Jerry Brown’s CA Climate Change Plans Derailed!
Meanwhile, Cap-And-Trade funding Brown’s legacy train!
Two pieces of green-energy legislation have been derailed by the California legislature, much to Governor Jerry Brown’s consternation.
Senate Bill 350, which would have given one of the most draconian state agencies in the nation epic powers to cut fuel consumption, and a gas tax supposedly for road repair, have gone down to defeat…at least temporarily.
In a major setback for Gov. Jerry Brown’s climate agenda, the governor and legislative leaders on Wednesday abandoned an effort to require a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use in motor vehicles by 2030.
The announcement followed weeks of lobbying by oil companies and resistance not only from Republicans, but moderate Democrats in the Assembly.
For Brown, the failure represented a rare legislative defeat, and on Wednesday there were two: In addition to dropping the petroleum reduction mandate from Senate Bill 350, Brown’s proposal to raise billions of dollars for road repairs appeared to stall.
However, Brown plans to push forward with the implementation of his climate change measures despite the legislatures vote.
“This is one skirmish, but I’ll tell you, it’s increasing the intensity of my commitment to do everything I can to make sure we reduce oil consumption in California,” he said. “My zeal has been intensified to a maximum degree, and nothing, nothing is going to stop this state from pushing forward on our low-carbon fuel standard and our cap-and-trade and our ZEV [zero-emission vehicle] mandate.”
“The only thing we don’t have is a formal statement in law of the 50 percent, but the ARB is committed to that 50 percent goal, and I am committed to backing them up and doing whatever I can,” Brown said. “We might get another bill next year, we might just keep doing it by regulation. California is not going to miss a beat.”
Because if you can’t get people to vote for insanity, you can regulate it in!
One of the few recourses Californians have for over-zealous governors, legislators, and bureaucrats is our proposition system. And voters may get a second vote on Brown’s other big, green dream project — the fiscal fiasco that is the high speed rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The initial cost estimate in 2008 for the rail was $33 billion, and has since gone up to $68 billion with some projections up to $100 billion. Recent studies even show the entire project could cost as much as $200 billion dollars.
The bill’s author, Senator Andy Vidak, a Republican from the Central Valley, says this effort has bipartisan support. Assembly member Rudy Salas, a Democrat from Bakersfield, is a co-author of the bill. They say voters deserve to be able to vote the project down, because now more of the cost will be shouldered by taxpayers.
Interestingly, the pricey high speed rail system has been the biggest beneficiary of the $2.2 billion in Cap-And-Trade funds now being spent on eco-activism. In fact, the monies essentially form one big, green slush fund that is supporting several other of Brown’s environmental agenda items, including drought reduction efforts.
Brown has about 3 more years in office. I sure hope we can survive these years of intensified, regulatory zeal.
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I have been writing recently about Social Systems Design (of which education is one) and it turned up a May 2001 Patterns Newsletter from the ASCD Systems Thinking and Chaos Theory Newsletter. It details a 1997 lecture by Jerry Brown where he bragged about appointing Gregory Bateson to the Board of Regents of California, the World Anthropology class Brown was then teaching at Berkeley, and Brown’s interest in the work of Ivan Illich. All of these are relevant to these actions Brown is now taking as Governor.
Brown quoted Bateson that “All of the many threats to man’s survival are traceable to three root causes:
a) technological progress;
b) population growth; and
c)certain errors in occidental ways of thinking.”
Brown went on to say “For most of human history, religion (morality), politics (state), and economics (business) are all together. The sword and the scepter were together, and then the economics develops and unhooks from the state and from morality, because there is one rule: ROI–return on investment. Individualism and ROI are the embodiment of the modern world.”
It goes on with Brown concluding that “the real issue here is how are you going to suffer? I mean you are going to die–that’s the final answer–and the question is whether an extra utility vehicle in your garage is going to make any difference?”
Now that’s the man who doesn’t care what the legislature says or what his constituents want. He is a man on a mission and has been for a very long time.
A weaponized New-Ager. That kind of zealot is as dangerous as an Islamist.
“That kind of zealot is as dangerous as an Islamist.”
More so. We can defeat the barbarian islamist savages any time we decide to actually do it…
If an extra SUV in the garage is not going to make any difference, then why not have one?
Perhaps he’s trying to get 50% of Californians to emigrate.
Which will do more damage: Browns last 3 years, or Obama’s last 500 days?