The story about who gets to implement the strange global warming bill we passed.
An excerpt.
Daniel Weintraub: Air board will do the real work on global warming
By Daniel Weintraub - Bee Columnist Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, October 5, 2006
The legislation California enacted last month to seize for itself a leading role in the fight against global warming is only the beginning of what will likely be five years of intense, behind-the-scenes battles over just how to reduce greenhouse gases to the level emitted in 1990, when California's population and its economy were much smaller than they are today.
AB 32 was titled the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. But the bill does little more than establish the goal of reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below levels now projected for 2020. That's about 174 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which, by volume, is equivalent to filling 64 Empire State Buildings from the lobby to the tower above the observation deck.
Most of the heavy lifting will be done by the Air Resources Board, an 11-member panel that includes 10 citizen regulators and one full-time chairman appointed by the governor. The legislation grants the board extraordinary powers to set policies, draw up regulations, lead the enforcement effort and levy fees to finance it all and fines to punish violators.
What will it take to achieve the benchmark? Consider that California could take every one of its 14 million passenger cars off the road, and still be less than halfway toward its goal. Shutting down 100 state-of-the-art, natural-gas-fired power plants still wouldn't get us there. Closing the entire cement industry, although it is a major source of greenhouse gases, wouldn't finish the job.
