One can hope that most Californians switch to BEVs from ICE vehicles before this becomes more of a constraint.
Gasoline usage externalities are poorly priced-in so the resulting increase in cost of gasoline here is probably overall a good thing. If we had appropriate carbon/sulphur/etc pricing on the outputs, I think it would be less justifiable since then the externalities would be priced in.
They are all using voc compliant paints these days, even outside California.
I have no idea how hard permitting is mind you, but the claimed thing here is that they can't be voc compliant and that's just totally wrong.
This list isn't things you "cant do in california" but "polluting things you can't do in highly populated cities".
I'm not sure what the conclusion here is other than health is not important.
First, manufacturers don't really make non voc compliant auto paints. The market is too small. They may make 550 and 275 variants but most don't.
Second, even like Texas has voc regulations on paints and also requires filtering and enclosed spray booths and gun cleaners and ....
And like I said, nobody is selling non compliant coatings because the market is zero.
It's an interesting conundrum though, because in many cases, the cities could not exist without the things that are being banned in the cities. It's a curious goal of populations to centralize, then ostracize all the things that enabled that centralization
- the cost of mitigating the human health risk is too high - competitors in low-environmental regulation places don't pay for those costs - ongoing verification is expensive
I mean, let's face it, "self-regulation" of industries isn't really working that great. And for things that are health hazards that are basically borne by someone else, why should a local government make it easy to cheat and lie about this stuff?
The people arguing against this seem to assume that their right to have a business, make a profit, whatever, is a self-evident Good Thing, and rarely provide any additional arguments beyond "but the jobs". If they were at the VERY LEAST saying "we can make X safe" then maybe it'd be interesting. But as it is, the argument is basically asking us to mortgage the health and safety.
Hint: It doesn't stand for "there forever"
Nobody here wants to just let big business do whatever and turn the rivers weird colors again or go back to smog but it's very clear that the current regulatory system is not suitable and is hurting us.
It boggles the mind that someone could honestly (by which I mean dishonestly and malice are far simpler explanations) step into this conversation and be like "no, this is all fine and well, god forbid someone start spraying cars in a shop in the desert without jumping through all most of the same expensive hoops that make it not worth it down town (and would make it doubly not worth it out in the desert).
And it's not just autobody work. There's all manner of necessary economic activity that's being kept out or made artificially expensive in this manner.
If oil refineries are bad in California, they're bad everywhere, and if they're bad everywhere, we ought to stop using them altogether, which will make for some unwelcome lifestyle changes.
That doesn't follow. It only follows that they are bad everywhere with circumstances similar to California. A place differing in distribution of population, distribution of agricultural land, weather patterns, and/or water flows might be able to have refineries without causing the harms that makes them difficult to place in California.
The state is large, diverse and already contains vast chunks of unpopulated land. Almost everywhere that isn't near the poles is similar to some part of California.
So, no combustion-based private or public transportation, no detergents, no aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen.
It would still be possible to drive an EV, though. You could keep it lubricated with whale oil.
This is to show that there is more geopolitically than meets the eye.