Dan Logue is my assemblyman, so I’m pleased to pass this bit of news on to WUWT readers.
SACRAMENTO-Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Marysville, today announced that his bill, Assembly Bill 118, to suspend the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) will be heard in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on Monday, January 11, 2010.
and…
From the Wall Street Journal:
Could Californians finally be serious about turning around their sputtering economy? One hopeful sign is a ballot initiative that would repeal the Golden State’s version of a cap-and-trade carbon tax.
This feel-good law to reduce the state’s carbon footprint was enacted with great hoopla by the Democratic legislature and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 when the state’s economy was growing and the jobless rate was 5%. The law requires that starting in 2012 the state must ratchet down its carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The politicians and green lobbies told voters this energy tax would create jobs—the same fairy tale many in Washington are repeating today.
Now the jobless rate is 12.3%, 2.25 million Californians are unemployed, and the state government is broke. So Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue has begun collecting signatures for “The Global Warming Solutions Act,” a ballot initiative that would suspend California’s cap-and-trade scheme until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5%. He’s aiming to get it on the November ballot.
No matter what one thinks of climate science, it makes little sense for an individual state to unilaterally impose major new tax and regulatory costs on its own industries. The impact of California’s gesture on global temperatures will be infinitesimal, but the economic impact will make the state even less attractive to start or expand a business.
Read the rest of the article at the Wall Street Journal
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Repeal a tax? Good luck with that.
btw, I drove across the Carquinez Bridge the other day, for the first time in 20 years. The toll was $4.00!!! It’s an okay bridge, fully paid for about 50 years ago. I made an amusing comment to the toll babe while I grubbed out my wallet, but
she didn’t think it was funny.
Highway robbery is a way of life in CA. Dan has his work cut out for him.
Now I am on topic.
“Macro-economic inflationary pressures and the potential collapse of the carbon credit market are two emerging risks in 2010, according to Lloyd’s of London’s 360 Risk Insight.”
Inflation, potential of carbon credit market collapse among emerging risks: Lloyd’s
http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?aid=1000353924
“Last month, the European police agency Europol reported that the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) had fallen victim to fraudulent trading activities over the past 18 months, worth €5 billion for several national tax revenues.
It estimates that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.”
Four charged with carbon trading fraud in Belgium
http://www.risk.net/energy-risk/news/1585509/four-charged-carbon-trading-fraud-belgium
British carbon traders charged with money laundering relating to alleged Carousel Fraud
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6969007/British-carbon-traders-charged-with-money-laundering-relating-to-alleged-carousel-fraud.html
Three Britons charged over €3m carbon-trading ‘carousel fraud’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/11/eu-carbon-trading-carousel-fraud
About G&#D%$N TIME!!!
(in voice of kid on Simpsons) HAAA HAaaa!*
That’ll teach ’em not to think with their dipsticks, umm, legislator’s brains!
If drop-kicking cap’n trade into the Pacific, will help restart the (former) eigth largest economy in the world, maybe CA will lock WAX-Man and his evil co-conspirators in stocks in the town square, for a fanny-kicking contest.
hmmm, I seem to want to KICK something!
[Reply: finally, a chance to use *this. ~dbs, mod.]
The politicians and green lobbies told voters this energy tax would create jobs—the same fairy tale many in Washington are repeating today.
An extremely valid point and an issue that the populace NEEDS to be aware of. Killing jobs will not change the climate, neither will Cap & Trade.
Cap and trade: not just an inducement to corrupt practices but a cap ON trade. Green lobbies promised that cap and trade legislation would bring new jobs, but at an estimated cost of $134,000 to each small business every year, it will cost jobs. Many small businesses will vote with their feet. This time the wagons will roll east;->
Interesting, California has been strangling its business climate for a long time without any reversal in sight, but I like the idea of linking such regulation to a healthier (lower unemployment) economic environment – seems like a logical approach.
Kudos to the WSJ, they have been extremely proactive on AGW articles and exposing the ill effects on business and the economy for some time now…
I was just reading a article before coming on WUWT and it had a link to Climate Progress – wow, those folks are just plain goofy over there, either that or their losing there cool…
until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5%.
Which will be the 12th of never.
What I mean is unemployment is bad in California. It will be a long, long time before it is down to 5.5%
the Democratic legislature and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006
2006 was before the housing crash hit. For those outside of America and who don’t know: the housing crash hit hard in California.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger? For those also who don’t know: Arnold Schwarzenegger is far from acting like a Republican. He married a Kennedy, a family of hardcore Democrats.
mkurbo (01:55:54):
Agreed on climate progress- it came up in a google search for me recently, so I followed the link to see what was there. What was there was a bunch of people screaming hate for skeptics, deniers, flat-earthers and big oil shills. On the two pages that I read, not one person actually discussed any science, except to say there was a lot of evidence and it was all settled. The most vehement comments seemed reserved for Anthony Watts, who was called names that were indeed creative in their breadth and depth.
