Seeing red: jobs initiative to limit California's AB32 greenhouse gas law will be on the November ballot

@ur momisugly E.M.Smith, well-said, sir, well-said.
Those same laws of economics also work (as you very well know), for most every other sector of the economy. Thus, when, for example, oil refineries are faced with spending billions to comply with cap-and-trade laws to curb their carbon dioxide output, they may find it less expensive (and more profitable) to shut down the refineries’ manufacturing portions and import gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel from refineries in other states or other countries. The job losses will be substantial, as it takes only a few people to run a tank farm. They can also dismantle and remove the manufacturing portions and reduce their property tax bills. Having less manufacturing equipment, or simply not running it, means fewer parts and supplies must be purchased, fewer contract workers employed for maintenance and repairs, and the same chain of events you described above for local businesses. There will be fewer people in the hotels and restaurants, and school attendance will decrease.
Car assembly plants have already run a similar set of calculations and shut down every single plant in California. There are also many other businesses and manufacturing entities that decided the cumulative costs of doing business in California is just not worth the time, cost, aggravation, potential for fines for “doing it wrong,” lawsuits from almost every direction, and other wonderful aspects of running a business in California.
What we do have remaining are the ports, especially in Los Angeles and Long Beach. These would, one surmises, be immune from the vagaries of California laws and regulatory burdens. These should be a booming economic engine that bring in goods from overseas. One would surmise wrongly. The ports (called POLA and POLB, pronounced “Pole A” and “Pole B” by the locals…somewhat amusing, I think) are subject to the draconian Air Resources Board, plus its local arm, South Coast Air Quality Management District. Those two august bodies have decided that ships are dirty, smelly, and create pollution. Thus, they have passed laws that make it very costly for the ships to continue to use these particular ports. Laws such as must use shore power when at the dock, cannot burn the usual ship’s fuel oil within a certain distance to land, but a more costly low-sulfur fuel, and must slow down within a certain distance of land.
Shippers, like farmers, have options. In this case, a new port is in progress down the coast a few hundred miles in Mexico. The organizers are having difficulties, mostly with Mexican regulations and politics, but eventually the port will be built. The Mexican port will have a rail line to move the containers north into the US. Then, California’s days of having enormous economic activity from two of the busiest ports in the nation will be over. The knock-on effects of less port activity includes trucking companies to move the containers from the ports to inland warehouses, the warehouse distribution centers, and railroads to move the containers to destinations throughout the US. Jobs in all those sectors will be lost. But the air will be cleaner. Tourists in Disneyland will be overjoyed.
What AB 32 is about to do to California is kill the economy. As an economist, I would hope you would agree that increasing the costs of electric power, gasoline, and diesel fuel will increase the costs of almost every person and business. AB 32 requires huge amounts of renewable electric power, low-carbon gasoline (read ethanol at higher levels than before), and low-carbon diesel fuel (which will be bio-diesel). All will be much more expensive. Consumers will have less disposable income, while prices for goods and services must increase if businesses continue to make a profit.

“”” E.M.Smith says:
May 4, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Polar Ice Cap says: Don’t know how true this is but it’s from the comments in the link and it doesn’t sound too far-fetched:
“The California Central Valley accounts for quite a few of the top 20. It is severely stressed due to the cutoff of water Sacramento River “required” due to a lawsuit by the environmental lobby to help a fish — the Delta smelt — of no particular significance. ” […]” — in the San Joaquin Valley.”
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“”” And I watched farmers convert to crops that were not their dream due to labor costs. As people sat unemployed on the dole watching TV… Farmers can be remarkably passionate about things like peaches or tomatoes. Being pushed into alfalfa against their will can be a real bummer. One good friends dad did that. Wanted a small peach orchard, grew alfalfa… It was a cost issue. “””
Well E.M. has been closer to the action than I have, and for a longer time; but his Epistle above is the exact picture I am familiar with.
The wackos rant and rave about farmers spraying poisonous chemicals all over the farm workers. Did you get what E.M. said about maximisng profits; you don’t make any profit from wasting pesticides or herbicides on people. It the weeds and food eating critters you want to spray. Row crops are automated so the crop and the weed area are segregated; so you can spray the weeds, and not the crop. They don’t want the weeds because then they are wasting water growing weeds. I met a chap once who developed an LED multispectral scanner, that went into a sensor head on the weed sprayer. Multicolor LEDs including Infrared, illuminated the ground as the machine moved over it; and most of the time, the returned signal gives a clear signature of ordinary plain dirt; well actually good quality soil.
So who wants to spray dirt; it’s harmless. Now and then a weed pops up and gives out its characteristic Chlorophyl signature; with a strong infrared reflectance. You know that isn’t a crop plant, because it is not in the crop row; so the spray head zaps that one single weed plant; they ain’t spraying the entire known universe. AS EM said it is profit they are trying to maximise; not the use of pesticides, and herbicides.
If the stone fruit farmer suddenly is presented with a sudden rain squall, before he has picked his peaches, and nectarines; well he has a problem. In just a few hours he is going to have brown rot, and lose most of his crop; so now he has to choose whether to let the crop go or pay the cost of spraying or dusting; I believe it is yellow sulphur they use. My neighbor grows exotic stone fruit, Citrus, and grapes; table grapes. He waters appropriately and gets his grapes (mostly exotics) nice and fat and juicy with plenty of sugar content; then he and his wife pick and box them twice a week, and then drive them to LA to sell them to long time customers in Santa Monica Farmers Markets. It’s a lot of hard back breaking work for them; but it gets them more profit than selling a few tons of grapes to some wine maker.
A few years ago; we had a short 30 minute hailstorm from nowhere that hit the bay area with a “gee whiz” where did that come from; with cars slipping and sliding all over the road.
My neighbor down in the San Joachin; was on his way back from his Saturday trip to the market; when the hail storm went zipping through our neighborhood. I was actually home at the time; so I went over there, and covered up all his raisin papers on the ground with a couple more papers, and weighed them down with a little dirt. He got home about 20 minutes after the hail went through. The raisins I covered were all that survived the hail damage. The next day, another local farmer (white guy) helped him pick his entire table grape crop, and truck it off to a brandy manufacturer. He collected an $800 check for his entire crop; that would normally have netted him a $24,000 return. Yes he had some crop insurance; but for him and his wife; their grape farming was over for the year. He survived and still grows his operation steadily; and the Bay area drivers still slip and slide every time the TV weatherman says”gee whizz; I wonder where that came from.” He does have his own wells; both house and Agriculture; plus he can get water from the canal that goes through my place; well that is when they actually have water in the canal; that’s when I can harvest the crawdads; and sometimes get a bullfrog or two.
You wouldn’t believe some of the other horror stories from those communities; including that of a family business, that was visited by George W. Bush. They are the largest employer in the region; and their experience with illegal aliens; would make you hair stand on end; I should tell you the founder of the business; was also Ex US Army (WW-II), and also of Mexican Ancestry.

E. M. Smith, always a pleasure to read your posts.

Thanks for some great posts, E. M. Smith, and what’s happening in the US has already happened here in the UK some time ago. Less than 1.2% of population are involved in growing food and mechanisation dominant.
People adapt to the unfair rules, regs, taxes e.t.c. imposed by bureaucracy and find ways around the systems to maximise income. Outside of agribusiness we have a thriving black-market culture in all areas of commerce, with the government losing out on £b’s in taxes and duty – cash is king.
We need to get some common sense back into politics fast!