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Speaker 1: This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on

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Speaker 1: the BNAF podcast. On today's show, we bring you an

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Speaker 1: interview from B and EF's recent summit in San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: which took place on the thirtieth and thirty first of January.

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Speaker 1: On stage, we were joined by California State Senator from

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Speaker 1: the eleventh District, Scott Wiener, and he was interviewed by

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Speaker 1: Corey Cantor, a senior associate focused on electrified transport for

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Speaker 1: US at BNF. Since joining California Senate in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: Wiener has introduced bills focused on net neutrality, solar energy

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Speaker 1: and storage, and the environment.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: For decades, California has been proactive when it comes to

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Speaker 1: environmental policy, ranging from a carbon market to legislation to

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Speaker 1: reduce internal combustion engine sales. So today we hear from

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Speaker 1: a policy maker who is actively involved in shaping what

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Speaker 1: happens in California. Scott shares his views on public transportation.

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Speaker 1: With California leading the rest of the United States in

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Speaker 1: terms of electric vehicle ownership and charging infrastructure, has too

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Speaker 1: much focus been placed on automobiles and could a public

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Speaker 1: transportation network including a intercity high speed rail be in

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Speaker 1: the state's future. They also talk about legislation and the

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Speaker 1: impact of recent bills which would require corporate disclosure of

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Speaker 1: scope one to two to three emissions in addition to

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Speaker 1: disclosure of their climate risk. And since it is an

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Speaker 1: election year, no interview would be complete without hearing his

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Speaker 1: views on what the outcome of the US presidential election

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Speaker 1: would have on the state of California. For more information

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Speaker 1: about the six b and EF summits taking place in

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Speaker 1: cities around the world, and to see replays of some

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Speaker 1: of the b and EF talks and debates delivered at

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Speaker 1: our recent event in San Francisco, head to about dot BNF,

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Speaker 1: dot com Forward Slash Summit And now let's hear our

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Speaker 1: conversation with Senator Scott Wiener at the BNF Summit in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, moderated by Corey Canter.

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Speaker 2: Really happy to have Senator Wiener with us here today

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Speaker 2: to talk about some of my favorite topics electrification and transport,

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Speaker 2: climate change, and really the state of our policy and politics.

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Speaker 2: So Senator Wiener, maybe the start One of my favorite

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Speaker 2: kind of wonky reports came out yesterday, the California New

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Speaker 2: Car Dealers Report kind of showing the state of the

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Speaker 2: California EV market. And what the report found was one

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Speaker 2: in four car sales were electric for twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 2: just about so at a high level, where do you

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Speaker 2: think the state of California is when it comes to

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Speaker 2: the EV transition?

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thank you for having me. California

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Speaker 3: is absolutely leaving the nation in terms of transition to

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Speaker 3: zero emission vehicles, both cars and trucks. We are, as

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Speaker 3: you mentioned, the quarter of new car sales are zero emission.

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Speaker 3: It's been accelerating. We are actually ahead of goals that

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Speaker 3: were set a decade or so ago in terms of

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Speaker 3: number of cars and trucks being sold, the percentage so forth,

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Speaker 3: were several years ahead. That doesn't mean that we should

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Speaker 3: rest inner, Laurels. We should accelerate that transition and move

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Speaker 3: away from fossil fuels.

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Speaker 2: And in terms of your role as a state senator,

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Speaker 2: you know we had officials yesterday from the CEC. We

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Speaker 2: had a chair when we Randolph from carb How does

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Speaker 2: the state legislature play a role in this kind of

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Speaker 2: transition compared to you know, writing rules. California is pretty

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Speaker 2: much a powerhouse, so you've got a lot of policymakers

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Speaker 2: working on this topic.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean fundamentally, the legislature, we appropriate the funds,

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Speaker 3: and so for example, a couple of years ago, when

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Speaker 3: we had a mega budget surplus, it turns out it

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Speaker 3: was not as big as we thought it was. We

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Speaker 3: invested fifty billion dollars in one year to the clean

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Speaker 3: energy transition, which is just extraordinary, right, and even with

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Speaker 3: a bad budget situation, now that's only minimally being impacted.

