Steinberg proposal would throw monkey wrench into cap and trade

by Brian Leubitz

Cap and trade is far from perfect. And if you ask many economists, you’d find a carbon tax as a solid alternative. However, a muddy mix of the two? Well, that raises more questions than it answers.

And, so we have Sen. Steinberg’s proposal:

Next year for the first time, transportation fuels will come under the program: oil companies will have to account for the emissions from Californians’ cars and trucks. The cost of buying additional pollution permits is one that companies are almost certain to pass along to consumers.

Steinberg’s plan would make it more direct, as a tax that we pay at the pump. His reasoning is that while drivers will pay more for gas either way, with a tax the increase is more predictable and transparent.

“What people in California also need is pollution cuts,” said Tim O’Connor, director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s California Climate Initiative. He said that while he supports some of the ideas behind Steinberg’s proposal, he’s concerned it could undermine California’s efforts to charge for the right to pollute, and to reduce greenhouse emissions overall. (KQED / Molly Samuel)

The bill seems far from complete, and will likely get a lot of revisions. But, today is the deadline for bills to be filed, and so here we have something. Now, generally when the Western States Petroleum Association is happy, as they have said they are eager to listen to these changes, it should draw attention.

Whether these changes would go anywhere involves a lot of questions for a system that was just about to start in earnest next year. This will surely change, but environmentalists will want to keep a keen eye on this bill.

California is home to AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 authored by State Senator Fran Pavley that caps and trades carbon pollution, mandates lower carbon fuel, higher mileage from automobiles, energy efficiency, and puts the state at the forefront of the clean energy economy.

California is also home to 15 billion barrels of oil that now can be easily recovered using modern fracking technology. The state has always had some oil, as anyone who’s ever seen There Will Be Blood or cleaned up a Santa Barbara spill can attest. But the wells got old, and most of the good milkshakes got drank, until fracking – the art of using a very long bendy straw – came along. And now Venoco, Occidental Petroleum, and others are salivating at the thought of fracking up California. The New York Times’ story on vast oil reserves now within reach has gotten national attention. Rightwing papers are asking: could the Monterey Shale save California? (never mind that California saved itself by depriving Republicans of their hostage-taking abilities). From the Times:

Comprising two-thirds of the United States’s total estimated shale oil reserves and covering 1,750 square miles from Southern to Central California, the Monterey Shale could turn California into the nation’s top oil-producing state and yield the kind of riches that far smaller shale oil deposits have showered on North Dakota and Texas.

California’s 15 billion barrels of easily fracked oil are roughly four times the size of the Bakken formation. It’s enough to bedazzle Democratic lawmakers. Once known for their environmentalism, they’re rushing to gut, oops, I mean amend, the California Environmental Quality Act, just in time for the embarrassment of fracked-up blood money.

Alas, neither the New York Times nor any of the pieces predicting untold riches for the state bother to calculate what burning all this shale oil will do to the climate.

What will 15 billion barrels of oil do to the state’s efforts to fight global warming?

I did the math.

An Environmental Protection Agency calculator explains that burning one barrel of oil releases 0.43 metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Burning 15 billion barrels thus releases 6.45 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. Think of it as a very, very large, fat-and-sugar-loaded, milkshake sitting on a table waiting to be drank.

Generally, AB32 set a goal of rolling back emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The state set a baseline of 507 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, and a goal of reducing that to 427 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. This PDF explains how the 507 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year was calculated along with estimated savings from various programs within AB32, e.g., the Pavley (high miles per gallon) standards will save 27.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. It’s a smart, well balanced diet for the state’s carbon footprint.

In other words, releasing 6.45 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the equivalent of delaying a planned reduction of 80 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year – for 80 years.

And that’s just fracked up.

I hope that Fran Pavley, California’s fiercest climate hawk, will declare that high-fat milkshakes have no place in a balanced diet, and champion the fight for a moratorium on fracking up the Golden State.

by RLMiller

One of the benefits of newly redrawn maps for me is the ability to vote for Fran Pavley, running for state Senate District 27. Recently, former speaker of the Assembly Bob Hertzberg has expressed interest in the race. His stated rationale: he’s a moderate, the district is moderate, he’s a Valley guy.

He might be looking at a different SD27.  

The one I’m living in covers some of the West Valley, but also includes east Ventura County, Malibu, and parts of Santa Clarita. Pavley was a mayor and councilmember of Agoura Hills, the geographic heart of the new district. Democrats at an East Ventura County women’s club who heard Pavley speak a couple of weeks ago are quite sure they don’t want to be represented by a Sherman Oaks resident – they moved to Ventura County to get away from the San Fernando Valley.

More important than carpetbagging issues is Hertzberg’s record. Hertzberg is a moderate, pro-business Democrat. Currently, he co-chairs California Forward, a Third Way/raging centrist group thinking that it has a monopoly on common sense. His wife sits on the board of Kaiser Permanente, so presumably he’s less than thrilled with healthcare reform. In 2005, he ran – and lost – for mayor of Los Angeles by espousing traditional GOP themes.

