Thousands Petition Gov. Brown To End Cap And Trade
By Amy Quinton, California Capitol Network
Californians Against Higher Taxes and business groups delivered the petitions against
what they call an illegal and hidden energy tax. The cap and trade program would
limit greenhouse gas emissions by requiring polluters to purchase pollution credits
at auction.
But John Kabateck, with the National Federation of Independent Businesses,
says it amounts to an illegal tax that would kill businesses. “Experts say that this tax could drain 30-billion dollars from California employers by the year 2020, those costs will have to be passed onto someone and that means small business owners and consumers are going to be hit with higher prices.”
Opponents also say the program is unconstitutional without a vote
by the people or a two-thirds vote in the legislature. Assembly Speaker John Perez has said spending and regulating auction revenues doesn’t constitute a tax.
Source:
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/may/30/thousands-petition-gov-brown-end-cap-and-trade/
You know the answer: throw the bums out.
I wish I had known about this petition before it was delivered, as a California resident, I would have signed it.
Either it is a government mandated forced commercial purchase, which is unconsititutional in the United States, or it is a tax, that without a vote in California is unconstitutional. This too is going to the courts.
George:
My thoughts exactly.
It’s not just the tax that is draining but also businesses and people are moving out. You know things are bad when there is a net flow of illegal migrants back to Mexico! California will certainly see it’s rate of c02 output go down but will come with consequences.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-23/mexican-immigration-united-states/54487564/1
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/nation_world/article_81ea57e0-c22a-11e0-a149-001cc4c03286.html
http://news.investors.com/article/596620/201201031854/california-business-leaving-child-booster-law-arson.htm
California ? ha,ha,ha, the worlds biggest lunatic asylum, even the politicians cannot read !
You get the legislators you deserve if you cannot be bothered to watch what they are upto, they think that they have free rein.
It sounds like you have folk who are as averse to private money making as some are here in the UK! This is all ultimately aimed at de-industrialising Western society so that we can all live in the sort of small bucolic societies Rousseau dreamed of – you know, the ones that never quite existed.
30 May: Reuters: Jeff Coelho: UPDATE 2-Global carbon market value rises to record $176 bln
Editing by Jason Neely and Jane Baird
A record number of emissions products were traded in 2011, even though prices of EU carbon permits and international offsets plumbed new depths well below $10 a tonne late in the year, the bank said in its annual report on carbon markets.
Worldwide emissions trading last year rose 17 percent in volume to 10.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, with permits in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) accounting for more than three quarters of the total…
The rise in volume lifted the value of the EU market to $148 billion from a revised $134 billion in 2010, even though average EU carbon prices fell 4 percent year on year to $18.80 a tonne.
Carbon markets were not immune to recent global economic volatility from the Arab Spring, Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster and the euro zone debt crisis, the World Bank report said.
“A considerable portion of the trades is primarily motivated by hedging, portfolio adjustments, profit-taking and arbitrage,” it said.
But if carbon prices continue to remain below $10 a tonne, there will be little incentive for companies and governments to invest in low-carbon projects, a bank official said…
Other national and regional carbon schemes showed mixed results. New Zealand’s carbon market value tripled to $351 million, while the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in North America nearly halved to $249 million, the bank said…
Secondary trading volumes for international offsets regulated by the United Nations also soared in 2011, rising 43 percent year on year to 1.8 billion units valued at $23 billion.
The main reason for this was a rise in demand for U.N.-backed emissions offsets, because a certain number of the credits can be used for compliance in markets such as the EU ETS…
The World Bank suggested recent and emerging cap-and-trade schemes in Australia, California, Mexico, South Korea and Quebec could contribute to future growth in overall carbon trading…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/world-bank-carbon-idUSL5E8GUGBQ20120530
30 May: Reuters: EU carbon emissions rise, end multi-year decline
Editing by Jason Neely and Alison Birrane
Greenhouse gases from the European Union rose more than 2 percent in 2010 when a cold winter and a rebound in many economies drove up energy use, breaking a multi-year pattern of emissions declines.
