(if there’s a paywall, you might try archive.ph to see if the article is available there)

This article is about the local impacts following the gutting of the state-wide ebike incentive program, interviewing people who were able to receive the incentives and how it changed their lives.

That said, the start of the article badly misrepresents how the program came into being. The $10 million budgeted by the Legislature in 2021 was vetoed, and so isn’t even relevant to the program. Instead, the program was funded with $30 million within CARB’s overall budget, not a mandate from the Legislature. CARB’s spokesperson punts their responsibility by saying the Legislature told CARB to slim down their budget, but that’s clearly irrelevant because CARB took the funds and shifted them to electric cars. That obviously doesn’t save any money, and CARB just wants to deflect blame for cutting the ebike program.

I wish the SacBee’s reporter would have pressed CARB about their contradiction, rather than acting as a stenographer. Still, the reporting about the impacts is important: the ebikes gave people real improvements in mobility, and the electric car program doesn’t make any sense unless someone already has a car.

IMO, it’s a better use of tax dollars to give 10 people something that they need but don’t have (ie basic transportation), than to upgrade for 1 person something they already have.