California regulators Tuesday released a set of proposals recommitting the state to consistent promotion of clean transportation, largely in response to the collapse of federal support for transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels.
The recommendations include a wide range of policies, from electric vehicle purchase incentives and subsidized car charging to government fleet electrification and letting electric cars keep using carpool lanes.
In response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order in June, state agencies led by the California Air Resources Board outlined nearly two dozen actions that could help maintain momentum toward California’s zero-emission vehicle and carbon neutrality targets. But they come with few new deadlines, no cost estimates and no legislative language attached, meaning policymakers still face significant work to meet the state’s ambitious climate-protection goals.
The highly anticipated recommendations “reflect near-term actions that will have a significant impact on maintaining momentum and accelerating progress towards widespread ZEV adoption within existing state authorities,” according to the report. Yet the seven-page document reads more like a long-form policy briefing than a blueprint for meeting the state’s binding targets: 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035 and statewide carbon neutrality by 2045.
Ambitious agenda, light on details
Among the most consequential ideas in the report is a one-line proposal to explore reallocating the California Climate Credit — a twice-a-year energy refund drawn from the state’s cap-and-trade pollution credit program — to subsidize EV charging. The credit returns hundreds of dollars annually to utility customers, regardless of vehicle ownership.
That potential shift, while conceivably unlocking huge savings for EV drivers, is not accompanied by a timeline, funding range or legal strategy. Still, Gil Tal, director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California, Davis, said the focus is welcome.
“I was really pushing hard to find a way to subsidize electricity for transportation, especially for people who depend on public chargers, who don’t have home solar panels above their head,” Tal said in an interview. “And I think that that’s what they are aiming to with this one.”
He added that reducing the cost of charging might matter more to many Californians than the sticker price of a new electric vehicle. “Incentives for lowering the price of electricity for transportation may be as important, if not more important for a big section of the market,” he said.
Another potentially far-reaching item in the report is a call to sustain and leverage the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which brings in about $4 billion annually in private investment through credit trading. While the program has supported some EV adoption — mainly by funding utility rebates and public charging — the vast majority of credit value still flows to the production of biofuels that are mixed into petroleum, lowering the carbon intensity and toxicity of tailpipe emissions.
“That was one of our recommendations, actually,” said Bill Magavern, policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air, a Sacramento-based advocacy group, “that more of the LCFS should be used to promote electrification. And so I’m glad to see the administration supporting that.”
“The world is accelerating forward toward cleaner vehicle technologies, and is going to watch the U.S. fade into the rearview mirror because this administration is choosing to quit the race. This report shows California is still in.”
— Liane Randolph, chair, California Air Resources Board
Also included is a proposal to increase government procurement of hydrogen to help stabilize the market for zero-emission buses, trucks, trains and port equipment. Like the cap-and-trade and fuel standards credit funding streams, this item is not backed by fiscal estimates or targets.
The report briefly discusses enhancing vehicle-grid integration and proposes state incentives for automakers that build vehicles capable of bidirectional charging to help return energy to the utilities when demand is highest. While California has invested in pilot programs, this would mark a move toward larger-scale alignment with manufacturers and charger standards.
Rebates for cars, trucks
The report reiterates the state’s intention to sustain or revive EV purchase incentives after the federal tax credit of up to $7,500 expires Sept. 30 for most makes, models and buyers. But the plan does not advance a new timeline or fiscal structure for those incentives.
“I think it’s going to be hard for the state to turn on any incentive program that would take effect Oct. 1 when the federal incentives go away,” said David Reichmuth, a senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “So there is going to be a gap there.”
He noted that any state program would likely be more targeted toward helping low-income drivers than the federal one, both in scope and in funding. For now, he said, the proposal reads as a reaffirmation, not a plan.
One section calls for bolstering the used EV market by supporting leases and keeping vehicles in the state post-sale, an idea Tal has championed for years.
“Most Californians are not buying new cars,” Tal said. “And since we are not expecting the car companies to make cheap EVs in the next couple of years, because they don’t have to, the best way to make sure that these cars will get to more Californian households is to accelerate the secondary market.”
