Strong headline, I know, but I didn’t believe this was true until I researched it myself. First some background; I once served as an elected official on my local school board. During orientation and virtually every annual CSBA meeting after that, along with numerous public meetings and letters to the editor where people constantly reminded us of the Brown Act, it loomed large as the most important law that we had to follow.
We were constantly reminded that if we did not follow the letter of the law and provide full and open access to all meetings (the exception being employee management) we would be guilty of breaking the open meeting law and subject to severe penalties. If our local school board in our small town ever tried to hold a closed-door meeting without the knowledge of the public, not only we would we be excoriated in the press and public discourse, but we would also have people filing for our election recall.
So, it was with shock and surprise that I learned today that the California Air Resources Board declared the method by which they could circumvent the public meeting laws. Even more shocking they put it in writing and, got the California State legislature to pass it as a law as a rider on a totally unrelated bill of legislation, and Governor Brown signed it into law on June 27th, 2012.
My friend Eric Eisenhammer first alerted me to the issue on his California Political Review blog. He writes:
On the afternoon the state budget was signed into law last Wednesday I received an email from a local activist informing me that hidden in a trailer bill titled SB 1018 was a provision exempting the upcoming cap and trade auction from open meeting rules.
CARB formed a company called Western Climate Initiative Inc. (WCI), to manage its upcoming cap and trade auction. This shadowy corporation, registered in Delaware, will be responsible for imposing billions in hidden energy taxes on California ratepayers and small businesses without public scrutiny or accountability.
SB 1018 was a “gut and amend” bill, with over 100 pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law along with the state budget. This legislation did not go through one committee hearing and most legislators probably never had a chance to read it. But buried in this bill in Section 12894(b)(2) is a line exempting WCI from a critical provision of the California Constitution, known as the Bagley-Keene Act, which provides meetings be open to public scrutiny.
Small business owners and citizen energy consumers care about protecting the environment, but CARB continually behaves as if it has something to hide.
When I first read that I really could not believe it. I could not believe that a state agency who is beholden to the same sorts of open meetings law that I was as a school board member would go to the lengths of trying to circumvent it, much less get it passed into law as an exception. So, I decided to check it out for myself.
First I located the document related to SB 1018. Eric was kind enough to direct me to the actual document and to the section that was relevant. Here is the URL of just one section of the monster sized SB1018 bill, section 39. The PDF: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1001-1050/sb_1018_bill_20120627_chaptered.pdf
The relevant part is in 12894(b)(2) of SB 1018. You can find that section from the bottom of page 23 to near the top of page 24. The relevant section says:
Chapter 5. Greenhouse Gas Market-Based Compliance
Mechanisms and Linkages to the State
12894. (a) (1) The Legislature finds and declares that the establishment of nongovernmental entities, such as the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, and linkages with other states and countries by the State Air Resources Board or other state agencies for the purposes of implementing Division 25.5 (commencing with Section 38500) of the Health and Safety
Code, should be done transparently and should be independently reviewed by the Attorney General for consistency with all applicable laws.
(2) The purpose of this section is to establish new oversight and
transparency over any such linkages and related activities undertaken in relation to Division 25.5 (commencing with Section 38500) of the Health and Safety Code by the executive agencies in order to ensure consistency with applicable laws.
(b) (1) The California membership of the board of directors of the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, shall be modified as follows:
(A) One appointee or his or her designee who shall serve as an ex officio nonvoting member shall be appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules.
(B) One appointee or his or her designee who shall serve as an ex officio nonvoting member shall be appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly.
(C) The Chairperson of the State Air Resources Board or her or his designee.
(D) The Secretary for Environmental Protection or his or her designee.
(2) Sections 11120 through 11132 do not apply to the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or to appointees specified in subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (1) when performing their duties under this section.
(c) The State Air Resources Board shall provide notice to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, consistent with that required for Department of Finance augmentation or reduction authorizations pursuant to subdivision (e) of Section 28.00 of the annual Budget Act, of any funds over one hundred
fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) provided to the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or its derivatives or subcontractors no later than 30 days prior to transfer or expenditure of these funds.
