Last Thursday, CFCA hosted its Annual Membership Meeting. While it was disappointing that we were not able to do this meeting in person this year, the opportunity to connect as membership is more valuable now than ever. 

 

While our industry faces an unprecedented onslaught from seemingly every side, unity is our most important tool for fighting back against these unprecedented attacks. 

 

During the meeting, our members were provided a look back on our efforts through 2020 and a look at what's to come in 2021. We would like to thank everyone who joined us for this important opportunity to connect and look forward to meeting online again as we open CFCA's Future Fuels Summit, starting tomorrow!

Founded in 1999, the California Fuel Cell Partnership is an industry/government collaboration aimed at expanding the market for fuel cell electric vehicles powered by hydrogen to help create a cleaner, more energy-diverse future with no-compromises zero emission vehicles.

 

Staff from member organizations participate on standing committees and project teams that help ensure that vehicles, stations, regulations and people are in step with each other as the market grows. CaFCP’s success is directly linked to the commitment and involvement of our member organizations.

 

As we move ahead to November and prepare for Californians to cast their ballots on myriad propositions impacting our state and your business, remember to educate your friends and colleagues on the issues coming their way. 

 

This November, we will face the split roll initiative to raise your property taxes. We must make sure this initiative does not pass. With big financing from unions and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, this will be a challenge, but not impossible. 

 

CFCA will be providing materials for you to help campaign against this dangerous proposition, but education is the strongest tool we have. 

 

On a separate front, Prop 20 makes crimes such as drive by shootings, hate crimes, date rape, and others “violent crimes” under California law. It also would increase the penalties for theft, rolling back Prop 47 and 57 which provided opportunity for thieves to continue their crimes without punishment and limited investigation.

 

Read below for a breakdown of the initiatives headed our way in November.

 

Tomorrow, CFCA will be releasing a voter guide to help you as you fill out your ballots for 2020! This guide breaks down the ballot propositions you will see on the ballot, providing a break down of each proposition and highlighting the two CFCA is actively engaged on.

This is the season for which we fill our war chest!

 

Elections are right around the corner and the best way to fight for your business is to help us fund our fight here in Sacramento!

 

If you haven't already, consider donating to our PAC today so we can make the biggest waves possible this November!

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) invites you to the first virtual One-Stop Truck event. Attendees can access one-on-one assistance, vendors, and presentations on regulatory compliance, financial assistance, and new technology options. The online event will feature presentations on the following topics:

 

·         Truck & Bus and Other On-Road Regulations
·         Off-Road Vehicle Regulations

·         Funding Assistance and Truck Loan Program Assistance

·         Advanced Technology

·         Enforcement Inspection Demonstration

·         Department of Motor Vehicles' Commercial Registration

·         California Highway Patrol's Basic Inspection of Terminals

 

Every couple of months, a conservative writer warns America about California.

 

“California Has Become the Far Left Coast,” a Wall Street Journal op-ed proclaimed last year. Columnists say the state is a “liberal fiasco,” a “liberal American nightmare,” a “dystopian nightmare” thanks to Democrats. “Blame ultraliberal policies for California's free fall,” a conservative pundit who lives in Manhattan declared last year. On Monday, President Donald Trump tweeted, “California is going to hell! Vote Trump!”

 

If their point is that California has become a one-party state where progressives can implement their wish-list agenda — universal health care, protecting civil rights, combating global warming and enhancing the social safety net — then theoretically, these conservatives should be right.

Last week, as federal stimulus talks crumbled and California’s unemployment system faltered again, Tracy Greer packed her car with recyclables and hoped the cash would pay for groceries.

 

Greer, 48, is an accountant by training who was furloughed from her job as a restaurant server in the high desert town of Phelan just as the pandemic hit. It took three months to get her first unemployment check, and with no back-to-work date in sight, Greer and many of the other 2.1 million jobless Californians have been hoping for a reprieve with a second round of federal stimulus money. 

 

It’s a hope that has dwindled as President Donald Trump last week instructed his party “to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill.” Even after a reversal and call for more individual stimulus checks, small business loans and an airline bailout, a deal has yet to materialize ahead of several looming political deadlines.

Two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom called for an investigation into California’s first rolling blackouts in nearly two decades — during which time residents were twice warned that blackouts could return — a group of key state agencies released their preliminary findings.

 

The findings raise serious questions about the ability of California’s electrical grid to meet ambitious environmental goals, including 100% clean energy by 2045 and Newsom’s recent order banning the sale of new gas-powered cars in 2035. The agencies pinpointed three main reasons why nearly 1 million customers lost power over the course of two days in August:

 

·     Inadequate preparation for a “climate change-induced extreme heat storm.”

·     Insufficient energy in the early evening hours due to the state’s increased reliance on clean energy.

·     Complex market mechanisms, including one that allowed power plant operators to sell energy to other states even as a shortfall loomed.

Marathon Petroleum Corporation has applied for permits to convert its Martinez into a refinery for renewable diesel.

 

While the Martinez conversion project, in California, is still being evaluated, seeking permits is an important step toward producing lower-carbon-intensity fuels.

 

If the project is commissioned, the Martinez facility would be expected to start producing renewable diesel in 2022, with a build to full capacity in 2023.

At full capacity, Marathon would expect to produce about 736 million gallons per year of renewable fuels – predominately diesel – from such biobased feedstocks as animal fat, soybean oil and corn oil.

 

This aligns with Marathon’s focus on meeting the world’s growing energy needs while reducing its carbon emissions.