Fights over North America's largest low-carbon fuel mandates will tumble into 2025, long after a contentious year spent updating the program.
California's minority Republican lawmakers have seized upon fears that new, tougher targets approved in November to the state's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) could hike today's pump prices by 15pc. Environmental opponents have sued the California Air Resource's Board (CARB) alleging regulators ignored shortcomings to push through those amendments. And fuel suppliers, meanwhile, continue to grapple with new demands on feedstock selection, certification and other decisions that will begin to tighten by the end of this decade.
LCFS programs require yearly reductions in transportation fuel carbon intensity. Higher-carbon fuels including petroleum diesel and gasoline incur deficits for exceeding annual targets. Suppliers must offset these deficits with credits generated from distributing approved, lower-carbon alternatives to the state.
California operates the oldest and largest among five operating programs on the continent. The program helped drive a surge in US renewable diesel production capacity that earlier this year cut petroleum's share to less than a quarter of the liquid diesel used in the state.
Credit trade representing each metric tonne (t) of carbon reduction drives the incentives for renewable diesel, captured dairy methane or electric vehicle charging capacity used in California transportation. Credits peaked at $219/t in February 2020, equivalent to roughly $267.10/t in today's dollars. But spot credits have languished below $100/t since late 2022.
Prices buckled under the growing weight of more than 30mn t of extra credits available for future compliance — enough to satisfy all the deficits generated in 2023 a second time, with another 30pc leftover. CARB staff estimated that the targets board members approved in November would reduce that reserve by more than 8mn t, or less than a third. Fuel producers warned that carbon reduction could stagnate under the smothering imbalance of new credits.
Staff dismissed outside estimates of 65¢/USG increases to gasoline prices attributed to the tough new program targets, but declined to offer a competing cost estimate. Spot credit prices would need to more than triple to $250/t next year to hit gasoline prices that hard at the pump, based on Argus analysis.
Pump prices make good politics
Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has for two years sought and received state tools to scrutinize oil company profits on California fuel sales. Now a California state senate Republican bill would repeal the new targets and other newly adopted changes intended to restore incentives under the program. A state assembly bill would require any CARB new rulemaking or standard to undergo a cost analysis by the state's Legislative Analyst Office, a nonpartisan office that performs such reviews of legislative proposals.
These Republican measures face a likely impossible climb through Democratic supermajorities in both chambers. But lawmakers noted the potency of fuel price complaints. A legislative session — framed in defiance of a new federal administration hostile to their climate efforts — opened with leaders acknowledging the need to balance costs.
"California has always led the way on climate change and we will continue to lead on climate," speaker Robert Rivas (D) said on 2 December. "But not on the backs of poor and working people. Not with taxes or fees for programs that don't work."
Similar battles have already spilled out of the state. British Columbia voters in October narrowly denied conservatives a majority on a platform that included ending the province's aggressive LCFS. National conservatives targeted Canada's carbon taxes in a campaign against Premier Justin Trudeau's wobbling government ahead of elections next year. As regulators update programs to drive ambitious transportation changes, voters will become more aware of where the changes are heading.
