Posted on 04/04/2006 9:51:30 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Does Arnold Schwarzenegger want to be a 1970s Democrat? It’s starting to look like the the governor is trying to channel what was cool when he was in his bodybuilding heyday in ‘70s era Santa Monica. First the surprise trip to United Farm Workers headquarters last Friday to commemorate Cesar Chavez Day. Then yesterday’s press release reminder that Rolling Stone magazine dubbed him one of 25 environmental "Warriors and Heroes." Can an Eagles fundraising concert be far behind? This as his office hurriedly released the administration’s long-in-the-making Climate Action Report and announced an April 11th Climate Action Summit in San Francisco on the same day that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley introduced legislation to require mandatory reporting of all greenhouse gas emissions and establish a cap on those emissions.
Despite the rhetorical atmospherics emanating from the Governor’s Office, it was not officially announced if the former action superstar actually supports either his own team’s recommendations or the Nunez/Pavley bill. However, in a late afternoon conference call held by Schwarzenegger Administration officials, his support for his own team’s recommendations was made clear.
The Climate Action Team’s report calls for monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions and a so-called “cap-and-trade approach.” This would allow companies that outperform greenhouse gas emission targets to sell emission credits to companies that do not. The Nunez/Pavley bill also requires monitoring and goes further by setting limits on industrial emissions.
In an executive order last year, the governor established the climate action report and set ambitious targets: Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to year 2000 levels by 2010. Reductions to year 1990 levels by 2020. The latter goal amounts to about a 20 to 25 percent reduction below forecast levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions, principally carbon dioxide, are seen by most scientists as the principal contributor to climate change.
The Schwarzenegger Administration conference call on the Climate Action Report was led by Arnold friend and special advisor on energy and environmental affairs Terry Tamminen, the former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA) and Governor’s cabinet secretary, and included just departed Cal EPA Secretary Alan Lloyd (conferencing in by cell phone from his car) as well as administration conservatives Dan Dunmoyer, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, and Dan Skopec, just appointed undersecretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and former deputy cabinet secretary in the Governor’s Office. Lloyd, the longtime head of the California Air Resources Board revered by environmentalists for his work on air pollution, became head of Cal EPA when Arnold friend Terry Tamminen moved into the Governor’s Office. He has retired and a replacement has not yet been found, though one pro-business pick had been rumored.
Notwithstanding his retirement, Schwarzenegger has designated Alan Lloyd as a “point person” for him on this issue, a move likely to win favor with environmentalists. Tamminen and Lloyd dominated the call but Dunmoyer and Skopec were in agreement. The main recommendations of the report are moving forward as policy.
Whether the more market-oriented approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions satisfies Nunez and Pavley is another question. And longtime Schwarzenegger ally Alan Zaremberg at the helm of the California Chamber of Commerce is no fan of the anti-greenhouse gas cause.
Schwarzenegger continues to oppose a federal legal challenge to an earlier bill by Pavley, signed into law by former Governor Gray Davis in 2002, requiring the cutting of tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases on cars sold in California beginning with the 2009 model year. That lawsuit is likely to go to court early next year in Fresno.
With all the activity now underway around these proposals from the governor and the Legislature, the legal games may just be beginning.
Politics and climatology are a match made in h***.
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