Back OT, the Australian cap and trade (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or CPRS) recently defeated in the Senate will likely be shot down again for the same reasons. There’s no point for a country such as Australia, contributing less than 1% of global greenhouse emissions, to throw it’s resource based economy in the trash for no environmental gain. The reductions are so ridiculously small but the impacts to the economy are large. Even the fervent believers should start to look for other solutions apart from cap and trade.
jobless rate is 12.3%, 2.25 million Californians are unemployed, and the state government is broke
I live in California. The government will not cut spending enough to solve the State debt problem. That is why the state is broke. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for Governor on the promise he would be responsible with money. He has not done it. He is the same with money as his Democratic predecessor.
Democrats have an iron grip in California. I don’t expect a Republican to change anything. I suppose that even if this finds a way on to a ballot and the citizens of California approve it some judge in California will strike it down and it will not be implemented, which has happened to other non-Democtrat-like votes by the people of California. The best example is gay marriage. The people vote against it, twice. A judge strikes it down. And the governor does nothing about it.
Climate Progress – wow, those folks are just plain goofy over there, either that or their losing there cool
Record breaking cold and snow, and a general cooling trend around the world does that to trolls.
It’s typical isn’t it. When the public and small business suffers enough pain, most come to their senses. It’s a shame that human stupidity can’t be eradicated. I expect Obama to suffer a huge defeat at the next election if the economy is still heading south in a big way by then. I wish I could say the same about Rudd but his election is this year so the people haven’t suffered enough yet. Who knows, he might still get the CPRS passed. If he does it will damage the economy no end. Strange that China and India refuse to agree to such crackpot schemes in order to maintain their economic growth. Why is the West so desperate to wreck their economies?
Mmmm…Organized Crime…
Mmmm…Cap and Trade…
And the State is getting broker by the year. Every time they do a round of cuts, they hack into what’s left of the consumer market. Since they have driven every producing business they can out of the state, the cuts always raise the unemployment rate. An endless loop in a capital city of Black Hole thinking, with Walmarts and unemployment for all.
The reality of Green Jobs is that they cost US jobs and are replaced with imports. America, and California in particular, had better wake up and realize that if they don’t start making things again, it’s bye-bye economy and to the graveyard of nations we go.
As the whole carbon trading scheme is a fraud how do we tell how much is a private fraud and how much official fraud?
I live in California BUT !!!!! work in China, was,,, best of both worlds, BUT !!!! thinking about cutting down on travel time.
“Green jobs” are jobs that the market does not create because there is no demand for them. The government could just as well hire people to dig 10’X10’X10′ holes in the desert, then move those holes twenty feet north every six weeks. There’s no demand for that either. They could call it green jobs, and claim it was cutting unemployment. But green jobs actually increase unemployment. Here’s why:
Jobs created where there is no demand must be paid for by taking the earnings of productive workers who are satisfying market demands by producing goods and services that others are willing to voluntarily pay for. How much in additional taxes will be taken from each productive worker in the private sector to pay for every unnecessary “green” job that is created?
Thus, the government confiscates money that would otherwise be spent on needed goods and services, and forcibly redirects it into make-work jobs, mostly of the bureaucratic, paper pushing kind. Result: less money is available for goods and services that are in actual demand. Both taxes and unemployment will rise.
Those lucky few who get the “green” jobs will benefit at the direct expense of everyone else, who will have to pay substantially more in taxes to fund “green” job creation. And being government jobs, “green” jobs are exempt from market forces; they will form a new bureaucracy that will instantly become a new vested interest, practically impossible to reduce or eliminate.
When steeply rising property taxes got out of control in the late ’70’s, the result was an initiative [Prop. 13], passed in 1980, that largely cured the problem. It will be interesting to see if history repeats. Be prepared for the squealing, wailing, outrage and cries of impending eco-doom and disaster if an initiative is on the ballot that would void the AB 32 nonsense. We’ll see if the electorate has finally had it with endless tax increases, which only benefit narrow special interests at the expense of productive workers.
Sign me up for that anti-AB 32 initiative.
@Peter, why are western “liberal” (they’re really exactly opposite of the classic dictionary definition of liberal, except with how they like to spread our wealth around) politicians so desperate to destroy their countries’ economies?
As Frank Laughtenberg once ranted “It’s about CONTROL!”
See the New Jersey incident where the Democrats were allowed to illegally replace their quickly falling “torch” Torricelli with Laughtenberg to avoid a loss of a Senate seat to the GOP. His rant was on live TV, so it’ll never ever be seen again. After that first outburst line he had a look on his face like he was thinking “Ohhh crap! I just told the truth! Gotta adlib fast!”. I’ve been trying to find a video of that ever since.
