An Analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy

The environment isn't any longer an issue that can be separated into some arcane back corner for weird people with long hair. Regulations are driving food production offshore. More jobs have been exported for regulatory reasons than wage differences, energy costs, and taxes can explain. It is a life and death issue for the liberty of every individual. It determines our economic and military staying power. Your freedom rests upon understanding how and why these issues are slowly taking control of your life.

That paragraph is from the following commentary, an analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy, obtained from his website. His original text is italicized while my comments are in block text.

This is a far more serious issue than a mere proposal for hydrogen cars. It affects your life, your job, and your property. I ask that you read it seriously, especially if you support Mr. Schwarzenegger, and ask yourself:

California's economic future depends significantly on the quality of our environment. We face serious environmental challenges, which have profound impact on public health and the economy. "Jobs vs. the environment" is a false choice. Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that clean air and water result in a more productive workforce, and a healthier economy, which will contribute to a balanced state budget.

I'd like to see this "overwhelming evidence." My bet is that such cost/benefit "knowledge" is based upon technical handwaving, simply because the issues are too complex and the data too incomplete to make such conclusions with any real confidence, especially its economic claims when a society confronts the law of diminishing returns in ever more aggressive regulatory controls.

Moreover, it is children who suffer disproportionate impacts of environmental toxins. Studies show that children who live near freeways, for example, suffer significantly higher asthma rates and learning disabilities.

This was precisely the problem to be addressed with the addition of MTBE into gasoline, and what do you know but a byproduct of MTBE in the atmosphere is formic acid, a known lung irritant. Does this mean that Arnold will be against oxygenates? Well his chief advisor is Pete Wilson, who gave us the severity of the MTBE problem we have, requiring FAR more of it than did the EPA. It made ARCO so happy they put Pete's wife on their board of directors.

Ethanol has some similar problems with the benefit that it is both less destructive to groundwater resources and more profitable for Mid-Western corporate agriculture... there's also an awful lot of energy consumed in producing ethanol, but hell, it's better for clean air, right? Wrong. Adding oxygenates makes virtually no difference in the emissions of a modern automobile, but costs so much more that we could afford to send every kid in California to college on the cost of it, for free.

This administration will protect and restore California's air, water and landscapes so that all the people of California can enjoy the natural beauty that is California.

The Schwarzenegger Administration will protect and restore California's air, water, and landscapes with the following initiatives:

1. Cut Air Pollution Statewide by Up to 50% -- and Restore Independence From Foreign Oil.

Fifty percent is an aggressive target. After the measures of the last fifty years, there are few easy measures left to take. So on the face of it, this is an enormously aggressive plan with a target that is dubious at best, especially while claiming to simultaneously attain energy independence.

You will note that at this point in this plan, he hasn't mentioned that he wants to cancel offshore drilling. How does that contribute to energy independence? So why would he cancel those leases and worsen the financial status of the State? Does it really do that much to help the environment?

No. This stance is dishonest posturing for voters. The Chumash tribe used to coat their boat bottoms with the tar on the beaches. Juan Cabrillo (an early explorer of the California Coastline) described the cliffs off Santa Barbara as black with oil. You see, canceling offshore drilling may please the crooked greens but drilling oil wells in the Santa Barbara Channel actually reduces natural oil seepage. Meanwhile, the revenue from those wells built the modern University of California campus system.

When Bill Simon proposed to cancel offshore oil drilling I called it stupid destructive pandering then too.

Breathing clean and healthy air is a right of all Californians, especially our children, whose health suffers disproportionately when our air is polluted. The future health of California's environment and economy depend on our taking action now.

Natural air isn't clean. Nature produces fires, dust storms, and volcanoes. Northern California has some of the worst hay-fever-producing pollen densities in the world (a significant contributor to childhood asthma). A single tree produces enough terpenes and isoprenes that, if it were an industrial process, the Bay Area Air Quality Management district would require a thermal incinerator to burn the fumes (belching NOx and carbon monoxide and consuming huge amounts of... (drum roll please) natural gas) (both terpenes and isoprenes are photochemically reactive and carcinogenic chemicals).