By contrast, Pavley is a champion of progressive values. In 2011, her bills signed by Governor Jerry Brown include laws banning toxic cadmium from jewelry and toxic BPA from children’s sippy cups, promoting energy conservation, and strengthening domestic violence laws. Despite Hertzberg’s being a Valley guy, it’s Pavley – not Hertzberg – who has received the unanimous endorsement of the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, an umbrella organization of 27 Democratic clubs.

Perhaps Pavley’s greatest contribution to the California economy is AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, bringing clean energy jobs to California. The law bothers oil companies so much that they mounted an entirely unsuccessful attack on it in 2010, Proposition 23. Thanks in part to her leadership, California is on target to meet its renewable energy standards early. One in four American solar jobs is in California. As a climate hawk, she’ll keep California on track to lead the fight against global warming.

Pavley was endorsed overwhelmingly, 105-1, by party insiders at pre-endorsement caucuses this weekend. She deserves to be the party’s nominee, and to win in November.

By Kristin Eberhard

Originally posted on The MarkUp.

Now that Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has announced her opposition on Proposition 23, this dirty energy proposition stands as the main issue that she and the Democratic candidate Jerry Brown agree on.  While Whitman’s stance against Proposition 23 is good news for California, jobs and our strong clean air and health standards, it is troubling that she coupled her technical opposition while simultaneously announcing her intent to suspend AB 32 for at least a year if elected Governor.  Her position sounds like she wants it both ways.  Delaying AB 32 would throw a monkey wrench into the implementation of our clean energy polices, and significantly hamper the transition of the state – indeed, the nation – to a clean energy economy.

Sponsored by out-of-state oil interests, Proposition 23 would wreak havoc with implementation of AB 32, our country’s only economy-wide clean energy law, an initiative that is creating thousands of cleantech sector jobs, stimulating research in clean energy and alternative fuels, and cutting the state’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Proposition 23 would keep us addicted to dirty fuels, kill jobs and derail California’s efforts to lead the global push to a high tech, clean energy economy.

While California’s Democrats and Republicans may disagree on many points, they have come together over the years to support state leadership on one issue:  clean energy. Support for strong environmental regulation and an economy founded on clean technologies and sustainable energy sources is broad-based.

The bipartisan opposition to Proposition 23 is not an anomaly.  Clean energy in particular has long been a priority for the state’s electorate and lawmakers.  In 1974, the California Energy Commission was established by the state legislature and then-Governor Ronald Reagan.  Among the Commission’s early accomplishments were setting energy efficiency benchmarks for new buildings and appliances, standards which have kept California’s per capita electricity consumption flat for 30 years, saving residents billions of dollars on their energy bills.

In subsequent decades, California built on this foundation, establishing Renewable Portfolio Standards that have minimized electricity generation from fossil fuels.  Bipartisan efforts also passed bills such as SB 375 in 2008, which sets regional targets to reduce global warming pollution from cars and light trucks and make community resources and energy use more sustainable.  Just this year there was strong bipartisan agreement on SB 77, a bill that funds voluntary energy retrofits to residential and commercial property, providing for a projected 10,500 jobs.

And we shouldn’t forget that bipartisan support for clean energy and environmental protection is part of our national tradition. The Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, two of the seminal legislative efforts on any subject in the past 30 years, could not have passed without the support of lawmakers from both parties.

AB 32 creates a stable policy environment that attracts billions of dollars in venture capital and cutting-edge businesses to the state and we need a reliable policy roadmap.  We need a commitment to a clean environment and sustainable energy that transcends party lines.  This is an issue that speaks to the American ethos – to the American Dream.  It is about security, innovation, entrepreneurship, and leaving our children a world that is better than the one we inhabit.

The fight to protect California’s environment entered a new round yesterday when Secretary of State Deborah Bowen announced that the backers of the initiative to repeal our landmark law to combat global warming, AB 32, had qualified their dirty energy proposition for the November ballot.  And we, along with a big coalition are ready to fight and defeat their sneaky initiative.  Today in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom and local environmental leaders lambasted this deceptive initiative that would roll back AB 32 which has put California on the cutting edge of the 21 Century’s emerging green economy, clean tech research, and the development of carbon-neutral fuel sources.

The event was held at Pier 7 on the city’s embarcadero, overlooking the bay that is the largest and most biologically productive estuary on the West Coast. It was here that the tanker Costco Buscan ran aground in 2007, spilling more than 53,000 gallons of heavy bunker oil, killing wildlife and providing a harbinger of the great environmental tragedy now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico where the spill gushes the equivalent of the Costco Buscan spill every four hours.

That’s what our addiction to oil leads to.  Now Texas oil companies are asking California voters to for yet another bailout, freeze state clean energy and climate laws and roll back clean air standards.

The oil companies have chosen California as their battleground to crush the progress the State’s made in moving away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.  Californians will be their Waterloo by defeating their invidious proposition.  They are a formidable foe, already spending more than $3 million to promote their measure.   Eighty percent of the campaign’s money has come from oil companies, with 78 percent contributed by out-of-state donors.

But we can and we must defeat them.  AB 32 sets a new global standard for the next economy – a sustainable economy, one that will ensure family prosperity, national security and environmental stability.  AB 32 already has created thousands of clean energy jobs in California; the sustainable energy sector is growing 10 times faster than any other segment of our economy.

