As Jim Evans, Communications Director for Sen. Steinberg, notes, the Governor is poised to veto a bill he championed, which would mandate the highest renewable energy standard in the nation, requiring utilities to get 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.  But it’s far worse than just a veto.  Schwarzenegger wants to then set the standard himself by executive order.  You can see why this would please him – he would be able to say that he boldly moved the state forward in the renewable energy space, while vetoing the bill from the Legislature that would do the same thing.  And he wold significantly weaken the standard in a variety of ways.

The order presumably would set no limit on how much of the green power could be imported from other states.

Environmentalists who have been told about the governor’s still-evolving plans said Schwarzenegger also was considering directing the California Air Resources Board to look at broadening the state’s definition of renewable energy sources to include large hydroelectric dams and nuclear energy plants.

Critics questioned whether Schwarzenegger’s order would be binding once he leaves office at the end of 2010. The validity of the order would be subject to a variety of potential legal challenges, they predicted.

So Schwarzenegger would allow utilities to outsource all the green jobs that would be created if power needed to be created on California soil, ruining the one area of potential economic recovery in the bill.  He would put the standard on shaky legal ground, open to litigation and an unclear mandate.  And he would hand a gift to the nuclear power industry by twisting arms at the Air Resources Board to change their definition of renewable energy.

This isn’t just short-sighted, it’s downright criminal.  A high renewable standard could spurn all kinds of economic activity, but without a limit on importation, that activity will just go elsewhere instead of California.  This is an effort of questionable legality for Schwarzenegger to reward corporate cronies with lower purchasing prices for green energy at the expense of California jobs.

Astounding.

This was expected, but President Obama is setting in motion a process that would finally allow California to set its own emissions standards.

President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.

Just to pre-empt the whining from the right, the EPA had never before in its history denied California a waiver under the Clean Air Act.  The courts have looked at this from the perspective of the automakers and have ruled repeatedly in favor of California and other states, agreeing that they are well within their rights to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Not only did the Bush Administration deny California the right to implement their tailpipe emissions law, they slow-walked the fuel efficiency standards passed by the Congress and signed by the then-President in 2007.  President Obama will direct the Transportation Department to finalize those standards as well.

This will be announced in the East Room tomorrow.  We now have a President who understands the need to act swiftly to combat the worst effects of climate change.  California will finally be allowed to lead this effort.

It’s worthwhile every so often to look for the silver lining in the storm clouds over this state.  After all, we do have a new President!  That seems to be working out!  And his pick for EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, was confirmed last night.  Which means that it’s probably only a matter of days before California gets its long-sought waiver to regulate tailpipe emissions.

With a new occupant in the White House, California could soon start enforcing its landmark 2002 law requiring a sharp reduction in vehicle emissions.

State leaders and environmentalists are pressing for quick approval of a waiver that would let California and at least 13 other states impose tougher air-quality standards than allowed under federal law. The Bush administration rejected the request a year ago, but that could be reversed by President Barack Obama and his environmental team.

During the presidential campaign, Obama said he backed the California law. Last year, he co-sponsored a bill by Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California to approve the waiver.

“If I’m confirmed, I will immediately revisit the waiver,” Lisa Jackson, Obama’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, told Boxer at her confirmation hearing last week.

This would set in motion a program to reduce emissions from vehicles by 30 percent over the next seven years.  It would spur alternative transportation development like SUPERTRAINS out of necessity, and force the production of clean-energy vehicles.  Industry was not going to innovate on their own; they had 30 years to recognize this problem but they sat on their hands.  It’s not a question of whether or not we can afford to implement this; given the natural disasters like wildfires that hit the state with increasing frequency, given the melting of the Sierra snowpack which decreases our access to water resources, given the public health effects of dirty air (a recent report showed that clean air increases lifespans by up to three years), given all the ancillary costs of climte change, we can’t afford not to.

The Governor and state leaders have been lobbying for the waiver since President Obama’s inauguration, and I’m confident that we’ll see granting within the next week.

Among the many executive orders that Barack Obama will seek to overturn to rack up some quick victories at the beginning of his term, none may have a more lasting impact than granting the waiver to California to regulate their tailpipe emissions.

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. “Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer,” Obama said in January.

California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California’s rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation’s automobile market. Environmentalists cheered the California initiative because it would stoke innovation that would potentially benefit the entire country.

“An early move by the Obama administration to sign the California waiver would signal the seriousness of intent to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and build a future for the domestic auto market,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

There are two reasons this is a major change.  One, by granting that carbon dioxide emissions threaten human welfare, you open up a whole toolkit of innovative policy choices to follow to restrict them.  Cap and trade or a carbon tax becomes not just a policy option but a madate under the EPA.  The second, as noted in the article, is that dozens of states will seek to follow the California ruling on tailpipe emissions over the federal government.  And once you have 45% of the market mandating a higher fuel efficiency standard, it is unlikely that automakers will create a secondary market at the lower standard.  You will have raised the CAFE number by default.

All of this is a recognition that the dangers of global warming is real, and that an Obama Administration will not stand in the way of sound science that declares the danger and seeks to mitigate it.  For all of the effort by polluters to save John Dingell’s chairmanship from the clutches of Henry Waxman (and they’re enlisting all the legislators they’ve bought off to that end), this executive order would have lots of reach regardless who controls global warming legislation in the Congress.  It would mean that California can control its own destiny and regulate its own air.  It will force innovation and create economic opportunity and improve public health and possibly save lives.

And it’s all a stroke of the pen away.