Did you catch it? Most people wouldn’t as it is a very short sentence written in gov-speak with redirected references to other laws. I only caught it because I was familiar with the sections pertaining to the state open meeting laws.
Here’s the relevant section:
(2) Sections 11120 through 11132 do not apply to the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or to appointees specified in subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (1) when performing their duties under this section.
Still don’t see it? It is about sections 11120 through 11132 of The California Code.
What are Sections 11120 through 11132? Wikipedia has a good summary:
The Bagley-Keene Act of 1967, officially known as the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, implements a provision of the California Constitution which declares that “the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny”, and explicitly mandates open meetings for California State agencies, boards, and commissions. The act facilitates accountability and transparency of government activities and protects the rights of citizens to participate in State government deliberations. Similarly, California’s Brown Act of 1953 protects citizen rights with regard to open meetings at the county and local government level.
The act also reaffirms, “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
Here’s the relevant section of the code, section 11121, which says private corporations setup to do state business are not exempt:
As used in this article, “state body” means each of the following: (a) Every state board, or commission, or similar multimember body of the state that is created by statute or required by law to conduct official meetings and every commission created by executive order. (b) A board, commission, committee, or similar multimember body that exercises any authority of a state body delegated to it by that state body. (c) An advisory board, advisory commission, advisory committee, advisory subcommittee, or similar multimember advisory body of a state body, if created by formal action of the state body or of any member of the state body, and if the advisory body so created consists of three or more persons. (d) A board, commission, committee, or similar multimember body on which a member of a body that is a state body pursuant to this section serves in his or her official capacity as a representative of that state body and that is supported, in whole or in part, by funds provided by the state body, whether the multimember body is organized and operated by the state body or by a private corporation.
Section 11122.5 reads:
(a) As used in this article, “meeting” includes any congregation of a majority of the members of a state body at the same time and place to hear, discuss, or deliberate upon any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the state body to which it pertains. (b) (1) A majority of the members of a state body shall not, outside of a meeting authorized by this chapter, use a series of communications of any kind, directly or through intermediaries, to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter of the state body. (2) Paragraph (1) shall not be construed to prevent an employee or official of a state agency from engaging in separate conversations or communications outside of a meeting authorized by this chapter with members of a legislative body in order to answer questions or provide information regarding a matter that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the state agency, if that person does not communicate to members of the legislative body the comments or position of any other member or members of the legislative body.
There are some exceptions listed in 11122.5, such as for conversations in open air public meetings and gatherings, but nothing like the blanket exception written in for WCI in SB1018.
Consider this a minute. CARB sets up a private corporation, Western Climate Initiative Inc. to manage the cap and trade program, doesn’t even bother to put the corporation in California, and opts for Delaware and the advantages that brings over California incorporation. Delaware is well known as a corporate haven, and that alone suggests they want it out of the prying eyes of California taxpayers.
But that wasn’t good enough, they take the extraordinary step of writing in an exemption to prevent public scrutiny, and then hide it as a rider in the 100+ pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law along with the state budget, effectively preventing any scrutiny.
What is CARB intent on hiding in WCI? Now, with a secret meetings get out of jail free card signed by Govenor Moonbeam, We may never know. Just like with the publicly funded Michael Mann fighting tooth and nail to prevent his emails from seeing sunshine, so it seems CARB has taken a cue from the behavior of climate science in general, and in a wave of the hand brushed aside the directive Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, deciding they know what is best for the people:
The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.
In my opinion, this flagrant and orchestrated criminal disregard of the California open meetings law is the epitome of unmitigated gall on the part of CARB, and specifically CARB director Mary Nichols who has made it clear she doesn’t give a rats ass about what the people of California have to say about her empire and how it operates.
At this point, when they decide they can hold themselves above the law that every other town board, council, and agency has to follow, I’m ready to declare CARB as an enemy of the people of California.