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Speaker 3: But we also are working towards regulatory reform California like

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Speaker 3: some other states, but we do it particularly well well

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Speaker 3: or really poorly, because it's bad. Sometimes we enact so

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Speaker 3: much red tape and so much review and process that

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Speaker 3: even when we have the money, it takes us too

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Speaker 3: long to deployee, whether it's new housing, new public transportation,

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Speaker 3: new clean energy, new transmission infrastructure. And so we have

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Speaker 3: been trying to streamline whether it's charging stations or other

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Speaker 3: clean energy forms of energy, clean energy transition, great and charging.

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Speaker 2: I think because we heard just through that here is

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Speaker 2: a real major issues for anything you can do to

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Speaker 2: kind of streamline that process will be helpful. And you

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Speaker 2: mentioned the kind of big goals that California has had

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Speaker 2: and met for the electric vehicle transition moving forward, you know,

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Speaker 2: you have the advanta clean Cars two policy with the

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Speaker 2: one hundred percent target by twenty thirty five. I'm from

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Speaker 2: the East coast, from New Jersey. They've signed on to

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Speaker 2: clean Cars two in the Tri State. It's not uniform.

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Speaker 2: Connecticut's been having a hard time with, you know, choosing

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Speaker 2: to follow that policy. For those who say that one

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Speaker 2: hundred percent you know ev or zero mission share of

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Speaker 2: sale by twenty thirty five is too much, you know,

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Speaker 2: what's your perspective on that is? Are things moving? You know,

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Speaker 2: maybe faster than you expected? Is twenty thirty five the

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Speaker 2: right target? Should it be sooner? Should it be later?

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Speaker 2: I think it should be as quickly as humanly possible.

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Speaker 2: I think yes we can do that.

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Speaker 3: It's obviously it's hard, but you know, with with the

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Speaker 3: right incentives and the right public policy and with the will,

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Speaker 3: we can get it done. And we've just got to

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Speaker 3: get off the fossil fuels. It's it's just so unsustainable

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Speaker 3: and it's maddening that we continue to have these fights.

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Speaker 3: But yes, we absolutely can do it if we want

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Speaker 3: to do it.

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Speaker 2: And so I gave you in a sense, the argument

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Speaker 2: for maybe the right of things are moving too fast

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Speaker 2: and these policies are kind of forcing people in the direction.

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Speaker 2: If you spend a lot of time on Twitter, which

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Speaker 2: I maybe do too much of, you get maybe the

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Speaker 2: kind of progressive left the argument around, well, what about

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Speaker 2: public transit. We're spending so much time talking about cars

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Speaker 2: and talking about, you know, moving people from gas to

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Speaker 2: private EV. Do you think California has done, you know,

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Speaker 2: light enough on public transit? Is there more they do

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Speaker 2: or do you think the EV focus is where policymakers

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Speaker 2: heads should be at currently we have.

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Speaker 3: Not California has not done it nearly enough on public transportation.

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Speaker 3: We are falling behind, We're losing grounds. And I support

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Speaker 3: the transitions to zero emission vehicles, but we also need

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Speaker 3: to be very clear that a car is a car,

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Speaker 3: and yes, you can have a car that strangles the

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Speaker 3: planet by burning oil, but then then have a car

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Speaker 3: that doesn't. But both of those are incredibly resource intensive

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Speaker 3: to build, require massive road infrastructure with huge costs. They

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Speaker 3: destroy cities in some ways, not destroyers overstating it. They

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Speaker 3: really distort cities or some amazing cities in the US

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Speaker 3: that then got rebuilt around the needs of cars in

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Speaker 3: terms of roads and massive amounts of parking. It takes

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Speaker 3: up so much space, it creates all sorts of risk

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Speaker 3: and danger to people on our roads. And that's true

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Speaker 3: whether it's a zero emission or a fossil fuel burning car.

