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,
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Interesting to see this debate raging, from far away (NZ).
Megan McArdle has a lovely quote that fits this schemozzle perfectly, even though it’s context is the funding of healthcare. Link:
http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/07/funding_health_care_with_a_surtax.php
And the quote:
“There’s a reason that most countries do not attempt to fund large welfare states with a very progressive income tax, the way we do*. The income of the wealthy is fungible, mobile, and volatile. These are not strengths from the vantage of the tax system. Paying for a huge new entitlement which will, at best, grow steadily during downturns, should not be done with a tax that will plummet the way progressive income tax revenues seem to during a depression. See: California, State of.”
Fungible, mobile and volatile……
Oh, and I’m going to steal that IowaHawk link – priceless.
For those looking to move, please do not consider the south central west coast of Florida.
We like our uncrowded roads, our uncrowded beaches, our uncrowded stores and restaurants.
RE: “Does anybody know why California keeps gaining so many people despite high taxes, high prices, and stupid fact-less restrictive legislature? Why would anyone choose to live with that?”
They are from hell holes like China, India and Mexico. The ones from the first two places are well educated professionals, however, since they grew up in hell holes, things here don’t seem too bad to them. The ones from the last place not only have the hell hole factor but are also barely literate in most cases. And then, to boot, all three of these groups are fecund. It will be interesting to see how tolerant their kids are of all the BS here.
RE: E.M.Smith (02:19:31) :
Checking in here just a bit to your north, a bit more out in the boonies (“SF hinterlands” I term it, I’ll leave it up to folks to guess the possibilities). Ditto on the traffic experience. As for $$$, I sadly report that my revenue stream is about 57% of what it was 3 or 4 years ago. Still nothing to sneeze at but dang, that is definitely a DEPRESSION at the individual level, recession is too weak word.
too weak A word …
Anthony, I may be coming late to the party, but let me suggest that if you’re thinking about relocating to Texas, you don’t want to go to Austin. The state gummint and largest university are there, and you know what that means. North Texas (that part of Texas south of the Red River) is a nice place. You can have as much energy as you want in Dallas or Fort Worth, or a calm, quiet life elsewhere. Pretty good sailing just east of Dallas County (ahem). A wonderful cultural district in Fort Worth. Beautiful countryside. You would be most welcome!
Juraj V. (01:51:41) :
Communism is that long, hard road from capitalism to capitalism.
Anthony, and all other capitalists are more than welcome in Texas. No state income tax. Oil is king. Co2 is a birthright. Come one, come all… Texas-style gummint is the future, California style tax and burn is the past…
Let’s build on a real foundation for our children. Why save AIG? Because they hold the bloated retirement accounts of our servants? What a joke… it’s our country, our money and our future. Let the bureaucrats who have served so little receive only a little. No more $$$ for the UN.
It may be time to build some walls…
I am staying. This it the line in the sand. This is where the realists are going to strangle Al Gore’s baby. In it’s California cradle.
I am going to repeal AB32. Me.
All by my lonesome if I have to, but it will go smoother with your help.
You have a business in California? What’s cheaper, packing up and relocating to the deserts of Nevada, bending over while the democrats and their braindead following try to extinguish the human footprint (ie: paying up the $50K), or paying someone to write up the repeal, getting the necessary petition signatures, putting it on the ballot, then watching the stupid looks on the democratic legislatures faces as it is repealed by over 2/3rds majority in supposedly liberal California?
I know which one of those options I like.
I am staying.
I am going to repeal AB32. Me. This is the line in the sand. The great battle of our time.
papertiger (19:37:10) :
I am going to repeal AB32. Me.
All by my lonesome if I have to, but it will go smoother with your help.
I am going to repeal AB32. Me. This is the line in the sand. The great battle of our time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I and our other fellow Californians are going to help you, papertiger. We’re going to sign your petition and flush AB32 down the toilet with our votes.
papertiger, and others who wish to repeal AB 32.
California Assemblyman Dan Logue already has a bill authored to do just that. He could use your support. The bill is AB 118.
http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/3/?p=article&sid=209&id=219065
Rodger
The problem with that is it has to pass through the legislature and then get signed by Arnold.
Neither of those things are going to happen.