What it really goes back to is Joseph McCarthy being stopped from purging all the communists from the American Government. Contrary to Hollywood propaganda, McCarthy had nothing at all to do with any so-called “persecution” of actors, directors and writers. His focus was soley on Soviet infiltrators and the American traitors and sympathizers who were helping them in various ways.
In 1995 the Venona Project was declassified. What Venona was, was interception of phone calls and telegrams and other communication between the USSR and their embassies in the USA. It also involved decryption of coded messages. What the declassification proved was that not only was McCarthy correct, he didn’t know the half of the problem he was trying to root out. IIRC, there’s still a huge number of coded intercepts that have never been decoded. Looks like a job for SETI@Home type of project. I’m certain the declassification of Venona and the subsequent spread of the truth from it is why the latest Hollywood smear campaign against McCarthy, the George Clooney movie “Goodnight, and Good Luck” failed big time. Only the hardest of the hard core believers in the lies went to see it.
Assemblyman Logue is correct in attempting to hobble AB 32, but the reality is that Democrats will never vote for his bill. I wish they would. But Democrats have the mistaken belief that AB 32 is already creating jobs, and will create many more in California. They have studies by consultants that prove this. Yet they are wrong.
I wrote on AB 32 and Green Jobs here:
http://energyguysmusings.blogspot.com/2009/10/green-jobs-and-energy.html
The basis of AB 32, its underlying foundation, is that producing energy without carbon emissions will ultimately put more cash in consumers’ pockets. The extra cash, disposable income, will then be used to purchase more goods and services and create jobs that supply those goods and services.
California’s Air Resources Board paid for an economic analysis of AB 32. That economic analysis concluded that the extra cash involved is $4 per week per person, enough for a large latte coffee. Yet the economic analysis was severely flawed. Two things are supposed to occur under AB 32: 1) electric power prices increase due to large quantities of renewable power such as solar, wind, and geothermal, and 2) electric demand per capita decreases due to better insulation and more efficient appliances.
AB 32, when fully implemented, will place a disproportionate burden on the poor and those on fixed incomes, such as retirees. Prices for all goods and services will increase, as they must when utility prices increase yet there is no opportunity to upgrade the insulation or appliances in a rented apartment or home, or leased business space. Only landlords can perform such upgrades, and they have zero incentive to do so. I wrote on this here:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/ab-32-hypocrisy-vs-health-and-poverty.html
If green policies such as AB 32 created jobs, then California would long ago have had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. California already has the highest percentage of green (renewable-generated) electricity in the USA, already has draconian environmental laws for air emissions, yet the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation at 12.3 percent.
Assemblyman Logue is absolutely correct.
““Green jobs” are jobs that the market does not create because there is no demand for them”
Yes, and almost by definition, green jobs created by government dictat are unproductive jobs. As you shift labour and capital away from productive into unproductive jobs you reduce the wealth of society as a whole.
Government can easily create jobs – there is no mystery nor any great genius required to do so. You can put millions to work on the land, tilling the soil behind a mule – a return to a peasant society. But society at large would become exceedingly poor.
Yet Republican’s don’t seem to get it at all and don’t know how to refute the Obama job creation propaganda. There are some individuals like Peter Schiff who are warning about this, but they are outside the political machine.
Like the failed Soviet experiment of the twentieth century, it will eventually collapse under its own weight, corruption and inefficiency – but not without first destroying the economies of the West.
The notion that cap and trade would create jobs just boggles the mind. So we’re going to deliberately increase costs to every business, and the net result is going to be more employment? I wouldn’t think you’d have to study economics, or even logic to know something is wrong there, even if you don’t immediately see what.
I guess this is just another religious characteristic – faith and suspension of reason as far as AGW is concerned.
Ian W
“The notion that cap and trade would create jobs just boggles the mind.”
Cap & trade is not intended to create jobs of itself. It is the revenue earned from this that is intended to create “green jobs” by direct or indirect subsidy.
It is important to understand the distinction between job creation and wealth creation, because Obama supporters will continue to claim job creation. Can making energy more expensive lead to job creation?
Yes it can. However, what they don’t expain (or more likely don’t understand) is that this kind of job creation – unproductive and labour intensive – will come at the expense of wealth creation that will ultimately impoverish society as a whole.
Oh good. That’s like telling the business community that they won’t kick ’em while they’re down; they’ll wait till they get to their feet, then they’ll kick ’em.
So, rather than the tax kicking in in 2012, it might kick in then or when unemployment drops to 5.5%. If I’m a businessman, that tells me I may have an extra couple years in which to move my business out of state.
This proposed suspension changes nothing, it merely prolongs the agony.