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Speaker 3: And so we need to move away from this extreme

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Speaker 3: car dependence have world class transit, and that means having

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Speaker 3: a true statewide rail system. It should not take twice

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Speaker 3: as long to take the train from the Bay Area

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Speaker 3: to la as it does to drive, which is true

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Speaker 3: right now, that's horror, and so we need high speed

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Speaker 3: rail and we need to get over our addiction to cars.

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Speaker 3: And I will also add one bad trajectory and the

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Speaker 3: zero emission transition, is that, as with fossil fuel cars,

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Speaker 3: zero mission cars are getting bigger and have bigger and

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Speaker 3: bigger and all these mega SUVs, zero mission vehicles which

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Speaker 3: consume more energy, which are very dangerous for anyone other

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Speaker 3: than the person inside, which take up too much space,

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Speaker 3: and we need to absolutely move away from these mega, huge,

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Speaker 3: zero mission vehicles. And that could mean a law restricting

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Speaker 3: the size of vehicles, which I know people want to

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Speaker 3: have the freedom to drive a tank down the street

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Speaker 3: but that's not in society's best interest.

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Speaker 2: But on the point around safety, I think there's an

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Speaker 2: element of that that is true that basically with electric

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Speaker 2: vehicles you do have a battery in it. At every level,

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Speaker 2: there's a little bit of weight added right to kind

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Speaker 2: of compensate obviously other kind of benefit of going electric

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Speaker 2: in terms of the parts you're getting out in a

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Speaker 2: potential maintenance. On safety, you introduced a bill speaking of

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Speaker 2: i'd say controversial topics last week around capping the miles

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Speaker 2: per hour by about ten or encouraging I guess auto

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Speaker 2: makers to do so. Can you explain this bill a

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Speaker 2: little bit. I know I made a lot of news, it.

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Speaker 3: Did a lot of opinions. So the bill will require

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Speaker 3: new cars manufactured or sold in California by twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: seven to come with a speed limitter or a speed

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Speaker 3: governor that would cap speeds at ten miles over the

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Speaker 3: speed limit. It would still remain illegal to go one

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Speaker 3: mile over the speed limit, but physically you would be

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Speaker 3: unable to go more than ten miles over the speed

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Speaker 3: limit with an emergency override for extreme situations. Over four

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Speaker 3: thousand Californians are dying every year on our roads. That

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Speaker 3: is a twenty percent increase over the last five years.

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Speaker 3: It's also going up nationally. Even though we become very

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Speaker 3: numb to traffic fatality character fatalities, drivers, pedestrian, cyclists. We

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Speaker 3: sometimes it's tempting to view it as just a normal

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Speaker 3: part of life. It is not normal. It does not

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Speaker 3: have to be that way. Other wealthy nations do not

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Speaker 3: have that problem. And there are various reasons why we

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Speaker 3: have that problem, and one of them is that we

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Speaker 3: drive so damn fast. And so this is an existing technology.

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Speaker 3: There are already cars being manufactured with this technology. The

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Speaker 3: EU is moving towards a form of this. Some cities

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Speaker 3: are transitioning to their municipal fleets to have these speed limitters,

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Speaker 3: and California should lead on this. And it has been

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Speaker 3: a political warshock test in terms of the reaction, people

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Speaker 3: having very reactions.

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Speaker 2: A lot of support coming out in favor of it,

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Speaker 2: or has it been mostly people who are concerned about

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Speaker 2: you know, overreach.

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Speaker 3: Well, opposition and anger always motivate people to speak up more.

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Speaker 3: You just have to look at Twitter for that. But

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of support and a lot of opposition

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Speaker 3: for sure there And I've literally had spouses who I

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Speaker 3: know who will text me separately, one of them saying

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Speaker 3: this is a horrible idea, and one of them saying

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Speaker 3: this is an awesome idea. And that is very reflective

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Speaker 3: of I think where a lot of people are. You know,

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Speaker 3: I think fundamentally, you know, people have this notion I have.

