For those that don’t operate a business in California like I do, I was surprised today to learn that Sacramento State College of Business Administration and Center for Small Business have complete a study of the AB32 Greenhouse gas law, and its impact on California small businesses.
The law requires that by 2020 the state’s greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels, a roughly 25% reduction under business as usual estimates. The California Air Resources Board, under the California Environmental Protection Agency, is to prepare plans to achieve the objectives stated in the Act.
Will I keep my business in California with a tab like that? Probably not. It would be economic suicide for me. – Anthony
California Small Businesses Face $50,000 Cost from State Implementation of AB 32
from PR-inside.com
A new study released today found that small businesses in California will pay an additional $49,691 as a result of the California Air Resources Board’s implementation of AB 32. Citing severe economic impacts, a coalition of small business organizations called today for the suspension of the regulatory proceedings to implement California’s greenhouse gas program until the report’s findings are analyzed
and mitigation measures are added to the state plan.
The report concluded that when the program is fully implemented, the average annual loss in gross state output from small businesses alone would be $182.6 billion, approximately a 10% loss in total gross state output. This will translate into nearly 1.1 million lost jobs in California. Lost labor income is estimated to be $76.8 billion, with nearly $5.8 billion lost in indirect taxes.
“We support the state’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but we are very concerned that these costs will apply disproportionally to California small business. Consumers will be hurt and the environmental goals will not be achieved,” said Esteban Soriano, Chairman of the California Small Business Association and a founding member of the California Small Business Roundtable.
The analysis of the state Scoping Plan was led by Sanjay Varshney, Dean of the College of Business Administration, California State University, Sacramento and Dennis H. Tootelian, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing and Director, Center for Small Business, California State University, Sacramento. The study reveals that when the plan is fully implemented, California families will be facing increased annual costs of $3,857.
Varshney explained that the study’s cost analysis was based on the California Air Resources Board’s own findings, which revealed significant cost increases. The study’s findings are consistent with the Peer Review analysis that CARB commissioned, which also concluded that the cost of the AB 32 Scoping Plan would be significant, and that CARB had significantly underestimated these costs.
“Given California’s current economic plight, the state must refrain from imposing new fees on taxpayers to pay for an expanded bureaucracy,” said Michael Shaw of the National Federation of Independent Business. “When Assembly Bill 32 authorized this program in 2006, CARB promised to develop a greenhouse gas plan that would provide benefits to small business, not bankruptcy.”
The study also found that in order to cope with the increased costs generated by the AB 32 program, consumers will be forced to cut their discretionary spending by 26.2%.
“Californians will be getting less and paying more. How can the small business community survive in a political climate so determined to put us out of business,?” asked Griselda Barajas, owner of Tex Mex Restaurant in downtown Sacramento, where the study was released.
“Many lawmakers who enjoy our tacos will see a significant increase in their daily lunch bills if these problems are not addressed,” said Barajas. “All of the Capitol community folks who dine at Tex Mex will have to bear the burden of an unfunded mandate placed against my business.”
According to the authors, the study utilized IMPLAN, a widely used economic modeling program that has more than 1,500 active users in the United States and internationally. These include clients in federal and state government, universities, and private sector consultants. Joining the California Small Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business at Monday’s event were the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Sacramento Black Chamber of Commerce.
For a copy of the study, please contact Alison MacLeod at 916-225-6317 or amacleod@ka-pow.com : mailto:amacleod@ka-pow.com .
For California Small Business AssociationAlison MacLeod,
Brendan (18:10:11) :
your link was to a story about Texas and socialism not California and idiotism
sorry but i see no link here
Every cloud has a silver lining. As an Australian who would not mind a holiday home in California, I shall just wait for the forthcoming avalanche of foreclosures and perhaps pick up one or three of them! I want them all by the seaside.
Now I’m glad I didn’t go in and buy the business I was thinking of. This would surely have killed it. There won’t be any new small business, and those that try will lose thier shirts. According to the State, most business growth is from small business and small business startups.
Calif. is stupid enough to do this.
““express its deep concern about the federal government’s failure to fully carry out the statutory obligation to implement the nuclear waste policy established almost three decades ago in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.” This required the Department of Energy to take over all used fuel and dispose of it
from 1998, funded by the levy on electricity production.””
