After a landmark vote by its state Assembly, California is poised to join Hawaii and become the second state committed to generating 100 percent of its electricity from renewable and zero-carbon sources. If the state Senate votes in favor of the current version of Senate Bill 100, which has only minor changes to a bill the Senate already passed, and then Gov. Jerry Brown signs it, California will commit to a clear target of 100 percent clean electricity by 2045.
America’s states, local governments and institutions are ushering in a new era of clean energy, despite federal policies designed to prop up polluting and outdated fossil fuel industries.
As the Trump administration considers weakening federal air quality and global warming emissions standards, air pollution remains a threat to public health. According to a new report by Environment New York Research & Policy Center, 20 million people in the New York City metropolitan area experienced 75 days of degraded air quality in 2016, increasing the risk of premature death, asthma attacks and other adverse health impacts.
If the United States transitioned its entire fleet of 480,000 school buses to all-electric vehicles, it could significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions each year and reduce the toxic air pollution to which schoolchildren are directly exposed. A new report from Environment America Research & Policy Center, U.S. PIRG Education Fund, and Frontier Group, Electric Buses: Clean Transportation for Healthy Neighborhoods and Cleaner Air, shows that a full transition to electric school buses in the U.S. could eliminate an average of 5.3 million tons of climate-altering pollution each year -- the equivalent of taking a million cars off the road.
Environment New York Research and Policy Center is part of The Public Interest Network, which operates and supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and a strategic approach to social change.
