripple effect, even in challenging political terrain. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s order to commit Michigan to net zero carbon pollution by 2050 is not only a response to stronger storms and warming temperatures in the Great Lakes Basin. It’s also a response to seven states within the last two years making binding statewide commitments to reach 100 percent clean electricity by 2045.

Just as meaningful climate action can come from the states, so too can plastic waste solutions. By passing the nation’s strongest ban on single-use plastics polluting our planet and harming wildlife, the New Jersey Assembly provides the latest example of the resounding impact states are making in the absence of federal leadership. The legislation moves New Jersey closer to a sustainable, reuse-driven economy by banning single-use plastic bags and polystyrene, making plastic straws available only by request, and phasing out paper bags at larger grocery stores.

Often enough, we find there are states that can be primed to act — and quickly. They’re also big enough actors that every leader enlisted, every benchmark met, every campaign victory contributes to progress that matches the scale of the challenges we face. If Gov. Phil Murphy signs this bill championed by Environment New Jersey into law, then the number of Americans living in a state that’s banned at least one type of single-use plastic will have doubled, surpassing one in seven Americans, in just over a year’s time. Environment America’s state offices campaigned successfully for the adoption of these statewide plastics bans first in California and then in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland and Oregon.

No matter what is happening in Washington, D.C., the states will still offer compelling opportunities to move America forward. And The Public Interest Network will keep up our work encouraging state leaders to rise to the nation’s challenges with imagination, courage and leadership.

Thank you to Gov. Newsom, Gov. Whitmer and New Jersey lawmakers for stepping up and filling America’s leadership void. Congratulations to Environment California, CALPIRG, Environment Michigan, Environment New Jersey and our allies for your successes.