Patterico's Pontifications

3/24/2010

California AB32: Full Speed Ahead or Roll Back?

Filed under: Environment,Government — DRJ @ 1:12 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, passed the California legislature in August 2006 and was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger in September 2006. The bill establishes a statewide greenhouse gas emissions cap for 2020 based on 1990 emissions, and requires the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop regulations and market mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In January, a CARB advisory panel recommended that CARB adopt a cap-and-trade fee that would raise an estimated $143.3 billion between 2012 and 2020.

The California GOP is working to suspend AB32, saying it will kill jobs, cost too much money, and isn’t needed:

“Republican lawmakers in California are circulating a ballot initiative backed by business interests that would suspend California’s landmark law to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a signature policy of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure.

The secretary of state’s office this week cleared the sponsors’ petition, giving them until July 5 to collect the 433,971 signatures needed to qualify it for the November ballot.

If passed by voters, the measure would suspend the 2006 law signed by Schwarzenegger until the state unemployment rate falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for a year.”

Yesterday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman joined the effort:

“In an Op-Ed in today’s San Jose Mercury News, Whitman argues that the economic hardship facing the state will be compounded by AB32 and called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — who signed the measure into law with much fanfare — to immediately issue an executive order to put a moratorium on “most AB32-related rules.”

“And if he does not, I will issue that order on my first day as governor,” Whitman wrote.”

Commenter papertiger, an enthusiastic supporter of this effort, has linked the California Jobs Initiative, a website where you can find more information on the Initiative and download a Petition.

AB32 supporters claim Texas energy companies are funding the Initiative to protect their interests. They claim the bill will “provide a needed boost to California’s economy without harming small businesses” and reduce pollution:

“Not wanting to appear pro-pollution or tone deaf to Californians’ concerns about the environment, opponents of AB 32 — like Meg Whitman and dirty energy astroturf front the AB 32 Implementation Group (an especially Orwellian moniker for a group that doesn’t want AB 32 implemented) — claim they are deeply concerned about the state of the environment in California. And they should — Californians breathe some of the worst air in the nation, with 95% of Californians living in areas with unhealthy air. The top four most polluted cities in America when it comes to ozone (the primary ingredient in smog) are in California, with six California cities in the top ten. When it comes to the most polluted cities ranked by particulates in the air, the top three cities are in California, with six in the top ten.”

Are Californians ahead of the curve when it comes to global warming and clean air, or are the AB32 opponents right when they say it’s not good for California?

— DRJ

UPDATE: Per papertiger, there are only 16 more days left to sign the petition.

29 Responses to “California AB32: Full Speed Ahead or Roll Back?”

  1. CO2 is not air pollution. But you will see the two conflated because of the inherent dishonesty of the AGW adherents and their Luddite followers.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. AB 32 is not good for California.

    Michael Ejercito (526413)

  3. If California isn’t careful they will lose their position as an intermodal hub for trains, planes, trucks and automobiles. A few years back there was a plan to move port facilities to Mexico account congestion in the L.A./Oakland corridors of I-5 and 101. On top of that they are making life miserable for truck drivers who are being pulled over for a complete truck inspection as a means of revenue enhancement. Insurance is not enforced as the drivers are asked to present papers showing proof of insurance without follow-up. The scam is to order insurance they cancelling it after the computer spits out the insurance card.

    This is not the way to run a business much less a state. The smart money is abandoning California for Texas and other states that are business friendly. The Governator and his wife can toast us all with a sunset in the background asking us to visit and spend our money there. Don’t think so folks. The last time I drove our RV to San Diego for a visit I was told by the RV park representative that if one drop of black or grey water his the ground during connect or disconnect I would be slapped with a hazmat violation and pay to have someone don a hazmat suit to scrub the area down.

    The Golden State should be reclassified the “Brass State” because it has more brass than a Coney Island fire truck. Sad because I was raised in California!

    vet66 (4e0dda)

  4. AB32 might not be good for California but it sounds good for the rest of us. The sooner Cali crashes and burns the better.

