More comment on the strange bill.
An excerpt.
H. Sterling Burnett: California loses with greenhouse law
By H. Sterling Burnett - Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, September 16, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Arnold Schwarzenegger's signing the first statewide, multi-industry greenhouse gas emission limits may be a calculated political move to burnish his green credentials in an attempt to get re-elected governor. Or it may symbolize his sincere belief that California should take a leadership role in reducing the threat of climate change.
But whatever his motives, the results will be higher prices for California's consumers, higher unemployment for California's workers and little or no benefit for the environment.
Taking the latter point first, California's law will require companies in selected industries to reduce their greenhouse emissions by whatever amounts, and by whatever methods, are deemed necessary by the California Air Resources Board in order to reduce emissions for the entire state by 25 percent by 2020 -- equaling California's 1990 emission levels.
While California is an economic powerhouse and these cuts are substantial, their effect on future climate will be nil. The National Center for Atmospheric Research reports that if all the signatories to the much more stringent Kyoto protocol -- which would require industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels -- meet their reduction targets, the earth will be between 0.07 degrees Celsius and 0.19 degree Celsius cooler than it would be absent Kyoto.
California's solo efforts to reduce global warming will be even less effective. California's wasted effort will, however, come with a high price tag. The regulations implementing California's climate bill have yet to be written, so no objective economic analysis of its effects are available.
However, an analysis of a regional climate change action plan considered by 11 Northeastern states and the premiers of Canada's eastern provinces showed that even with an efficient cap-and-trade program similar to Schwarzenegger's proposal, both electricity and residential natural gas prices would rise by as much as 39 percent by 2020. The higher energy costs would result in consumption spending falling by an estimated average of $2,634 per household; gross state product would decline 1.1 percent; and an estimated 191,589 jobs would be lost by 2010.