Doesn’t that kind of destroy the whole “waste disposal is a subsidy to nuclear energy” meme?
Texas is a great place to relocate! Unemployment is still the lowest in the nation, and you’ve got lots of choices of cities. Real estate never took off on a ridiculous surge up, so prices are still cheaper than in California. Why kill yourself in California? Come to Texas!!!
“express its deep concern ”
Expression of “deep concern” is pretty much all our government seems to do these days. They inform us of their current emotional state (deeply concerned) but don’t actually DO anything. North Korea explodes nuclear bombs … we express “deep concern”. Iran starts shooting their own civilians, we express “deep concern”.
I really don’t care what the emotional state is of our leaders. I want to know what they are going to DO about things. So far all I see them doing is foisting more and more burden on to us to provide cash for ridiculous spending projects designed to buy votes.
The people in our government have gone stark raving insane.
Actually the state needs do nothing to achieve a 25% reduction in carbon emissions.
All they have to do is wait. With all the state’s problems, 25% of the state’s population will leave on their own. If California wants to speed up the process, they can just raise taxes or issue IOUs to pay their bills. Will work like a charm. Oh, you say they’re doing that already. Sorry.
What’s even better is the ones leaving will be the wealthy. They’re the ones that put the most miles on their cars, fly planes and crowd the state with lots of employees.
Looking at other good emission news, NUMMI Motors will most likely close freeing up 5,500 employees and their families to move out of state. It will also cut electric consumption in northern California.
You just have to look at the good side of things.
Anthony: Move your brick n’ mortar to Nevada, maintain residence in California, and get a sweet little side job as one of the brown shirts who goes around enforcing emission standards. The power! CIA… ATF… they got nothing on the Carbon Police.
Have any of these legislators taken a single course in economics? Do they think the money just magically appears from no where? Just tax the people & the government will have more money ??? Well, they will certainly achieve their reduction goals as no one will want to work or live in CA any more – less people = less jobs = less consumption = less CO2 = poorer standards of living. Hopefully the feds are paying attention to this too – as the same equation applies at the national level.
Most things in life a really very simple. Some might require intensive study before you are able to understand how simple they are, many more require nothing other than observation and common sense. This topic falls clearly in the latter camp.
The central tenet of business is simple – if you sell your product (be it goods or services) for more than it costs you to provide it you can keep going, if you cannot recoup your costs you have to shut up shop and try something else.
Increasing the costs of business, whether through additional taxation or increased input-costs such as energy bills, reduces the ability of business to make a profit. It causes jobs to be lost as wage costs are cut in an attempt to keep afloat. Those jobs cannot be replaced by direct state employment (using the additional taxes that caused unemployment in the first place) because state-employment is not productive.
You see, it’s all about wealth. I don’t think our friends on the political left understand wealth. Wealth is stuff, in particular it is stuff that makes life comfortable. It is not dollars and pounds alone, it is what those dollars and pounds are able to buy. The more stuff that is made and sold the more wealth increases. But a lot of jobs don’t actually make any wealth, they don’t make any stuff, they just use-up money that could otherwise be put to the task of making new wealth.
When Joe Smith is working in a profitable factory his work not only provides him with a wage it also produces stuff, stuff that is bought and sold so that others earn a living. After the factory closes and Joe Smith gets a job filling in forms for the government, he does not make any stuff. Of course his wages are spent as they were before and through that process he helps shops and other businesses to survive, but he does not add anything more than that to the economy. Unless an economy concentrates its efforts on creating stuff the money eventually runs out because that economy consumes stuff all the time (food, clothes, vibrating bedroom novelties and the like) which has to be replaced. If it is not replaced, standards of living must fall and, in extreme circumstances, that can include not having enough food and water to keep people alive.
Whether or not carbon dioxide will ever have a serious detrimental effect on sea levels, intensity of hurricanes and the percentage of polar bears who contract swine flu, increasing the costs of business will cause people to lose their jobs.
And never overlook that it is always, always, always those at the bottom of the pyramid who get hit hardest. They are both the most dispensable and the least able to provide a buffer for themselves in case times get hard.
One day the lesson will be learned that increased costs imposed by government cause unemployment among the lowest earners first and in greatest numbers. I say it will be learned, perhaps it won’t because it has been seen over and over again yet still those who claim to care most for the lowly people continually introduce policies that hit those people first and hardest.
