An Analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Website / Vanity | Sept. 23, 2003 | Mark Edward Vande Pol, aka, Carry_Okie

[Snuffington]

Being that bearers of bad news have a nasty history of getting their heads chopped off, you might want to wear a chain mail tie after posting this.

[BibChr]

LOL! Not being interested in one of your windy essays, and daring to say so, is your idea of "abuse"?!

Wow, life must be fun around you!

Say, Admin Moderator -- can I force everyone to be interested in everything I write, too, and to withhold all criticism?

Dan

[pogo101]

Dan, take it easy. And Mark, Dan's posts, however wanting they may have been as a matter of debating points, don't warrant a narcking to Admin Mods as some sort of rules violation. They aren't personally abusive, etc.

Dan: You could make your point -- namely that however left-loony Arnold's enviro-policies may be, they don't change your view that "it's either Cruz or Arnold" and that Arnold is substantially less bad than Cruz -- better with honey than with vinegar. (To misplace a metaphor.)

[jrp]

We all want a clean, healthy environment, but
more command and control dictates from big
government is going in the wrong direction.

A good example of why "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" is an oxymoron.

[Carry_Okie]

Some of AS's stuff I like. Some, I'm of two minds about. Most, however, I don't like, esp. that stuff about the "false choice" between jobs and environment.

There we disagree. I actually agree with Arnold on that one, but not in the way most people would interpret it. A productive planet, with robust and dynamic complexity in its operating systems is more resistant to calamities such as asteroid hits, it produces the wealth we need to protect and care for it, it recovers from our extractive processes to its former capabilities more quickly, and it supports more life, both human and otherwise. A healthy planet is a good thing economically.

Most greens think that "the environment" is something separate from people. They believe that it is something that can be "preserved." It's a huge mistake. They believe in evolution while trying to enforce a genetic status quo. It can't work, either for man or nature.

Maybe SOMEtimes it's posed as a false choice, but to every choice there is a cost (or forgone benefit) and a potential benefit (or avoided cost). Maybe we don't always know what the dollar figures are, hence the need for an arbitrary "dollar value of a life" (or "of avoiding contracting cancer") in most cost / benefit analyses.

The systems I have designed actually motivate quantitative measurement of environmental risk as a means to determine actuarial risks. It is a way of inducing an objective pricing system.

It's a little icky to have to assign value like that, but it's simply liberal nonsense to refuse to assign ANY value and to insist that weighing costs against benefits is somehow an invalid "evil corporations" approach.

Well there are evil corporations, and bad landowners, government included. The key in a just system is to find ways of inducing responsible behavior simply because it is more profitable to do in a well designed market.

[pogo101]

Oh, I think one can be "socially liberal" in frugal ways. Better for someone to say "I have a libertarian streak; I may oppose a government ban on an activity, but that doesn't mean I support a big fat government program to PAY for that activity with taxpayer dollars," than to say "I'm a social liberal." (Well, better, if you're also saying you're fiscally conservative.)

[pogo101]

Wubba? I don't think I've been this confused since I tried to read all of "The Skeptical Environmentalist." MY EYES! THE FOOTNOTES!

[Carry_Okie]

I have no problem with his attacking my analysis, but his posts were totally off-topic. Such posts drive people away from what could be a reasoned discussion.

Attacking the poster instead of the content is abuse of the forum.

[Dog Gone]

This whole fuel cell thing is premature, a massive boondoggle intended to please the multinational natural gas industry. We don't even have the pipeline or LNG delivery and storage capacity to run our electrical power generating plants now, much less to use it as a feedstock for cars!

While I don't think very much of Arnold's "policy," I dispute your conclusion that the fuel cell boondoggle is meant to please the natural gas industry. By your own admission, they don't need increased demand for natural gas.

[BibChr]

I did. Read my initial posting. It said all I meant to say. Short, pithy, to the point.

As usual, it's the silly attacks and hysteria that degenerated the discussion.

Dan

[Carry_Okie]

LOL! You said you wanted footnotes?

OK.

[pogo101]

Attacking the poster instead of the content is abuse of the forum.

Agreed. It's just that Dan didn't attack the poster. He said the argument/analysis was just more Arnold-bashing, that it was wordy, that he had no interest in it inasmuch as it didn't discuss Cruz. Obviously the author (you) isn't going to be too thrilled about such comments, but they aren't "attacking the poster instead of the content" or otherwise "personal abuse."

[My2Cents]

I'd like to see this "overwhelming evidence."

There is no evidence. Clearly, California workers work better, and the economy thrives under a pall of smoking, choking, dirty air.

[Carry_Okie]

By your own admission, they don't need increased demand for natural gas.

They've been doing it for years. Look at those regulations on thermal fume incineration. I've worked in plants whose gas comsumption for abatement was ten times the rest of its use. It's big DG.

Then there was using MTBE. You know that natural gas is a feedstock for that material.

Every little bit helps!

[kidd]

A well thought out analysis.

And yes, as you pointed out, this is simply political posturing.

Most of this environmental platform shows that Arnold has a "Los Angeles" attitude. His forest management ideas belong to someone who never really goes near a forest.