***The year-on-year rise in the official EU data released on Wednesday was slowed by emissions declines in struggling Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain…
International Energy Agency Chief Economist Fatih Birol said it would be a surprise to him if emissions did not continue to grow, chiefly because of the impact of a collapsed carbon price…
To stimulate low carbon energy, the IEA has said a price of $50 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) is needed. That compares with current prices of less than 7 euros ($8.78) a metric ton on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Although gas use rose in 2010 because of lower prices, Birol said that in 2011 cheap carbon pushed up coal use in Europe by 6 percent, while natural gas declined by more than 10 percent…
Among the greenhouse gases reported to the United Nations, carbon dioxide accounted for 82.4 percent of emissions.
Industry emissions of hydroflourocarbons (1.9 percent), which are extremely potent greenhouse gases, continued a rising trend identified since 1990, as air conditioning and refrigeration demand grew…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/us-eu-kyoto-idUSBRE84T0VI20120530
***some great examples to follow?
——————————————————————————–
The cap and trade program would limit greenhouse gas emissions by requiring polluters to purchase pollution credits at auction.
Hmmmmmmm. You first buy “pollution credits” to allow you to produce carbon dioxide, then the state allows you to go ahead and produce carbon dioxide.
Explain to me again how cap and trade therefore *limits* the production of carbon dioxide.
BTW, if they’re auctioning off the credits, I’d recommend everyone bid one penny.
Amy need to go to remedial school. CO2 is not pollution, unless you are a Kool-Aid drinker from BHO’s neighborhood.
” Assembly Speaker John Perez has said spending and regulating auction revenues doesn’t constitute a tax.”
Yeah, right…. [/utter disgust]
they should be glad it isn’t $23 per ton that the gillard GOVT is bringing to all australians 7/1//20012
It is time a similar petition was started in the UK – and indeed throughout Europe.
It’s not a tax…even if they tax it twice.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/05/another-planet-healing-idea-for.html
This is nothing more than a tax grab by a desperate State government. Taxing CO2 will only make people poorer and reduce the State to a third world country. It will not change climate.
Remember what deepthroat said, “follow the money.” Watch what the revenue from the auctions is used for and you will gain insight into the motivations.
The “business groups” do not exist. NFIB? Doesn’t include Goldman. Bunch of nobodies. Losers.
Only the billionaire bankers who will profit from the carbon offsets exist.
Goldman wants cap-n-trade, so cap-n-trade will proceed.
The people of CA have gotten what they deserve since they keep electing and re-electing clueless uber-liberal legislators and governors. For cryin’ out loud, they elected Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, again!
Did any one around in the 70s when Moonbeam first sent California on the road to disaster think he had changed? I can understand the young not being aware of his first tenure (history is a dry subject), but the young were not the only clowns to vote for him.
For those of us around then, we knew what you were getting when you elected the pig in the poke. Fortunately, I moved away a long time ago.
C&T will be cause for the TEA Party to light up again. Notice there will be no national C&T until after the election. Then Katie bar the door. President Obama will fire up his Executive Order Pen.
Californians need to hurt some more. They have not learned their lesson yet.
I am in favor of California implementing cap and trade because we need it as a cautionary example. It will fail miserably and some of the smarter states will learn from it. Perhaps a colossal failure will kill the idea permanently.
You get the legislators you deserve if you cannot be bothered to watch what they are upto, they think that they have free rein.
The problem is the public unions (police, firefighters, teachers, etc.) have essentially gained control of the California government by voting for candidates who support their pension grabs. There are fiscally conservative Californians who are sick of this crap but there’s not a lot we can do about it other than move away, which I really don’t want to do. Until things hit rock bottom nothing will ever change… perhaps cap and trade will finally do the trick.
As a devoted Texan, I also hope California keeps on with its cap and trade policy.
Every new tax sends 100 more businesses to Texas! Keep it up, California!
any of you Californians left with assets, give it up. well over 50% of the state now depends on the government handouts, and they will always vote to take everything you have. You can’t win – at least not in California. But come to Texas! We want you, and we’ll treat you right!!!
