Ack! The Crazy California Legislature is at it again! They've got this cockamamie scheme to reduce greenhouse gases, and they're going to ruin the 6th-largest economy in the world to do it! Ack!
At issue is a bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) that would require industries to report how much greenhouse gas -- currently an unregulated source of pollution -- they produce and accept caps on emissions beginning in 2012.
Ack! Big Business is against it, because it would mean The End of the World As We Know It! Ack!
"There's no way to get to the targets except by stopping the use of energy," said Dorothy Rothrock, vice president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Assn. [snip] Killing the bill "is at the top of the list of issues that we are most concerned about," Rothrock said.
Ack! My Pitifully Thin Profit Margin is IN DANGER! Ack!
[Economist] Margo Thorning, who recently analyzed the issue for the American Council for Capital Formation, a business-backed Washington think tank, [said,] "My guess is that energy use would have to come down somewhere close to 40% . . . It really would practically shut the state down."
Ack! We're all gonna lose our jobs! Ack!
Heh. Okay, that was fun. Those wacky guys in Big Business are some cards, huh? But really, they need a new shtick. I mean, that old Oh-we-can't- implement-this-change-that-would -enhance-consumer-safety -or-environmental-quality-or-else-it'll-ruin-the-economy -kill-our-profits-and-lead-to-sex-between-cats-and-dogs" argument went out with polyester disco pants.
Looks like they'll have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century's environmental and regulatory realities - that is, if we can survive a challenge that no doubt will go all the way to the Alito-Scalia-Roberts-Thomas Supreme Court. Americans won when the issue of airbags made it to the Supreme Court back in 1983, but such a consumer-friendly outcome is much less likely today.
For what it's worth, the Governator already has weighed in:
"I say the debate is over," Schwarzenegger said at an environmental conference last year. "We know the science. We see the threat. And we know the time for action is now."
We'll see. Think good thoughts.
UPDATE: Just to be clear, AB 32 only addresses fixed sources of greenhouse gases, not automobiles. It is being roundly criticized by industry groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce (PDF file), which, while decrying the bill, professes to be “committed to these efforts” to reduce greenhouse gases. Huh. Yuh, right. The Chamber, through its legislative analyst, Amisha Patel, says,
We look forward to further discussion during this process and will continue to work with all stakeholders to develop strategies that will help reduce emissions and ensure California remains economically strong into the future
while conveniently neglecting to mention what those helpful strategies might ever be. Patel goes on to state that a cap on emissions in the sixth-largest economy in the world
will do very little to reducing [sic] global greenhouse gases when other states and nations refuse to cap their emissions.
- because, you know, like, California is not, like, a
trendsetter when it comes to environmental laws or anything like that,
y'know?