We can’t let Texas oil destroy California’s future simply for the purpose of stuffing more cash into their already bulging coffers.   Please:  join our big and growing team of citizens to fight the fossil fuel plutocrats who are trying to take us back to the dirty days.  Tell your friends, share your time and creativity.  Support our efforts at  http://www.stopdirtyenergyprop…  Stay tuned for lots more on this topic – it’s going to be a long hot summer.

I was going through some old posts on CALITICS this morning, after reading up on the latest on the push by McClintock and Dan Logue to repeal AB32, and came across this gem from former Calitics contributor/writer David Dayen.

CA-04: Grand Dragons For McClintock

by: David Dayen

Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 13:00:00 PM PDT

Perennial candidate Tom McClintock is a beloved figure on the far right.  We just didn’t know how far.

It turns out that in 2003, when McClintock was running for his eleventy-teenth political office in the California governor recall election, he was endorsed by none other than the KKK.

Dateline: September 27, 2003

Ku Klux Klan Announces support for Tom McClintock

The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) have announced their full support for Tom

McClintock’s bid for the governorship of California. Their support is announced in what they term “the

lesser of all evil candidates.”

When interviewed, Mr. Chris Johnson (Grand Dragon or State Director of the IKA’s California chapter) had this to say regarding the announcement, “While Mr. McClintock is not the perfect candidate for California Governor, we have more in common with his ideology than any of the other candidates. We are in congruence with his stand on illegal aliens infecting our land and his courage in standing up to the invasion.” Mr. Johnson went on to say that, “Mr. McClintock echoes our anti-abortion stand, and our opposition to oppressive taxation.”

I guess the McClintock campaign can spin this by saying that at least the KKK called him evil, even if he was the lesser of all the rest?

Here’s the thing: organizations can choose to endorse anybody they want, and the candidates have no control over that.  But McClintock never said a peep five years ago when he got this endorsement.  And there’s a Chris Johnson on McClintock’s donor list from that 2003 gubernatorial race.  Chris Johnson is obviously a common name, and the donation is $100, so take it with a grain of salt.  But certainly, McClintock needs to answer the question of why he never rejected the endorsement and why they never sought out and returned money that would even have the appearance of coming from the Klan.

More to the point, McClintock is just the kind of guy to demonize an opponent’s associations.  In fact, when running for governor in 2003, McClintock compared then-Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante’s association with the Hispanic student group MEChA to, you guessed it, the KKK.

State Sen. Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican rival, recently likened the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, also known as MEChA, to the Ku Klux Klan.

“It’s like saying, ‘Oh, I was a moderate member of the Klan,'” McClintock said last month on the San Diego radio station KOGO. “It’s incumbent on Cruz Bustamante to clearly and completely renounce …

The idea that the KKK finds ideological kinship with McClintock is pretty much a no-brainer.  His demonization of illegal immigrants as the cause of so much of the nation’s economic woes plays to the baser instincts of the racist right.  He’s running a campaign against Charlie Brown that has recently seized on Brown’s appearance at an anti-war rally before the invasion of Iraq as somehow un-American.  It’s really not too much of a logical leap here.

The Post Ended With–Stay tuned for more on this…

Stuff to ponder, especially if you are a voter in CA-04 or CA Assembly District… 03

Valero, the Texas-based oil giant, continues to prove one thing: oil is dirty. The latest evidence spewing from its smoke stacks? Behind closed doors, Valero’s company practices are just as dirty and threatening as the smoggy skies and health concerns courtesy of its fossil fuel emissions. While the company has been cited as one of the nation’s top polluters, its CEO William Klesse was recently named to CNBC Mad Money’s ‘Wall of Shame’, making it all the more obvious that this apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But as if that wasn’t bad enough, the company then rewarded Klesse with a “64 percent raise” making his pay check a heafty $10.9 million a year.  

Valero also reported a “27 percent increase in retail profit for the first quarter of 2010”. But don’t expect the company to use that revenue to clean up its act. Instead, it will continue to dirty our environment, pumping the extra green into funding the initiative to suspend, (aka kill), AB 32, the state’s clean energy law.

This out of state oil giant doesn’t have California’s best interest in mind, instead its goal has been to buy your signature in order to secure our dependence on fossil fuels. This week, it appears to have succeeded in getting this misguided proposition on the ballot.  It has done so by duping Californians into thinking that killing AB32 will somehow contribute to the economic health of California.

The fact is, killing AB 32 will “kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and chill billions of dollars of new green investment in California” and benefit no one but these dirty energy companies and their slimy special interests.  It reminds me a time, just under ten years ago, when another Texas-based energy company, swindled the people of California.  Enron took the state for billions, and what Valero, Tesoro, and other Lone Star state interests are doing now, is a play from the same book.

Everything may be “bigger in Texas” but let’s show Valero how it’s done in California. With AB 32 our state can emerge as a national leader in both environmental protection and economic growth. We are the Golden State and let’s make sure we don’t let a little dirt cover up our chance for a healthy and shining future.