The MSRC celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and thanks to the hundreds of millions of dollars of clean transportation investments it has made over the past two and a half decades, it’s getting a little easier to breathe in Southern California (good for blowing out all those candles). What started as an idea in the Legislature to provide a unique source of funding for the most polluted region in the state has blossomed into a regional and state leader in tackling the most challenging air pollution issues facing California.
Over the last twenty-five years, the MSRC has allocated more than $400 million in Clean Transportation Funding. In the last fifteen years alone, the MSRC has funded nearly 1,000 clean air projects.
Greg Pettis, Chair of the MSRC and Mayor Pro-Tem of Cathedral City, thinks that the MSRC’s biggest achievement over the last quarter-century is clear. “We have seen just with our eyes the vast improvement in our air quality, let alone in our lungs and the health of our children and seniors. The MSRC has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to assist in that effort.”
A member of the MSRC since 2009, Greg has seen these achievements first-hand. “I have most enjoyed going to ribbon cuttings at local schools with young children and seeing how projects we have funded will play an immediate role in their lives.”
The MSRC was created in 1991 because regional policymakers recognized that the South Coast air basin faced special air quality challenges and additional local measures needed to be deployed to clean up our air. Assemblymember Byron Sher authored Assembly Bill 2766, which created the MSRC and directed 30 percent of a four dollar surcharge on vehicle license fees to fund projects that reduce emissions from motor vehicles in the South Coast Air District. One of the founding members on the MSRC, Eric Haley, recognized the importance of this legislation. "AB 2766 represented a watershed moment because it put transportation commissions in a more direct relationship with planning for air quality."
An early MSRC Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) member, Marilyn Williams noted that the uniqueness of the agency contributed to its success. “The initial days were an example of the first time transportation commissions came together to establish a brand new organization with other regional representatives. For a transportation commission, it was a unique opportunity to represent the good of the region, rather than just representing the interest of our own county," she recalled.
The MSRC’s uniqueness meant it had no roadmap to follow, which enabled committee members to blaze their own trail and approve funding for first-of-their-kind projects. Ray Gorski, the MSRC’s Technical Advisor since 1993, recounted that back in the early days, the SCAQMD had only three staff members in its research division, compared to dozens today, so if there was a project opportunity people went straight to the MSRC, which is why so many exciting projects happened here first.
Some of the MSRC’s “firsts” included:
• The first to offer an incentive program for electric school buses in the early 1990s.
• The first to provide incentives for electric bicycles when they initially became available.
• The first to invest in the analysis and prototype development of a hybrid-electric truck in the mid-1990s.
Another first for the MSRC was their ride on the first wave of the electric vehicle revolution in the early 1990s. They were the first agency in Southern California to work directly with automobile manufacturers and private entities to install EV chargers across the Southland. MSRC members travelled to Detroit to negotiate directly with the car companies. The MSRC offered to install hundreds of EV charging stations and provide incentives for vehicles to support the wide-scale deployment of the first generation of EVs if the manufacturers would keep the sticker price reasonably low to foster EV adoption. As a result, the MSRC invested more than $25 million in the Quick Charge Program and the EV Charge Program for infrastructure (see photos of early EV chargers) and provided a $5 million consumer buy down program for the EV1, offering $5,000 grants to EV buyers and lessors. While this initial phase of EVs deployment didn’t catch on as quickly hoped, this project still had an impact on today’s EV success stories, according to Eric. “The MSRC helped develop new technology by working with the auto manufacturers and helped jump start the battery programs for some. The success of hybrids and the new EVs coming online now stems from this era," he explained.
The conversion of diesel buses to CNG buses also began in the early days of the MSRC and was spurred on with the help of MSRC funding. According to John Longville, another of the MSRC’s founding members and current member of Move I.E., “virtually all of the region’s transit buses today run on natural gas, yet most do not know that this is because of the MSRC. The MSRC helped fund buses for nearly every bus system in Southern California.” John was extremely proud of the MSRC’s contribution to removing so much particulate matter from the air in the South Coast thanks to this one MSRC program alone.
And what about the next 25 years? “The MSRC will continue to look at ways to partner with local governments and industry on electricity, CNG, hydrogen projects, as well as focusing on new emerging technologies,” says MSRC Chair Greg Pettis. This has been the MSRC’s M.O. from the beginning, according to Ray Gorski. “The MSRC keeps a keen eye out for emerging technology opportunities and works with the SCAQMD to take a technology from the research lab to the street.”
Not only that, but the MSRC will continue to play a role in helping California achieve its climate goals as well. Although the MSRC didn’t start out to address climate change, over the years it has evolved to be an important player in helping California achieve its greenhouse gas reduction goals. Michelle Kirkhoff, a past TAC member representing San Bernardino Associated Governments, noted how important the MSRC role is here. "If the MSRC continues to focus on criteria pollutants as it has in the past, greenhouse gases will be a side benefit to those emission reductions. The whole world is now behind these initiatives, so it's exciting to look at what's out there and what's coming," she said.
This is more timely than ever, as the California Air Resources Board is working to develop GHG emission reduction targets for 2030 and 2050. In addition, despite significant progress, today our region is still ranked #1 for high ozone days and #4 for annual particle pollution. Thus, the MSRC’s next 25 years of projects can help California achieve its air quality and GHG reduction goals.