Bill offers rebates, exacts fees based on car emissions

Buyers would get money back on autos with lower emissions and be charged extra on higher polluters.

This week, the California Assembly is expected to vote on the California Clean Car Discount Act, which, if passed, would be the nation's first "feebate" law, imposing charges and granting rebates based on a vehicle's emission of carbon dioxide and other gases.

One-time registration fees of up to $2,500 would be levied on new gas guzzlers, such as Hummers, Dodge Vipers and Chevy Tahoes. Some cleaner sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans would be exempt from any charge, while the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra and other fuel-efficient cars would get hefty rebates.

The bill, AB 493, is among a raft of measures under consideration in the Legislature and, behind the scenes, by officials at California's powerful Air Resources Board, to press the auto industry to do its part to fight global warming."

We put 1.8 million vehicles a year on the road in California," said Assemblyman Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City), the bill's author. "We have to find ways to get more clean cars on the road and more dirty cars off. There's no time to waste if we're to avoid the catastrophes ahead from global warming."

Feebate laws have been enacted in Canada, Finland and France, and in the European Union overall, countries are moving to tax cars based on carbon emissions. In the United States, feebates have also been considered in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.

"Industry argues that market signals don't exist for consumers to buy low-greenhouse-gas and fuel-efficient vehicles," said Daniel Sperling, director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies and a member of the Air Resources Board. "This bill fixes the market forces."

Even if California is able to enact limits on tailpipe emissions, other strategies would be needed to meet the state's broader commitment to slash heat-trapping gases to 1990 levels over the next 13 years, officials say. That goal requires radical cuts in transportation emissions, which are responsible for about 40% of California's carbon footprint, according to the air board.