By Jessica Goodheart for Capital and Main.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Capital and Main-Public News Service Collaboration

When Chevrolet debuted the Volt, a plug-in hybrid, back in 2011, Brett Beard began installing chargers in the homes of Southern California's electric vehicle early adopters. It was a niche group. "We were in movie stars' garages," remembers Beard.

Now the state is expected to need more than 1.2 million chargers by 2030 to meet the fueling demands of the 7.5 million electric vehicles anticipated to be on California roads, according to the California Energy Commission. The work of building out California's EV charging infrastructure has become essential to meeting the state's climate goals and to alleviating the "range anxiety" of a broader public traversing the state in their battery-powered cars.

The hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars budgeted to create that infrastructure also represent jobs for the union electricians at Beard's Santa Fe Springs contracting company, as well as thousands of electrical workers across the state. In the next eight years, according to one estimate, 2,609 California electrical workers, or 6.8% of the existing electrical workforce, will be employed in installing EV chargers.

With this sudden boost in spending, labor and environmental advocates have been working to pair public investment in EV infrastructure with training standards as a way to ensure the quality of the work and high road jobs. Assembly Bill 841, sponsored by California Assemblyman Phil Ting in 2020, requires at least a quarter of certified electricians on publicly funded or authorized projects to have participated in an 18-hour course, known as the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program (EVITP). The skills requirement represents a broader effort by labor advocates to attach credentialing standards to jobs related to climate investment.

Beard took part in the early version of EVITP back in 2012. It was invaluable instruction at a time when the technology was little understood by his colleagues. "Electricians have pickup trucks," he points out. "They don't have electric vehicles."

Beard has since taken the class several times more as the technology has evolved. He and other supporters of the requirement say it is necessary to ensure that vehicle charging is both safe and reliable. Beard is watching the move to electrify heavy-duty trucks and school buses, as well as the development of "bidirectional" charging that allows car batteries to send electricity back to the grid. Charging stations with as many as 20 dispensers all powered by one large charger are on the horizon. "So you're talking about a huge voltage," similar to a battery storage system, says Beard. As increasing power demands are placed on the charging infrastructure, "Having the EVITP is going to save lives," he adds.

The requirement that at least a quarter of electricians on publicly funded jobs take an online class at a cost of $275 may seem like an uncontroversial proposition. But not everyone is enthusiastic. The Electric Vehicle Charging Association (EVCA), an industry group that represents companies like ChargePoint, initially opposed the requirement before withdrawing its opposition in 2020. Reed Addis, manager of EVCA, says his members remain "cranky" about the obligation placed on them. "We don't know of shoddy electrical work or shoddy installation work that would require this. So from our perspective, it was like, where's the impetus for this policy?"

The EVITP was launched in 2012 after a series of reports of electric cars catching fire. Some of those fires originated in the vehicle, but others started in the electrical systems of the buildings where cars were charging, leading to a recognition by the auto manufacturers that the electricians who were installing charging stations needed better training, according to Bernie Kotlier, national co-chair of EVITP. Based in Michigan, the nonprofit that runs the training program is guided by electrical contractors, electricians, first responders, utilities, electric vehicle makers, EV charging manufacturers and others.

Kotlier says there is no central repository of code violations, electrocutions, fires or deaths related to installation errors. Still, over the years, there have been scattered press reports of fires that have broken out while cars were charging that have not been battery-related.

In 2020, a child suffered minor injuries after a fire erupted in a Cerritos, California, garage where a Tesla was charging; it was thought to be related to the home's aluminum wiring. In 2019, a fire erupted in San Antonio, Texas, due to an overloaded electrical system. Such press reports about fires connected to electrical vehicles, however rare, also set back the industry, says Kotlier, who is also an executive director on the Labor Management Cooperation Committee of IBEW and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) California & Nevada. He says there are 2,300 EVITP-certified electricians across California, already enough to meet the state's infrastructure goals.