So what will Arnold do to deliver on this physically impossible and newly minted "right" to "clean air" that can't exist? Will he regulate wood stoves and backyard burning in rural areas out of existence? I'd bet that he will. What will people do with all that wood from our forests that desperately need fires but are currently too overgrown to survive them? Does he know that the rotting wood produces mold spores that cause asthma? He doesn't care... but RFKJr does! Banning wood burning makes California more dependent upon natural gas (which is the real goal of RFKJr, the Packard family, and any number of other green racketeering groups).

Why do I say "racketeering"? It's an awfully strong charge. Well when it comes to matters of public policy, there isn't anything wrong with citing the advantages of your product with a profit motive hoping to find an advantage, but to do so on the basis of bogus data or, worse, to fund the collection of biased data and use it in Federal Court is another matter.

So how will people fund forest thinning if there is no product? That's what's wrong with regulatory environmentalism, touted as "market based solutions." They aren't.

Invest in Hydrogen Highways. Several leading auto manufacturers have stated that they can have tens of thousands of competitively priced hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road by the end of this decade if the fueling infrastructure were is available. I will create a public-private partnership to ensure that before 2010, California has a network of stations in place to allow motorists a real choice of cleaner fuels to put in their tank.

Who will produce the cars Arnold? "Tens of thousands of cars" is a drop in the bucket. Did this work for electric ZEVs? Nope, the industry either just ignored California or blew buckets of money trying to comply and then learned that the State wouldn't enforce the law to reward them (as I recall, General Motors sued the State on the part of Saturn). Unless they are incredibly stupid (it's happened before) the auto manufacturers won't make that mistake again.

Arnold (RFKJr.) is correct that without the automotive infrastructure in place there won't be customers, but the plan he offers is insane. He proposes to run State and local government vehicles on the stuff as a way to bootstrap the market (they did that with ZEVs too; it didn't work). Most government vehicles only make local trips. It also takes more than fuel pumps to build an infrastructure; parts companies, mechanics, and supply chains all have to be built. It takes time.

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!

There is a natural evolution to any market and technical development process that would fund the whole transformation to fuel cells should they prove to be a logical choice. It might start with remote stationary applications (replacements for generators) running off propane (for which the delivery infrastructure trucking liquefied gases exists). It's a natural dovetail with photovoltaics in that it can run through the same inverters at night when the solar cells are down. Power companies would then not have to do expensive tree work on power lines that cause forest fires in rural areas where line losses are also significant.

The automotive companies will slowly switch to hybrid cars anyway, thus producing the production infrastructure and reliability knowledge base for the drive trains and controls that might ease a conversion to fuel cells. Still, we're not even close to being able to make that decision, in part, because natural gas has rational competitors as a fuel source and stripping hydrogen from hydrocarbons is still an energy intensive process that does nothing but harm our energy independence. It's an incredibly dumb policy, but hey, it'll please those investors who Arnold says aren't special interests.

These "Hydrogen Highways" will ensure the availability of hydrogen fueling stations every 20 miles on California's major interstate highways. I will challenge businesses to match the government's investment in these new fueling stations.

At what cost Arnold? For what benefit? My bet is that the numbers don't add up and won't for about twenty years.

Fight for federal dollars for hydrogen fuel development. The federal government plans to spend more than one billion dollars over the next five years to support hydrogen fuel development. I will fight to make sure that a substantial portion of this money is invested in California, and I will seek the maximum benefit from any federal tax incentives.

A billion is a pittance in the cost of this conversion. This statement is posturing and nothing more.

Expedite clean fuel transportation. Expedite private efforts to build and mass market competitively priced cleaner fuel cars, buses, trucks and generators in California before 2010.

This engineer says that can't be done in any case he's talking about, except for maybe the stationary generators. Just think of it: How long will it take to build maintenance facilities and train all the mechanics?

I will direct all appropriate state agencies to accelerate use of the cleanest vehicles commercially available to meet the state's transportation needs. I will also encourage municipal, county and federal government agencies in California to do the same.

Our fiscal conservative wants State and local governmint to buy fancy new cars, what appears to be another unfunded mandate, burdening local taxpayers and benefiting corporate donors (many from outside of California). He hasn't cited any proven substantive environmental benefit; indeed, most of the "science" upon which these assertions depend is pretty tenuous stuff. It also costs a fortune. Meanwhile, hybrid cars are here, they produce very close to the same emissions, but they don't require some expensive, bogus, grandstanding program.

