California Won’t Buy From Automakers ‘on the Wrong Side of History’ in Emissions Fight With Trump

California will stop buying vehicles from the more than a dozen automakers including General Motors (GM), Fiat Chrysler and Toyota who sided with the Trump administration on the question of whether the state has the authority to set its own emissions standards, CalMatters first reported Friday.
The news came the same day that the state's Department of General Services announced a ban on cars powered only by gas. The department said that state agencies would stop buying gas-powered vehicles immediately and would cease sales from automakers who sided with Trump in January 2020.
"Carmakers that have chosen to be on the wrong side of history will be on the losing end of CA's buying power," California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted Saturday.
Carmakers that have chosen to be on the wrong side of history will be on the losing end of CA’s buying power.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 16, 2019
CA will stop purchasing vehicles from carmakers that have refused to protect our air & chosen to follow the regressive ways of @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/WpW2Eotaxl
California's decision is the latest in an escalating feud between the state and the Trump administration over vehicle fuel efficiency standards designed to fight the climate crisis.
The Obama administration had proposed fuel efficiency standards that would have required carmakers to achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, removing around six billion tons of carbon dioxide over the vehicles' lifetimes, The New York Times explained. When the Trump administration proposed capping standards at around 37 miles per gallon, California and 13 other states said they would stick to the tougher standards, potentially splitting the U.S. auto market. This led Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW of North America to strike a deal with California in July and agree to build fleets averaging 51 miles per gallon by model year 2026.
The Trump administration then officially revoked California's waiver under the Clean Air Act to set its own tailpipe emissions standards in September. California and 22 other states sued the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the same month to block this decision, and this is when car companies like GM and Toyota filed a motion on behalf of the administration, supporting its case in the suit. California's new ban is a response to this motion.
"It certainly sends a strong message to the automakers that have come out on the other side of California in this litigation," Julia Stein, supervising attorney at the University of California Los Angeles Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic, told CalMatters. "It's taking steps to encourage automakers to be on what it views as the right side of that dispute."
It is unclear how much California's ban will impact the automakers, The New York Times reported.
Around 17 million cars and light trucks were sold in the U.S. last year, but the state of California only buys 2,000 to 3,000 vehicles annually. It currently owns 14,000 Fords, 10,000 vehicles made by GM, 4,000 by Fiat Chrysler and 1,200 by Toyota.
However, CalMatters reported that GM in particular stood to lose from the ban, since the state spent $27 million on GM-owned Chevrolet cars in 2018. GM was also the only impacted company to give a statement to Reuters and The New York Times through spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan:
"Removing vehicles like the Chevy Bolt and prohibiting GM and other manufacturers from consideration will reduce California's choices for affordable, American-made electric vehicles and limit its ability to reach its goal of minimizing the state government's carbon footprint, a goal that GM shares."
Between 2016 and 2018, California spent $58.6 million on GM cars, $55.8 million on Fiat Chrysler vehicles, $10.6 million on Toyotas and $9 million on Nissans, another company that sided with Trump, Reuters reported.
Both the ban on gas-powered cars and the ban on Trump-supporting automakers will have exceptions for public safety vehicles, according to CalMatters and The New York Times.
Also on Friday, California and 22 other states launched a parallel lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which was part of the decision to revoke its waiver, according to CalMatters.
The final Trump administration emissions standards are expected within months, according to Reuters, and are anticipated to boost efficiency by around 1.5 percent a year. This is less of an increase than both the original Obama standards and the deal California struck with the four automakers in July.
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At first glance, you wouldn't think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators.
Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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