From its inception in 1967, the work of the California Air Resources Board has helped improve our air quality and assisted in our collective fight against climate change. Recently, however, CARB built a new $419 million state-of-the-art facility in Riverside, Calif., staffed with an ever-expanding stable of employees. These enhancements have contributed to the massive increase in the proposed new fees on all of the new vehicles riders and drivers purchase.
Californians are used to paying extra to live in this beautiful state, but CARB’s proposed new vehicle emission certification fees take this to an extreme. In some cases, the proposed fees are 900 percent more than what the U.S. EPA assesses for similar on-highway motorcycles, and 500 percent more than the fees assessed by the EPA for off-highway vehicles. This will impact consumers through higher prices and severely reduced selection of new motorcycle, scooter, dirt bike, ATV, and side-by-side models.
CARB’s proposed new fees are crippling and will have a devastating effect on every Californian. Drivers and riders will have fewer options because manufacturers will be forced to limit the models sold in California as a matter of dollars and cents (and sense). California dealerships, including their thousands of employees, will suffer economically as consumers opt to pay less for the same vehicles from an out-of-state dealer. And the impact will not be limited to dealerships, as the economic activity supported by riders recreating in California’s state parks and on federal land. This will be especially challenging as California claws its way out of the pandemic and its ongoing harm to California’s economy.
The unintended consequence of the new CARB fees is that Californians will be forced to hang on to their older, less efficient vehicles, or be forced to pay higher prices for new models.
Manufacturers will continue to pay their share to ensure Californians benefit from more efficient cars, trucks, motorcycles, dirt bikes, ATVs, and side-by-sides. But CARB’s proposal goes too far, at the expense of every Californian.
