This week, we joined hundreds of climate action and clean energy leaders at CALSTART’s 2025 Member Symposium. This energizing, informative event brought together voices working across sectors on clean transportation issues to celebrate our successes, share lessons learned, and navigate the road ahead.
Our Director of Outreach, Sarah Severn, delivered the keynote address at the event! We are incredibly grateful to our partners at CALSTART for inviting us to participate in their symposium. Here’s an excerpt from Sarah’s remarks:
Clean & Prosperous believes that business leadership is fundamental to effective, lasting climate and clean energy policies. We embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of our founder – David Giuliani – and strive for improved public-private collaboration and innovative, market-based solutions to our toughest challenges. And so the undeniable is this: The clean energy transition is where our economy and our technology is taking us.
Trucks – medium- and heavy-duty vehicles – account for a disproportionate share of emissions. By transitioning to zero emissions, trucks can deliver the benefits of clean air faster than any other segment of the transportation sector. Read more about the need to decarbonize trucks in this newsletter from Clean & Prosperous Washington.
Electrifying Ferries Vital for Reducing Emissions and Improving Health
Opening proposals to build five new hybrid electric ferries came in high, according to results published by Washington State Ferries (WSF).
It’s critical to remember that ferry and port electrification has the highest return on investment of all Climate Commitment Act-funded projects, meaning that ferry electrification reduces the most metric tons of carbon emissions at the lowest cost per metric ton. While the up-front price tag is high, hybrid electric ferries remain one of the most cost-effective ways to make the most dramatic impact on reducing pollution and mitigating climate change.
Data from the Washington State Department of Ecology makes clear that – of existing Climate Commitment Act-funded projects – ferry electrification projects have the lowest cost per metric ton of carbon emissions reduced, and are far and away the projects that offer the largest amount of those emissions reductions. Clean & Prosperous Institute’s own research indicates the vast economic, public health, and climate benefits of ferry electrification.
Beyond the return on investment of ferry electrification, there are two crucial things to remember about these projects:
- In almost all cases, delays of large capital projects – including large-scale road and bridge projects – only lead to increased costs. This remains true even in our current tumultuous economic climate.
- Reverting back to diesel ferries will not solve the timeline for delivery. According to John Vezina, the deputy director of WSF, “it would probably add two years to the acquisition of those new [diesel] vessels.”
Ferry and port electrification must remain a priority for our state.
New Reporting Highlights Major Roadblock to Electrification in the PNW
Earlier this week, ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) published a significant new story detailing a major roadblock to electrification efforts in Washington and Oregon: We lack the transmission wiring needed to actually deliver renewable energy to homes and businesses.
Here is a key excerpt from the piece:
Bonneville [Power Administration] has now become a barrier to accommodating the new power sources, six green energy developers told OPB and ProPublica. An agency that erected more than 4,800 miles of high-voltage transmission lines from 1960 to 1990 built fewer than 500 miles from 1990 to 2020. In the past five years, it built 1.
We highly recommend you read the full article.
Climate and clean energy leaders across sectors in Washington and Oregon must prioritize a collaborative, commonsense effort to address the transmission wiring gap. Washington has spent the last several years discussing and implementing ambitious electrification and emissions reduction goals. Now, we must ensure we have the infrastructure needed to meet them.
California Follows Washington’s Lead on “Cap-and-Invest”
New reporting from POLITICO details how Governor Gavin Newsom will propose the extension of California’s carbon market through 2045.
A statement from Gov. Newsom, from the article:
“Cap-and-invest is the next chapter for one of our most effective tools to clean the air and keep our communities healthy.”
Stay tuned for a deeper-dive on California’s proposal – and what it means for potential linkage between our carbon markets – in a future newsletter. But for now, we were thrilled to see an exciting update in the Governor’s proposal: A name change that follows Washington’s lead!
California is now calling their carbon market a “cap-and-invest” program – like Washington – as opposed to a “cap-and-trade” program. The name change facilitates clear, meaningful communication and highlights the vast investments both Washington and California have made using carbon market-generated revenue.