For a bankrupt State to exacerbate its dire economic position by imposing yet more costs on wealth-creating businesses is sheer madness. Even if you believe carbon dioxide to be Arsenic in sheep’s clothing, taking measures that cause people to be less able to cope with hardship cannot be the answer.
The whole thing is nuts.
“Easy. Just pass a law stating that to be true. Ahnie will sign it. And let’s round off pi to 3.0 by statute, while we’re at it.”
Robert A. Wilson’s law of the superiority of politics to economics:
“If A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C, except where prohibited by law.”
It would be difficult for Anthony to move himself out of California, but if the difference is between having a business and not having one, then the pressure is certainly there.
I’m frantically looking for work at the moment, and I have a wife and two young children. Beyond the catcalling over bad climate science, many people like me are afraid that the future will be a poor, miserable one.
Cap & Trade was originally intended to fill the federal government’s coffers. And it would have, if the Democrats had kept to their original plan: carbon credits were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder by the federal government, which would have raised huge revenues to fund Obama’s immensely expensive healthcare proposals. But that’s not what happened.
In order to get the necessary House votes for Cap & Trade [which only passed by an extremely close 219 – 212 margin], Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to agree to give away 85% of all carbon credits issued, free of charge, to the special interests who prop up her Democrats in Congress. Without Pelosi’s giveaway, the C&T bill would have gone down to certain defeat.
So to avoid the looming defeat of the C&T bill, House Democrats, flogged by Pelosi and Obama, agreed to forfeit 85% of the government’s expected income from auctioning carbon credits.
There is no possible way that the Democrats can now enact their socialized healthcare system without heavily taxing private health benefits, and raising taxes on the middle class — both of which Obama repeatedly promised not to do when he was campaigning.
This is why communist countries close their borders and seal the exits. It only works on a captive population.
Please leave Alabama alone. I live here and love it. the winters are cold the summers are extremely hot. the taxes are high. there are no jobs. (for the most part not true.) It is nice here but we also have our troubles, our sales tax is high as much as 10% depending on the county and city you live in. For instance we have a 1% hospital sales tax in the town near where I live but the hospital closed about 12 years ago but we still have the tax. The problem is very simple we must all go on a diet and move to smaller digs. If you can’t afford fuel for farming the cost of the produce goes up until the people can;t afford it any longer. travel is totally restricted. (unless you are in government.) There are no large gardens because,
1. Very few people now know how to grow beans corn cabbage and other vegetables. and
2. you can’t afford to run your garden equipment due to a lack of available fuel and there aren’t enough horses to farm with any longer.
The people will go to work for less to get food and live in tents or on the national forest in tents and lean tos. ( starting to look better all the time.) Cant afford housing and groceries at the same time. and there is no use having a house if you are going to starve to death in it. Burn wood as long as it lasts but everyone will be burning wood as other fuels becomes unavailable due to lack of carbon credits available. or cost increase because of the costs of credits. Yep it looks like it is going to be a long time for our economy to come back. I can easily imagine going back to the 1910’s era with most folks walking every where again. Just think the rebirth of the country store, the local meat cutter, the local grist mill. Yep eliminate the availability of reasonably priced fuel, dependable fuel, and the ability to use it and I can see us moving back to the early 20th century. Remember that those that are making these laws and enforcing them will not be effected as they will be using government permits so that they can enforce their plans. I wish that I were being sarcastic but this scenario could really happen in the next 2 or 3 years if the actions of the current administration and its cronies in the national legislature aren’t curbed.
God help us.
Thanks for listening to my rant.
Bill Derryberry
Maybe a Californian investigative reporter could find out who or what entities will be selling carbon credits. It could be interesting. After all, it’s your spendable income that will be paying for those carbon credits.
On a side note. I have a bunch of squirrels that bury walnuts in my yard every year. As trees sprout up, I them dig up. You think I could sell carbon credits to California businesses if I left them in the ground?
K 19:28
Lets keep Alabama out of this discussion. You must be a a naive yankee.
HI Anthony and all,
I’m getting tired of Canadian winters, which I swear are getting colder of late.
Am greatly diappointed with the global warming people for failing to deliver as promised. This last winter was particularly long and cold.
Was thinking about Palm Springs. I understand it has an unfailing water supply – is this true?
Wherever I go must have adequate water – this leaves out much of Nevada, doesn’t it?
