This is not CARB’s first rodeo so I’d be surprised if they weren’t figuring this out in the agreement. I’m not familiar with this agreement but I’d speculate something like: It sounds like the manufacturers are getting things they want too, which means that if they want to keep those concessions in place, they have to honor their side of the agreement, independent of whether a court says CARB could force a specific piece of their regulations. (I suppose if a court said CARB couldn’t enforce any regulation then the agreement would be moot, but if they leave anything intact then the manufacturers would presumably be best served by keeping up the deal.)
CARB’s history and track record working through bending the arc of the industry for this type of thing is pretty good, even without Mary Nichols at the helm.
(Another thing worth noting here is most car manufacturers have had a large preference towards consistency and stability in their regulatory agreements, so they often would prefer to sit down and plan a timeline for transitions that doesn’t keep changing around on them and their peers.)
And for the utterly ineffectual regulation of restaurant emissions. (Which, I think, are the dominant source of PM2.5 in a lot of places that get a lot of foot traffic in California.)
CARB’s history and track record working through bending the arc of the industry for this type of thing is pretty good, even without Mary Nichols at the helm.
(Another thing worth noting here is most car manufacturers have had a large preference towards consistency and stability in their regulatory agreements, so they often would prefer to sit down and plan a timeline for transitions that doesn’t keep changing around on them and their peers.)