There is nothing here to encourage businesses to return to California. It seems that businesses can expect more mandates and regulations that will make them less competetive. There is also no mention of how to handle California's water problems (shortages and water table issues).

Its clear to me that Arnold is trying to win the uninformed voter. Perhaps, in California, thats the best strategy. Just don't expect any of this to be enacted upon.

[pogo101]

Well, saying that it's "just bashing" ain't exactly honey.

I'm grateful for the analysis, even if I can only begin to understand it.

Pogo ... like ... trees. Like ... water.

[Writesider]

September 22, 2003

Memo to Arnold: Don't Just Say Something, Stand There!

So, Pedro Nava, California Coastal Kommisar, perennial Partisan-Democrat-Candidate and Santa Barbara's answer to Al Sharpton, is on the political prowl again. And this political season he can be spotted at any local gubernatorial event organized by either Party. And you can always pick Nava out of a line-up since he's the only one with a chip on his shoulder the size of an oil derrick, which would explain why he comes across so small.

And now added to his political repertoire are clever one-liners regurgitated with the efficiency of a Hydro-Powered Hummer. For example, yesterday, when asked about Arnold's environmental policy speech, Pedro suggested the terminator was all hat and no cattle, apparently a convenient slam at George W. Bush and his Texas roots. Admittedly, Pedro was crafty enough to use that opportunity to hit two piñatas with one stick.

But, the most curious thing of all, is why the local press continues to allow this guy to be the voice of the environment and all things relating to it. Is it because he is a State Coastal Commissioner? Big deal, that is a political appointment by a fellow partisan Democrat who, like Pedro, couldn't care less about sound-environmental-policy because he's too busy exploiting a trendy-left-environmental-agenda for partisan gain. And to add tremendous insult to an enormous economic injury, that exploitation is accomplished by undermining the downtrodden in California who just also happen to be disproportionately Latino; like NAVA!

Memo to Pedro Nava: let your people go!

And the most ironic, or perhaps despicable, aspect to Nava's pro-environment charade, is the fact that most of the green policies, laid out by Arnold, in his Sunday speech out on the Carpinteria Bluffs (sacred ground for some), are utterly indistinguishable from the know-nothing environmental-left-wing crowd who have hijacked the Democratic Party and all of its candidates, again; like Nava!

But don't take my word for it; consider some of Arnold's ideas:

Ask the federal government to buy back offshore oil leases to eliminate offshore drilling (and good-paying jobs?)

Cutting air pollution statewide by 50 percent (these type of austerity measures always hurt the poor the hardest)

Reducing energy consumption by 20 percent within two years (by establishing dictatorial energy controls imposed from Sacramento?)

Creating a Sierra Nevada Mountains Conservancy (just what the state needs, more government control of our natural resources)

Strengthening the California Coastal Commission (so politicos like Pedro Nava can exploit it for political gain)

Increasing parks in urban areas (minorities need good-paying-jobs, not more havens for neighborhood drug-dealers)

Every one of these new policies have been (in some way, shape or form) proposed or supported by the Democrat's and their anti-working-family environmental-left-wing-allies.

What remains to be proposed is an actual strategy to empower the private sector and help it create the millions of new jobs (particularly in the industrial-sectors) necessary to generate the revenues needed to balance the state budget. Because, after all, it isn't simply a matter of controlling spending. It is about an economic-growth-model built on market-oriented incentives in both the private AND public sector.

That continues to be the story-behind-the-story. Arnold, Cruz and Davis are focusing on the wrong things, as California continues its steady slide into the pacific ocean of red-ink and lost economic opportunity. The issue, with respect to the huge deficit and the 295,000+ lost manufacturing jobs, isn't that we lack trendy-left environmental policies! It is the exact opposite of that. We got into this economic and fiscal mess mostly due to the trendy-left, feel-good-environmentalism advanced by Davis, Bustamante, et al.

So, once again, the only unsolicited advice I would offer the Arnold campaign, with respect to environmental policy, is don't just say something; Arnold, stand there! And as for Pedro Nava, I say lose the chip amigo, take a well deserved political siesta and call me in the morning.

******

(Joe Armendariz is Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Industrial Association and the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association and one of the only conservative Latino's in California. Next week him the other two are holding their annual convention in a phone booth?

[Carry_Okie]

There is no evidence. Clearly, California workers work better, and the economy thrives under a pall of smoking, choking, dirty air.

That kind of demagoguery is unworthy of you. I've done more than my share of analyses on the junk science coming out of environmental groups. A lot of what I have written in that regard has passed peer review. Please read the rest of it and then consider my credentials for making the comment.

[BibChr]

TELL me you got my point.

And yes, I do think the use of the word "fascism," if not bashing, comes pretty darned close.

Dan

[Carry_Okie]

Just don't expect any of this to be enacted upon.

I'm sad to say that I don't share your optimism. The State legislature just passed SB-810 giving the State Water Quality Control Boards lead agency status over all timber harvest permits. It's exactly the sort of use of TMDL regulations that Arnold proposes here.