Oooooh. I just heard that huge sucking sound!

[red-beard]

Of all the businesses leaving California...

From the Wall Street Journal this morning:

California Pact Would Place Cap On Emissions

Anti-Global-Warming Effort
Faces Business Opposition;
A Split With Washington
By JEFFREY BALL and JIM CARLTON
August 31, 2006; Page A1

California, the nation's most populous state and a longtime bellwether on environmental policy, will impose the first broad cap in the U.S. on greenhouse-gas emissions, in a clear break with the federal government over global warming.

Leaders of the state legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a deal yesterday under which California will mandate a reduction in the state's emissions of gases contributing to global warming to 1990 levels by 2020. The cut would target the state's biggest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases, such as power plants, oil refineries and cement factories. California already has passed a law requiring greenhouse-gas-emission cuts from cars and light trucks sold in the state.


The cut's effect on individual industries, companies and consumers is unclear, because the state has yet to work out details of how it will implement the broad emissions mandate. But backers of the measure, including Gov. Schwarzenegger, said it won't unduly harm business in the state.

Still, the effort faces almost certain legal challenges. Business groups have said such restrictions will boost production costs and make the state less competitive. "We don't think it looks like a very good deal for business and industry in California," said Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, an industry trade group in Sacramento.

The measure still must pass both houses of the state legislature to become law, but the agreement by Gov. Schwarzenegger and the majority leaders of both houses all but ensures that outcome. "We can now move forward with developing a market-based system that makes California a world leader in the effort to reduce carbon emissions," Gov. Schwarzenegger, who is running for re-election this year, said yesterday, when the agreement was announced.

California, the world's sixth-largest economy, accounts for only about 2% of the world's annual global-warming emissions. But California leaders made clear their intent is to spur other states, and ultimately the federal government, to follow the state's lead. That has happened with a string of past environmental regulations, notably restrictions on automotive pollution.

"Today it feels as if the whole world is watching, and I hope they are. This shows California knows how to do it right," said Ann Notthoff, California advocacy director for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council.

Addressing global warming is more difficult than addressing air pollution. Rather than bolting a filter onto a smokestack or auto tailpipe to reduce the emissions when fuel is burned, it requires re-engineering factories and cars so they burn less fuel in the first place. The main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is produced when fossil fuels like coal and gasoline are burned.

The Bush administration -- which has rejected the international Kyoto Protocol emissions-reduction treaty -- reacted tepidly to word of the California push. "The states are free to make their own decisions about their policies," said Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. But she reiterated the administration's philosophical opposition to global-warming caps, saying a cap imposed in one state or country simply causes industry to move to another location. "They're going to still produce greenhouse gas," she said.

California's goal is less ambitious than the cut envisioned in the Kyoto Protocol. Industrialized countries that ratified Kyoto have pledged to reduce their global-warming emissions a collective 5% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. The U.S. has declined to ratify Kyoto, saying it would hobble the nation's economy. California's goal equates to cutting its emissions by 25% in 2020 below the level the state projects it would otherwise reach that year.

This isn't the first attempt by a U.S. state to mandate global-warming reductions in the absence of federal efforts to require emissions cuts. California itself has passed a law mandating a cut of about 30% in global-warming emissions from new cars and light trucks sold in the state by 2016. The auto industry has sued to block that measure, saying it violates federal law because it amounts to a back-door state effort to go beyond federal fuel-economy measures. The case is pending in federal court in California.

In addition, seven New England states have adopted a regulatory scheme that covers carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and California, Oregon and Washington are considering a similar measure. But the law announced by California leaders yesterday would go far beyond those measures, applying to all sectors of the economy.

Industrialized countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol have found that agreeing to a broad reduction target is just the first step. Far more difficult is apportioning responsibility for coming up with those cuts among politically powerful businesses -- let alone individual car-driving voters -- within their borders. Many countries that have ratified the treaty have struggled to reduce emissions.

California's effort would direct the California Air Resources Board, the state agency that enforces California's clean-air rules, to come up with the details. The broad requirements of agreement stipulate that, by January 2008, the air board start requiring the state's major greenhouse-gas producers to report their greenhouse-gas output. By January 2009, the air board is to develop a plan outlining how to achieve the emissions cuts. By January 2011, the air board is to adopt actual rules to take effect a year later.

One major source of disagreement during negotiations involving lawmakers, business groups and others was the degree of flexibility California would offer businesses. Business representatives wanted a guarantee that the state would include a mechanism allowing companies to buy and sell carbon-dioxide-emission permits among each other as needed, to soften the potential financial blow. But some environmentalists argued that would make it too easy for California businesses to avoid cleaning up their own operations. The final legislation says the state "may" include such a trading mechanism in its final plan.

On the federal level, Republican Party leaders and President Bush have opposed adding carbon dioxide to the list of air pollutants regulated by the government. But that could change if Democrats take control of the House and Republican control over the Senate is weakened in November elections, as some political analysts now predict.

