Posted on 09/01/2006 7:07:25 AM PDT by ZGuy
In what could prove a disastrous move for consumers and businesses, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is poised to sign legislation imposing statutory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California.
The system of restrictions, which calls for a 25% cut in emissions by 2020, is to be administered by the California Air Resources Board under a so-called “cap-and-trade” system. A cap-and-trade scheme will restrict the total emissions allowed, in effect functioning as a tax on energy use throughout the state.
“It is unfortunate that California’s state government would be pushing such a wrong-headed policy at a time that entrepreneurs and employers are already fleeing the state, due to some of the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the country,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis.
With energy as one of the largest costs for industrial and manufacturing businesses, the increase in prices sure to come from an emissions cap will like drive jobs out of California to neighboring states. The legislation will also force consumers to use much less electricity and gasoline and to pay much higher prices for what they do use.
Moreover, it is unclear how California will keep utilities from simply increasing the share of power purchased from out-of-state sources – sources likely to be derived from coal-fired power plants – thereby actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions overall.
“While its actions are being lauded as a step into the future, California is actually a late entry into the already failed game of energy rationing,” said Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell. “Europe, Japan and Canada are all failing spectacularly to meet their emissions reductions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, despite years of breathless cheerleading for cap-and-trade mechanisms. What California has done today is to decide to become a Third World economy.”
As a state of the union, California has the right to make its own laws. As American citizens and businessmen, the people have the right to leave, which they will.
Won't have much practical effect, since the tax structure has already driven most polluting-type industry out of the state anyway. Everybody (legal) works for law firms, software companies, or Starbucks. ;)
If they really want to make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions they will need to significantly decrease the number of Taco Bell's.
I would say that they should de-energize the electric supply to Hollywood studios, to make more available "power to the people"....
"What California has done today is to decide to become a Third World economy."
Works for me. We need jobs in Ohio. We don't have the weather California has, but we have lots of water, and outside of Cleveland, people will work with and for you. :)
That won't do a lot of good. Fewer and fewer movies are actually being filmed in Hollywood. Lord of the Rings was done in New Zealand and Titanic was filmed in Mexico.
And they dare lecture the nation about outsourcing to India....
Ahnold has done nothing to help the Republican Party. I have no idea why he even calls himself a Republican. He's a RINO at best.
And you really have to question the judgement of anyone who marries a Kennedy.
Which is unfortunate
because many of those will infect the states they flee to, by voting in people who push the same liberal policies they are in fact fleeing.
Dam Locust Liberals.
This would be a good time to invest in commercial real estate in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, etc.
It's called "cap and trade". You set an overall limit on the amount of emissions you can produce within a state or region or country. Each company is assigned a certain number of pollution credits (the amount of pollutants they can produce per year)....which can be bought, sold, or traded on the open market.
California is also trying to impose their standards on other states through limiting long term contracts with out of state coal fired power plants. Given that coal energy supplies 20% of our energy supply.....and that the legislature apparently did not include an alternative for this power source.....it has to be one of the more stupid decisions made by our legislature, and that is saying something.
Term limits aren't good enough. We need a three month senate/assembly.
The funds to purchase carbon credits go to the World Bank. As such, it is an international agreement. It is illegal for a State to enter international agreements under the Constitution.
I think you're mostly tongue-in-cheek in saying this, but still, you're falling for the left's rhetorical tactic of calling greenhouse gases "pollution," which they're not.
What I'm wondering about with this measure is whether existing industry will be grandfathered-in with a certain amount of tradable credits for emitting greenhouse gases. If so, they could just shut the business' doors and rent out their credit annually for a nice income requiring no effort. Meanwhile, the purchaser of the credits will have to pass the costs on to us. Kind of the way the feds control peanut production and people who own growing rights rent them out to the actual growers. Lots of money to the rights owners for doing nothing at all.
Good point.
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