Posted on 02/04/2011 10:36:01 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Oh this is delicious sweet irony…they adopted a plan but didn’t bother to make a complete environmental review like any other project in the state is required to do. That’s what they get for ramrodding the thing. From the:
Calif. cap-trade plan dealt blow by S.F. judge
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Friday, February 4, 2011
(02-04) 04:00 PST Sacramento - –
The California Air Resources Board violated state environmental law in 2008 when it adopted a comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gases and again last year when it passed cap-and-trade regulations, a San Francisco Superior Court judge has ruled in a tentative decision.
If the decision is made final, California would be barred from implementing its ambitious plan to combat global warming until it complies with portions of the California Environmental Quality Act, though it is not yet clear what the air board would have to do to be in compliance. The state’s plan, which implements AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, would reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
The Air Resources Board and those who brought the lawsuit, a variety of environmental groups represented by the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, a San Francisco organization, have until Tuesday to respond before the court makes a final ruling.
In his decision, Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled that the air board approved the larger plan to implement AB32 prior to completing the required environmental review, and that the board failed to adequately consider alternatives to cap and trade.
The Air Resources Board “seeks to create a fait accompli by premature establishment of a cap-and-trade program before alternative (sic) can be exposed to public comment and properly evaluated by the ARB itself,” Goldsmith found, adding that the air board’s “analysis provides no evidence to support its chosen approach.”
The judge said the air board’s reasoning for approving the larger plan without a complete review “undermines (the state environmental quality act’s) goal of informed decision-making.”
full story here
Comments at WUWT ...
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old engineer says:
Consider what organization brought the suit and what they want- “whether the air board was adequately addressing the impacts of implementing AB32 on disadvantaged communities.”
It seems to me that this is an attempt to get CARB to direct the money from the carbon trading to “disadvantaged communities.” It is not about judging the merits of CO2 control.
Bookmark
Hi, Ernest.
Norm posted the SF Chron article yesterday:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2668317/posts
The decision is not really good news - things could actually get worse.
Here is the judges decision (none of the articles have articulated the issues well)
http://cdn.law.ucla.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/Environmental%20Law/AIR%20v%20ARB%20Tentative%20Ruling.pdf
“Watts Up” with his title? It is AB32 that he is referring to...Prop 23 was the failed Nov. prop to put AB32 on hold.
Other threads on the same topic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2668317/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2668626/posts
It has the same effect CARB must follow environmental review procedures and it could take years to impose cap and trade in California - if it ever happens at all.
All they have to do is submit the hard data that proves that Greenhouse Warming theory is fact and not theory and that CO2 is actually the main factor. Should only take two or three hundred years.
Thanks for the links...guess I’ll look thru the comments at WUWT on this one again....might be an explanation for the title.
looks like the Judge was obligated to rule as he did or law , ie CEQA (voted in by the people and enacted by legislature), means nothing,, it’s more a delaying action until CARB can get a court to overrule him or find an end around way to comply.. or that’s how I interpret it..
btw , I haven’t reviewed any of the legal mumbo jumbo. it’s a prime example of why our nation is so hamstrung up in laws meant to ensnare and dictate and even the left trips over its own booby trap lines, quite often of late.. :-)
Well...anything to slow Mary Nichols down is good...I think.
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Will be scarce over the weekend...going up the hill for some fun time with grandson, daughter and a newly arrived baby.( Dec arrival)
cute little guy.
Super Bowl viewing is the excuse of course.
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