I will direct the California Energy Commission and California Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that California's fuel marketplace offers producers and consumers a real choice of fuels that are more plentiful, cost-effective and at the same time reduce harmful pollutants and greenhouse gasses.

"I will direct..." to control the fuel market. This man believes in free enterprise? No way, and bless my buttons (speaking of flaky science) there it is, global warming, and in the same breath where he's guaranteeing plentiful fuels. Of course, anthropogenic global warming is totally bogus, but heck, if it's popular, why not? Well I'll tell you why not: Basing public policy on junk science is misappropriation of funds. It's a crime.

Fuel choices should include compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), ethanol, hydrogen, electric, low-sulfur and non-petroleum diesel blends.

This is actually a more rational statement than the "fuel cell highway" mirage he paints above (even if this policy is inconsistent with that one). The problem is getting the market to make that investment when there's minimal incentive to do so because of all of Arnold's regulatory threats. It's a hugely complex problem that does not lend itself to the top-down management methods via the police powers that Arnold clearly prefers.

Get gross-polluting vehicles off the road now. Less than 10 percent of vehicles currently operating on California's roads are contributing contribute close to 50 percent of the California's mobile source air pollution.

Well let's see how many of George Bush's (not really) potential Hispanic constituents like this! Yep, as is typical of liberal programs, this one will hit the poor the hardest. Now, do they get a choice about the risk of particulates versus the risk of not being able to afford quick transportation to and from work or the food store? Which one impacts children more? Oh well, seeing as Arnold would have them stuck on a bus he'll come to the rescue with tax money for State daycare!

I will insist on strong enforcement of new federal and state requirements for significant reductions in particulate matter and other emissions from diesel-fueled trucks and buses.

I guess that would be more properly, fine money, instead of taxes. The issues relating to particulates matters in some places, but not so much in others. Does Arnold propose spatially and temporally distributed standards? Nope, CARB wants to regulate farmers too. Is it possible to rid the air of the "particulates" he's talking about? Nope, most of them are natural in origin, indeed, urban areas may produce less 0.6 micron particulates than vegetation does.

Ever heard of the Great Smoky Mountains Arnold? That's 0.6 micron particulate from trees. It's nasty stuff too.

I will look to expand innovative market-based mechanisms such as "scrappage" systems so that California can obtain the maximum reduction in tons of emitted pollutants at the lowest possible cost to the state. Under my Administration, the state will lead by example - identifying and permanently retiring those heavily used vehicles that do the greatest harm to our air quality.

This is a contrived market that mandates an increase in State and local spending for vehicles, again (this is a big deal where I live in Santa Cruz). There are other environmental risk management system proposals that are based upon real free market principals with guaranteed deliverables. I know because I invented one. Arnold doesn't know what he's talking about, but then neither do his advisors, RFKJr and his buddies. They're so busy skewing this thing they call a market (in order to to make money for their friends) to care know how a real free market works, much less to understand what's in the way... They are.

I will direct the Air Resources Board to examine the impact of the federal decision to exempt new sources of industrial air pollution from "new source review". Encouraging new investment in California's industrial facilities should result in greater protection of workers and families in adjacent neighborhoods.

This is precisely how the shortage in electrical generating capacity that produced the power crisis was maintained. It is totally consistent with the associations of Arnold's advisors that he assumed this position. Unfortunately, besides costing consumers more, this plan makes pollution worse than it has to be. New source review often prevents the installation of new equipment that is less polluting because the paperwork is so expensive that the manufacturer opts to keep the old equipment in place. That doesn't exactly encourage the investment he's talking about either.

I will seek to implement innovative, market-based and means of reducing congestion on California's highways - including congestion pricing, eliminating congestion-causing toll booths when they can easily be replaced by technology, and similar measures.

Note: He wants to do all sorts of things to reduce traffic congestion EXCEPT build new roads for a state whose population has risen 50% since the last major highway expansion. Congestion produces air pollution and wastes fuel Arnold. Doesn't that sound like Gray Davis? This isn't innovative; it's more of the same.

California is identified for its beaches and magnificent coastline more than any other single feature. Tourism contributes $75 billion to California's economy, and employs over 1 million Californians. As Governor, I will protect California's coastline by fighting for a permanent ban on all oil drilling in coastal waters and will urge the federal government to purchase the remaining offshore oil leases as it has in Florida.