If you are a resident of California, complain loudly to your elected representatives and write your newspapers. The only way to fight this is with more sunshine.
HEAR, HEAR!!
“… unmitigated gall on the part of CARB, and specifically CRAB director Mary Nichols…”
Was that some sort of ‘Freudian slip’ there, suggesting she’s crabby?
REPLY: No that was a simple typo, foxed thanks. FYI, “crab” wouldn’t be the word I would use to describe her demeanor. – Anthony
Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet? and commented:
Every California Citizens Needs to Know About this!
The level of corruption in California’s government is unreal. Who needs open meetings, open meetings lead to voters learning the truth and we can’t have that in California. I’d type a bunch of unprintable cuss words against my state government, but you all know what I’m thinking.
The Democrat tactic “You’ll have to pass it to know what’s in it!” strikes again. The Pelosi Principle?
Anthony,
Did you use your voice recognition software to write this thread?
I suspect that you were an elected official of the school board and not an “electric” official.
Unless California school boards are more energetic than the ones here in Indiana.
REPLY: Yup, speech recognition fail, fixed -Anthony
Might check your term “electric official” Anthony. ??
REPLY: Yup, speech recognition fail, fixed -Anthony
One more step into totalitarianism.
We can always get a ballot measure on the ballot for Nov 11.
Time to disband CARB and send the employees to the food line! ALL OF THEM! Jail for the upper managers and directors.
I guess Governor Moonbeam REALLY doesn’t want a second term…
Didn’t Al Gore move to California when Tipper threw him out?
Here’s another example of the left doing whatever they can to operate in secret because if they were transparent they’d never be able to implement their extreme agenda. I’m more convinced than ever that this is the real issue behind everything else that needs to be exposed and hardly anyone is paying attention to it.
To the best of my knowledge, there’s no similar clause for RGGI, the northeast’s Cap & Trade program. There are some significant differences. While WSI currently is only California, RGGI is a nine state consortium incorporated in New York, a RGGI state. (Delaware is a RGGI state too.)
So far, I’ve been impressed with the amount of data RGGI lets out, somewhat less impressed that they toot their own horn a bit too loudly. On thing they do not release is the names of successful bidders in their autctions, but they do report the outfits registered to bid.
My RGGI page has been neglect for too long, I’m working on getting it up to date.
New Hampshire get a bill through the system that pretty much defangs RGGI for us, as it directs that all proceeds over $1 a ton are to be given to rate payers. Since NH exports a fair amount of energy, this may be a good example of the state bringing in money from Massachusetts to redistribute to our residents.
-Ric
Animal Farm?
We are all equal, but some are more equal than others?
November is rapidly approaching. Please, Please support candidates that will work aggressively to end this madness!
MtK
Are ya playing games or not ?
Humor is fun.
Some know nothing about fun, ever.
Those regulations don’t come into play when the meeting is about something that would be very unpopular among the people but key to the ruling party’s political agenda. You need to look at the “patronization for your own good” clause of the state constitution. It’s hard to find as it is written in a certain ink that can only be seen by fnord certain fnord people fnord.
SNIP: And this is related to the discussion about the CARB getting exempted from open meeting laws just how? Please use Tips and Notes for stuff like this. -REP]
Anthony, this is an illegal statute, if it indeed functions as purported.
It is illegal because it does not conform with the California Constitution, Article I Section 3,
” (b) (1) The people have the right of access to information
concerning the conduct of the people’s business, and, therefore, the
meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and
agencies shall be open to public scrutiny
I don’t have a whole lot of hope for that. People in general, are full on morons, and our elected “officials” do everything in their power to keep them that way.
While an attorney cannot guarantee the outcome of a case, this one seems very likely to me to be struck down by a court. Some may argue that the new corporation WCI is not a public body nor an agency, however, the Constitutional clause is much broader with its statement “right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business…” WCI is, or soon will be, conducting “the people’s business” therefore its meetings and writings shall be open to public scrutiny.