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A separate memo from the Electric Vehicle Research Center, submitted to regulators before the state report was released, offers a sharper and more detailed roadmap. It emphasizes that high electricity rates, not vehicle sticker prices, may now be the biggest barrier to EV adoption. The authors urge the state to focus on lowering charging costs — especially for renters — and preventing subsidized vehicles from being sold out of state. While the document does not propose legislation, it offers practical strategies for expanding access to home charging and restructuring electricity rates. The researchers frame these steps as interim tools until California can reinstate stronger emissions rules or vehicle sales mandates. In response to the Trump administration’s rollback of EV funding and attempt to strip California’s clean air authority, the state is taking the fight to court — defending rules that 17 other states and Washington, D.C., have also adopted.
One idea the UC Davis report endorsed was never mentioned in the state document: “feebates,” a subsidy for buying efficient new vehicles paid for by sales of more-polluting models. The researchers argue that it would require no new allocations of state revenues and encourage more drivers to opt for EVs.
Supporting policies
Other items in the regulators’ report refer to programs and rulemaking already underway or legislation in the pipeline this year. These include enforcement of reliability standards for public car chargers, accelerated permitting for the needed growth of curbside charging infrastructure and extending authority to the state government for “indirect source” rules that require some industrial facility operators to clean up freight emissions near their plants.
The report includes several other proposals that, while useful, are unlikely to reshape the market in the absence of deeper policy moves.
One section suggests accelerating the electrification of government fleets of cars, trucks and buses. But the report used an ambiguous phrase, “require or incentivize.” Reichmuth noted the distinction could mean a big difference in policy.
“There’s a lot of vehicles in state and local fleets that could be replaced,” he said. “I’m here in Oakland, and I look at all the pickup trucks that the city has for the parks and rec department, where they’re going to drive 30 miles a day. They don’t need a 300-mile range. Every electric pickup truck on the market would serve their needs.”
While the report leaves that choice unresolved, it also calls for making EVs and electric and hydrogen-fueled trucks the default in state procurement contracts — a symbolic move with limited market effect. It also recommends establishing consumer protections to boost confidence in EV technology, such as easy-to-understand battery health disclosures.
“I think it’s actually hitting the right topics and the right recommendations — and it probably would have been easier to fulfill all of them in a good year. But the budget is a little bit tight.”
— Gil Tal, Electric Vehicle Research Center
The report Newsom requested was the product of state agencies working together with the Air Resources Board: the state Energy Commission, Public Utilities Commission, Department of Consumer Affairs, State Transportation Agency and the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
In a press event Tuesday, Liane Randolph, chair of the Air Resources Board, emphasized that the state still hoped it could meet the statewide goal of phasing out new gas car sales by 2035. “The regulation was adopted before there was a wholesale federal assault on progress and innovation,” she said. “And so I think we are going to get a lot of advocacy from stakeholders to stick to that timeline.”
Environmental activists say the report still represents meaningful progress, if not in execution, then in political timing and breadth.
After federal lawmakers acted this year to revoke California’s clean air waivers and slash EV funding, the state had to affirm its intent to stay on course.
“This progress signals that there’s a vision and there’s an unwavering commitment to continuing the transition to clean vehicles,” said Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters.
“What’s become very clear this year, with the closing of two refineries, is that we have no time to waste,” she said. “The way out of the gas-price crisis is clean, affordable, reliable, electric transportation and robust transit. So I think this is really promising to see such quick action by the Newsom administration.” Creasman praised the state’s “all-of-the-above strategy.”
She added: “I think the federal government’s illegal actions, accompanied with the rising threat of gas prices and the decline in demand for gas, is putting us at this really powerful inflection point.”
California agencies’ joint report to the governor on sustaining clean transportation momentum.
Electric Car Research Center policy recommendations to state agencies, August 2025.
Coalition for Clean Air policy recommendations to state agencies, July 2025.