We've already covered this one. If the drilling stops, more oil will start to seep to the surface and foul those beaches with more tar blobs. There are things that the drilling operators could do to help the environment, but they don't get paid for that (now there's a clue).

Reduce Ocean Pollution. I will take action to protect our coasts from sewage and storm water pollution. I will direct state agencies to incorporate pollution-free coastal development techniques, accelerate the repair of leaking sewer systems, and fully implement existing water quality programs, such as municipal storm water permit programs and Total Maximum Daily Load programs. California must handle and treat its sewage under the requirements of the Clean Water Act to protect our oceans and beaches and the people who use them.

I've written whole chapters in my book about the crooked scam that TMDLs have become. This is about land use control, not healthy riparian or marine habitat. Further, the ocean needs many of the chemicals that regulators consider to be pollution. Nitrates and phosphates are the foundations of marine plant life and it isn't entirely clear whether we have done the right thing in assuming that all water we flush into the ocean should be "clean" or discharged in its current manner. Then there's natural pollution. If Arnold wants clean water at beaches, is he prepared to deal with the plume from overpopulated seals and sea lions? For example, the stench off the beaches in Santa Cruz can waft for over a mile. I can tell you for a fact, it has reduced the use of those beaches he says are so important to the economy. There is more nitrogen and coliform bacteria in the water from Ano Nuevo State Park than all the people and animals in Santa Cruz County.

Managing the environment objectively is a matter of dealing with competing needs and tradeoffs, not absolutes and top-down, one size fits all directives. That's where this entire system with which Arnold is so infatuated can't work. The environment is simply too complex for political systems to manage effectively or efficiently.

Protect Drinking Water. 22 million Californians rely on the San Francisco Bay Delta for the quality of their drinking water. Sacramento's lack of leadership in supporting state and federal cooperation on Delta water management (CAL-FED) has resulted in Congress not funding the CAL-FED program. As Governor, I will urge the Congress to fully restore CAL-FED funding immediately. With proper leadership and resources, CAL-FED can implement the most effective ways of making the best use of our water supplies and encouraging economic growth in California. This will include increased conservation efforts among both urban and agricultural users, and the use of market-based mechanisms to create environmental gains in streams for fish and economic gains for farmers, municipal and industrial users.

Again, this is a contrived market using politically manipulated pricing mechanisms, effectively not a free market at all. It tends to rob water from the historical OWNERS of the water rights. It's purpose is to continue building more houses for people, but where will the jobs come from with all this regulation? We can't all be eco-cops! The plan may be legal under the State Constitution (which socializes water as a "public good") but IMHO it is unconstitutional at the Federal level because control of water use necessarily results in land use confiscation and control without just compensation; in other words, Arnold's plan is socialism.

Our streams, rivers, lakes, and bays can be better protected through the use of watershed management.

Watershed management by the State IS political control of land use. Control of use is equivalent to ownership. The problem, Arnold, is that most of California isn't OUR land, it's private property. Watershed management socializes private property across the State.

So is the State a better steward? Will they be able to manage all that land while destroying the tax base? No way.

Who will care for it? Who will find small problems before they become big ones? Who will weed it? The State? Given poison hemlock, giant reed, and German ivy spreading in our watersheds, or 27 million acres of starthistle resulting from State mandated erosion control projects, the record there isn't encouraging.

As Governor, I will direct Cal/EPA and the Resources Agency to completely overhaul their recent "California Watershed Management MOU" from a bureaucratic do-nothing document to an action plan that will clean up California's most endangered watersheds now. Emphasis will be placed on practical strategies to finance these initiatives using state or private revolving loan funds and seeking California's fair share of federal funding, and making sure that existing permitting fees are targeted toward resource management so that they benefit the environment--not bureaucrats.

Every action he proposed here benefits the bureaucrats and their political sponsors, not the environment. I wrote half a book on how that works. Meanwhile it's borrow, borrow, borrow... I could show him how for less than a hundred grand a year we could get more spawning gravels in the Klamath watershed than the horde of bureaucrats on the payroll at Fish & Game have produced in that entire region. The very regulatory tools he proposes prevent that work.

Protect the Integrity of our Coasts. I will protect the integrity of the California Coastal Commission, which for decades has served to protect our valuable coastal resources.

The California Coastal Commission is a corrupt and unconstitutional racket, and has been adjudicated as such. Is he proposing to ignore the Supreme Court?