Timbo said:
You know the answer: throw the bums out.
You obviously don’t live in California. We do throw the bums out… It’s called term limits. Problem is, it’s always another bum that takes their place! It seems to be California’s most plentiful resource! 🙂
Most people with a brain have departed Kalifnutso to have a better life, raving fools in charge now.
In BC the Carbon Tax is used to set up huge school endowments. Then we send starry eyed kids to learn how to raise the tax even more to expand the endowment funds.
The biggest problem with California is that she has started exporting her fools to other states, and they haven’t learned their lesson. They are still voting to repeat the same stupidity that messed up California. And, even if C&T messes up California, they’ll only draw the conclusion that it didn’t work because the market wasn’t big enough or some excuse like that.
They should get Dr Norgaard to promote cap n trade on TV. Would do wonders for the global warming debate:
http://sociology.uoregon.edu/faculty/norgaard.php
http://www.quickmeme.com/Kari-Norgaard/?upcoming
Bill Tuttle says: “The cap and trade program would limit greenhouse gas emissions by requiring polluters to purchase pollution credits at auction…You first buy “pollution credits” to allow you to produce carbon dioxide, then the state allows you to go ahead and produce carbon dioxide. Explain to me again how cap and trade therefore *limits* the production of carbon dioxide.”
The pollution credits are scheduled to decline according to a scheme that will favor rich leftists and punish dorty, kapitalist suppressors of the pipples.
And yes, it’s the California unions and the leftist media that have swung the elections there.
And when the inevitable happens–tax revenues in CA drop like a rock–once again we will be told that we need to cut the budgets of schools, libraries, parks, police, and fire departments to make up the loss. Never mind the billions spent on other things that could go away in this state, those are inviolate (you wouldn’t want to take the food out of a poor single mother’s mouth and those of her starving children, would you? You probably would, you heartless conservative SOB.) and cannot possibly be touched.
I need to retire and pull a Chuck DeVore…move to Texas. 🙂
Consider: There are people in CA that would like to see: 1) less business, and 2) fewer people. They would have no problem with more poverty if that enables them to obtain their higher objectives.
Brown and the rest of our CA crew need to go.
greg holmes says:
May 31, 2012 at 1:31 am
“You get the legislators you deserve if you cannot be bothered to watch what they are upto, they think that they have free rein.”
Wait, Greg you’re on to something, rein, I mean RAIN, there’s a new revenue stream, so to speak. Everytime it rains, the state will tax you based on the number of gallons that fell on your property. So if you own an acre and over he couorse of a month it rains 1 inch, that equals 27,154.285 gallons, @ .001 per gallon, that would be $27.16.
Hmmmmmm…………
“Thousands Petition Gov. Brown To End Cap And Trade”
——————————————-
Why bother? The ruling class wants it, so that is the way it is going to be.
It’s just like Jerry Brown’s high speed rail: another palpable hoax that Californians do not want, but that is going forward.
Both of these schemes are money extracting devices to keep the ruling elite and their minions living in luxury. They will force out the middle class and the job producers, so soon there will only be the royals and their illegal alien servants.
I live here, but am seriously considering joining the Californian diaspora.
That’s a very interesting comment about taxing rain there, ‘Peter in MD’.
Where I live in Canada, the local municipal government is considering just such a tax, we get alot of rain here. They don’t calll it a rain tax of course, they have a more taxpayer friendly term for it. But what you described in your comment is precisely how it would work.
Chuck L says:
May 31, 2012 at 4:59 am
“The people of CA have gotten what they deserve since they keep electing and re-electing clueless uber-liberal legislators and governors. For cryin’ out loud, they elected Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, again!”
I didn’t vote for Moonbeam. Why do I deserve him?☹
Actually, California is going to reach out to the other 49 states, and take money right out of their citizens’ wallets. The Obama Administration has promised California they will federally subsidize a large part of the cost of the $100 billion+ High Speed Trolley [those are government cost numbers, which are far below reality]. That means all US taxpayers will be forced to pour their money into California’s latest fiasco.