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Speaker 3: Don't tell me what to do. I have a freedom

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Speaker 3: to drive however fast fast, however fast I want. And

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Speaker 3: if I want to risk a ticket, that's on me

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Speaker 3: to risk that. And I'm all for personal freedom, but

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Speaker 3: personal freedom ends when you are risking killing or maiming

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Speaker 3: other people. And when people are driving at ninety one

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Speaker 3: hundred miles an hour or sixty miles an hour through

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Speaker 3: a residential neighborhood, that is creating huge risk for other people,

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Speaker 3: and you do not have a right to engage in

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Speaker 3: behavior could make someone a quadriplegic or kill them.

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Speaker 2: Well, shifting gears a little bit away from cars to

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Speaker 2: another I think piece of legislation that has been called

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Speaker 2: both controversial but also a landmark climate disclosure by The

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Speaker 2: New York Times. You were the author of a greenhouse

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Speaker 2: guest emission disclosure bill. A lot of folks here in

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Speaker 2: the room. Some may be familiar with it, some may

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Speaker 2: not be. So can you talk at a high level

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Speaker 2: what your bill would do, and then I'll ask you

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Speaker 2: a little bit about its companion bill.

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Speaker 3: Sure. So last year it took three years, sent a

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Speaker 3: bill two fifty three paths and the governor signed it.

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Speaker 3: And it is a law that requires large corporations with

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Speaker 3: a gross annual revenue of a billion dollars or more

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Speaker 3: who do business in California, requires them to disclose their

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Speaker 3: entire carbon footprint, including scope one, which is cooperation, Scope two,

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Speaker 3: which is energy usage and a few other things, and

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Speaker 3: Scope three, which includes, among other things, supply chain. This

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Speaker 3: is an existing methodology. We didn't create a new methodology,

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Speaker 3: the GHG protocols. There are major corporate some of the

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Speaker 3: largest companies in the world are already doing this, and

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Speaker 3: we think that they all should be doing this so

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Speaker 3: that we have that data, so the public investors don't

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Speaker 3: have to rely on representations and can actually look at

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Speaker 3: the data themselves. So this is really a world leading

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Speaker 3: effort here in California, and I'm so grateful to my

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Speaker 3: colleagues and to the governor for helping us enact it

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Speaker 3: into law.

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Speaker 2: So when would this policy go into into play As

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Speaker 2: a twenty twenty.

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Speaker 3: Six it's basically a five year ramp up. The California

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Speaker 3: Resources Board now needs to be coming up with the

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Speaker 3: implementing regulations. Disclosures will start in twenty twenty six, and

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Speaker 3: then Scope three, which is for many companies of over

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Speaker 3: ninety percent the carbon emissions, that starts in twenty seven,

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Speaker 3: and then the full everything is implemented by twenty thirty.

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Speaker 3: So we have a gradual ramp up, understanding that for

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Speaker 3: some companies it's a transition, but we're really excited about this.

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Speaker 3: And about fifty five it applies to both publicly traded

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Speaker 3: and privately held interesting companies, so we can include corporations

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Speaker 3: that the SEC may not be able to include. And

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Speaker 3: so it's about fifty five hundred large corporations and it's

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Speaker 3: going to be fantastic.

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Speaker 2: And at the same time you have this GHG bill,

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Speaker 2: you have a climate risk bill that you were a

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Speaker 2: sponsor on or a lead sponsor. How does that bill

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Speaker 2: work differently or is it pretty similar in terms of

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Speaker 2: a structure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's Center Bill two sixty one. The lead

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Speaker 3: author was my colleague from Los Angeles Senator Henry Stern,

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Speaker 3: and we have the two of us partnered really on

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Speaker 3: both bills. And that bill will require corporations doing business

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Speaker 3: in California with gross annual revenue five hundred million or

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Speaker 3: more to disclose their their climate risk, which is important,

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Speaker 3: you know, for the markets and for all sorts of reasons.