As in all thinks moral and prudent that happen in Calif, this has to go over their heads. A repeal referendum of the general public is the only way.
Thanks for the tip though. If Dan Logue can write an assembly bill, he can write a State proposition.
Half way home. 😉
“…Printing money is a signal of the end – scrip and IOUs are weak cousins. Rule by martial law and by gangs of deputized thugs usually follows.
But countries are durable and hard to break. Sometimes recovery arrives in the most improbable guise, when all seems to have failed, and the politicians seem mad.”
“…Wealth is stuff, in particular it is stuff that makes life comfortable….”
Oil, Food, Money and Politics – they are all intertwined so I suggest all here at Watts up learn about MONEY vs WEALTH and the Federal Reserve bank. This is key to understanding the reasons behind the supposed “Banking Crisis”, the “Food Safety bills” and “Global Warming”
Money is metal coins, currency (bank IOU’s) and credit (fairy dust). US Money’s only value is in its use as a medium of exchange instead of direct barter. (pay those taxes with chicken eggs next time)
Wealth is land and the labor to turn it into useful goods/food. The food safety bills make paperwork errors a crime for farmers with up to a million in fines per occurance. This is an easy way for the US government to confiscate farmland. (Environmentalism is designed to retain the mineral wealth of that land until the bankers can confiscate it) http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/central-food-patriot-act-hr-875.html
Food Safety Bill, HR875 was jumped on by me and many others so was withdrawn. Obama set up a committee from the USDA and FDA to implement it by bypassing Congress instead. http://www.growingproduce.com/news/avg/?storyid=2146
The key to what is happening is fractional reserve banking. It means when the bank loaned you $100,000 for a house they really lent you $3,000 and the rest was fairy dust. However they collect the entire $100,000 plus interest that represents your labor. So tell me how banks could “fail” with a great setup like this. The Original Federal Reserve Act required a fractional reserve of 40% so a bank could fail, with only 3% bank money invested you really have to F…Up!
Thats to the “banking Crisis”, Obama doubled the money supply (treasury bonds) and given the use of fractional banking to turn ever three dollars worth of bonds the banks buy into $100 of US money, the stability and status of US currency will soon take a nose dive. China is already restless calling for a world currency to replace the dollar in international trade.
“Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, put it more bluntly:
“We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-ticker/2009/03/13/signs-of-stress-warren-buffetts-downgrade-chinas-treasury-jitters.html
I did a check of the 1970 vs 1996 census/labor statistics. Manufacturing jobs have decreased. Government jobs are supposedly the same but given EPA, OSHA et al that has to be a artifact of switching how they count jobs now. The Carbon Tax will finish off the decline in US manufacturing EPA, OSHA and the World Trade Organization started.
Maurice Strong has setup a “consulting business” in China so Carbon Tax dollars from Gore’s “only sanction carbon exchange” can be invested in China….And when the USA has finally achieved bankruptcy the international bankers will demand a “land for debt swap” or something similar to World Bank/IMf SAP that has bankrupted many third world farmers. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/IMF_WB/Budhoo_IMF.html
Our politicos are not crazy, they are bought and paid for….and not by US citizens.
Checkout PARTNERS IN CRIME: The Clintons, the Bushes, and BCCI
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/347
(Note the source is from the democrats…)
Starr himself (bank rolled the Clintons) may have been personally involved in BCCI-related corruption. Here’s what a former senior editor for Forbes has to say:
http://192.80.61.73/view/1996/norman.html
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” Maurice Strong, father of “global warming” Al Gore’s good buddy and advisor to the World Bank.
“A Primer on Money” by the house Banking Committee is a surprisingly easy read that explains a lot (http://www.devvy.com/pdf/2006_October/Patman_Primer_on_Money.pdf)
If the Right, Center AND Left realize we are all being brainwashed and fleeced by greedy bankers perhaps we have a chance to fight this intentional murder of our country.
California legislator reacts to the study on AB 32’s affect on small businesses:
http://www.rocklintoday.com/news/templates/roger_niello.asp?articleid=7885&zoneid=78
High bills and a bankrupt State caused by borrowing, spending and regulating.
The same formula is applied on a National level causing the debt thermometer to point at staggering $ 55.000,- per household.