And it will not stop there. Obama’s EPA fully intends to support AB32, California’s mandated 80% reduction in CO2 emissions. That will certainly make California a federal basket case, and the rest of the country will be forced to pay for the EPA’s CO2 experiment.
The choice is clear: re-elect Obama, and share in the financial pain by watching your increased taxes flow into the basket case state of California… or vote to fire the current EPA.
It’s a no-brainer.
For every Patriot questioning this there are at least two drones who’ve been programmed to think Gaia is dying and we must do whatever it takes to save her. This millenarian notion will go down in history as the root cause of the demise of the Formerly-Golden State.
I’ve lived in California all my life and I have watched the state go downhill. The voters can’t see cause and effect; if you keep voting for these Bozos, they will keep generating more stupid laws.
Bob Diaz says:
May 31, 2012 at 11:57 am
I’ve lived in California all my life and I have watched the state go downhill. The voters can’t see cause and effect; if you keep voting for these Bozos, they will keep generating more stupid laws.
____________________________________
The WORSE PART is they EXPORT the stupid laws.
A Canadian once told me Canada watches how a new law works in the USA before implementing it. Here in the USA a new law is tried out in California or Massachusetts and if it is really bad they try to pass it for the rest of the country.
People forget, California wasn’t always like this. Those bums moved IN and wrecked the place before they started moving *out*.
The problem is hardly unique to California. The problem won’t be solved by surrendering territory.
Simply writing it off as “it’s California” is only going to allow it to spread, but instead of staying and fighting, everyone with sense ran away – same with New York, which is why *they* have Bloomberg trying to ban large cups.
If you won’t fight in California, you’ll have to fight in your own states. The control freaks will never stop.
California Dreaming
“Somehow it became public employees running a doughnut shop,”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/30/money-losing-tim-hortons-in-st-johns-hospital-a-cautionary-tale-critics/
Another California anti-citizen example, if one is needed:
http://unionwatch.org/california-legislature-votes-to-allow-government-workers-to-hide-property-ownership-from-public-records
I read a letter to the editor of the local paper today that explains a lot. Naive soul expounded on getting true news and information from PPS, NPR, Amy Goodman, Free Speech TV, and Bioneers. With news sources like that clogging up the brain, Kalifornia is what you get.
Gail Comb says:
“The WORSE PART is they EXPORT the stupid laws.
A Canadian once told me Canada watches how a new law works in the USA before implementing it. Here in the USA a new law is tried out in California or Massachusetts and if it is really bad they try to pass it for the rest of the country.”
_______________________________________
Take it easy Gail Comb,
America is America because everything is the United States of America, all states together.
This is a gift for you to make everything sweet to you.
http://open.spotify.com/track/5v23ovbMxp7n8bLU7uBvuC
http://open.spotify.com/track/2GNrCYN1hClVFXmOejGEfN
@Steve in SC says: May 31, 2012 at 5:22 am
“Californians need to hurt some more. They have not learned their lesson yet.”
They are about to. Moonbeam has basically given them a rock and a hard place.
klem says:
That’s a very interesting comment about taxing rain there, ‘Peter in MD’.
Where I live in Canada, the local municipal government is considering just such a tax, we get alot of rain here. They don’t calll it a rain tax of course, they have a more taxpayer friendly term for it. But what you described in your comment is precisely how it would work.
Not exactly a tax, but Washington, Utah, and Colorado apparently think that rain is state property and have banned private collection of it:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainwater_collection_water.html
Problem is that in 2010 CA had a referendum on whether to repeal it (at least until unemployment drops to 6%). With the economy in a tailspin, and people suffering, and it making not a whits worth of difference on the climate even if the warmist lies were true, it should have passed easily. But, the opposition got Sierra Club money and the like, the proponents of the initiative ran a bungled incompetent weakly funded campaign.
Next time around in a referendum, just a modicum of competence and funding is all that is needed to toss out AB23.
Minor correction, not state property but the property of people who had recognized water rights in the drainage. The old water laws assumed that all precipitation that fell ended up in the local river or ground water system (casually ignoring the amount of precip that evaporates or gets used by plants and transpired back into the atmosphere.