What will be interesting is how the WCI meetings and other information created therein will be made publicly accessible after the fact, after a court case has been heard and a plaintiff’s judgment rendered. This assumes meetings will be held and decisions made before a court can rule.
Closed meetings may render the WCI’s decisions invalid, and all such business may be required to be conducted again, this time with full public scrutiny. I use the word “may” here because, to the best of my knowledge and belief, this is new territory, even for California.
Interesting times we live in.
Disclaimer: As an attorney licensed in California, this and earlier comments are not a legal opinion nor legal advice. This and any other comments made by me are an exercise of my First Amendment rights to express an opinion on matters of public interest in a public forum. I have no client nor clients at this time involved in any matter concerning this issue. Anyone who requires legal advice should consult an attorney.
Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Link to California Constitution, and the pertinent section. Click Article I, Declaration of Rights.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/const-toc.html
The next paragraph of the California Constitution may also be applicable here, that is Article I Section 3 paragraph (b)(2):
“….A statute, court rule, or other authority adopted after the effective date of this
subdivision that limits the right of access shall be adopted with
findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and
the need for protecting that interest.”
It is not at all clear that the government complied with this Constitutional provision here; it seems on the face of it that no findings were conducted, to demonstrate what interest, if any, is protected by exempting WCI from the open access requirement, nor the need for the State to protect that interest.
The same legal disclaimer from above applies.
I visited CA a few times – between 1963 and 1983. Seemed like a nice place.
What is striking is all that drivel about “transparency” in the law PRIOR TO the portion guaranteeing that there will be none!!!
You could always take this to the Supreme Court. That way, you would know what Cheif Justice Roberts thinks the correct Constitutional terminology for secret meetings by public sevants and state agencies is.
Zeke; it’s covered in the Tax Code.
They care as much about ‘carbon pollution’ as they do the people who cause it. They care as much about the environment as they do about the ‘science’ behind their ‘climate change/chaos/disruption/whatever’.
It’s the $$$$$$, the whole $$$$$$, and nothing but the $$$$$$. So help me.
Well they do say that if you tip the US on it’s side, the loose screws end up in California. BTW, this side of the Pond, “Crab”, is slang for a type of body louse.
“pass it as a law as a rider on a totally unrelated bill of legislation”
That is the most peculiar thing about the US.
It means, you’re nuts.
I wrote and recorded a five minute special report on California Cap and Trade for TV this past week. It is in editing and scheduled to air late this coming week. My challenge now will be to find a way to work this new information into that report. The report, by the way, uses sound bites from Brian Duffy who heads up the CFactsocal opposition group battling Cap and Trade and Lord Monckton who does a great job in explaining how Cap and Trade may be the final nail in California’s fiscal coffin and will do no good what so ever to eliminate significant CO2 from the atmosphere.
It seems keeping the public in the dark is the methodology of the left. They don’t resile from lying either. Here in Aus the weapon of choice is silencing those media that have the audacity to question and criticise the wisdom of the left (includes our incompetent government). I can understand secrecy as applied to the military and diplomacy but in few other circumstances particularly when the public are both the funders and the potentially disadvantaged. Be like paying for your own hanging.
This is exactly the sort of thing that our much derided Uk tabloid press would kick up a stink about and mercilessly hound the Govt until it would warrant serious questions at Prime Ministrers Question time in Parliament.
Do the US media or Congress not have the same power to expose this breathtaking piece of effrontery and the two fingers the organisation concerned has raised to the notion of democracy?
Tonyb
This is not new… If you had been listening to people like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, especially Levin, you would have been given a running commentary of the abuse that the Obama administration and their state democrat allies have been perpetrating in all areas of the bureaucracy, from financial to environmental to social to constitutional…. It’s appalling what is being pushed through.
I can’t understand why the American system allows pieces of legislation to be lumped together and passed, let alone being passed without being read… It’s a system designed for corruption….. Certainly open to it at least.
