UC Davis

Decarbonizing the transportation sector, which is the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, requires a transition away from fossil fuels to renewables like biofuels and electricity. An increasing number of policies have been enacted to incentivize the use of renewable fuels. The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and Oregon Clean Fuels Program are in the vanguard of such policies in the United States. California and Oregon’s policies are examples of a carbon intensity standard, a tool that has become increasingly popular among U.S. policymakers. This dissertation explores the past, present, and future of these policies. The first chapter begins with the present, addressing an important challenge of achieving efficient outcomes currently faced by policy stakeholders: pass-through of policy costs and incentives to fuel prices. Findings suggest that compliance costs are fully passed through, and biofuel incentives are fully passed through in some regions and less than fully passed through in others. The second chapter looks ahead to the end of the decade, forecasting a range of compliance outcomes under California’s LCFS through 2030. Annual compliance requires that by 2030, the state’s transportation sector must achieve a 20 percent carbon intensity reduction below 2010 levels. Achieving the target will require the majority of diesel demand to be supplied with biomass-based diesel unless electric vehicle adoption grows substantially. Finally, lessons from the last decade are drawn in the third and final chapter, exploring trends in the three standing carbon intensity standards in California, Oregon, and British Columbia utilizing publicly available historical data.