I will not allow the type of political interference in Coastal Commission decisions that has characterized the current Davis Administration, where special favors were granted in return for campaign contributions, even while the Administration was pledging to protect the coast.

Given that the rest of this document is nothing but political interference in the marketplace, I don't believe a word of it.

Keep Tahoe Blue. Lake Tahoe is one of California's most precious assets. Since 1970, population in the Tahoe Basin has more than doubled, but our environmental protections have not kept pace. The Environmental Improvement Plan for Lake Tahoe implemented in 1998 by California, Nevada, federal agencies, local governments, Indian tribes and community groups to improve Lake Tahoe's clarity has not been updated for five years. As Governor, I will take action to update the plan to accelerate improvement of Tahoe's waters, trails and wildlife, in order to "Keep Tahoe Blue."

Arnold, there's a reason they called it Emerald Bay. The lake goes through cycles. The reason it has been so blue in recent decades it that there were huge fires in the 19th Century. As the young trees grew, they consumed all the nutrient. Now that the forest is old and decadent, it will either burn or rot. Either way, the nutrient will be released into the lake. Of course, they could log it and prevent the disaster to soils and water quality that would mean (not to mention save a few billion in houses), but Arnold's friends would never allow it.

So what's it going to be, Arnold, a healthy lake and forest watershed or more political posturing?

An unreliable energy system discourages businesses from locating or even remaining in California, resulting in lost jobs and state revenues, I will take action to prevent brownouts or blackouts, such as those experienced during the Davis Administration in California and this year on the East Coast. Almost one third of California's entire in-state generation base is over 40 years old. I will immediately lay the groundwork to expand the state's power supplies, with special emphasis on clean, renewable sources, through the following steps:

Promote Solar and Renewables. Increase California's use of solar power in cooperation with developers, the Building Industry Association, labor, community organizations, and bi-partisan state legislators to provide incentives for new homes built in California to include solar photovoltaics (PV). The goal of this program would be that, starting in 2005, 50% of new homes would include solar PV. As Governor I will also support the extension of tax credits for businesses and commercial establishments which install on-grid solar photovoltaic and other renewable generation systems.

This is a program that consumes FAR more energy than it produces, especially using PV cells with DC/AC inverters... or is he planning to rewire all the houses too?

Increase the Reliability of the Grid. I will work to improve the reliability of the electric grid serving the western United States to prevent the type of blackouts which plagued the eastern United States and Canada during the summer of 2003. I will call for a summit to bring together the state's utilities, contractors, and California Independent System Operator (CAISO) with the Federal government and other states and regional energy interests to strengthen the grid reliability. Investments should be consistent with the CAISO's annual transmission plan and should evaluate demand, transmission, and generation alternatives.

Note, it is an approach entirely based upon government being in control of transmission and distribution of electrical power. That is precisely how we got the antiquated, overdrawn system we have now both here and in much of the rest of the country, except Texas. There is a reason why one can buy power in Texas at 3 cents/kWh, while California producers can charge many times as much. They stuck with real deregulation.

Nice idea, but how fast would we have to replace or remodel all the buildings currently in place in order for this policy to have a substantive effect? It might make a difference in twenty years or so, but we're rather short of power right now Arnold.

A host of case studies demonstrate that retrofitting commercial buildings with energy-saving lighting and other technologies is repaid in five years or less based on electricity savings.

I would bet that most commercial buildings have already made this conversion, but a five year payback isn't a very good use of capital. Most companies are looking for two years or less.

Incentives will be established, including a Green Building Bank, using private financing and targeted public loan guarantees, to swiftly retrofit as many buildings as possible, reducing the need for new power plants, saving money for businesses and taxpayers alike, and preserving air quality.

Now, if this was such a great investment, why does a bankrupt State want to go into the banking business to guarantee the debt? We already have a mechanism to deal with this; it's called pricing. If the cost of power goes up, people install conservation measures. So why don't they help people get that done in a serious way?

Need an example? So far, I haven't seen time-of-day pricing for residential users in this proposal, but that's one thing that would really help reduce peak demand that requires new power plants. The power company unions hate it because it gets rid of meter readers.

The Green Building Bank will also help finance the addition of solar PV on large flat rooftops, repaid over time by the value of the new energy generated.

