Posted on 09/28/2006 9:59:15 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation yesterday that imposes the nation's first cap on greenhouse gas emissions and challenges Californians to temper energy consumption.
The measure, aimed at curbing global warming, is expected to have political and practical implications, from increasing pressure for federal action from the Bush administration to accelerating new technologies that could deliver fuel-saving cars, power plants, refineries and factories.
“It will begin a bold new era of environmental protection in California that will change the course of history,” the Republican governor said during a bill-signing ceremony in San Francisco. It was attended by a bipartisan cast of political luminaries – and British Prime Minister Tony Blair via satellite. Schwarzenegger held a similar event later in Malibu.
The legislation, sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, requires a gradual rollback of greenhouse gas emissions, widely believed to be the primary culprit for the gradual warming of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans.
At the same time, the state will launch an emissions market for businesses to buy and sell pollution credits, a potential moneymaker for innovators and a possible buoy for those companies that cannot economically or technologically meet the looming cap.
Future governors will be given the authority to temporarily pull the plug on regulations during economic calamity – a central concession to industry.
Business interests are putting together a wish list of additional concessions they say are vital to keep companies from fleeing to other states, where they will not be bound by tighter restrictions.
Industry plans to ask the governor and lawmakers to exempt investments in fuel-saving equipment from the sales tax.
“It is the immediate initial barrier to modernization,” said Dorothy Rothrock, representing the California Manufacturers and Technology Association.
Although not taking a position on the sales tax proposal, Schwarzenegger has dismissed complaints that Assembly Bill 32 will be a drag on California's economy and drive companies out of the state.
“In fact, we will create a whole new industry that will pump up our economy – a clean-tech industry that creates jobs, sparks new cutting-edge technology and is a model for the rest of the nation,” he said.
Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said he remains concerned that the new regulations could cause harm, particularly with a possible spike in energy prices.
“We want to make sure that the businesses which spring up to meet the demand for new energy technologies do more than just sell them to California,” he said in a prepared statement. “We want those businesses to locate here, employ Californians and provide revenues for the state.”
Global warming, which is linked to pollution and climatic changes around the world, could drain water supplies by reducing snowpack, and bring more deadly infernos by drying out forests, many researchers say.
Variations in weather patterns could put food supplies at risk and add to the number of deadly floods, they say. On Tuesday, a new study led by James Hansen, a prominent NASA researcher, reported that temperatures on Earth are at their highest in 12,000 years.
Even today, as the world's leaders begin to seriously combat the problem, there are enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to continue warming for some time, researchers said.
“As a result, we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change in time to avoid disastrous effects,” Hansen said at a recent conference in Sacramento. “That window of opportunity is no longer than a decade.”
Hansen said he marvels at California's determination to jump ahead of the nation.
“It's courageous that California is willing to take actions on its own,” he said. “It's a measure of how imminent the threat has become – the fact that they're willing to take some risk of some economic impact.”
Californians will not see immediate change, but cars and everyday appliances will evolve as the state's regulations take hold in 2012.
“Ultimately, it's about the fuel you burn and the electricity you consume,” said Catherine Witherspoon, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, the agency charged with developing the regulations.
Witherspoon does not see an economic earthquake rolling across the state. “The savings will be in the power plants you don't have to build and the fuels you don't have to burn,” is her message to companies.
Sheryl Carter of the Natural Resources Defense Council said consumers will benefit from innovations prompted by the new standards.
“This legislation is going to end up giving us more clean-energy choices – more choices for fuels at the pump, more choices for cars, more efficient cars, more choices in terms of efficient appliances,” she said.
The state has a landmark automobile tailpipe emission law, currently being challenged in court by the auto industry.
But with consumer pressure for better gas mileage, automakers already are introducing more alternative-fuel vehicles and cars that go farther on a tank of gas.
“They're using off-the-shelf technology to make their cars operate more efficiently,” Carter said. “They're already doing it.”
California is the world's 12th-largest producer of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
Critics have contended that California alone cannot make much of an impact, but prominent supporters of the bill – including New York Gov. George Pataki, who attended the bill-signing ceremony – said California's leadership will provide momentum to take the initiative globally. As evidence, eight states adopted California's earlier clean-car regulations.
“This will echo right around the rest of the world,” Blair said.
Has CA banned cars yet?
See! See! Arnold's a Republican - greenhouse gases will be controlled by supply and demand! Do you really want Angelides to win? < /S >
Piss off, Arnold. I can't control my gag reflex enough to pull the lever for you.
I think you are lost.
Ooohhh...you're gonna get it now. IBTZ
Buh bye.
Welcome to FreeRepublic. May your stay here be short.
I heard someone on the radio yesterday summerized this legislation and arnolds goals.
1. Make it more expensive to drive here by adding $1,500 to $2,000 more per auto.
2. Install a power line to Minnosota simply moving our pollution there.
3. Plant more trees.
4. Move our land fills to Arizona.
5. Allow polluters to pollute more by exchanging their pollution credits with a company that pollutes less (naturally with a government broker fee.
The concept of "global" warming seems to be lost in Sacramento.
You are fried...
Will the last business leaving California please turn off the light?
Political climates can and do change. Before the Depression, Massachusetts was one of the most conservative states in the country, and its best known representatives in politics were Calvin Coolidge and Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. At the present time, that state is hopelessly Democratic, with the exception of their RINO governor, Mitt Romney. It appears that the same has happened to California. I bear no grudge against your state, but I wish it were on the side of the Southern, Lower Midwestern, Rockies, and Plains states and not a part of the bicoastal enemy camp.
let them sit in the dark and eat cold tofu.
The state of California is a stupid, evil place.
Your state has just earmarked large bucks to Cal-EPA to implement this... How many bureaucracies have you seen just go away?
I work as a contract industrial planner for capital project and heavy maintenance mostly in refining, chemical and power. The Federal EPA has things so tight already there is no way the refineries can comply with a 25% reduction while expanding capacity. These bills have just put every California refinery out of business… I should make great money relocating them though…
"Will the last business leaving California please turn off the light?"
No need, the lights will turn themselves out.
A lot of those fossil fuels are forest and brush fires.
So..will a few of those use up the CO2 points?
Sounds like a violation of the dormant Commerce Clause, to me. It interferes with interstate commerce. States are not supposed to solve global problem, that's for the Feds.
That would've required a whoooooolllle lotta' dead dinosaurs. What am I missing?
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