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Speaker 2: So for both these bills, I know have been busy

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Speaker 2: at the be NF some of the last there so

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Speaker 2: I haven't read the latest news, but last week I

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Speaker 2: was reading that some funds have been frozen in terms

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Speaker 2: of implementation. What's the latest status on that kind of

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Speaker 2: budget battle. I know you've been up in Sacramento working

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Speaker 2: on year end budget.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. The governor and I'm a supporter of the governor,

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Speaker 3: he's a friend. The governor did this thing. It's it's

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Speaker 3: like these there are certain governor tricks that governors do

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Speaker 3: during deficity years. Arnold Schwartzener or the two apparently, which

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Speaker 3: is he basically he proposed a but we have a

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Speaker 3: big budget deficit, so he proposed his first draft of

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Speaker 3: a budget earlier this month, which basically for I don't

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Speaker 3: know if it's all or just a lot of the

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Speaker 3: laws that we passed and were signed into law last

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Speaker 3: year basically proposed like zeroing out the funding to implement

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Speaker 3: those laws. So it wasn't only these two bills, it

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Speaker 3: was a lot of builds. I understand that this is

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Speaker 3: like a trick that governors used because the goal is

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Speaker 3: to then force the legislature as budget negotiations happened to

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Speaker 3: force us to negotiate to fund the bills that we

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Speaker 3: authored and that the governor signed. My view is that

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Speaker 3: it is not subject to negotiation. A law is either

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Speaker 3: a law or it's not a law. We already went

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Speaker 3: through an intense screening process last year, including for cost

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Speaker 3: on a huge number of bills. And if a law

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Speaker 3: has been passed and signed into law, into the law

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Speaker 3: into law, it is the law of the lands. And

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Speaker 3: we either have rule of law in California or we don't.

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Speaker 3: And we should never be setting a precedent and governors

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Speaker 3: should never be setting a precedent that if a law

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Speaker 3: has been enacted it may not actually be a real law,

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Speaker 3: because then we have to go through the process again.

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Speaker 3: That that would be a terrible black eye for California

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Speaker 3: in terms of our adherence to the rule of law.

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Speaker 2: And I think that actually launches us into a bit

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Speaker 2: of the last topic I wanted to talk about about

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Speaker 2: California's role as a leader in the US. Growing up

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Speaker 2: in New Jersey, they're always used to hear the phrase,

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Speaker 2: so goes California, so goes the nation. But you know,

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Speaker 2: policy freezes changes in things like even outside the scope

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Speaker 2: of transport solar incentives. Is California still a leader in

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Speaker 2: the same way there have been suggestions by interest groups

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Speaker 2: in California that maybe California shouldn't be leading on climate

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Speaker 2: policy anymore in the way that it has. So from

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Speaker 2: your perspective, with all of these policies in flux, you know,

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Speaker 2: is California currently remaining a leader and what is California

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Speaker 2: need to do to kind of maintain its leadership.

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Speaker 3: The answer is generally yes, And yes, we're always going

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Speaker 3: to have the climate deniers and the climate delayers who

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Speaker 3: don't want California to lead. California continues to lead the

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Speaker 3: massive investment we've been making in clean energy, what we

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Speaker 3: talked about earlier with zero emission vehicles, some of the

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Speaker 3: work that's happening around building decarbonization, so we are continuing

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Speaker 3: to lead, or the carbon disclosures. Yeah, and I'm very

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Speaker 3: proud of that we are falling short in some areas.

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Speaker 3: So California for decades led on distributed energy resources rooftop

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Speaker 3: and similar forms of solar and energy storage, and the

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Speaker 3: California Public Utilities Commission, which seems focused like a laser

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Speaker 3: on destroying rooftop solar in California, which is rooftop solar

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Speaker 3: is essential for our clean energy transition. Yes, we need

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Speaker 3: utility scale solar, absolutely, but we also need distributed, decentralized solar.

