Guest post by Lorraine Yapps Cohen
California Air Resources Board (CARB) met on Thursday, May 24. On the agenda was discussion toward deciding where and how to spend the billions raised from cap-and-trade carbon trading in the state.
At the public meeting was Betty Plowman, who attended the meeting to present a letter on behalf of the industries that CARB calls polluters, the California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA) and California Dump Truck Owners Association. The letter describes CARB’s threats to these industries, induced by the Board’s regulations that are, in turn, based on junk science. The letter’s signatories indicate intention to seek reparations for the regulated class under CARB’s repression in California.
CARB Chairman Mary Nichols let the clock conduct the agenda and closed the meeting at 5 p.m. before Plowman could present the letter. The world according to CARB disallows any voicing of concerns.
“It was just another day in paradise, wasn’t it?” said Plowman in her personal communications on the meeting. “I thought of ‘The Price is Right’ announcer saying ‘come on down.’ Everyone get their hands out; decide where this windfall should go.”
CARB disallowed the presentation of public concerns. Mary Nichols, in her authoritative overreach, simply adjourned the meeting when dissenting perspective tried to be heard, as seen in this video:
Despite that the letter received no air time at the CARB meeting, the matter is not likely to go away. The tyranny of Mary Nichols and CARB wears thin on the regulated. Their letter seeking reparations follows.
RE: Reparations to the Regulatory Class in California
Dear Governor Brown | Mary Nichols:
Recently, Robert Jenne, Assistant Counsel to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released a written statement that we in the specific industries that CARB recognizes as polluters are hereby branded as the “Regulated Class” in California and subject to the rule and regulation of the agency and are bound to accept their rule at any cost. The class includes those who live and work productively in the transportation, manufacturing, construction and agriculture/forestry sectors of the California economy.
In this letter we inform you of the first action we are taking to meet this threat to our livelihood and our freedom, enacted by unelected bureaucrats without the due process guaranteed to us by the Constitution.
We the undersigned reject the classification by CARB. In the state of California we represent a minority of the population and have been singled out by regulators simply because we produce the goods and services required to build and maintain a modern society. We request Governor Jerry Brown, Chairman Mary Nichols and the State of California make payment as reparations, to those individuals and commercial entities who have been severely damaged by laws and regulations. These laws and regulations are based on junk science, sometimes conducted by individuals without valid credentials, contrived to achieve the control now shown to be the objective behind the charade.
Certain California state employees, board members, members of certain scientific review panels, and members of the California legislature and bureaucracy pushed these laws through the Legislature and its agencies without concern for the well being of its citizens, the public health, and the economic well being of the regulated class. Under the guise of a moral crusade to protect the environment, these agents of California government have generated an accumulating residue of economic damage, unintended consequences, bureaucracy and repression. Indeed agents of California government have learned to manufacture hypothetical threats in order to cement and expand state power and to enable the collection of funds needed to sustain and expand its grip.
California is unique in its extremism and excesses in the ruthless pursuit of societal control. The collapse of the Western Climate Initiative gives evidence that California stands alone in North Americain its activism and agenda. In the same way that the 19th century Confederacy rationalized and defended keeping a large segment of its productive population under extreme exploitive control, today the state government of California takes for granted its ability to control the backbone of its productive population. As Americans we are reclaiming our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Hundreds of thousands of California citizens and businesses have been displaced and/or lost their jobs, careers and homes over agendas borne by radical agents in the California legislature, executive offices, and its supporting cast of NGOs and academics. We as citizens of California can no longer bear the brunt of this attack on our freedoms and exercise our right to protect ourselves from these excessive regulations designed to end our livelihoods and our well being.
The losses borne by this “Regulated Class” are immense. Details will be provided to you in the form of actual losses from regulations borne by the California Air Resource Board that have no benefit to Man or the environment. We will base our demand for reparations on this accounting.
Signatories,
==============================================================
The reality is that the state will find a way to grab the money to support its continuing out of control spending, now in the red to the tune of over 16 billion dollars. In effect, this just becomes a backdoor tax scheme. See http://www.calwatchdog.com/2012/01/11/brown-wants-cap-trade-for-pensions/
The letter’s signatories indicate the intention to seek reparations for damages to the “regulated class” as defined by CARB. In so doing the class placed itself as a new example of minority exploitation by a repressive state government.