    Vivictius (1720ac)

  5. i think yet another tax on business is EXACTLY what the California economy needs. if this doesn’t prime the pump, we’ll have to raise individual income taxes instead.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  6. Full implementation will fix the unemployment rate at above 10% for the foreseeable future, and drive even more small business people from the state.
    They feel pretty invinceable about the port problem since Mexico can’t get a railroad built from Ensenada to Yuma to connect with the trans-con line – it seems that until the Mexican Govt can guarantee land title, and labor peace, no North American railroad (and it is the Union Pacific that it would have to connect to at Yuma, and who has specifically told Mexico City: “Call us when you can operate in the real world”) will put their capital at risk. And now, with the expanding violence south of the border, who knows?
    No railway connection – No port.
    BTW, BC is expanding an existing port on the Pacific Coast that has rail connections to the East – and BC is a shorter cruise from the Far East than is SoCal.

    AD - RtR/OS! (956a02)

  7. My advice to Californians is to note the deadlines in the original bill and consider putting up your homes for sale and choosing an agreeable state to move to.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  8. That’s a great idea, except that so many of them have already moved away and ruined formerly – sane states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado. So there’s no where else for them to go and pollute with their ridiculous ideas.

    Dmac (ca1d8c)

  9. […] Patterico’s Pontifications on an issue that is a primary one for this site: California AB32: Full Speed Ahead or Roll Back? […]

    Wild Wednesday Link-fest and Mini-Retreat « Temple of Mut (3b80fb)

  10. The same economic theory that says raising the cost of energy will create jobs is the same one that says if you add 32 million people to the health insurance rolls costs will go down without affecting anyone’s current health care.

    You can pass all the laws you want but no one knows how to make a tree grow money.

    MU789 (6a1add)

  11. I thought Al Gore and the Sierra Club had that tree/money thingee all worked out. Oh … that was just for their own bank accounts.

    Robert N. (add0e9)

  12. Notice they sold this as a bill about “Global Warming Solutions” but now it’s a pollution reducer.

    Jack (8b9d41)

  13. Now, if we could only suspend Environmental Impact Reports on critical transportation projects (on the theory that crappy transportation is a major smog source)…

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  14. MU789 – Just make sure your tires are properly inflated, Mkay, otherwise Obama’s yet to be formed civilian army corps of sycophants (can anyone say job creation, yes, yes you can!) will get up in your grill.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  15. i think yet another tax on business is EXACTLY what the California economy needs.
    if this doesn’t prime the pump, we’ll have to raise individual income taxes instead.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  16. Do you remember when the global warming bill was supposed to give California a massive economic boost?

    State officials: Economy can withstand global warming law

    State officials insisted today that California’s epic global-warming law will have only a modest impact on the state’s economy.

    The Air Resources Board touted the results of an economic analysis that says the economy can withstand the rigors of AB 32, which will require California to scale back greenhouse gas emissions substantially by the end of the decade. Business groups have charged that AB 32 will dramatically increase energy costs and erase thousands of jobs.

    “We can now say definitively that implementing AB 32 will not hurt the California economy,” said Mary Nichols, the board’s chair, in a conference call with reporters.

    The study concludes that there will be “essentially no change” in economic growth trends because of the law, said Kevin Kennedy, an ARB staffer.

    Calculating the economic impact of AB 32 has become a huge political fight, particularly with a conservative group pushing a November ballot initiative that would delay the law’s implementation until California unemployment falls below 5.5 percent.