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Speaker 3: And the California Public Utilities Commission, which it might view,

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Speaker 3: should lose jurisdiction over solar it's proved and that it's

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Speaker 3: not capable of effectively overseeing it, should move over to

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Speaker 3: the Energy Commission or some other agency. Uh. Basically totally

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Speaker 3: slashed the subsidies and the supports and the incentives for

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Speaker 3: people to install rooftop solar to the point where the

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Speaker 3: solar industry in California is unraveling. And you know, and

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Speaker 3: the governor the original version was even worse, and the

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Speaker 3: governor directed or that he can't direct, but requested that

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Speaker 3: the CPUC go back to the drawing board. They did,

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Speaker 3: and then they came back with a less terrible plan,

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Speaker 3: but it's still terrible, and I really hope that the

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Speaker 3: governor sends them back to the drawing board again. I

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Speaker 3: think there will be a legislation this year to try

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Speaker 3: to deal with it, But the pg and ees of

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Speaker 3: the world are still quite powerful in the legislature. They

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Speaker 3: should not be, but they are. And this is a

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Speaker 3: real tech for California. And the other area where we

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Speaker 3: are real risk is around public transportation and rail. Were

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Speaker 3: trying to do more to shore up transit and expand

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Speaker 3: it and high speed rail. It's maddening to me. As

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Speaker 3: I mentioned before, we don't have true statewide rail system

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Speaker 3: in California, and there's been this the right wing pr

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Speaker 3: machine that characterizes high speed rail as the trains nowhere

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Speaker 3: San Francisco, La Fresno or not nowhere, and they have

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Speaker 3: delayed and obstructed and obstructed, which has caused the costs

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Speaker 3: to escalate, and then they blame High Speed Rail Authority

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Speaker 3: for the escalated costs that they helped the cause by

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Speaker 3: obstructing and delaying the project. So we have to get

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Speaker 3: that done.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So across the board, I think there's real challenges.

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Speaker 2: But as you've noted, California continues to leave in terms

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Speaker 2: of zero mission and some of its policies that are

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Speaker 2: yet to be in place. The reason why I asked

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Speaker 2: that we've been talking a lot at the conference and

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Speaker 2: maybe to close about twenty twenty four as an election year.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there's two very different candidates running in

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump and President Biden. You know, assuming that if

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump were to win, how do you think California

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Speaker 2: should respond in such a situation given its you know,

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Speaker 2: previous leadership, but also some of the challenges that you mentioned.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's you know, speaking of maddening and frustrating.

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Speaker 3: You know, Joe Biden is one of the most successful

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Speaker 3: presidents in modern US history, but he the public, for

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Speaker 3: whatever reason, doesn't want to give him credit for any

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Speaker 3: of the good things he's done. I mean, numbers just

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Speaker 3: came out today Axio's head of things, sorry to quote

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Speaker 3: another application comparing just put a nice chart comparing GDP

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Speaker 3: growth in the US to other wealthy nations. We are

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Speaker 3: like hugely ahead of the EU of Japan, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: And part of that is because of the massive investments

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Speaker 3: that we've been making under Biden the President's leadership. But

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Speaker 3: he doesn't get the credit if if Trump comes back,

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Speaker 3: I mean, we had to deal with that for four

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Speaker 3: years in California and we fought him and we will

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Speaker 3: fight him again. We just you know, it will absolutely

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Speaker 3: hinder our ability to advance in terms of some of

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Speaker 3: these financial investments that have been so impactful in terms

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Speaker 3: of what might happen for on immigration, and immigration makes

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Speaker 3: us stronger in many ways, including shoring up our workforce.

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Speaker 3: And God forbid, he wins and they and the Republicans

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Speaker 3: take both Houses of Congress. They will kill the filibuster immediately.

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Speaker 3: They'll do what some of our members didn't have the

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Speaker 3: fortitude to do, and and that will be horrific. And

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Speaker 3: but we will fight as we always do.

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Speaker 2: Right well, Senator, we don't really appreciate your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: We could talk about climate for another hour probably, but

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Speaker 2: I appreciate you joining us at the summer today.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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