California Lawmaker Proposes Banning All Gas Cars

CALIFORNIA -- California lawmakers often pride themselves in leading the nation when it comes to protecting the environment. Now, one lawmaker representing the Bay Area is taking that role one step further: he wants to ban gas-powered cars.

That's right. Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, said he only wants environmentally-friendly cars on the Golden State's roads by 2040.

His proposed bill "would allow the state’s motor vehicles department to register only “clean” vehicles that emit no carbon dioxide, such as battery-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell cars," Bloomberg reported.

“Adapting to climate change is the challenge of many generations to come," said Ting in a statement to Patch. "Moving to alternative forms of energy and transportation is inevitable. With transportation accounting for most emissions that contribute to dirty air and climate change, we need to get more clean vehicles on the road and provide incentives to help Californians buy them. We also need a hard deadline to ensure that the transfer to zero emission vehicle technology occurs.”

"If adopted, (the bill) would eliminate a huge chunk of carbon emissions from the transportation sector -- now the top source of the greenhouse gas in the U.S. -- as part of the state’s quest to slash emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050," according to Bloomberg.

--Photo via Shutterstock