More money for BP Solar and more energy to build the PV cells than they will likely ever return. Most residential needs during the day are not for lighting, the easiest thing to run on PV cells. That means expensive and lossy converters to change the power from DC to AC to run air conditioners and refrigerators that run when people are at work or a huge investment in batteries that require mining enormous amounts of heavy metals. Meanwhile, these are the very appliances that respond to time-of-day controls because peak power demand is what raises the cost of new infrastructure.

Increase Renewable Energy. As Governor, I will fully endorse California's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which requires that 20% of the state's total power supplies be generated from renewable sources by 2017. My Administration will also direct the California Energy Commission to define incentives and implement strategies that will target achievement of the 20% standard a full seven years early - - by 2010 - - and set the state on course to derive 33% of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

So why can't biomass plants get chips Arnold? The biggest single source of energy in this State is excess fuel in forests that are in critical fire danger. Do you really think that after endorsing the Sierra Nevada Framework (the product of green radicals and the Clinton administration to save a spotted owl that doesn't need the help) there will be sufficient biomass available to run such a series of plants? Those Water Quality people and your particulate regulations, Arnold, stand squarely in the way of such production.

4. Protect and Restore California's Parks and Open Spaces Many California families vacation within driving distance, often camping at state parks and beaches.

Arnold, your green friends are shutting down those campgrounds. Look at how concerns over the endangered Snowy Plover has cordoned off huge sections of beaches.

State parks, beaches and trails also generate significant economic activity and tax revenue as a result of fees and other spending in adjacent areas. There is general agreement that park maintenance has been allowed to deteriorate. Improve Our Parks, With Special Emphasis on Access for Seniors and the Disabled. I will order the Resources Agency to develop a comprehensive facility assessment and improvement plan for state parks, beaches, and coastal access, with emphasis placed on investments that enhance local economies and access for California's seniors and the disabled.

There are now paved ramps down into lakes for wheelchair access for fishing. Meanwhile, forest thinning goes begging. Great environmental policy there. If it blows up in a fire, who will come to see it?

Much of the initial investment for these improvements can come from already approved bond measures, but plans will also be developed to find additional ways to support this important initiative through careful public and private investment.

Why can't there be private parks? Why does the government need to run a monopoly in the land entertainment business? Well I'll tell you. Who would go into a business against a competitor who has all the best stuff, gets it for virtually free, pays no taxes, and charges virtually nothing for the product? That fact depresses the recreational value of every single private parcel in the State. What we have as a result is a few facilities that are overused and many more lands lacking investment. It's a bad policy in both cases.

Protect the Sierra Nevada. A decade of hard work by a broad variety of stakeholders resulted in the Sierra Nevada Framework, a policy document that has been widely hailed as a model of forest ecosystem resource protection. As Governor, I will direct all relevant state agencies to comply fully with the Framework and call on the federal government to honor its pledge to abide by the policies set forth in this unprecedented compact.

The Sierra Nevada Framework stands to destroy what's left of Sierra Pine forests. It maintains forest stands at unsustainable densities and encroaches historic meadows, destroying biodiversity, eliminating fire refuge areas, and creating unbroken stands. High stand density induces competition for water, which dries up creeks for fish in late summer, invites beetle infestations, and then it burns in a catastrophic fire. Afterward the forest is stripped of its topsoils, and then over-run with exotic weeds. You NEVER get it back. The plan is an absolute disaster, but hey, it makes Sierra Pacific Industries happy (by keeping wood from Federal lands from competing with theirs), it makes the energy companies happy (no competition from renewable biomass fuels), and it makes the developers happy by putting small landowners out of business. So they give money to the Sierra Club and they're happy too! Great plan!

The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range is one of the state's crown jewels. Yet, unlike many of California's other natural treasures, it has no conservancy. As Governor I will propose establishment of a Sierra Nevada Mountains Conservancy.

Which makes this disastrous policy permanent. There's no other appropriate word for it.

There is currently no effective, widely used mechanism for identifying vacant or underutilized sites in urban areas to evaluate their potential for infill redevelopment.

"Effective" according to whom? It's called the real estate market, Arnold, and you can bet they know where every inch of developable land in an urban area is and how it could be used, that is if zoning regulators would let them. Some of the land is held by speculators who will sell it when they think the time is right. Is there a problem with that Arnold?