The EVITP program is supported by the 750,000-member International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, though it is not a union program. Kotlier is keen to point out that participants need only be state-certified electricians to be eligible for an EVITP certification. There are other pathways to become certified besides the union's apprenticeship programs.

Yet some supporters see the EVITP requirement as a way to maintain job quality standards at a time when the move away from fossil fuels could cost middle-class jobs at refineries, power plants and in the auto industry. The goal should be to show "that the clean economy is better than the dirty economy that we have," said Marc Boom, director of federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "That transition is not going to be complete until there are good, high-quality jobs that come along with it."

The national environmental group joined the electricians' union in February in urging Congress to include an EVITP certification requirement in the Build Back Better Act. The Biden administration is recommending the program as a way to ensure "safe and high quality" workmanship under the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is expected to fund 500,000 EV charging stations nationwide at a cost of $7.5 billion.

Carol Zabin, an economist with the UC Berkeley Labor Center's Green Economy Program, explains it this way. The EVITP program is "basically building on the state-certified apprenticeship system," an earn-while-you-learn workforce training system that combines classroom training with years of on-the-job training. "Certification can really support good wages, and it does identify skills that help employers know what they're hiring," says Zabin.

But EVCA's Addis sees the EVITP requirement as "elitist" and costly at a time when the industry is trying to make electric cars as affordable as possible. "Because they've picked this particular program, given it a monopoly, you're not going to see as many people of color being able to participate and get that type of training," says Addis, who complained the test is hard to access for those in rural areas.

There is no data available about the demographics of EVITP-certified electricians in California, according to the California Energy Commission. The CEC has recently partnered with California community colleges to offer EVITP exams in rural areas of the state. Previously, the test was offered only in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

Diana Limon, dressed in a pale gray suit, is businesslike and direct. She's the training director for the largest school for electricians in the nation: the Electrical Training Institute of Southern California (ETI) in Commerce, California. The facility is jointly run by NECA and IBEW Local 11, whose jurisdiction covers auto-centric L.A. County. (Note: IBEW Local 11 is a financial supporter of this website.) The apprentices at ETI look a lot like the county, except there are more Latinos and fewer whites and Asian and Pacific Islanders. The current class of about 1,900 is 69% Latino, 9% Black, 4% Asian and Pacific Islander and 17% white. About 125 IBEW apprentices completed the EVITP program last year. They will receive their EVITP credential once the state fully certifies them as electricians.

"I think for us it's always about raising the standards," Limon says of EVITP. "When we do something wrong, people can be shocked, they can be electrocuted, or somebody else can be injured as a result of that, or there could be fire. So public safety is important to us and the safety of our members is important to us."

The Electrical Training Institute is located in the solar and battery-powered building where Frank de Leon apprenticed as an electrician beginning in 2004. He said he first learned about the possibility of becoming an electrician through the union's 2nd Call program, which sends members into the prisons to do outreach. "The union electrician job was like a dream come true for me," says de Leon, who thinks his basic math and interview skills helped him land the apprenticeship.

Now he's an EVITP-certified foreman with a union electrical contractor that specializes in EV charging. He says he will soon be installing 40 chargers at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Riverside County, where he was confined for 25 months in the late 1990s.

Jessica Goodheart wrote this article for Capital and Main.


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New Mexico farmers finding it more difficult to grow historic crops are taking up conservation techniques to meet the challenge.

Drought, water scarcity, and extreme weather events combine to require growers to adopt new methods and modern tools.

John Idowu, extension agronomist specialist at New Mexico State University, shows farmers how to improve soil health and help control wind erosion. For long term success, he said they need to focus on sustainable, regenerative practices.

"How can I optimize my system and make it more resilient to climate change, to weather changes?" Idowu explained. "Once we have all those things worked out, farmers will tend to stay in business for longer."

Earlier this year, a NOAA satellite captured an image of winds lifting vast amounts of dust and dirt from New Mexico's dry farmlands. Some forecasters compared it to images last seen in the 1930s Dust Bowl.

Plowing agricultural fields annually was a common practice until the Dust Bowl period but in recent decades no-till or low-till farming operations have gained traction.