One of the rock bottom assumptions in water law in the west is the priority of prior claims.
For example lets suppose that on a given creek or river there are 50 water rights allowing 100 acre feet of water to be used by the water right holders. If you assume that all rainfall in that drainage ends up in the river eventually, if someone appropriates some of this river water by catch rain fall on their own property they (under that assumption) are stealing a community resource that others have a legal right to use.
This hardly matters if the annual runoff is significantly in excess of the 100 acre feet of water rights claimed by the “legitimate” water rights holders. They still have full access to the water rights that they paid for and are legally recognized as authorized to draw from the river flow.
The problem occurs if (under that total flow assumption) if the annual flow in a dry year only amounts to 90 acre feet of water, then someone is cheated out of 10 acre feet of water they are legally authorized to use. Under that concept the person/s catching water on their property have effectively stolen property from those people that own the 10 acre feet or water rights that cannot be fulfilled under that years water flow.
Who loses out ? Under the concept of prior claim the water rights claims are serviced in a first come first served basis. The oldest water rights are allowed to draw their full water right regardless of how that might impact junior water rights claims. If everyone attempts to draw down their legal limit of water the folks holding the 10 most junior water rights claimed in that drainage get left with no water at all. This has actually happened some farmers had to shut down irrigation pumping when it was clear that senior water rights claims would draw the full allowed stream flow.
http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6166&Itemid=1189
This tradition of water right supremacy based on prior use is very old.
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/tma/news/11/tmawater.html
Water usage will become an ongoing issue as population growth continues to cause increased claims on existing water rights (some of which have not been claimed in full before). This is part of the problem with Colorado River water and California, the original Colorado River Compact is based on relatively wet years and in dry years the drainage does not flow enough water to satisfy all legal claims on the water.
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g1000/pdfiles/crcompct.pdf
http://ag.arizona.edu/azwater/arroyo/101comm.html
Water law is a specialty unto itself and can be very complex. It is not the state that is claiming the water but they are acting to protect legally authorized claims to water. The question given the study in Douglas county is the total use assumption valid, and will trivial captures of water by local users impact stream flow and ground water pools or are they merely a temporary diversion that only delays the water slightly in its journey into the local stream flow of the water shed. We are already seeing farm land where the water rights are more valuable than the agricultural use of the land, owners are selling water rights to nearby cities then selling the land to developers for homes and commercial usage.
Larry
Due to the cost of electricity in California rising to somewhat over 23 cents / kW-hr, it is now cheaper to cook dinner on a gasoline camping stove on the patio than to use clean electricity from a nice nuke or coal plant.
And that’s BEFORE Cap and Tax gets really rolling..
So for the last several days, I’ve been burning charcoal and gasoline in the back yard cooking dinner…. Now I LIKE my BBQ, and it’s not like I’ve never run it before. But what is different is that I’m now only using my clean All Electric Kitchen when I simply can’t make smoke and flames outdoors (things like rain…)
California is a very silly place…
Oh, and if you shop for a bulk tank fill, running a propane BBQ is cheaper too…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/camping-at-home-is-cheaper/
I also have some various large woody things growing in the yard, so an efficient little “Rocket Stove” means I can cook for free, just by burning “Yard Waste” that would otherwise end up being composted and used to enrich the soil. Heck, you can even make a nice little stove out of old beer cans:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/beer-cans-will-save-the-world/
So we’re well on our way to becoming a good 3rd World Country… The Peoples Republic of Kalifornistan…
Besides, there’s LOTS of old trees in the neighborhood…
$30 Billion by 2020???? Think again, once the industrial and fuel sectors are added to the auction in 2015 and if certain market regulatory control mechanisms related to the size of allowable holdings kicks in coupled with an inadequate supply of cost reducing offsets, the price of allowances is forced higher, the resulting costs to CA consumers is likely to exceed $100 Billion. The only estimates that anyone refers to today are the absolute lowest. This is not a likely scenario. Expect market swings that will increase costs, economic damage and business leakage to other states, before CA can react to stop it.