These political players also know that the Republicans won’t throw bad legislation out when they gain power because Rino’s like McCain, etc, will horse trade on the corruption and create rubbish legislation of their own….. The Socialists don’t mind, because bigger government is their aim anyway. In the end you’ll have a single party system that pretends to be a Two party system.(in some ways, that has already happened)… The Western socialists look at the emerging modern Chinese regime and utterly envy it. No different than back in the 20′ and 30’s when our Western Socialists looked at Mussolini and Stalin and lauded their systems as the new way…. and we all know how that ended… The skillfulness of Western elected political representatives, relies entirely on their understanding the ideology of freedom that has led to the success of Western civilization…. Without that knowledge and understanding, they are no more than useful idiots that Lenin once spoke about.
So you American citizens had better do something about it. Because your ideology of freedom, which was founded in America, has almost been legislated out of existence….. You might have the original bits of paper with wonderful words printed on them….. But the concept no longer extends to the everyday lifestyle of the population…. How many bills were passed over the last century that eroded the ideology of the American constitution and made a mockery of the Declaration of Independence?….. and don’t think the judiciary will help here. What happens when Socialist judges sit and decide whether some Socialist policy is constitutional or not? Yeah, we know what happens. We’re seeing it here in Australia.
….and not just America. Australia is not too different from America, our Constitution, Federation and Parliament were drawn from both the Westminster system and the American system….. We too are fighting battles of huge importance on the freedom of speech front, property rights front, etc. We are struggling against the “Progressives” and their Welfare-ism, Ecofascism and the usual government expansionism of the Socialists and their desire to tax,spend and expand the State at the expense of the individual’s right to freedom.
The ideology of freedom is under attack right across the board. Many people are selling their freedom for a little bit of security, usually in the form of some sort of welfare or government “assistance”.
…. and as Benjamin Franklin said, they will deserve neither freedom nor security if they purchase that security by giving away their freedom….. It may be a slightly different context, but it’s the same old argument.
Benjamin Franklin also said after the state delegates finished signing the framework of the Constitution, when asked a question by a woman whether they had a Monarchy or a Republic? He answered, “A Republic madam, but only if you can keep it.”…. It shows he understood the eternal battle that arises within any ruling class, eventually the Bureaucracy becomes no better than an Aristocracy…. With time and power come corruption, dysfunction and forgetfulness…. and before you know it, powerful elites have enslaved the society they were tasked to serve.
tomwys says:
July 14, 2012 at 11:23 pm
What is striking is all that drivel about “transparency” in the law PRIOR TO the portion guaranteeing that there will be none!!!
These are the standard behavior of untrustworthy politicians and public servants. The right being removed or limited is strongly and overtly touted (in this case transparency ) as being reinforced by the amendment and the language that removes the right is hidden in mealy mouthed references to sub paras. The entire amendment is then buried in page after boring page of typographic changes and minor amendments and passed without being read or discussed by a lazy legislature.
As this is a Constitutional change for California or is intended to subvert the constitution, it probably requires a lot more than a nodded through undiscussed clause in an omnibus amendment.
There are two what are they trying to hide questions raised here:
* Why are thy trying to hide the change in transparency?
* What is the Western Climate Initiative Inc. going to do that requires it to be in Delaware away from Californian company law and restraint AND have their activities to be hidden from public view?
CARB is a politburo – a big green boot boot stamping on the face of California. It is there to shackle the citizens and enrich the loyal inner party members.
And about enviro-hypocrite Mary Nichols:
Governor Schwarzenegger appointed her chairman of the Air Resources Board in 2007 and Governor Brown re-appointed her on January 5, 2011, but in the interim Nichols received heavy criticism for her stock holdings. Her investments included shares in Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP PLC, a Bermuda shipping company that transports crude oil and the world’s largest coal company, Peabody Energy Corp, according to the Associated Press. “Five of the investments, including the Chevron stock, are worth as much as $1 million, according to a financial disclosure report Nichols filed recently with the state Fair Political Practices Commission.”
After the news media reported Nichols’ stock holdings, she announced that she would put her oil stocks in a trust.
source: http://tinyurl.com/7ce6qjd
You mean, progressives actually do not believe that the laws that they pass apply to themselves? They’re really only to keep those OTHER people honest?