Related articles
- Can market for clean-air credits resist profiteers? (sacbee.com)
- Areas of Concern Remain for Regulated Industries with Regard to Carb’s Cap-and-Trade Regulation (prweb.com)
- California counting its carbon tax riches (junkscience.com)
- The Many Moving Pieces of California’s Cap and Trade Program (junkscience.com)
- Cap and Trade protest petition in California (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Quebec to Join California’s Cap-and-Trade Program (sustainablebusiness.com)
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Hey, remember when Schwarzenegger said he was going to get rid of CARB? Good times, good times.
I’ve had a couple of run-ins with that agency, my experience was they had less concern with air quality and more with maintaining and expanding their bureaucratic domain and sense of control over others (and of course budget).
There’s just nothing like a leftist bully.
Friends:
I am not an American and I am writing to ask a question that derives from genuine ignorance of the procedures of American government(s).
The video shows Ms Nichols said the meeting was “not a Hearing”. And, from her stated reasons for being “disappointed”, it is clear she was not receptive to disagreement with the proposals that were the subject of the meeting.
So, can somebody tell a disinterested onlooker (i.e. me) if the legislative process includes another public meeting to be held at a later date which will accept petitions from members of the public?
Richard
Fascism comes wearing a smiley face and sandals.
I had to replay that twice to be sure. In the opening shot, it shows the board.
THERE WERE JUST TWO PEOPLE AT THE BOARD TABLE.
Their listing shows 11 members. Did a quorum ever exist for this “meeting”?
That alone would make any decisions made by the board moot.
Trying to find the minutes for this meeting…
California is billions of dollars in debt and they’re having hearings on what to do with a new revenue source…
No wonder they’re headed towards bankruptcy
Were they following the correct “parliamentary procedure” ? It would have to be presented under “New Business” and it might require a sponsor before it could be presented.
If you do not know the rules under which the meeting operates you are going to be SOL
This observation is from my husband who covers town meetings as a newspaper “stringer” and his familiarity with The Ballad of Robert’s Rules by George Flynn. (NESFA hymnal Vol 2.) unfortunately not available on line. http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/NESFAHymnalv2e1.htm
Maybe it is time for a youtube (at least he can carry a tune)
I have always asked, “Why does CARB even exist?” Talk about a redundant waste of taxpayer money – and that’s without even considering their tyrannical behavior.
I’m still puzzled how California plans to get C&T past the courts since it is either a new tax that hasn’t been voted on with the proper majority or a government mandated purchase which is unconstitutional. I guess that’s where magical thinking comes in once again.
Jesus!!!
Richard Courtney: I’d say, as a guess, that based on past experience that any new meeting will most definately NOT allow the petition concerns to be addressed. CARB has two functions: 1) to increase tax revenue to the state and 2) regulate “dirty” businesses out of it. Once they get rid of all that nasty capitalism the fairy farts can fund the state’s social agenda.
Kalifornia.Taking up where Lenin and Stalin left off.
Hire a few more public servants and establish a few more tribunals, enquiries and authorities. Only way to go.
Rhoda R:
Thankyou for your answer to my question. Unless someone provides a more definitive answer I will take your “guess” as being correct.
I suppose it must all be part of the existence of a written Constitution; i.e. nobody gets what is not written. Perhaps you will recognise that such things are not easy to understand when – being British as I am – one has always been the subject of a constitutional monarchy.
Anyway, I watch with interest. Again, thankyou.
Richard
It was previously said if California was split off from the US it would be the sixth largest economy in the world. Has the EU gotten so messed up that this is still true?
It’s like two guys stopped on a highway arguing in the middle of the night, one driving a Prius, the other a Peugeot. A semi comes by, smashes them both, keeps on going. Afterwards both are on the ground with two broken legs each.
California speaks up, “Ha, I won!”
EU says “What do you mean? We are both seriously hurt, neither of us are walking away from this.”
California says “Yeah, but I got a longer torso so I can sit up taller than you. Plus I’m much more handsome. Winning!!“
Simple… MOVE. Let the inbred bureaucrats haul their own crap.
WHO IS JOHN GALT?
Public consultation? At which all opposing views were shut out?
It’s a sham and a disgrace.
