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.
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- The Many Moving Pieces of California’s Cap and Trade Program (junkscience.com)
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It’s important to note that C&T revenues will be used to fund new programs, and will do nothing to reduce the current $16 billion deficit. Complete fiscal idiocy. It’s also worth noting that the C&T tax (and that’s what it is – a tax) is in addition to the massive tax hikes sought by Gov. Brown which will be on the ballot in November. The people of California are gonna get crushed.
Roger Cohen,
Yes. Thank you for pointing that out.
I do find Nordhaus’s DICE and RICE modelling valuable for several reasons:
1. it shows very clearly that policies like Kyoto, and policies proposed by Sir Nicholas Stern, Al Gore and some of the limits being advocated for CO2 emissions, CO2 concentrations, or temperatures, would be hugely expensive and impracticable
2. it shows that there is no urgency to get started (i.e. delaying 50 years will have little effect on the climate)
3. it shows that it is pointless to act unless the whole world acts together with an economically efficient system (which is virtually impossible)
4. it shows what are the most important parameters (e.g. the damage function) href=”http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf”>(2008) A Question of Balance, Table 7-2, p130.
5. it documents how enormous are the uncertainties on the most important parameters
6. it shows where we would need to place our research effort to reduce the uncertainties (e.g. the damage function and climate sensitivity)
7. it focuses attention on just how uncertain and probably exaggerated to the high side are the damage estimates and the damage function
8. it provides a way to demonstrate all the above to the pragmatic ‘luke warmists’, those with an open mind, politicians and media.
u.k.(us) said:
May 31, 2012 at 7:03 pm
_Jim says:
May 31, 2012 at 6:28 pm
“Okay guys; you gotta go read up on this –….”
============
To what end.
The weak minded, want the short story.
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Hey u.k.(us): I don’t come to this blog because I want “the short story”, I can get that in the MSM.
As to being weak minded, it is true that I am not a scientist, but I come here and I read, and I do my best to understand. I am sure that there is a lot of stuff I don’t know, but I don’t see how that makes me weak minded.
There’s something unsettling about that “I detest you” smile that creeps across a bureaucrat’s face when the public starts talking back.
GeoLurking says:
May 31, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Simple… MOVE. Let the inbred bureaucrats haul their own crap.
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That’s the idea. They get rid of all but ‘your’ company and you get all the business. You can certainly afford a little ‘giving back’ to your favorite rep. A little grease keeps the wheels turning. Unions love this.
They meet to get ideas as to what to do with all the ‘projected revenue gains’. As the saying goes ‘Follow the money’. My guess is no one will suggest ‘pay state debt’ as an option.
All your base are belong to us.
Peter Lang says:
May 31, 2012 at 9:17
Your comment and observations are spot on.
I agree that Nordhaus’s model is a useful instructional tool. And it tells us a lot that his optimum carbon tax needs to be gradually implemented over decades in order to minimize its economic cost, while saving longer term environmental damage (all assuming the IPCC is right). So much for the advantages of the “green economy.”
If you research the damage function, you will find that the values are set by the method of “subjective probability.” While it is a technique often used in social psychology when you don’t know the answer, it is far from rigorous, being subject to the inputters prejudices. As a result the numbers from different inputters (take Tol and Mendelsohn as opposite extremes) are all over the place. Nordhaus takes several inputs and forms a “consensus.” It is this consensus that tells us that his optimum carbon tax, based on a climate sensitivity of 3.0 deg C for 2 x CO2, will save us X trillion dollars (as you see, X is a function of time). These savings arise by lowering the global average temperature 0.1 deg C over a century or more. We are then asked to enact such a tax to “save” 0.1 deg, an absurdity on the face of it.
“Keep your eye on the pea,” as you have done.
The presentation of public concerns only happens in a democracy.
However, this happened in California; if you lived here, you’d understand.
D Caldwell says:
This meeting was to discuss disposition of the C&T funds already mandated by CA law – not to discuss the merits of C&T. The letter and dissenting comments were misplaced. The CA legislature is the only place where this madness can be stopped.
D Caldwell, what better place to spend this windfall than on those who they are stealing this money from. They want the Cap N Trade, they can have it if they pay the people whom have to be financially hurt by it. Why use the money to balance the state budget or pay for pensions? In doing so there is no benefit. Paying the people who supposedly are the polluters gives a benefit as the liberals can have their regulation without hurting people and business. What a novel idea.
So the letter was not misplaced and the way government should be run. Taking from Peter and giving to Paul is not the way; helping Peter be more efficient enhances the benefits of why the law was enacted. Otherwise the law is just one more useless law in California designed only to further the tax burden with no benefits to Man or the environment.
They had every right to submit the letter asking for this windfall. They are the ones paying for it. The other manner of characters have no right to capitalize on others misfortune just because the California one party system contrived of liberal activists says so. We are first Americans with rights of property.
From the CARB website:
“The Mission of the California Air Resources Board: To promote and protect public health, welfare and ecological resources through the effective and efficient reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering the effects on the economy of the state.”