What a shock. (Yawn.)
any member of the public who is not dedicated to preventing the most insane financial bubble of all time – the carbon dioxide bubble – is not paying attention. it’s all about revenue-raising:
(2 pages) 15 July: LA Times: Bankruptcy choices highlight fiscal pain of cities nationwide
by Ken Bensinger, Kim Christensen and Jessica Garrison
What’s clear is that the fiscal pain experienced by U.S. cities is widespread and shows no sign of easing.
“It does not look pretty. It’s not going to look pretty over the next three or four years,” said Michael Pagano, dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It’s a long-term structural problem, and cities need to think of new ways to collect resources to fuel their services, or they are only going to be in worse trouble.”…
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bankrupt-cities-20120715,0,4490983.story
12 July: Bloomberg: Josh Barro: Another California Bankruptcy, Away From the Coast
Sometimes, municipalities end up in bankruptcy for idiosyncratic reasons: Orange County made bizarre investments in derivatives that turned bad; Mammoth Lakes lost a devastating court case for breach of contract. Usually, however, a city goes bankrupt because two things happen together: It makes policy mistakes, and then it gets hit with unexpectedly bad economic conditions…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/another-california-bankruptcy-away-from-the-coast.html
let’s all self-destruct for CAGW:
14 July: UK Daily Mail: Tamara Cohen: Soaring green energy taxes could force firms out of UK as industry becomes uncompetitive…
Industry will become increasingly uncompetitive due to soaring green energy taxes, according to the Government’s own advisers.
A shocking report has found UK manufacturers’ electricity bills are already significantly higher than those in other leading nations due to climate change levies.
By the end of the decade, our green taxes will be double those in other EU nations and dozens of times higher than those in the US…
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report looked at the iron and steel, aluminium, cement and chemicals industries in 11 countries, most of which have renewable energy policies.
These energy-intensive industries directly employ 600,000 in Britain and contribute nearly £50billion a year to the economy.
Firms will be forced to pay an extra £28.30 in green taxes on top of the market price they pay for every megawatt hour of electricity by 2020 due to climate policies, according to the report by an independent firm.
This compares with £15.70 in Denmark, renowned for its renewable energy drive, £15.20 in France, £17.30 in Germany, £10 in China and a fall in the US and Russia…
The report was also scathing about the proposed Carbon Price Floor, which from next year will tax firms £16 per ton of carbon they emit.
It has been criticised by environmental groups for simply encouraging firms to shift production to countries without such strict rules…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173414/Soaring-green-energy-taxes-force-firms-UK-industry-uncompetitive.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Taxation without representation!?!
Last time this happened the UK lost a large part of its Commonwealth.
I love the very title of this bill. It is 58 lines of dense unintelligibility.