And don’t you just love the way the charming Mary Nichols laughs as she thanks the dissenters for their (unheard) input and slams the door in their faces. What a basty nitch!
Merovign says:
“Hey, remember when Schwarzenegger said he was going to get rid of CARB? Good times, good times.”
I remember… It wasn’t all that long before that shiftless liar decided instead to eliminate the previously-existing 30-year rolling smog-test exemption for passenger cars (once the car passed 30 years of age, it no longer required biennial testing) and instead freeze the date at the 1975 model year. If your car is 1976 or newer in California and you’re in the counties covered by biennial smog test requirements (aka, ‘actual population centers’), your car is now and forever be required to pass the smog test… and they keep tightening the ‘pass’ standards on the tests, too – – it now in many cases requires these cars to meet higher standards than were required when they were new. Regardless of many smog-specific components not having been manufactured for 20+ years.
I have a trophy-winning 1980 show car that gets driven less than 1000 miles a year; I’ve spent countless hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping it ‘smog legal.’ It’s actual ‘pollution’ impact is effectively zero, using less than 50 gallons of gas a year. My housecats likely emit more greenhouse gasses in a year than that car does.
CARB at one time did necessary and useful duty cleaning up the air in CA’s biggest cities, but it has (as all unlimited bureaucracies will) metastasized into a bloated, amorphous monster that knows no practical bounds and now exists for no other reasons than to expand its power and reward its minions.
Much like the state government, but without generating even the ill-advised handouts the elected buffoons have to keep tossing out to stay in their jobs. Bureaucracies like the CARB are all ‘take.’
CARB isn’t all bad, and has had some reasonable successes over the decades that have resulted in measurably better air quality – think catalytic converters, PCV systems, fuel vapor recovery systems, and other devices which resulted in a tangible increase in air quality in places like the LA basin. But CARB as it exists in 2012, pushing ever more expensive solutions for ever decreasing returns, is clearly off the rails.
So far the only court case I can remember taking place was in the UK, where Al Gore’s film ” An Inconvenient Truth” was adjudged to contain lies. I have been waiting for various other cases to come to court but it seems to be a long time coming. I can see a queue of cases forming and one day the flood gates will open and the courts will be full of (global warming) climate change litigation only then will the truth be laid bare.
Cal EPA (yes, the state has their own EPA because the federal version isn’t draconian enough) listens to CARB. This has historically eliminated Diesel cars from California. Plus there are 7 other states that automatically follow California’s auto requirements. The result is that few manufacturers sell Diesels in the USA. Since Diesel cars get about 20% better mileage than spark ignition cars, and about half the cars sold in Europe are Diesels, CARB is solely responsible for about a 10% increase in automobile fuel consumption in the USA.
Reference: http://www.edmunds.com/ Volkswagen and Mercedes both sell spark ignition and Diesel engines in the same car model (Jetta and E-class). In both cases, the Diesels win by 20% or more in the same car.
And in the department of redundancy department, California also has the South Coast Air Quality Management District, just in case EPA, Cal EPA, and CARB may have missed something.
The C.A.R.B. is quickly placing the state in a position where it is at war with its population. Recent decisions are going to cause electricity rates to skyrocket. People are going to want to use wood for heating and cooking at the rate things are going but if it is not a “burn day”, you can be fined or even jailed for burning wood. The CARB must go. At least cut its budget by 85%. None of the 56 other states have an ARB, why does California even need one?
The board was in full attendance just prior to the negative comments that started to show up, including Senator Fran Pavley, the author of AB32 and Cap N Trade legislation. Once the negative comments started to come in, one by one, the board members left, leaving only Mary Nichols and her staff member remaining. The public has no say in California, neither do the lawmakers want to hear from the public. It is afterall a one party system more liberal than any socialist country.
and who is going to be stuck paying the reparations?
ha ha ha.
so the regulated class will be demanding part of the loot.
that will surely solve the problem of looting, eh?
freakin nutz
richardscourtney says:
May 31, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Richard,
I do not know what the actual legal standing this meeting was held under. However, as a frequent participant in these types of meetings I can tell you that it doesn’t matter. If you disagree with the agenda of those elected officials, they will smile, thank you for your input and simply go do what ever they please. Also as sure as death and taxes, these meetings usually take place in the afternoon when most people are actually working and cannot attend.