Bonnie Hopkins Byers, program director for the San Juan County Extension Service, encouraged New Mexico farmers to get a soil analysis and consider adopting the less aggressive approach. She said it could mean they do not need to till every year.

"One of the biggest problems is that people do something because that's the way they've always done it, or because it's the way their parents have done it, or their grandparents," Hopkins Byers acknowledged. "My philosophy has always been if you're going to till something over, till something in."

Intense dust storms known as "haboobs" were originally thought to be confined to Africa's Sudan but are becoming more common in other arid regions such as the Southwest.

Idowu stressed it makes the adoption of regenerative practices more urgent, as topsoil on New Mexico farmland disappears due to drought, land use changes and wind, which he noted has been particularly strong this year.

"The wind has been a major force, especially in the spring, so many days where you couldn't do anything outside because of the wind," Idowu observed. "You have a lot of dust and that means a lot of erosion and that is exactly what you don't like when it comes to crop production."

The New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group formed to help farmers improve their land and livelihoods.


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By Carolyn Beans for Lancaster Farming.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Keystone State News Connection reporting for the Lancaster Farming-MIT Climate Change Engagement Program-Public News Service Collaboration

At Mountain View Holsteins in Bethel, Pennsylvania, owner Jeremy Martin is always working to make his dairy more efficient.

Currently, he has his sights set on a manure solid-liquid separator. He'd like to use the solid portion of his manure as bedding for his 140 cows and the liquid as fertilizer.

But the project is pricey - he expects the equipment alone will run around $100,000. So Martin hopes to defray the cost through grant funding for dairy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Removing much of the solids from manure reduces the feed for the methane-producing microbes that thrive in the anaerobic conditions of liquid manure.

The approach is just one of many dairy practices now considered "climate-smart" because they could cut production of climate-warming gases.

For Martin, a manure separator wouldn't be possible without a grant.

"Once it's in place and going, I think some of these practices will pay for themselves, but the upfront cost is more than I can justify," he says. "If there's money out there to pay that upfront cost to get started, it makes sense to me to do it."

Across Pennsylvania, dairy farmers are learning more about climate-smart practices and funding opportunities, and weighing whether these changes are really sustainable for their businesses as well as the environment.

The Latest Buzzword

USDA has defined climate-smart agriculture as an approach that reduces or removes greenhouse gas emissions, builds resilience to the changing climate, and sustainably increases incomes and agricultural productivity.

"Before climate-smart was a thing, we called it conservation. We called it stewardship," says Jackie Klippenstein, a senior vice president at Dairy Farmers of America.

Indeed, long before the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations coined the term "climate-smart agriculture" in 2010, Pennsylvania dairy farmers had adopted many of the practices that now fall under the label.

For dairy, climate-smart practices largely include strategies that reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, manure or fields. Tried and true conservation practices like cover cropping and reduced tillage count.

So do newer practices like using the feed additive Bovaer to reduce methane production in a cow's rumen, or precision nitrogen management to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fields.

Paying for Climate-Smart

"Margins are very tight on the dairy farm," says Jayne Sebright, the executive director of the Center for Dairy Excellence, a public-private partnership to strengthen Pennsylvania's dairy industry. "Some of these (climate-smart practices) are good for the climate, but they don't make good economic sense until they're subsidized."

In 2022, the center joined a Penn State-run program called "Climate-smart Agriculture that is profitable, Regenerative, Actionable and Trustworthy" to provide dairy farmers with funds for switching to climate-smart practices.

CARAT was launched with a $25 million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant, but the future of the Pennsylvania project is in doubt. In April, USDA canceled the partnership program, suggesting that recipients reapply to a new USDA initiative called Advancing Markets for Producers.

Over 60 dairy farmers across Pennsylvania, including Martin, had already applied and been accepted into the first phase of CARAT. This initial phase was intended to help farmers identify the best climate-smart practices for their operations. In the second phase, farmers would have applied for funding to implement those practices. One farmer was already paid for his project before the USDA canceled the partnership program.