TITLE : An act to amend Sections 17210, 19970, 100010, 100115,
and 100125 of the Education Code, to amend Section
5653.1 of, to add Section 2948 to, and to repeal Article
2 (commencing with Section 2940) of Chapter 13 of
Division 3 of, the Fish and Game Code, to amend Sections
33222, 33223, 33225, 33251, 33252, 33253, 33257, 33291,
33292, 35221, and 35231 of, and to repeal and add
Section 33294 of, the Food and Agricultural Code, to
amend Section 65962.5 of, to repeal Sections 14669.13
and 15819.05 of, to add Article 9.7 (commencing with
Section 16428.8) to Chapter 2 of Part 2 of Division 4 of
Title 2 of, and to add Chapter 5 (commencing with
Section 12894) to Part 2.5 of Division 3 of Title 2 of,
the Government Code, to amend Sections 25173.6, 25173.7,
25174, 25185.5, 25200.14, 25201.6, 25202.5, 25244.12,
25244.13, 25244.14, 25244.15, 25244.15.1, 25244.16,
25244.17, 25244.17.1, 25244.17.2, 25244.18, 25244.19,
25244.20, 25244.21, 25244.22, 25244.23, 25269.2,
25299.50.3, 25299.81, 25390.7, 25395.30, 25395.99,
25395.119, 25404, 44299.91, 44392, and 106615 of, to
amend the heading of Article 11.9 (commencing with
Section 25244.12) of Chapter 6.5 of Division 20 of, to
add Sections 25114.5, 25244.01, and 25244.13.1 to, to
add Article 11.1 (commencing with Section 25220) to
Chapter 6.5 of Division 20 of, to add Chapter 6.86
(commencing with Section 25396) to Division 20 of, to
repeal Sections 25117.3, 25117.4, 25149.3, 25244.24,
25356.2, 25356.3, 25356.4, 25356.5, 25356.6, 25356.7,
25356.8, 25356.9, 25356.10, 57009, and 58004.5 of, to
repeal Article 11 (commencing with Section 25220) of
Chapter 6.5 of, to repeal Article 6.5 (commencing with
Section 25369) of Chapter 6.8 of, to repeal Article 8
(commencing with Section 25395.1) of Chapter 6.8 of, to
repeal Chapter 6.85 (commencing with Section 25396) of,
to repeal Chapter 6.10 (commencing with Section 25401)
of, and to repeal Chapter 6.98 (commencing with Section
25570) of, Division 20 of, the Health and Safety Code,
to amend Sections 3258, 5096.255, 5930, 14574, 21155.1,
21159.21, 25740.5, 25744.5, 25746, 25751, 32605, 42474,
42649.2, and 71300 of, to add Sections 5010.6.5, and
5010.7 to, to add Chapter 8.1 (commencing with Section
25710) to Division 15 of, to add and repeal Section
5010.6 of, and to repeal Sections 25742, 25743, 25744,
and 25748 of, the Public Resources Code, to amend
Section 2851 of, and to add Section 748.5 to, the Public
Utilities Code, to amend Section 5155 of, and to add
Section 5161 to, the Vehicle Code, to amend Sections
175.5, 13201, 13202, 13207, 13388, and 13860 of, and to
add Sections 147.5 and 11913.1 to, the Water Code, to
amend Section 17645.40 of the 1992 School Facilities
Bond Act (Section 34 of Chapter 552 of the Statutes of
1995), to amend Section 17660.40 of the 1990 School
Facilities Bond Act (Section 34 of Chapter 552 of the
Statutes of 1995), and to amend Section 17698.20 of the
1988 School Facilities Bond Act (Section 34 of Chapter
552 of the Statutes of 1995), relating to public
resources, and making an appropriation therefor, to take
effect immediately, bill related to the budget.
When the basic premise of your argument starts to unravel like a badly made sweater, what do you do? You become secretive and unaccountable.
On the plus side, if they were convinced that AGW is happening they would not have taken these steps.
Open meetings laws are just another way to guarantee a monopoly for the big mafias.
It’s directly parallel to regulations on business, which are solely designed to make life harder for small business and comparatively easier for giant monopolies. Open meetings laws make life harder for small legislative bodies where real representation might accidentally break out, and comparatively easier for giant agencies with the firepower to ‘fix’ the regs.
I’m sitting here in the UK watching the Sunday morning politics TV shows and it’s a really sad refelction on what passes for debate. The political class (assisted by the media) continue to flap about getting excited about trivia while the bulk of decision making about the future of our country takes place in another country. The UK government has continued to sub-contract law making to the EU – our American friends should take some time to investigate how this venal and mendacious organisation operates in secrecy and without any hint of democracy. It really is shocking.
One major problem at the moment in the UK is that our politicians are of such a poor calibre. Many are career politicians with liitle experience of working a real job and few seem to have much integrity. In order to climb the greasy pole, they far too easily follow the policies and agendas set by vocal pressure groups and activists. Just look at the Climate Change Act which was passed a few years ago – momumental in it’s sheer stupidity, this Act will guarantee that our businesses will be uncompetitive, even more of the poor and elderly will be plunged into fuel poverty and we face the serious threat of the lights going out.
