Posted on 08/31/2006 7:00:00 AM PDT by calcowgirl
Sometimes, the Legislature is like the magician who keeps the audience's attention focused on the right hand, while the left hand does the deed. So it is with global warming.
As the public's scrutiny remains fixed on a landmark greenhouse-gas-emissions bill authored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez that was headed to the governor's desk, another anti-global-warming bill quietly has emerged from the Senate and awaits Assembly action. Environmentalists praise the proposal, but opponents are aghast, saying that it could cripple about a fifth of the state's power supply in one fell swoop.
That second bill, which has flown under the public's radar for most of the year, is authored by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland. His SB 1368 would bar California electricity providers from entering into long-term contracts with power generators--including out-of-state companies--that pollute the air while producing energy. The proposal especially targets coal-fired power imported into California, which costs less than natural-gas-fired power but is dirtier. One-fifth of the power that California uses to generate electricity comes from coal. The bill only applies to new and renegotiated long-term contracts.
It is legislation that could have a dramatic pocketbook impact on investor-owned and municipal utilities, and on coal-fired plants established in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and elsewhere, to feed California's power needs.
"His 1368 will send a signal that will be heard all the way to Wall Street," said V. John White of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a trade and lobbying group that represents alternative energy producers.
"It's the one that has the far greater near-term impact. The apparatus of the media has been focused on AB 32 [the Núñez bill], but in the near term, this is certainly going to be the most consequential legislation," White added. "This applies to new and renegotiated contracts. It's not saying, 'You can't buy this power,' it's saying, 'You can't buy this power long term.'"
About 21 percent of California electricity comes from coal-fired sources. In Los Angeles, half of the power consumed by the Department of Water and Power, a municipal utility, is coal-fired.
Perata's bill is favored by environmentalists and opposed by the manufacturing and business communities. As of Wednesday night it was in the Assembly awaiting action.
Opponents have no doubt about the significance of the SB 1368, and are working hard to strangle it.
"AB 32 is a slow burn, but SB 1368 takes 21 percent of energy off the table immediately," said Dominic DiMare, of the California Chamber of Commerce.
"We had them both pegged early on, and still see them as equally harmful to the economy," he added. "AB 32 captured the imagination of the press, and therefore the imagination of elected officials."
Negotiations over Núñez's bill proceeded fitfully as the Legislature lurched toward the end of the 2005-2006 legislative session.
His proposal, originally authored by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, but taken over by Núñez, would cut greenhouse-gas emissions from factories, power plants, construction sites and other industries. An earlier bill authored by Pavley--a national model--targeted a 30-percent cut in greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles.
The final version version of the bill uses a carrot-and-stick mix of voluntary marketplace incentives and phased-in limits on carbon emissions set up by the Air Resources Board. It would reduce greenhouse-gas pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. A high-level panel composed of gubernatorial appointees and appointees of legislative leaders would ride herd over the air-quality regulators who craft AB 32's rules and handle the bill's day-to-day enforcement. Sites that emit scant carbon emissions could sell or trade emission credits to companies that have trouble meeting the emission limits.
Late amendments also narrow the definition of what constitutes a greenhouse gas, thus narrowing the enforcement scope of the bill--a move apparently intended to quell fears from business interests. They also allow the governor to suspend enforcement of the program for up to a year; an earlier version put no time limit on the governor's veto.
Schwarzenegger doesn't want Núñez's bill to kick in until 2012, after he leaves office. As drafted, the core of the bill would commence three years earlier, in January 2009.
Taken together, the latest proposals have raised environmentalists' concerns that the bill is being weakened dramatically, more by the governor than by Núñez. In the tense negotiations over the bill--at one point, one key participant abruptly walked out after an angry exchange--the Senate is viewed as the stronger supporter of the environmentalists, the governor as an opponent and the speaker as leaning more toward the governor's position. The tension even boiled over into the public arena: Off the Assembly floor Tuesday, the lead Senate staffer responsible for negotiating his house's version of the bill, Kip Lipper, got into a shouting match with the speaker.
"The governor's powers to weaken or delay the emission caps--that's a huge issue. The governor is looking for a loophole that would really damage the whole program by making it less certain," said Bill Magavern of the Sierra Club. "The governor is trying to weaken the bill so he can say he's done something about global warming without actually doing very much."
Privately, Capitol sources familiar with the negotiations say that both the governor and the speaker--and some environmentalists--have the most political capital invested in the issue, and are desperate to be able to declare victory to the public. "They can already see the joint news conference," one environmentalist said.
Environmentalists, too, see the bill--however weak the final version--as a lever to kick start a national climate-protection move to curb carbon emissions, and the speaker hopes the bill will serve as a national model. Despite the intensity of the negotiations, all sides say they remain positive.
"I go back and forth on this, but I think there is a good chance that a strong bill will be passed," said Bernadette Del Chiaro of Environment California. "I don't think I'm being naive."
John Howard is Managing Editor of Capitol Weekly
This is what happens when when you have government by mob rule (otherwise known as democracy). You have certifiable psychotics imposing their world view on everyone else. It's a good thing that the peoples' democracy of kalifornistan is along the ocean. Everyone can then go drown themselves when the legislature decides that humans eat too much food and take up too much space (that is they can drown themselves if they can find a spot of coast that doesn't have seal rookeries or private property signs all over.)
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Let's see how the Democraps like sitting around in the dark.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
It's my theory that the majority of "eco-activists" are losers driven by envy.
They're (too lazy, too mentally unstable, too stupid, too arrogant, etc. - take your pick) to accumulate wealth be the conventional route of working for a living. That's why the cars you see decorated with "save the whales" stickers are usually clapped out econo boxes and the drivers are long haired greasy hippie freaks. The majority are driven by envy. They see what other people have and looking at themselves see that they have nothing want to punish other people for being successful and making better life choices. After all what "environmental activist" thinks himself inferior to a successful businessman? Answer none - in fact they think themselves superior because they have "environmental awareness" (wahtever that is). So if they're superior, and yet the other guy is better off something must be wrong - YES the other guy is an evil polluter contributing to global warming and something has to be done to stop that - hence these wacky laws in the wackyiest state in the union.
Just my theory.
As if the california energy situation wasnt bad enough.
Liberal stupidity knows no bounds.
If Arnold does not start vetoing bills, the lights are going to go out in CA. Arnold is not perfect by a long shot, but if we get Phil as governor it is really going to be a disaster.
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