As CLCV members and friends know, California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) establishes the goal of reducing California’s green house gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Co-authored by then-Assemblymember Fran Pavley, who CLCV supported early in her career, the law was a top priority for CLCV and the environmental community when it was passed in 2006. CLCV and other environmental groups, along with leaders in the clean energy business community, have worked to defend the law and its full implementation ever since.
AB 32 is now facing a very serious attack by the same coalition of polluters and their allies who opposed the bill when it was before the legislature. Those opponents (who have also battled clean air and water quality laws) have proposed a ballot initiative to suspend the pioneering law, claiming (despite mountains of research to the contrary) that thousands of Californians will lose their jobs when it is implemented.
The irony is that delaying or suspending AB 32 would be the real “job killer.” Putting the brakes on this law will eliminate thousands of jobs in California. Experts agree that venture capital investment will dry up and emerging clean energy businesses may be forced to cut back or close altogether.
As Fran Pavley said in a recent piece in Capitol Weekly: “By adopting policies that will cap dangerous global warming pollution, we have sent a signal to the market that California wants to become the home of these new jobs and businesses and a leader of the 21st century economy. Simply put, AB 32 has already stimulated innovation, efficiency and economic benefits.”
Unfortunately the lies about the Global Warming Solutions Act have wormed their way into both the governor’s race and Senate race in California: Candidates for governor Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman and Senate candidate Chuck DeVore have advocated suspending (or outright eliminating) the landmark law. DeVore spent most of his time at the national Conservative Political Action Conference today in Washington D.C. railing against AB 32:
“Now lest you think what we have going on in California won’t affect your state, we are the laboratory… What starts in California spreads to the rest of the nation. We have something called the California Air Resources Board, a bunch of unelected technocrats charged with regulating the air quality in California. In California, we passed AB 32, the global greenhouse gas initiative (sic). This is the California version of what Barbara Boxer tried to pass in the US Senate. They’re destroying California jobs, with bureaucrats writing edicts increasing energy costs in California. Barbara Boxer tried to get this passed in the US Senate. When it failed, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to do the same thing Barbara Boxer was working on, they classified [exhales] as a toxin…”
What was so disturbing about DeVore’s comments was not just the lies he was telling about AB 32’s impact on jobs; not just the fact that he was speaking about California to people who hate the idea of California’s policies setting a model for the nation; but how completely he (and others who oppose AB 32) ignores the pride Californians take in being the nation’s laboratory—for innovation, technology, and groundbreaking new solutions to our nation’s energy, security, and environmental challenges.
For example, opinion polling firm Tulchin Research just released the results of a new poll of California voters, in which they found Californians:
• Are proud of the state’s leadership in innovation and technology (79% are proud);
• Believe technology and innovation are an essential part of the state’s economy (96% say it is an important part) and agree that technology provides an opportunity to create jobs to combat our economic and fiscal problems;
• Feel strongly that policymakers should work to boost the tech sector and encourage innovation in order to strengthen the state’s economy (66% agree).
Tulchin Research notes that this sense of optimism is shared by voters across the partisan spectrum and throughout the state. All California candidates should understand that protecting the environment and strengthening the economy are not mutually exclusive, and both could be accomplished through implementing AB 32 and passing national climate change legislation.
This is a defining moment for our state. California must continue to lead the nation, and the world, in clean technology innovation for the sake of our state’s and our nation’s economic future, and for the future of the planet.