One reason Gov. Schwarzenegger ended up agreeing to the bill was that some of California's business community supported it. He began tipping his support toward the bill after a delegation of executives from Silicon Valley last week told him many businesses wanted the bill as a way to provide them regulatory certainty and for other reasons, say lobbyists in the statehouse.

"This bill provides a new opportunity here in California," said Bob Epstein, cofounder of Sybase Inc., a software maker in Dublin, Calif., and a leader of a group that represents businesses that support environmental action.

The bill's opponents included oil and natural gas companies. They also oppose an initiative set for the state's November ballot that would tax oil produced in California to fund alternative energy efforts. Yesterday's agreement "will have a severely negative effect on the affordability and reliability of California's energy supply, jeopardizing California's economy and our global competitiveness," said Allan Zaremberg, president and chief executive of the California Chamber of Commerce.

California has lost jobs in many of the industries that likely would face the effects of emissions caps, even as total private-sector employment has risen, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. For example, employment in the primary metals manufacturing industry fell 14% last year compared with 2001.

The Republican governor took on liberal constituencies last year but he has been tacking left in recent months to shore up his political support in this Democratic-leaning state. He recently authorized a $150 million loan to California's stem-cell program that will allow it to begin funding research restricted by the federal government, handing a lifeline to the initiative while the courts resolve lawsuits that question its legitimacy.

[legion]

I think all municipalities in CA should give up using all forms of automobiles...just to set an example.

Too bad our idiotic governor will probably think this is a great idea.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Let polluting businesses go elsewhere. Hell, all the manufacturing has already gone to China anyway - what's the big loss?

[Tobra]

Of course you realize Jeff that California is going directly to hell. You live here, haven't you noticed the degradation of infrastructure, the massive state debt, and the incredible number of businesses that are fleeing the state as fast as they can, sorry, stupid question.

All this will accomplish is a few Democratic Legislators patting each other on the back, please with how progressive they are, while they give the state back to Mexico a little at a time.

[Superman]

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

[sammyg2]

At least two of the oil companies I know of have been discussing this topic, and the idea of leaving California did come up.

This is not a good thing. And Jeff, just to be clear we are talking about C02, the same exact stuff that is coming out of your mouth when you breathe. If you want to call that pollution go ahead.

Trying to get rid of it from a refinery will not be easy or cheap.
If they decide to try it will cost us all a great deal of money.

[ErVikingo]

Are these the same guys that were anylizing "cow farts"?

I wonder if a fart from an "organic cow" is more polluting than that from a regular cow....

[widebody911]

So where is the balance point between hosting businesses and having a jacked up environment? People bitch about our automotive smog rules, but our air has cleaned up considerably since their implementation. Corporations claimed it would be the end of the world when they were no longer allowed to dump their toxic waste into various bodies of water, but I challenge anyone to say the environment is worse off with the dumping restrictions.

Mexico, China et al are able to undercut American companies in mfg partly because nobody gives a flying fuck about the environment (or child labor) - just like America at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

You also have to wonder about motives. The corporate camp is easy: profit: any enviro regs mean reduced profits. But what are the motives of the greenies? Fighting this stuff is very expensive, and there's zero financial incentive for them, so why do they do it? Something to think about.

[gaijindabe]

"California itself has passed a law mandating a cut of about 30% in global-warming emissions from new cars and light trucks sold in the state by 2016. The auto industry has sued to block that measure, saying it violates federal law because it amounts to a back-door state effort to go beyond federal fuel-economy measures. The case is pending in federal court in California."

Carbon Dioxide is a produced as a direct result of combusion. Unlike pollutants you can't get rid of it with emissions control equipment. Want 30% less CO2? - then you have to burn 30% less gas. So how are they going to do this? Raise gas taxes to drive down consumption? Or regulate what kinds of cars with what kind of MPG are allowed to be sold or used?

[turbo6bar]

When California sales of aluminum $39 Chinese-made jacks goes to zero, I will know Californians are serious about saving the environment. Otherwise, it's just lip-flapping and passing the buck.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

In the absence of any true responsible leadership in the stewardship of planet Earth from our less-than-enlightened federal government, I actually think it's noble and proper that someone (CA, in this case) rises to the challenge in an effort to preserve some semblance of global leadership and long-term thinking. Both have become increasingly rare as of late.

In adversity lies opportunity. I have no problem with this at all. If it means a few businesses that have thrived by operating in a non-sustainable fashion and passing on problems to our children need to either revamp their practices or go under, so be it. It's high time we started ridding ourselves of businesses and industries that CAN'T operate sustainably. Adapt or die. It spurs innovation and increases the overall value of the services our society provides. I have no issue with this whatsoever, other than the fact it's being enacted legislatively (I don't like bigger government, but I'll hold my nose on this one and say it falls under acceptable "roles of government").

A major role of government is to provide (through legislation) an environment to promote things that clearly are in the public interest (like reducing pollution) for which the free market has not yet caught up or directly supports yet. This is done through visionary policymaking and creation of incentives to create markets to support such policies/actions (at which point, government SHOULD get out and let the market take over, although in practice this is seldom done). If you want to disagree over the role of government in this regard, that's another discussion I suppose, but I'd ask the question, "if government ISN'T to be concerned with creating a society that is always getting better and better with regards to public health, safety and welfare, what IS its role?"