And the end of this roller coaster ride is NOT in sight:
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/07/borrowing-spending-and-regulating-oh-my.html
How about the UN suing investment advisors for advising clients to invest in a project that isn’t green, like say a copper mine, oil company, or a company that makes charcoal fired barbecues!!! I guess this is the face of the new “free enterprise”. How much of this are people going to take? California’s laws may be a trial balloon to see if people will do anything about it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8607095
“Investment advisors and asset managers could be sued for negligence if they do not consider the environment and other social issues when making investment decisions, a United Nations report said on Tuesday.
Money managers have a legal responsibility to raise environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues when tendering investment and advising clients, a law expert and one of the report’s authors said.
“(There is a) very real risk that (the advisor) will be sued for negligence on the grounds that they failed to discharge their professional duty of care to the client by failing to raise and take into account ESG considerations,” said Paul Watchman.”
Roger Niello is my guy in the Assembly. I voted for him. He owes me.
Something else about Niello – he has spent the last year studying in detail the referendum process. It had to do with funky language used by AG Brown vis a vi the gay marriage prop, but experience is experience. It’ll work here too.
The study in question about the high cost of complying with AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act is no doubt a fine study. However, other similar studies have shown very little cost of complying, so unfortunately, we have a fairly common clash of “equal and opposing” experts. Time will tell if the cost is really as high as $50,000 per small business. For a historical precedent, when the Clean Air Act was first passed in 1970, imminent business collapse was predicted by some, but of course the vast majority of affected businesses came up with innovative and cost-effective solutions to reducing their pollution.
As a life-long Californian, I love it here in northern California and would recommend anybody that wants to leave should feel free to do so – the state is getting a little crowded. I have little love for southern California, for many reasons, but if anybody wants to leave there, it will probably help out the overpopulation problem there as well. Sad to see so many California-bashers are willing to criticize our Golden State. Sometimes it seems like everybody in the world wants to move here, so there must be something about California that appeals to people. Maybe more bad news about our anti-business environment will keep out more people, but unfortunately, I think we will always have more people than we can handle.
It’s not about the “Pollution”.
AB32 doesn’t have anything to do with cleaner air; it is simply a taxing bill.
California is burdened with State employee pension programs that simply are not sustainable in a capitalist society. They work for a few years; and then retire often at age 55, with a taxpayer funded gravy train that within five years has them collecting as much or more than they were getting before they retired. And many of them simply move on to another town, another agency, and go back to work at another excessive state salary; while still collecting their unsupportable “pension”.
The State Constitution needs to be changed to make ALL State employees including the legislature subject to the same laws that everyone else is; and they should be required to pay into the Social security program just like every other worker, and that social security program should be the only state employee “pension” fund; other than what the employee wants to salt away in a 401K type program on their own. In any case, no public employee should be able to colelct a dime of any taxpayer funded retirement, until they retire; and that should be suspended if they take any other government job.
Congress is exempting itself and also the President, from the miseries of the Socialized medicine plan they are about to land on us, without anyone in the entire Congress having read any of it; they don’t even know just who it was that wrote it.
It’s time to require that each Bill in the Congress be limited strictly to a single issue; with no amendments relating to anything not germane to that issue; and all Federal budgets should be restricted to cover only expenditures in the year in which it is passed; no expenditures approved for ANY spending in any subsequent year.
These chumps are approving spending that will not happen till years after they leave office.
Oh and I would make all government employees tax exempt; no income tax for them; of course their salaries would be reduced accordingly . That would rmeove the phony notion that government employees are taxpayers; they are not; they are tax consumers. I make no value judgement as to whether we need certain government workers; but those we do need should not pay taxes (income) Don’t talk to me about FAIR taxes, and VATs. You can only tax a profit making renewable resource; which is income.
We have millions of retiured folks who paid income taxes all their earning lives, and then when they stop earning, some idiots want to switch the system to a consumption tax, to continue bleeding those folks of what they managed to save.
Government by definition is non profit; hence government workers can’t pay taxes anyway; and getting rid of the beaurocarices that exist just to manage the fictitious tax “payments” that government employees go through the motions for; simply raises the cost of government for no purpose.
What the heck are we talking about this stuff here for ?
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