Oh this is delicious sweet irony…they adopted a plan but didn’t bother to make a complete environmental review like any other project in the state is required to do. That’s what they get for ramrodding the thing. From the:
Calif. cap-trade plan dealt blow by S.F. judge
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Friday, February 4, 2011
(02-04) 04:00 PST Sacramento – —
The California Air Resources Board violated state environmental law in 2008 when it adopted a comprehensive plan to reduce greenhouse gases and again last year when it passed cap-and-trade regulations, a San Francisco Superior Court judge has ruled in a tentative decision.
If the decision is made final, California would be barred from implementing its ambitious plan to combat global warming until it complies with portions of the California Environmental Quality Act, though it is not yet clear what the air board would have to do to be in compliance. The state’s plan, which implements AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, would reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
The Air Resources Board and those who brought the lawsuit, a variety of environmental groups represented by the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, a San Francisco organization, have until Tuesday to respond before the court makes a final ruling.
In his decision, Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled that the air board approved the larger plan to implement AB32 prior to completing the required environmental review, and that the board failed to adequately consider alternatives to cap and trade.
The Air Resources Board “seeks to create a fait accompli by premature establishment of a cap-and-trade program before alternative (sic) can be exposed to public comment and properly evaluated by the ARB itself,” Goldsmith found, adding that the air board’s “analysis provides no evidence to support its chosen approach.”
The judge said the air board’s reasoning for approving the larger plan without a complete review “undermines (the state environmental quality act’s) goal of informed decision-making.”
full story here
h/t to Russ Steele
A San Francisco judge? These guys are “ramrodding” each other.
I wonder what is really going on.
old engineer says:
February 4, 2011 at 9:47 pm
“disadvantaged communities.”
I see. Now I understand. That term is code that those living in California catch on to right away. Didn’t Lisa Jackson and Van Jones say going green is about “social justice”?
tokyoboy says:
February 4, 2011 at 7:27 pm
At last common sense is beginning to prevail even in a radical State?
Please don’t allow yourself to think that. I live in California. There is a motive that we could not associate with common sense.
BoomBoom says:
February 4, 2011 at 8:34 pm
“I never understood the liberals whole hearted embace of the “green” agenda. Green energy costs more, Barack himself said “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.””
Ultimately, the political agenda of modern American liberals to to shift the balance of the economy towards a larger public sector (as a percentage of GDP) and smaller private sector. The green agenda is a weapon in the service of this objective. What’s one of the few things, which if regulated, would give the liberals *complete* control over the private sector? CO2.
The liberals have discovered that its rather easy to corrupt scientists. All one needs to do is to offer biscuits (in the form of grants, fame and power) to those scientists who produce ‘the right answer’.
But I think this approach of using environment laws to force them to show a negative impact is brilliant. Hoist them on their own petard.
As student of cyclical theory, this is where I say, they try to revive the btu tax . . .
Clinton Retreats on Energy Tax in Fight Over Budget – NYTimes.com Jun 9, 1993 … On the chopping block is Mr. Clinton’s proposal to tax the heat content of fuels – the so-called Btu tax. Democratic leaders have indicated …
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/09/news/09iht-plan_1.html
It’s now called the “Carbon Tax”. And we already have Fuel taxes. . .
The theorists have the “Butterfly effect”, the “Goldilocks effect” . . . well why not the “Huckster effect”.
How many power plants, running for how long . . . . does it take to match . . . the “pollution” of this volcano?
I for one, see more precipitation in my future . . . I think I’ll plant some flower seeds.
The volcano on Mount Kirishima . . . Outstanding Photo’s
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351064/Japan-raises-alert-following-volcanos-biggest-eruption-50-years.html#ixzz1D5ZwNOL4
I thought the ruling elite were working towards the 1970 emission levels by driving out all forms of commerce so no one can afford the inflated power and gas costs so the whole place goes back to the stone age and there you go emissions right down, if anyone lives there any more, except the wealth elite and the unemployed, there you go socialist utopia, just like England but with a better climate.
the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, would reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020
ah, what good would this do anyway?
Weren’t 1990 levels supposedly causing global warming, too?
The liberal/cAGW plan for the poor is population control. A control figure of -90% seems to be popular.
California and it’s laws, bylaws, law enforcemnet and judiciary are a mystery and a source of wide-eyed wonder in other parts of the English-speaking world. Most of us non-Californians have no idea how the state even functions, being so deeply in debt.
Tom C says:
Why isn’t the Obama administration knocking down the doors of federal courthouses in the ninth circuit to demand that California cease and desist for usurping federal supremacy or creating a state by state patchwork of environmental laws/emission regulations?
You hit it on the head. But we all know why they won’t.
Where does California measure the CO2 content of their air in order to determine if their reduction methods are working?
If GLOBAL CO2 is a well-mixed gas, regardless of California’s contribution the rest of the world has a much larger contribution, hence any measurement they make in Ca will be swamped by this.
Well I don’t think that the Court needs to deal with whether CO2 has been shown to be good, or bad, or indifferent.
What the Courts need to deal with is why are unelected beurocrats making ANY laws of ANY kind.
We should require that our elected representatives in Government actually write every last word, of every law that they sign into existence. That way they should know exactly what is in the laws; and why. Then we wouldn’t be getting all these unconstitutional laws.
It’s the law that is unconstitutional ;has nothing to do with whether CO2 is good or bad.
Brian H said February 5, 2011 at 8:42 pm “The liberal/cAGW plan for the poor is population control. A control figure of -90% seems to be popular.”
Brian, I think that it is also “hoarding” . . . there’s not enough for everyone . . . like the depression and recent financial collapse . . . they want to “save themselves”.
Even, with efficiencies . . . there is only so much energy, to me it is why robotics is more important than mechanization. They must have someone to do the grunt work for them . . .