Adapt or die - fundamental truth of life and business. The ones that can't compete, innovate or otherwise just want to sit on their hands or rest on their laurels promoting the same old crap methods that have been used for years or decades really don't benefit our society in a forward-thinking effort to be more productive and always trying to improve itself. They're deadweight and SHOULD be eliminated.

[Superman]

I think I get it: Anything that inhibits profits is unreasonable.

Gubmit regulation, for example. It's always bad....unless it regulates PEOPLE and leaves COMMERCE alone.

Have I got this right?

[nostatic]

I was born in SoCal in '61. I remember the air in the 60's. It was bad. Really bad. Hurt to breathe. Despite the insane amount of human activity, this state largely is not a cesspool...in no small part due to the fact that we have the most stringent environmental regulations. If you start getting stupid-large suvs off the road (the ones with one or two people riding in them), ban cell phone use while driving, I'll start riding my bicycle to work (assuming my leg heals).

And last time I checked, Ahhhhnold is a republican.

[red-beard]

How will you produce your power in the future with no Greenhouse gas emmission? Unless you build a bunch of Nuclear power plants, you will be "shifting" your burden to other states, or you will not be using power.

[Moses]

The state of California is a magnificent place and deserved to be treated as such. My only reservation regarding the newest legislation is that if fails to address our states biggest polluters; the welfare recipients. That's right. Californias farmers have once again dodged accountability for their continued assault on our states ecosystem and water quality.

[jkarolyi]

>there's zero financial incentive for them, so why do they do it?

Most greenies I know are very anti-corportation/pro-socialism, and they know this hurts private industries. This furthers their agenda. If CA is serious about the environment, why don't they mandate that all imported goods sold in CA be manufactured in plants that meet CA standards? This is STRICTLY a move to hurt CA corporations.

Giant sucking sound is right...all this for an unproven theory that CO2 causes global warming. And that spending billions to cut global CO2 emissions .00001% is going to make a difference.

Remind me again what California produces besides bad movies and highly subsidized agriculture? Whoops...forgot about building McMansion neighborhoods, we're aces at that. Real estate is our savior.

And Ahhhnold has been acting like a RINO after getting killed in his special election.

[widebody911]

Originally posted by jkarolyi
Most greenies I know are very anti-corportation/pro-socialism, and they know this hurts private industries. This furthers their agenda.
What exactly is their agenda? Simply being 'anti-corporation' isn't really an 'agenda'.[/B]

[Porsche-O-Phile]

"Unproven" my ass.

This hurts nobody except deadweight industries that want to keep on doing the same old crap regardless of consequences. Instead of whining about how it's going to kill industry and business (which it won't), how 'bout looking at it as an opportunity to create NEW business and growth in an area we SHOULD be trying to create business in - sustainable growth.

The more people look at it as an opportunity and stop crying about how it's so inconvenient for them (boo-hoo) to comply with, the more quickly we'll develop market-based incentives to bolster sustainability as a criteria for having a successful business and the more quickly the case can be made for getting it out of the hands of government bureaucrats.

I fail to see any "losers" with this policy except those who have enjoyed the protections afforded to them by a laxidasical administration that doesn't give a rat's ass about the environment. Time for the day of reckoning. Let 'em innovate and adapt (creating jobs) or let 'em go the way of the dodo. No loss to us, really.

[sammyg2]

Lets try to keep this straight, we are talking about CO2. This isn't the stuff that makes the air brown. It is not the stuff that hurts your eyes or lungs. It is not harmful to humans or any other living organism unless the concetration is so high it displaces oxygen.
It is the stuff we breath out.

It is completely harmless, unless you are talking to someone who believes it is responsible for global warming. I do not believe that at all.

It is a byproduct of combustion and there are only two ways I know of to reduce it: eliminate combustion or chemically alter the CO2 to some other form.
Eliminating combustion will not be economically feasable unless we convert all power generation to wind, solar, or nukes and stop using fossil fuel and natural gas. The tree huggers won't go for nukes, so we will end up paying 5 to 10 times as much for electricity.
Chemically altering CO2 to something else is not an easy task, It will be very expensive to change it on the small scale, on the large scale the cost will be staggering.
Easiest way to addresss this will be to move all manufacturing to a place where there are less restrictions. Will that benefit kalifornia? Not in the least. These clowns are worried about a percieved global porblem, not a regional one. If the oil refining or power generation is moved out of state or out of country, it will still be on this planet so the will accomplish nothing except to financially punish Kalifornia.
Hopefully by that time I wil lbe living somewhere else and will be able to laugh at the fools, Until them all I can do is shake my head in disbelief and write some letters.

[scottmandue]

California has a massive power supply it's called the ocean, I saw a write up years ago about how they could build giant structures off shore to harness the power of the tides and/or waves.