California Air Resources Board

I am submitting this comment out of concern that CARB is increasingly stepping beyond its regulatory mandate and into areas that belong to consumer choice and market determination.

California’s residents and businesses do not need — nor want — to be told what, when, or how to drive. The free market has a proven record of advancing technology, improving efficiency, and reducing emissions without heavy-handed direction. The private sector responds to consumer demand, not bureaucratic design.

Co2 is NOT a pollutant.

The “Drive Forward” program appears to move CARB from a role of environmental regulator (which the public does not want) to that of social engineer — prescribing future vehicle types, dictating technology pathways, and influencing consumer behavior through regulation rather than competition. That oversteps the trust and consent of the governed.

When government agencies attempt to direct lifestyle choices rather than set fair, neutral standards, they lose public confidence. The public’s frustration today is not with clean air — it is with unelected boards using environmental authority to shape personal behavior with liberal policies sympathetic to the climate alarmism agenda.

If the objective is cleaner air, focus on achievable outcomes through measurable science, not ideology. Allow the innovation of automakers, the efficiency of fuel providers, and the preferences of consumers to determine what succeeds in the marketplace.

Respectfully, CARB should restore a clear boundary between environmental protection and personal autonomy, and allow California’s free market — not administrative planning — to lead the next chapter of transportation.

The public is growing increasingly frustrated with top-down mandates that attempt to engineer outcomes that the free market is fully capable of resolving on its own. Energy demand, consumer choice, and vehicle innovation evolve most efficiently when guided by open market dynamics — not centralized directives.

California’s economic strength has always come from innovation, competition, and private investment. Over-regulation and social-policy integration into technical frameworks risk eroding public confidence and pushing business investment out of the state.

Respectfully, I encourage CARB to focus on clear, science-based, and economically grounded standards, and to allow market competition and consumer preference to drive the direction of the light-duty vehicle sector.

I submit the following questions regarding the “Drive Forward” program:
1. How does CARB justify expanding regulatory authority into areas that dictate what vehicles Californians can buy or drive, rather than focusing strictly on measurable emissions outcomes?

2. How does CARB ensure that regulatory mandates do not override consumer choice or free-market innovation in the light-duty vehicle sector?

3. By integrating social or behavioral objectives into technical vehicle standards, is CARB concerned it may be overstepping its statutory authority and creating rules that the public perceives as overreach?

4. How does CARB assess the economic and social impacts of accelerated technology mandates on working families, small businesses, and fuel infrastructure providers?

5. Can CARB clarify the specific, measurable environmental outcomes it expects from these proposed regulations, and how it ensures these outcomes are achievable without prescriptive control over consumers’ driving decisions?

6. Will CARB consider allowing market-driven solutions to play the primary role in technology adoption, with regulatory oversight focused on outcomes rather than dictating methods or vehicle types?

7. How will CARB maintain public trust while implementing rules that affect consumer behavior, vehicle choice, and energy infrastructure — without creating the perception of government overreach?

California taxpayers deserve a clear, evidence-based explanation of how carbon taxes or cap-and-trade fees have actually changed the climate. After decades of costly programs and rising prices, there is still no measurable impact on global temperatures or extreme weather trends directly tied to these policies. The public is paying billions while emissions are simply shifted, not reduced. If these taxes have not demonstrably improved the climate, then they’ve become little more than a revenue mechanism that punishes working Californians. We are asking for accountability — and for the return of these funds to the citizens who have borne the cost without seeing the promised results.

Do Carbon Taxes come with a money back guarantee?