The discussion on this strange bill continues.
An excerpt.
'Will California's new limits on greenhouse gas emissions help the state's economy and reduce global warming?'
By Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren September 15, 2006
No. New act is really an environmental dodge.
With great fanfare, California is about to enact a law mandating a 25 percent cut in state greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. While the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 appears to be a big development at first glance, closer examination reveals that it is little more than a sophisticated political dodge; a convenient vehicle by which politicians can appear to do something about global warming without actually having to do much of anything concrete about it. If past is prologue, environmentalists are in for a big disappointment.
The new act's environmental promise comes due 14 years hence – that is, long after the politicians who would enact it leave office. Accordingly, they will not be around to face the music if the promise is broken or if the costs associated with the promise triggers a political backlash.
The act, moreover, provides no hint whatsoever of how California will achieve these greenhouse gas cuts. Will emissions be cut via a carbon tax, an emissions trading regime, direct command-and-control regulation, an elaborate series of subsidies for non-carbon energy alternatives, “make a wish” energy efficiency programs, or some combination of the above? Who knows?
The Legislature deputizes the California Air Resources Board to come up with some ideas, allowing politicians to take credit for the promise but to disavow responsibility on whether it is kept.
Nor does the act make any real attempt to bind future legislatures to the promise made. To be fair, that's a nearly impossible task to begin with. But if you ask “What happens if the state falls short of these goals?” the answer is “not much.”
Taken together, this suggests something other than “bold, courageous action.” On the contrary, it suggests that promises to stop global warming are politically popular (at least in California), but programs to actually accomplish this aren't. That's because there's no way to hide the costs.
Honest parties on both sides of this debate recognize that the only way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption, and the costs associated with that enterprise cannot be buried out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
