Posted on 11/11/2006 12:59:28 AM PST by NormsRevenge
With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Mexico on a high-profile trade mission, his chief of staff and a bipartisan delegation of state lawmakers quietly embarked Friday on a 12-day trip to South America to study alternative-energy technologies.
Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, and high-ranking members of both the Senate and Assembly were accompanied by representatives of energy companies and others with lobbying interests in Sacramento.
The trip will take the delegation to Argentina, Brazil and Chile. That includes a three-day break next weekend at a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires during which no work is scheduled, according to two people familiar with the itinerary who did not want their names used because they were not authorized to speak about the trip to reporters.
The mission was designed to give lawmakers a lesson in ethanol production and other clean-energy technologies, officials said.
It began two days after Nunez suggested that the Legislature in January might consider a package of tax breaks and other incentives for businesses to meet requirements of the nation's first-ever law forcing industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Schwarzenegger signed the bill in September.
The California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy organized and funded the trip. A woman who answered the phone at the foundation on Friday said that only the group's president, Patrick Mason, who was on the plane at the time, could speak about the trip. He did not immediately return a telephone message or e-mail seeking comment.
The San Francisco-based, tax-exempt group lists its mission on its Web site as to create an "atmosphere of non-adversarial cooperation" and to "provide information, often through direct experience, to public policy decision makers." There was no way to immediately assess how much the foundation was paying for the trip.
It counts representatives of energy and telecom giants, as well as powerful unions, investment firms and others among its members.
Two lawmakers' aides said representatives of Sempra Energy and the cable company Comcast were planning to be on the trip. Sempra owns San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Gas Co., both regulated by the Public Utilities Commission. Kennedy, a Democrat, sat on the PUC before Schwarzenegger appointed her as chief of staff in December.
Kennedy and Nunez were joined on the trip by assembly members John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, Rick Keene, R-Chico, Susan Runner, R-Lancaster, and her husband, Republican Sen. George Runner, according to sources with knowledge of the guest list but who were not authorized to speak about it for the record.
The aides said they understood most of the lawmakers would be accompanied by their partners or spouses. PUC Executive Director Steve Larson also was scheduled to take part.
All three Republican legislators invited on the trip voted against the greenhouse gas bill. Becky Warren, a spokeswoman for the Runners, said they nonetheless saw value in the trip.
"Sen. Runner did not think the bill was the right approach but thought that obviously we need to learn about it and see what we can do here in California," Warren said.
Officials in Schwarzenegger's office have said the trip does not violate the governor's policy against staffers taking gifts because Kennedy would be working on the trip.
Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson said Kennedy would deliver a speech during the trip, which includes stops in Santiago, Chile, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Bariloche, a tourist destination in Argentina, according to legislative staffers. Neither the governor's office nor Nunez's office would provide a copy of the trip's itinerary.
"Susan is going with Speaker Nunez, Rick Keene and other legislators to talk about energy issues and to push for the governor's agenda with the traveling legislators," Thompson said in an e-mail from Mexico, where she was traveling with the governor.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
a three-day break next weekend at a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires
Oh Yeah!!!
As did the other 44 Republican legislators.
In other words, the "Bipartisan" greenhouse gas bill was opposed by 100% of legislative Republicans.
unfortunately....ahnold was elected governator to one of the future states of mexico...cal ee for nia!!!!!
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