Long a leader in environmental legislation, the U.S. State of California has passed legislation aimed at increasing the usage of automotive fuels which have a low carbon footprint.

The new regulation, passed Thursday by the state assembly, has at its heart the concept of “carbon intensity.” This legal philosophy considers not only the emissions directly associated with operating the cars in which a fuel is used, but also looks at the carbon footprint of the production and delivery of the fuel.

Everyone associated with the fuel, including fuel providers, refiners, importers, and blenders, will have to comply with the new regulations, which carry with them an average declining standard of carbon intensity, according to a CNET story. California’s Air Resources Board now mandates that everyone associated with automotive fuels must reduce the carbon footprint of those fuels by 10 percent before the end of the year 2020.

The intent of the regulations are to reduce the reliance of the state on petroleum-based fuels and move both providers and users to alternative sources of automotive energy. These new sources would include biofuels, electricity, and fuel cells, all of which have a lower carbon footprint than petroleum-based fuels. The new legislation is intended to replace 20 percent of the gasoline and diesel fuels of today with cleaner alternative fuels by the year 2020.

Legislators enacted special provisions into the new law to help certain specific sources of cleaner automotive fuels. The law contains $120 million in funding over seven years to assist in the development and production of low carbon fuels from a number of sources, including  algae, switchgrass, and municipal solid waste.

California is, all by itself, one of the largest economies in the world and as such carries more weight in the country, and the world, than the average American state. It recently enacted tougher fuel economy standards for cars sold in California. The Bush administration, via their Environmental Protection Agency, was quick to denigrate those laws as illegal. The new Obama administration, however, has asked the EPA to reconsider its decision.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 1:53 pm under Green Technology, Politics, Technology.

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