    Now the story is we might survive the global warming bill. Maybe…

    There are only 16 more days left to sign the petition. http://www.jobs2010ca.com/

    papertiger (e951b9)

  17. Remember when the Arctic was going to melt away in five years, leaving the pole ice free?

    Cryosphere Today: ice extent 2010 and 1980 side by side comparison.

    papertiger (e951b9)

  18. AB 32 will produce no environmental benefit, except to parasites like CARB’s Mary Nichols, who thrive on economic destruction. Here’s where to get the initiative to suspend AB 32.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641)

  19. Arnold has been MIA on this and the Health Care Extravaganza. Where in the world is Gov. Arnold?

    Patricia (e1047e)

  20. France ditches carbon tax as social protests mount…

    President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday scrapped the country’s proposed carbon tax and reshuffled his cabinet in populist tilt after suffering a crushing electoral defeat over the weekend, when his Gaulliste UMP party lost every region other than in its bastion of Alsace and the Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

    …just as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signs Los Angeles up.

    Former Vice President Al Gore yesterday threw his support behind Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s controversial carbon surcharge plan, which would increase electricity bills for LADWP customers so the city would be using 20% renewable power by the end of 2010.

    “It was only last week that the mayor of Los Angeles was cloaking his massive Department of Water and Power rate-hike proposal as a green initiative designed to ween the city off of coal power,” explained the LA Weekly, which goes on to say the rate “hike, which would eventually include 28.4 percent increases for some customers, is a Band-Aid for the city’s near $700 million deficit (coming in July).”

    The Laist says Al Gore will join Villaraigosa in a Carbon Surcharge Press Conference but it doesn’t give a date. Someone know when? It would be a shame if Los Angeles let a chance to tell Al what we really think of him go to waste.

    papertiger (c234bc)

  21. Patricia,
    Arnold is a warmist who supported AB 32. He’s doing his best to pretend nothing is wrong, and is still spreading the line that the bill will create all sorts of economic stimulation.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641)

  22. In recent years, the depressed advertising market has made it almost impossible for advertising supported radio and TV stations to increase their revenue. As far as I know from working in LA TV, just about every major Los Angeles TV station is collecting much less revenue now than they received five years ago.

    About the only way to stay in business in the face of increased costs is to reduce expenses — and the main cost that can be managed is wages and salaries. That means laying off staff and hiring fewer daily-hire production and engineering people.

    TV transmitters consume tens thousands of dollars worth of electricity each month. TV studio lighting and air conditioning are also huge electric power users.

    Taxes or government actions that increase the cost of electricity will undoubtedly cause stations to curtail local news and production activity and cut staffs still further. There is no alternative.

    Film and TV crews also use a lot of gasoline or diesel powered electric generators. Restrictions on these, especially if neighboring states do not have similar restrictions, will drive much of what production remains here out of California.

    My former Assemblyman, Paul Krekorian (D-Burbank)
    represented the heart of the film-TV industry and talked he talk about keeping production in LA:
    Even voting to subsidize a very small subset of the TV-Film production industry — with favored producers getting tax breaks.

    Yet Krekorian voted the complete global warming party line, including voting for AB32. I wrote him politely a couple times describing the pain that government action was inflicting on media companies and employees, but my letters were never even acknowledged. When I talked to his Sacramento point person on taxes, it was clear she knew little about our industry and had no interest in our problems.

    I fear that we’re dealing with people who either want to kill business and the middle-class jobs they once supported, or are so far into this bullshit global warming religion they don’t care about the human cost.

    [note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]

    LA TV Guy (95fada)

  23. John & Ken have been pushing hard to get the petitions signed and today had one of their reporters on who was permitted to ask one question at a Q&A of Mary Nicholls, chairman of the Air Resource Board who insists this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nicholls herself appointed select individuals to do the study re the bill…except that she would not distribute copies of the study to the reporters *before* the interview to study and prepare questions – it was given out to them 2 1/2 hours *after* the Q&A…this is yet another harebrained travesty being foisted on the public. My family signed the petition this weekend.

    The California Air Resources Board says its new study proves the state’s economy will grow from tough new pollution restrictions aimed at stopping global warming.

    The study found exactly what the Air Resources Board wanted.

    Chairman Mary Nicholls says it shows that California’s economy will grow, two million new jobs will be created, and fuel costs will drop.