Perhaps your buddy Bobby's friends want redevelopment agencies to use eminent domain to TAKE the capital gain on that investment from the landowners and give it to... whom? Usually, it's the developers who are tight with the agency. There's another term for that: corruption, at its most commonplace.

The result is fiscally unsustainable sprawl, traffic congestion on commuter roadways, air pollution, pressure to consume scarce infrastructure resources, and loss of valuable open space.

Who maintains the open space? Who weeds it? Who kills the pigs when they get out of control? The Peninsula Open Space District kills feral pigs, at a cost of $465 dollars a pop. Their communications director says they don't have the money to get them all, but then, they've banned hunting.

Arnold, I thought you just said that the open space that could be in-fill was valuable! OHHH, too valuable for the current owners to keep. Perhaps Bobby's buds want open space agencies to use eminent domain to TAKE the capital gain on that investment and give it to... whom? Developers of eco-dachas on the fringes of open space who are tight with the agency. There's another term for that: corruption, at its most commonplace.

I know that sounded repetitive. That's because it is. You see, it's a plan. It's even written down.

Folks, this is the Agenda21 in action, corruption on a scale so massive you'll never see it (until it's too late), brought to you by a gaggle of American activists working with that claque of corrupt dictators, the United Nations. It comes under lots of different names, Smart Growth, Sustainable Development, or Sustainable Communities, but the gist is the same. It's about taking control of land from its owners and handing it to regulators for fun and profit. It's brought to you by the Democrats, the party of slavery. Now Arnold wants to make sure you don't have an alternative.

Working with local officials, my Administration will develop an Infill Incentives Package to help local governments deal with the jobs/housing imbalance throughout the State and to spur smarter development by providing a mechanism for planners to identify and evaluate redevelopment of blighted and underutilized sites, allowing cities to accommodate mixed use, compact development and urban infill growth while curtailing urban sprawl.

Sustainable Development was fostered in the US under the Clinton Administration. Supposedly, President Bush is against UN land use control. So why is the CAGOP foisting this on California and what does it say about the loyalty of Mr. Schwarzenegger and his friends toward the President in 2004?

The environment isn't any longer an issue that can be separated into some arcane back corner for weird people with long hair. Regulations are driving food production offshore (and you thought dependence on foreign oil was a problem!). More jobs have been exported for regulatory reasons than wage differences, energy costs, and taxes can explain. It is a life and death issue for the liberty of every individual. It determines our economic and military staying power. Your freedom rests upon understanding how and why these issues are slowly taking control of your life.

Address Brownfield Sites. In addition, my Administration will direct appropriate agencies to draft a plan to rapidly complete the cleanup of brownfield sites, especially the thousands of locations with leaking underground petroleum storage tanks, enabling these sites to be developed for productive commercial uses.

There's nothing wrong with the goal, but what is Arnold going to do about the rapacious trial lawyers waiting to pounce on every one of these projects?

Improve Mass Transit. In many locales, strategic improvements or additions to bus, light rail, and subway lines can result in much greater use of existing mass transit, reducing highway congestion and air pollution. As Governor, I will ask the federal government to restore to California its fair share of gasoline tax money generated in the state, along with other federal funds, to assist with critical mass transit improvements.

Anything but private jitney services coordinated on the Internet. Guess what? Regulation of taxi services prevents private solutions.

Here again, we see the vast outlays for systems nobody uses, characteristic of an unapologetic liberal. It's State control of how you travel, subject to the whims of public employee unions. How's it working? Well the San Hosee Light Rail System carries about one-tenth of capacity. And for those folks who were in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, perhaps they might remember what it's like to be trapped in a city under attack with no escape.

You see, you need very high urban density to make mass transit work, but is this how people want to live? Clearly not. As an environmental program however, it is even MORE suspect. We keep densifying development adjacent to tidal estuaries and rivers, nature's most critically important reproduction zones as if urban development in such places had no impact on nutrient composition, habitat, and water quality in those riparian areas. By contrast, sprawl in the desert has far less impact. Then there's the real kicker: land needs people who love it and care for it, and always has. The current fantasy, that people cause all environmental problems, is insane.

Ask yourself: What are the quality of life issues surrounding such high density? Is it really good for kids to grow with no other contact with nature than viewing it through Animal Planet?

Focus on Children's Health. Children suffer disproportionate impacts of dirty air, water, and dilapidated urban parks.