"There are fewer funding sources for climate-smart projects than in the last administration. However, private organizations and other entities are funding climate-smart projects," Sebright says. "Depending on what the practice is, (climate-smart) could also be conservation projects. It could be water quality projects."

Sebright suggests that dairy farmers also look for support through state-level funding, such as Pennsylvania's Resource Enhancement and Protection program, which offers tax credits for implementing practices that benefit farms and protect water quality.

Pennsylvania dairy farmers can also contact their county conservation districts to ask about funding opportunities for climate-smart projects, says Amy Welker, a project manager and grant writer for Pennsylvania-based Jones Harvesting, which operates Maystone Dairy in Newville and Molly Pitcher Milk in Shippensburg.

In the next year, Jones Harvesting plans to install a methane digester and solid-liquid separator at a site near Maystone Dairy. The digester is funded with an Agricultural Innovation Grant from the state and an Environmental Quality Incentives Program grant from USDA, along with private funds.

There's money out there for farmers who implement climate-smart practices, says Welker. But "you can't just look at one source."

Long-Term Payoffs

Ultimately, for climate-smart projects to make economic sense, they must continue paying for themselves long after the initial investment. One major goal of the USDA's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program was to develop markets where farmers adopting these practices could earn a premium.

Some dairy farmers might see that return in the carbon market. National checkoff organization Dairy Management Inc. and its partners have pledged to shrink the industry's net greenhouse gas production to zero by 2050. There are growing opportunities for companies working toward that goal in the dairy supply chain to pay farmers for their contributions.

Early last year, Texas dairy farmer Jasper DeVos became the first to earn credits through the livestock carbon insetting marketplace. DeVos earned carbon credits by reducing methane emissions with a feed protocol that included the feed additive Rumensin. Dairy Farmers of America then purchased those credits through Athian, a carbon marketplace for the livestock industry.

Increased Efficiency

Even without direct monetary payoff, many farmers who adopt climate-smart practices reap rewards in improved efficiency and productivity.

"When you look at climate-smart, you also have to look at what's farm smart," Sebright says. She suggests that farmers choose practices that benefit their farms, not just the climate.

A farmer might decide to put a cover and flare system on a manure pit, not only because it reduces methane emissions but also because it keeps rainwater out of the pit and reduces the number of times each year the pit must be emptied.

Andy Bollinger of Meadow Spring Farm in Lancaster County has been running a manure separator since 2009. The liquid fertilizes his fields, and a portion of the solids becomes bedding for his cows.

He estimates the system saves him at least $20,000 a year in bedding costs.

"We put a fresh coating of it onto the stalls that our cows lay in every day and scrape the old stuff out," says Bollinger, who is also the vice president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania. "It seems to work quite well, and it saves us from buying other bedding products."

No-till farming is also a cost saver because it reduces field passes with equipment, says James Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Cabot, which has been 100% no-till for at least six years. The practice saves him money on fuel and herbicides.

"You're saving your environment, and you're also saving green," he says.

But Thiele questions whether some other climate-smart practices like methane digesters would be practical for his farm, which has 75 to 80 cows.

"I don't know if it'd be worth it for somebody as small as I am," he says.

"I think over the next few years, we'll rapidly see (climate-smart) tools become more available, and we'll see more organizations like DFA talking to our small to mid-sized farmers to make sure they understand they've got a place in this, they can benefit from it, and the practices and tools are affordable to them as well," Klippenstein says.

Weighing Climate-Smart

Many dairy farmers wonder whether some of the practices championed as climate-smart will really support their businesses.

Donny Bartch of Merrimart Farms in Loysville has adopted environmental practices from cover cropping to a manure management plan.

"I want to protect the environment. I want to keep my nutrients here on the farm and be sustainable for another five generations," Bartch says. "But we have to make sure that we're making the right decisions to keep the business going. And to do some of these (climate-smart) practices, the only way they pencil out is to have those subsidies."

