States have led the United States’ transportation electrification race for years, and are accelerating action to adopt and implement electric vehicle (EV) policies, regulations, and programs. This means that laws and regulations developed at the state level can have a broad impact on enabling our clean transportation future.
To better understand how one state is doing this, Energy Innovation’s senior director of electrification Sarah Baldwin went straight to the latest source. Electrify it! Podcast episode. Nevada State Assemblyman Howard Watts shared his insights on state policymaking, the challenges and opportunities facing state policymakers in advancing clean transportation, and what Nevada is doing to advance EVs.
A Chevy Bolt electric vehicle is parked at the BLM in the Sheephole Valley Wilderness, United States , [+]
Q: What is your background and what inspired you to enter politics and serve in public office?
I was born and raised in Las Vegas, so that’s where I grew up. I went to college here and got involved in a lot of community service work and non-profits early on. Giving back to the community in some form has always been important to me. And then I spent time working with organizations advocating for issues related to voting rights and civic engagement. Then I started working on conservation issues; Especially issues related to water, which is an extremely scarce resource here. When the opportunity arose to not only ask others to make change, but to be able to run for office and make change myself, I took it. I am now in my third term and have had the honor of chairing committees that look at natural resources issues.
Last session, I was in charge of our committee looking at energy and transportation issues. I have become more involved in the world of conservation, and spending time in the great outdoors, which in many ways has become a personal passion. It’s both the things I enjoy, as well as the issues I work on.
Q: Why do you think some of the transportation policies adopted in the recent session of the state Legislature are so important?
We have worked with our utilities and directed significant investments in EV infrastructure. We were one of the first states to support the development of EV charging on our highway system. We created an Electric Highway program and began deploying charging stations across our state. In the last election, we elected a new governor and had divided governance. So, the Democrats were in control of the legislature, but we had a Republican governor elected.
The previous administration embraced innovative clean cars. The new administration had no interest in moving toward advanced clean cars or advanced clean trucks, at least not at this time. Our governor withdrew Nevada from the US Climate Coalition, so there were some challenges, but also some opportunities.
We have the Tesla Gigafactory here, so we have advanced manufacturing. The only energy resources we have within our state are clean energy resources.
Sparks, Nevada, United States – December 17, 2020: Tesla’s Gigafactory manufacturing building sits , [+]
I really worked on two main aspects of the policy. One was to lead by example and set a policy to move towards zero emissions for our state vehicle fleet. The simplest way to do this is to perform a lifecycle cost analysis. We budget for a very short period of time and try to figure out how to stretch the dollars that are in our budget over the next year or two.
Those vehicles will remain in our state fleet for 10 years and 100,000 miles. When you look at the fuel and maintenance savings, and take everything into account, zero emissions vehicles are now competitive and probably a better investment.
The second policy I worked on was an incentive program, and it was aimed specifically at large vehicles rather than passenger vehicles. These include medium and heavy duty vehicles. They make up a very small portion of the vehicles on our roads, but account for a large portion of the vehicle pollution emitted in our state.
I worked with advocates to create a policy that creates tiered incentives based on vehicle size. We also wanted to prioritize historically marginalized communities, including small businesses, minority-owned businesses, investments in tribal communities, and school districts.
I think both of these policies are really going to help take our leadership for EV and zero emissions transportation policy to the next level.
Q: What challenges are you facing, as well as what approaches and solutions you are working on to overcome them?
We are a very large state in terms of area, but we are also very urbanized in terms of population. And at the state level, how do we support people who are traveling across the state? How do we support these rural communities so that no one is left behind? Therefore, we were one of the first states to launch the Electric Highway program and install charging stations across the state.
I recently became an EV owner myself. I was very happy, and I thought, ‘Wow, we’re really ahead of the curve’ until I realized that some stations sometimes have a charger that is not working, at full capacity, or Some charging speed is slow, a little slow. So, a lot still needs to be done to make it easier for people.
Tesla electric charging station in Las Vegas. Charging a modern electric car. Las Vegas, Nevada, USA – , [+]
In 2021, we passed legislation to direct utilities to invest a significant hundred million dollars in EV charging infrastructure. This includes everything needed to support the core infrastructure to support additional charging, from wires, distribution systems, substations, transformers, as well as everything needed to help deploy additional charging stations.
There was also an equity component to ensure that all communities in our urban areas had access. We’ve also been lucky, thanks to the Biden administration’s Clean Power Plan. The NEVI (National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) program supports additional EV charging across our highway network. So, our transportation department is currently working on a plan to deploy those funds to make it happen. The goal is to relieve range anxiety as people are traveling hundreds of miles across our state and increase their confidence that they will be able to find a place to charge.
Q: What advice would you give to state policymakers working on this issue in your state who want to advance EVs, attract jobs and businesses?
The focus is on ensuring that no community is left behind, with strong equity programs in place. As this change continues to accelerate for people who want to build their leadership or get on the map, I would say that the policy landscape is changing really rapidly, and the marketplace is also changing rapidly.
There are a lot of opportunities that aren’t necessarily partisan where you can work with a lot of stakeholders who may disagree on some big-picture climate change policy. When you look at it, including the health and economic impacts, there are opportunities to work better together.
We are creating some incentive and voluntary programs and exploring what can help in providing financial and infrastructural support. People can always help by connecting with them. So, I would encourage people to reach out to all those different stakeholders because they might be surprised about some of the ideas that people agree on. From there, we can try to craft policy with a solid base of support.
It doesn’t matter how people feel right now about the bipartisan infrastructure legislation or the Inflation Reduction Act, those funds are getting available. And I encourage every community to take advantage of the opportunity to get their piece of that pie and deploy it. At the end of the day, it will create jobs and have an economic impact.