    “Anything other than full implementation actually increases costs and shifts them to California individual households and small businesses,” Nicholls says.

    Most reporters were not allowed to see the report before trying to ask questions about it, and Nicholls did not answer questions about other studies that say California stands to lose one million jobs.

    Dana (1e5ad4)

  24. LA TV Guy,

    It doesn’t sound like they care about the human cost. Either that or they want to downsize the media to their preferred journalists.

    DRJ (daa62a)

  25. If you hate California — or any place, for that matter — you should secretly wish that it become as rigidly liberal, as foolishly liberal, as possible.

    I can think of few places in the nation or Western World where rigid conservatism is apparent and making a negative mark on the affected citizenry. By contrast, I can think of dozens and dozens of cities and countries where the motto of the day is “I’m liberal, therefore I am,” and ongoing trends are full of decadence, dysfunction and anomie.

    Mark (411533)

  26. Some of you seem to be under the impression that if California continues on it’s present course there will be other options, other states to escape to. I assure you, you are mistaken.

    California may also have to contend with a new federal plan, if Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and his allies in Congress are successful with a plan they see as a compromise with previous, more ambitious efforts.

    “The programs can absolutely blend together,” Nichols said. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strong proponent of the state’s global warming law, had discussed plans with Kerry, who was supportive of the state’s right to run its program in parallel with a federal program, she said.

    Other federal proposals could clash with state plans.

    California had been considering including transportation fuels in its first round of cap-and-trade in 2012, which may not fit into the plan being formulated by Democrat Kerry, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman.

    “In general we are looking at trying to do something that can be phased in successfully with what is being considered at the federal level, which would argue against putting transportation (fuels) in at the very beginning,” Nichols said.
    Excerpted from the Reuters story; California seeks smooth adoption of cap-and-trade
    (Reuters) – California aims to avoid major economic shocks with its carbon cap-and-trade system slated to start in 2012, the state’s chief climate change regulator said on Monday, adding that the most populous U.S. state would try to harmonize its system with any federal plan.

    John Kerry is working on the Federal plan which is a mirror of the Californian, with the differences being superficial and merely a matter of degree.

    We have to fight this here. For the entire country. The battle is here in California. Now.

    papertiger (fbc22c)

  27. Margot Roosevelt reports a new AB 32 economic impact study by the CARB – this time “vetted” by a hand picked panel of enviromentalists led by Larry Goulder, a Stanford professor of environmental and resource economics. Here’s a 2008 SacBee Op/ed by Goulder so you can see his slant and judge for yourself. Neutral or fair he is not.

    Mary Nichols is delighted with the new study, of course, and says “This shows we can implement the law and that growth in the California economy will be large and unabated,”

    But it’s in direct contradiction to common sense and what the AB 32 implimentation group says, “The climate plan represents perhaps the most far-reaching regulatory policy initiative ever attempted in our state’s history, imposing new costs on virtually every product and service. Yet the agency’s economic analysis finds that it won’t cost consumers a dime. We are skeptical about the rosy prediction.”

    papertiger (fbc22c)

  28. Indeed, papertiger, it is ludicrous. If compliance would not cost consumers any money, then the bill advocates are saying that it would not actually change anything. A nonsensical contradiction.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  29. Christie Shreds New Jersey Climate Change Programs
    Kills Emission Reporting, Diverts Green Energy Fund & Defunds Climate Office

    TRENTON, N.J. – March 25 – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has taken a wrecking ball to the state’s touted Global Warming Response Act, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In recent weeks, the Christie administration has blocked required reporting from greenhouse gas sources, diverted $300 million in Clean Energy Funds dedicated to energy efficiency and proposed to zero out the state’s Office of Climate Change and Energy.

    “New Jersey’s Global Warming Response Act is now a dead letter,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe, referring to 2007 legislation regarded as the crowning environmental achievement of the Corzine administration.

    Shall we give New Jersey’s global warming act a proper funeral?

    [kicks some dirt on it]

    papertiger (fbc22c)


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