CA Assembly Doubles Down on Global Warming Solutions Act

CA Assembly Doubles Down on Global Warming Solutions Act

My last report on California mentioned that Governor Jerry Brown was planning to introduce a ballot measure to extend AB-32, the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Despite the fact that the bottom has fallen out of the Cap & Trade permit market, the Assembly granted the rules an extension beyond the initial 2020 end date.

The Assembly approved sweeping climate-change legislation Tuesday that extends the state’s targets for reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 to 2030 in a controversial bill that saw White House officials and Gov. Jerry Brown privately urging lawmakers for support.

Under SB32, the state would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The bill would piggyback on AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which calls for California to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

…SB32, which the Senate has already passed, heads back to that body, which is expected to pass the amended legislation before the Legislature’s deadline next Wednesday. Brown said in a statement that he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk, and he expressed optimism about the future despite the threats to the cap-and-trade program.

Yes, our California Senate will surely pass the amended legislation…because no rule in this state is too bad to fail.

The Los Angeles Times puts an intriguing spin on the likely economic impact of this latest regulatory homage to climate change insanity:

California’s new climate bill may dampen growth but it won’t cripple the economy.

The article reviewed the likely fiscal consequences on the extension, business leaders outlined specifically how the move was going to hurt the bottom line and employment opportunities. Here is an example.

…“You’re going to be increasing the cost of moving goods through California ports,” said Jock O’Connell, a trade expert at Los Angeles consulting firm Beacon Economics.

Feisty competitors on the South and East coasts have been eating into Los Angeles-area ports’ business, and in June the Panama Canal opened wider channels that may divert more traffic away.

“At some point [importers] reach a tipping point where they say it makes more sense to send goods through Houston, or Charleston,” O’Connell says.

That could be a threat to the hundreds of thousands of Californians who are directly or indirectly employed by port business. “You wind up jeopardizing an awful lot of blue collar workers,” O’Connell said.

Brown dismissed the concerns of business leaders as “very dubious”. This, despite the fact an analysis cited in the article indicates that implementation could cost the state over 300,000 jobs.

California: Where not crippling the economy is celebrated as a political success!

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