I'm not sure if this should go here, or in House of Politics. I wanted to get a more environmental assessment of it. So it's the California Alternative Fuels Initiative Wikipedia article: California Proposition 10 (2008 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Original text: http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i772_07-0101_amdt_2_s.pdf The gist of it is, it's a $5 billion bond measure to fund alternative fuels and energy. The big issue of concern to me is it seems to primarily fund Natural Gas vehicles - which are cleaner than diesel or gas in particular polutants, but still a fossil fuel / carbon source. It's providing $50,000 rebates for each CNG truck (think big rigs), which don't have to be used in California, but Californians would pay for. We do have a number of big ports in California, so that would help a lot with the local polution (reduction of diesel emmission particles / soot). It also provides $2,000 rebates to hybrid car (>45mpg highway) purchases (for about 55,0000 cars) - which I think is unecessary, as hybrid cars are already flying off the lots. It also defines clean alternative vehicle to include CNG vehicles that get a mere 10% better fuel efficiency than gasoline. It provides money for wind and solar energy development. It also happens to be funded/sprearheaded by T. Boone Pickens, who stands to profit big time on Natural Gas sales. Any thoughts? I'm undecided still. I think it's expensive, and doesn't do nearly enough, but it might help somewhat.
I don't like it's focus on a particular tech. I'm more in favour of trying to meet various benchmarks rather than subsidizing one particular tech over another. CNG is a bridge to nowhere in a way because long term its not going to solve any of our problems. It may buy us a little time, which is, I think, Picken's argument. As far as using the car out of state... Colorado does this already with hybrids. I got a $3434 state tax credit when I bought my Prius. Those sorts of rebates are still available (through 2011, I think), though they may be declining. You have to buy the car IN the state, obviously, but you can move. I suppose there may be some tax filing considerations if you were to subsequently move, but I'm not a CPA... It's heavy favouring of CNGV would probably have me voting against it. If I were going to favour a tech, it would be PHEV, because of all the techs out there I think it's got the most potential. However, vehicles that get > 45 MPG are tremendously useful to us so why should they get short changed? Maybe they just don't need any help leaving the dealership ATM. If oil prices continue to fall, however, the SUV will return with a vengence. That's my concern anyways. That's something that, from a national security perspective, we really don't want to see (let alone all of the enviro-reasons... but NS will get more traction with the public).