Am now concerned about this latest tax knock on California. I also hear they charge non-residents more tax, even though we consume much less public services.
So watts left – New Mexico? Parts of Nevada? Has to be warm in winter,
Polite suggestions please.
California has become a showcase for failed liberal policies. The end could come soon when banks will no longer accept state IOU’s and no more financing is available.
Smokey (20:43:29) :
Cap & Trade was originally intended to fill the federal government’s coffers. And it would have, if the Democrats had kept to their original plan: carbon credits were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder by the federal government, which would have raised huge revenues to fund Obama’s immensely expensive healthcare proposals. But that’s not what happened.
In order to get the necessary House votes for Cap & Trade [which only passed by an extremely close 219 – 212 margin], Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to agree to give away 85% of all carbon credits issued, free of charge, to the special interests who prop up her Democrats in Congress. Without Pelosi’s giveaway, the C&T bill would have gone down to certain defeat.
So to avoid the looming defeat of the C&T bill, House Democrats, flogged by Pelosi and Obama, agreed to forfeit 85% of the government’s expected income from auctioning carbon credits.
There is no possible way that the Democrats can now enact their socialized healthcare system without heavily taxing private health benefits, and raising taxes on the middle class — both of which Obama repeatedly promised not to do when he was campaigning.
*************************************
Smokey,
You are right – but did you know that the same CO2 credit giveaway happened in Europe. Reportedly there are companies that now have CO2 credits worth more than the entire remainder of the corporation.
This is how you get people to do highly immoral things – you give them huge sums of money.
But an honest auction of credits would not help either – industry cannot afford to pay for this global warming fraud.
Jack:
I said nothing negative about Alabama. I could have said Idaho or Iowa and made the same point. That you don’t see much about those places on TV. But you do see plenty about how great it would be to migrate into a golden blessed place like CA.
You would also see NYC and to a lesser extent Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, etc. US shows and foreign versions of our magazines are seen and read around the world. So which part of the US is a potential immigrant going to think might be his entry point?
Look at it this way. When we think of Canada what comes to mind? It isn’t the North or the prairies, it is Vancouver, Toronto, etc. Because that is what gets media attention.
But I would rather be a naive yankee than cast slurs at them 150 years after the Civil War. I am from Tennessee. Bill in Vigo first responded about Alabam but then continued with an intelligent comment.
I am part of the CA sane drain. Washington St is going down the same gurgler. 10 years ago I read that 200K jobs had left CA… for other states. I wonder what that number is now. CA and other Dem. controlled states sure prove the truth of the title of Michael Savage’s recent book: “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder”.
JohnA 20:41:0. I am sorely afraid that the scenario that you have looming in your near future is one that a great many Americans are facing. My wife and I are both now disabled. ( I worked until I literally fell over with cancer.) We were awarded the custody of 4 grandchildren due to the neglect of their mother and multiple fathers. Due to both legal and illegal drug abuse.) We are looking at the possibility of very hard times in the near future also due to the lack of work available to us. (yes you are allowed to do some very limited work.) if able to find work that is within our now limited physical abilities. We are Americans and we will find a way to raise these children. It may not be comfortable but it will be successful. John I am proud of you, you haven’t whined, you haven’t expressed doubt, and you still have faith in the ability of our nation to survive the best efforts of very poor politicians with more interest in the protection of the party than the protection of the American people. This is the great thing about this blog and Anthony deserves great credit in that he attracts such strong followers to his posts and positions. The people that visit here are for the most part problem solvers and their opinions are greatly appreciated by this poor “conservative” with a belief that you are responsible for your own actions. There is a passage in the “Good Book” that implies that if you don’t work you don’t eat. Perhaps our leaders should be introduced to this thought. That should certainly level the “playing field” and the wealth would be spread according to the fruits of your own labor and your taking responsibility for your on predicament. Again thanks for enduring my rant.
Bill Derryberry
“I shall just wait for the forthcoming avalanche of foreclosures and perhaps pick up one or three of them! I want them all by the seaside.”
Surely you understand that seaside homes will go to the politically connected Democrats.
Rick Sharp (21:06:49) :
California has become a showcase for failed liberal policies. The end could come soon when banks will no longer accept state IOU’s and no more financing is available.
And civil servants will wander the streets in search of sustenance.