So where are many of those parks located? Well not a few are on those brownfields, otherwise known as toxic waste concentrations, not on properties designated for in-fill projects. The developers don't want the liability for building on a hazardous waste site, even if they are safe. Why? Trial Lawyers.

Cal/EPA and the state Parks Department will be directed to submit an inventory of projects that will immediately improve air quality along freeways adjacent to residential areas, improve aging plumbing in inner-city neighborhoods (that now cause contamination of drinking water for families), and improve parks in neighborhoods with less than two acres of parks per 1,000 residents. Agencies managing recently approved water and park bond funds will be directed to give priorities to these projects. Special emphasis will be placed on projects that measurably reduce childhood asthma by improving both indoor and outdoor air quality.

Ask yourself what they might have to do to accomplish this, as opposed to perhaps relocating residential areas? This is where markets make sense because they can weigh the relative costs far more quickly and with more sophistication than can the regulators (for example, taking microclimate wind patterns into account). Arnold's, (or should I say Bobby's) method takes that off the table before it starts.

Now ask yourself, how are the regulators accountable for success? Do they lose money or are liable if they are wrong? Do they lose their jobs if they screw up? Or are they given more money when they fail, complaining of insufficient funding as the cause of the problem?

Are you really ready for the Air Quality authorities to knock on your door to inspect the air in your house in the name of protecting your kids? What kind of sampling method would they need to fully characterize that air? Doesn't this sound a bit invasive?

There is a better way, but these folks can't think of it unless it involves police powers. Speaking of which,

6. Protect California's Environment Through Tough Enforcement of Existing Laws

Strict law enforcement is vital to assure environmental protection, prevent polluters from achieving unfair competitive advantage against complying competitors, send a message of public values, and establish conditions conducive to creativity and participation in voluntary initiatives.

No, strict law enforcement of invasive rules, of the bureaucrats, administered by the bureaucrats, and for the bureaucrats is not "vital," it's called "tyranny." When a clean environment becomes a product for sale in a properly designed market, contract enforcement is incorporated into operations automatically. The only time you would need police is to enforce a judgment for a breach. Doesn't that beat the knock on the door or electronic monitoring of your household cooking fumes?

My Administration will focus on keeping underlying statutes and regulations simple; simple rules are easiest to follow and comply with; unnecessarily complex rules are hard to comply with, hard to enforce, and encourage evasion.

Nice complaint about a real problem, but now try to do it either justly or efficiently. The difficulty is that the objective of environmental management is enormously complex. Every property has unique combinations of risks and possibilities. Simple rules that apply to everybody can't address unique circumstances, complex rules overlap and are just as bad. The problem is the use of rules as a way to manage competing risks. It doesn't work. There is a better way. It starts with private property rights capable of weighing the relative prices of competing risks in a FREE market.

Particular attention will be given to better use of information technologies with strict, clear and rapid penalties for intentional or negligent misstatements or omissions

I want you to think what owning property would be like if the government thought that a landslide was an act of pollution and had continuous water quality monitoring equipment to bust you the moment it happened. It isn't the technology that's the problem. It's who owns it and how it's used. A system like this feeds bureaucrats who live off fine money while letting big polluters off Scott free. Need an example? OK, back to MTBE.

Before the major oil companies would agree to provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1992 that instituted the use of oxygenates for gasoline to reduce photochemical smog, the oil companies demanded that they be freed of all liability for any associated problems. They knew there would be hazards after experiments in Denver and Anchorage, and they knew the MTBE would leak through their new EPA-mandated plastic fuel tanks they had foisted to put independent gasoline sellers out of business. No penalties have been assessed for what was a clear case of profiteering at the expense of the environment.

So now the government uses the results to increase its powers through attempts to regulate private wells. Well ain't that just precious.

Government should be held accountable for environmental protection to the same extent as private parties and should be held to the same enforcement standards. To greatest possible extent, environmental enforcement settlements should be used to provide direct environmental improvement through supervised projects, rather than having all penalties go to government treasuries.

Here's a clue: Are the public schools accountable? Is the welfare state accountable? Do you think that a system that gains powers through environmental failure and has the power to control the economy is likely to deliver just and equitable environmental solutions?

No way Arnold. All this system will deliver is more environmental degradation, more tyranny, and a fat profit for the investor class at the expense of small business and small landowners, the bedrock of the conservative grass roots.

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.

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?

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