There is also frustration with a system that rewards climate-smart improvements made today without acknowledging the contributions of farmers who were climate-smart before anyone put a name on it.

"You come around and want to start rewarding people for doing these things. You really need to start with the ones that have been doing it for a long time, but that's really not what happens," says Jim Harbach of Schrack Farms in Loganton, whose farm has been no-till for 50 years.

Climate-smart grant money and carbon credits are typically awarded for the implementation of new practices.

"It's just the unfortunate way that all of the policies and regulations were written," Sebright says. "What I would say is, if you do a climate-smart plan, maybe there are practices or things you can do to enhance or support or take what you're doing a step further."

Scientific Measurements on Real Farms

Some dairy farmers also want to know more about how climate-smart practices will affect their farms before jumping in.

Steve Paxton remembers participating in a government program to improve timber over 50 years ago on his family dairy, Irishtown Acres in Grove City. His family members were paid to climb up into their white pines and saw off many of the bottom branches.

The goal was to create a cleaner log. Instead, more sunlight shown through, which caused grape vines to climb up and topple the trees.

"The bottom line is, there was research done, it looked good, but it hadn't had enough time to follow through and see just really what the end results would be," Paxton says.

When Paxton sees estimates of how some practices might reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, he wonders how much of that research has been tested on actual dairies.

"I think some of it now is just kind of a textbook estimate of what's happening," he says.

More meaningful data is needed to show how climate-smart practices reduce greenhouse gases on individual dairies, Sebright says.

As part of the CARAT program, Penn State researchers planned to place greenhouse gas sensors on a dozen dairies and test how much greenhouse gas production falls as farmers experiment with different practices. The researchers intended to then use that data to build models that predict how those practices may affect emissions on other farms. They will still measure emissions this spring on one farm that is experimenting with a new approach for spreading manure in fields of feed crops.

"The real goal of (CARAT) is to have research that says, if you put a cover and flare (manure storage system) on a 500-cow dairy, this is how greenhouse gas emissions will change," Sebright says. "Or if you use Bovaer on a 90-cow herd, here's how this will affect greenhouse gas emissions."

Martin of Mountain View Holsteins has his own personal beliefs about where a dairy farmer's responsibilities to the planet begin and end. But from a business perspective, he feels compelled to adopt climate-smart practices because he expects the industry will eventually require them.

"Climate concerns are coming whether I'd like it or not," he says. "So my thought is, I might as well get started on it while there's funding to do it."


Carolyn Beans wrote this article for Lancaster Farming.


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Oregon's new state budget cuts funding for programs intended to protect residents from extreme weather and make renewable energy more accessible.

Climate justice advocates said it is a major setback after years of progressive climate policies.

Ben Brint, senior climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council, is disappointed to lose funding for the Community Renewable Energy Grant Program, which supports a variety of projects tailored to communities, including microgrids and solar storage.

"We felt legislators didn't fund climate resilience programs while fires are raging, people's houses are burning down and the state has already experienced record heat waves in June," Brint pointed out. "Legislators don't see we are in an actual climate emergency and chose inaction."

Brint said the grant program aimed to help low-income, rural and communities of color, those most impacted by climate disasters. Lawmakers attributed the cuts to budget shortfalls and uncertainty over federal funding.

Joel Iboa, executive director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, said the Community Resilience Hub program, which creates networks as well as physical places to protect people from extreme cold, heat and smoke also lost funding this session. He argued the hubs are effective because communities design them to meet their unique needs.

"Whether it be a place to plug in your phone or a place to go get diapers or get an air conditioner or whatever your community may need," Iboa outlined. "Depending on what's going on."

A heat pump program for rental housing, aimed at making energy-efficient heating and cooling more affordable, was also cut this session.

Brint added he realizes legislators have to make tough decisions about how to fund health care and housing but emphasized climate change is connected to those issues.

"When we're talking about heat pumps or the C-REP program, we're talking about people's health and livelihoods and saving lives in the face of climate fueled disaster," Brint stressed.

Brint added since climate change is not going away, the movement to push for climate resilience will not either.


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