SAMPLE TESTIMONY & TALKING POINTS

SAMPLE TESTIMONY 

[Please edit to fit your voice and narrative so we for not sound redundant to the Board]

Hello, My name is [NAME] and I represent [YOUR ORG, COMMUNITY OR CONSTITUENCY] and I’m speaking out in support of a stronger, equitable Advanced Clean Cars program. The proposed standard as written is too weak to make a difference in hard-hit communities and will not deliver the pollution cuts we need.

With gasoline at $7 a gallon, too many Californians are having to choose between fuel and the essentials that they need to live a normal, decent life. Our communities are still breathing the most polluted air in the country. It’s your responsibility to do what’s right to relieve the suffering caused by these realities. We urge you not to bow to the pressure of greedy oil companies, carmakers, polluting companies and out of state interests. We need you to prioritize the health of well-being of all Californians who need affordable, pollution free cars as quickly as possible. 

We urge you to strengthen the program so that it meets our climate and clean air crises, creates good jobs and ensures that priority communities reap the benefits of pollution-free, gas free cars by achieving at least 75% EV sales by 2030 and including equity provisions that is what will actually make a difference!

[ADD ANECDOTE: Tell a personal story, speaking from your expertise or experience, and/or add additional support talking points and data outlined below.]

That is why I’m calling on you, our Air Resources Board, to do your duty and protect us from the devastating impact of expensive and polluting cars and trucks. Thank you for your time.

MESSENGER SPECIFIC MESSAGES

Environmental Justice/Equity Advocates

• The disproportionate impact of air pollution from cars and trucks is the clearest example of environmental racism in California.

• Low-income communities and communities of color shoulder biggest burden of fuel costs and harmful pollution, having suffered generations of systematic marginalization. 

• Low-income families spend a huge portion of their income on fuel. That’s likely more with record high prices at the pump. 

• We can’t let polluters or outside interests dictate the trajectory of these standards. 

• Making more pollution-free, gas-free vehicles available to our communities is the only way to achieve justice. 

• When you do the right thing for our communities and set stronger more equitable EV sales targets, you will drive down pollution and fuel costs that people are suffering from right now.

• It’s time to undo the stigma that EVs are only for California’s elites. We all deserve to breathe clean air. We all deserve to be free from the pump.

Health Professionals

• In California, cars, trucks and buses are the largest drivers of air pollution that has long plagued the state. 

• Almost every single Californian lives in an area impacted by poor air quality. 

• Air pollution is deadly. Pollution from the burning of gas and diesel is responsible for nearly one in every five deaths worldwide.

• People of color breathe disproportionate levels of this toxic air pollution, which contributes to higher rates of asthma, cancer, and other illnesses than their white counterparts.

• We can help millions of Californian breathe easier and live longer, better lives, especially in environmental justice communities, by adopting stronger, more equitable pollution-free, electric vehicles sales targets.

• Only with stronger sales targets for pollution-free, electric vehicles can we address our dire air quality problems, one of California’s clearest examples of environmental racism.  

Labor/Business Advocates

• Clean transportation is the economic pillar most poised to lift us out of the economic crisis. 

• Stronger, more equitable sales standards that help create market certainty for technologies can help bring jobs to hard-hit communities, while addressing the state’s biggest barrier to EV adoption. 

• Strong policy signals can help catalyze the public investments we need to create good, permanent, clean economy jobs.

• Investments in equitable clean transportation programs will create jobs across the economy and paying less at the pump will also help free up spending for families so they can support their local economies.

• Accelerating EV adoption in California could provide a massive economic stimulus - resulting in hundreds of thousands of new jobs - if achieved at a rate in line with meeting the state’s climate targets.

• Disadvantaged communities benefit most economically from the shift to EVs - with higher proportional job growth and larger per capita economic gains compared to the rest of the state’s population. This is because the dollars spent from fuel savings go primarily to the goods and service sectors that most often employ individuals from these communities.

• California’s economic leadership is at stake. The state is falling quickly behind France, Germany, the U.K. and others on sales. 

• Automakers are shifting resources to countries where there are stronger policies, driving up investment and jobs in those regions.

Parents/Guardians

• We cannot afford the health and climate costs associated with burning fossil fuels. We owe it to future generations to act boldly to cut climate pollution from cars and trucks.

• What kind of future do we want to leave to our children? 

• If we don’t significantly cut our climate pollution, the average 6-year-old will live through roughly three times as many climate disasters and twice as many wildfires as their grandparents.

• A majority of our young people fear the future, believe they would have less opportunity than their parents and said their governments had betrayed them and future generations.

• It is a betrayal to our children’s future to not act boldly to cut pollution from cars and trucks as fast as possible

Climate and Environmental Advocate

• We are running out of time to take bold action on climate change, which is worsening drought, wildfires and extreme heat.

• Cars and trucks are the number one source of pollution causing these devastating fires and air quality crises. It is only going to get worse if we don’t act quickly.

• What’s happening to our state has made it absolutely clear that the climate crisis IS an attack on public health. 

• Smog, soot, drought, wildfires and extreme heat - Californians suffer daily with dirty air and the impacts of the climate crisis. 

• Climate scientists say the mechanism driving the wildfire crisis is straightforward: human behavior, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels like oil, has released the pollution that desiccates forests, priming them to burn.

• The only way to clean our air and fight the climate crisis is set stronger, more equitable EV sales targets that achieve at least 75% EV sales by 2030.