“The Major Goals of the Board are to: … Base Decisions on Best Possible Scientific and Economic Information; Provide Quality Customer Service to All ARB Clients.”
techgm says:
From the CARB website:
“The Mission of the California Air Resources Board: To promote and protect public health, welfare and ecological resources through the effective and efficient reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering the effects on the economy of the state.”
“The Major Goals of the Board are to: … Base Decisions on Best Possible Scientific and Economic Information; Provide Quality Customer Service to All ARB Clients.”
Techgm, I have edited CARB’s mission and goals:
“The Mission of the California Air Resources Board: to promote and protect public employees health, welfare and ecological resources through the effective and efficient reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering the effects on the California state budget and the public employees of the state.”
“The Major Goals of the Board are to: Base Decisions on only the bought and paid for Scientific and Economic information that agrees with our theories; Provide Quality Customer Service to all CARB and State employees ensuring long and prosperous careers under Public Service.”
In BC, the carbon tax on nat gas is $30 per ton of CO2 equivalent as of June 1. This about a 35% tax on the commodity price of nat gas. The gov gets away with this tax because nobody takes the time analyze the nat gas bill.
@Author of the Letter …. rather than waste time and resources on what you know is a futile act, why not do something meaningful?
The California Construction Trucking Association and California Dump Truck Owners Association are at the heart of all construction activities in California. Simply withhold service to to any public sector project to start, and then stop ALL service to ALL projects, public and private.
There is more than one way to achieve a result – CARB wants to reduce emissions and/or penalize those who do the work in California. Stop ALL work by your members and publicize the reason why.
All Californian’s benefit from the work of these construction trades. The trades should no be penalized for providing a valued and necessary service. If the State intends to continue to unfairly penalize your groups then stop providing service.
See how quickly the State decides its worth talking when the construction is shut down.
In Minnesota the state government shutdown over budget, cost hundreds of millions on idled construction projects.
Productive, informed people *leaving* is *why* we’re in this mess!
If you run away now, you’ll have to run away from wherever you went, because the idiots are guaranteed to follow you!
wws says:
May 31, 2012 at 5:23 pm
for all of you in California, all I can say is…
Come to Texas!!! Texas is open for business, and we want you!
____________________________________
No you do not want them.
New Hampshire got the Marxist overflow from Massachusetts when the Marxists in MA passed California type laws but did not want to pay for them in taxes. They moved to NH and then complained it was not more like MA – Rolls eyes. So they have been trying to pass California type laws ever since. NC has the same problem.
A little history here – I remember when California was a good old red-neck, blue collar state (which it obviously is not anymore) where a person could leave the keys in the car and not worry about it being stolen, etc. San Francisco, for an example, was a solid working class town with progressive instincts. CA had its drawbacks – racism, misogyny, etc. but that’s improved.
The point here, politically speaking, just shows what happens when a bunch of city slickers from the East, South, and Midwest move out here and change the political landscape.
OK, city slickers, if you want, hammer me. Your turn.
I put this link in another thread, too, so I hope two isn’t thought of as ‘thread bombing’. It’s just appropriate to both.
I recently took a hard look at my utility bill and did a spreadsheet. Any of natural gas, propane (in 20 lb tanks), Diesel, Gasoline and of course ‘yard waste’ are cheaper ways to cook dinner than my nice clean All Electric Kitchen.
IF they layer more taxes on electricity and more on natural gas, all that will happen is that more yard waste will be burned instead of composted… I’m sure that will help the air.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/camping-at-home-is-cheaper/
They have no clue about how ’emergent systems’ like economies evolve. ( AKA “The Law Of Unintended Consequences”). So tax things like truckers too much and pretty soon you have no trucks… and no food in the stores.
Roger Cohen,
Thank you for your comment and for many good points and reminders (e.g. “keep your eyes on the pea”). Your point about how the damages of CAGW have been estimated is important. Without much better estimates for this critical input (and others) the basis for CO2 pricing is weak.
Be real careful what you ask for. Think “Austin everywhere”. Displaced libs endeavor to recreate the conditions they fled. It’s a virus.
A. Scott says:
@Author of the Letter …. rather than waste time and resources on what you know is a futile act, why not do something meaningful?
A. Scott, thank you for your advice however it does contain flaws specific to the industries regulated. I agree your idea would be the ultimate slap to the State of California but in reality it just would not work and here is why. The regulated class to start the boycott and the industries required are the small business in California. Large national and international companies would ignore the call and take the business away from their smaller counterparts and no benefits would be achieved.
For example, on the CARB’s diesel rule, the large conglomerates had no problems complying as they simply moved the non-compliant trucks to their other out of state branches and replaced them with compliant trucks. Small local businesses did not have that luxury and went out of business or paid huge dollars to continue to stay in business. Their non-compliant trucks were now worthless to sell.
A. Scott, if there were some way to implement your plan and to make it work like it did in Minnesota, we have yet to find a way. Has a lot of merit however and thanks again for the thought.