Climate Change Challenges Vehicle Emissions and Public Health in California

Two of California’s greatest environmental challenges are to meet national ambient air quality standards and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Although California has been struggling with air quality problems for more than four decades, concern over climate change is a relatively new phenomenon. Yet, the common ground between these two concerns is evident—both air quality and climate change policies aim to reduce the harmful pollutants that threaten the public’s health and well-being. And one of the major culprits in both cases is the same—motor vehicles, the leading source of both smog-forming and greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines options for reducing emissions from motor vehicles and evaluates each of the options in terms of its public health, climate change, and cost implications, including the uncertainty associated with each option. We examine battery-electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, the use of ethanol blends in flex-fuel vehicles, and reductions in vehicle miles traveled. We find that increasing the use of battery-electric vehicles provides the greatest public health benefit per unit of GHG emission reduction, followed closely by the use of fuel cell vehicles, and then by reductions in vehicle miles traveled. However, all of these options involve tradeoffs, and none ranks favorably along all dimensions. For example, battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles provide significant public health and climate change benefits, but both options involve high cost an

Science and Uncertainty in Environmental Regulation: Insights from the Evaluation of California's Smog Check Program

Environmental decision making is a complex process confounded by technical uncertainty, political pressure, and social interests. New calls for environmental decision-making frameworks emphasize the need for an holistic approach that incorporates technical and non-technical expertise, and participation by all affected and interested parties. In this paper, we analyze the evaluation of an environmental regulatory program to characterize the interaction of science and policy and the processing of uncertainty using concepts from science and technology studies. This demonstrates the influence of institutional goals and commitments on the uptake and use of science and the processing of uncertainty in the regulatory process. We discuss the implications of such analyses on the development of new environmental decision-making frameworks

Science and Uncertainty in Environmental Regulation: Insights from the Evaluation of California's Smog Check Program

Environmental decision making is a complex process confounded by technical uncertainty, political pressure, and social interests. New calls for environmental decision-making frameworks emphasize the need for an holistic approach that incorporates technical and non-technical expertise, and participation by all affected and interested parties. In this paper, we analyze the evaluation of an environmental regulatory program to characterize the interaction of science and policy and the processing of uncertainty using concepts from science and technology studies. This demonstrates the influence of institutional goals and commitments on the uptake and use of science and the processing of uncertainty in the regulatory process. We discuss the implications of such analyses on the development of new environmental decision-making frameworks.Urban Studies and Planning