CalBike, Other Advocates, Pressure State on Renewing E-Bike Incentive Program

Last month, news broke that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) was ending the state’s E-Bike Incentive Project to help people of lower and middle income afford e-bikes. CARB hasn’t made an official announcement yet, the official webpage has gone dark and CARB’s page for the project hasn’t been updated. Instead of helping people buy e-bikes, the $17 million that had been allocated for the program but not spent will go to the state’s Clean Cars for All program.

CalBike called for the ebike program to be restored, and earlier this week they sent a letter to CARB Board Chair Lauren Sanchez with a dozen other bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups amplifying that call. While program execution – by CARB and its partner Pedal Ahead – has been questioned, the popularity of the program could not be denied. “It was also clear that the pilot phase succeeded – over 2,000 low-income individuals were able to obtain high-quality e-bikes, and the demand far outstripped the available incentives,” the advocates wrote.

“Demand outstripped the available incentives,” is one way to put it. The program had two separate windows where people entered a sort of online lottery for the right to apply for the vouchers. Over 100,000 people were turned away.

The first two windows were expected to be a pilot program for both how to spend the $17 million that remained in the first allocation and to fund future programs. Technical glitches aside, it’s hard to picture the program being more of a success.

“This is not what climate leadership looks like. Over one hundred thousand Californians lined up for a modest voucher that would help them drive less, save money, and move freely.” said Kendra Ramsey, Executive Director, CalBike. “Ending that opportunity now ignores that clear demand and walks back hard-won progress.”

For more on the demise of the E-Bike Incentive Program, read Streetsblog’s previous coverage.

A Bad Week, So Far, for CA Climate Leadership

Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom attended the COP 30 conference in Brazil, a conference focused on Climate Change and ways to lower emissions. Politico reported that Newsom was treated like a “rock star,” signing “voluntary agreements” with other countries on behalf of California.

But at home, the state’s leadership on the environment is being called into question everyday. It’s Tuesday, and in addition to the story on CARB’s retreat on this program there have also been headlines on California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPers) refusing to divest from oil and natural gas companies, and how the Governor himself has vetoed legislation to require data centers to report on how much of the state’s water they are using. 

Data center water usage doubled according to estimates: from 25.42 billion liters in 2019, to 49.91 billion liters in 2023. Researchers have bemoaned the lack of hard data available to track the impact more precisely.