The lunatics are indeed running the asylum. Most of them are second rate lunatics too.
Roger Sowell says:
July 14, 2012 at 11:01 pm
” WCI is, or soon will be, conducting “the people’s business” therefore its meetings and writings shall be open to public scrutiny.
I’m no lawyer (nor an American) but I would argue that since WCI is (presumably) answerable to CARB and CARB is a public body of the state of California that it could be interpreted that “its meetings and writings [are] open to public scrutiny”.
I think that would be torturing both the law and the English language (not to mention common sense) until they scream for mercy but that is, regrettably, what we have come to expect from the political left these days.
From time to time the tree of Liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants!
Thomas Jefferson
Damn that speech recognotion! 😉
Simply shocking.
The closure of the Chicago Climate Exchange ended a national cap and trade market. So now regional organisations such as Western Climate Initiative Inc. and Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Inc. hope to administer auctions of carbon dioxide allowances keeping alive the carbon trading market.
It was optimistically estimated that $10 trillion worth of excess carbon credits per year would eventually have been traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange. At just a few percent commission the auction of carbon credits is worth billions of dollars to government and those who administer the auctions.
The Wall Street Journal wrote about the now failed national Cap and Trade Legislation:
“Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions.
“When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.
“Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html
The cost of cap and trade (and other C02 reduction schemes) clearly falls on the public which is why it is dubbed ‘cap and tax’. Organisations like WCI and RGGI must be totally transparent and accountable to the people as Thomas Jefferson would certainly have demanded were he here today.
This new official approach to transparency isn’t going to sit well with a lot of folks. Those on the fence when it comes down to supporting various initiatives to provide more funds to our elected officials to cover their less then stellar budgeting efforts/priorities might find this type of back door dealings a bit questionable. Thanks for making me aware of the methods that some of our public agencies and elected officials will follow to hide their back door efforts.
I was an industry (wood products/paper) representative to the Wisconsin Governor’s Task Force on Climate Change a few years ago. The had to obey open meetings laws. They “openly” flouted it by changing the time/date/location at the last minute. This eventually prevented me from attending. The task force was officially supposed to have stakeholders involved, and I was officially such a stakeholder, but the hostility from the gov employees to us was open. They were charged with coming up with brilliant ideas to reduce C emissions or increase sequestration, but were quite happy to put absurd things in the list. For example, the figure (from a consultant) for wood product industry wages was $14,000/yr, which is 4 times too low. When running their financial model, this meant that any adverse impact of policies (such as electricity prices) on the paper industry would be nill. When pointed out that this wage is a burger flipping wage, not a factory wage, they just shrugged and blamed the consultant. They claimed there were 1million acres just lying around that could be reforested, which would be a sizable fraction of private grazing land in the state. They thought an incentive of trivial amount would get people to convert all this land. The number of simply inane ideas was overwhelming and they did not like to be contradicted.
“No taxation without representation” … or ‘open’ meetings?
Passe … the new ‘normal’ has arrived; dictates from the enlightened overlord class.
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The local paper (SGVTribune) has been on a month’s long crusade for public access to teacher disciplinary records. I’ve tossed them a link to this article; who knows, maybe they’ll show some consistent interest.
+1; a keeper; This particular principle needs much wider exposure such that it enters the public’s vernacular …
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I had to deal with CARB regarding their regulations of formaldehyde emissions from pressed-wood furniture.
The regulators honestly by naively assumed every retail store dealing in such products had, somewhere on premises, a file cabinet with paper purchase orders, freight bills, and invoices, which could be (their words) “rubber stamped” with the various assurances and certifications their regulation required. And they were prepared to send out inspectors to see such stamps on such paperwork.
My role was to explain that, since about 1980, retailers in general had been working very very hard and spent lots and lots of money to eliminate paperwork of that sort. The information about orders and invoices is now likely to reside in the form of bits and code in computers thousands of miles from California — and be highly protected against local store managers or regulators or inspectors arbitrarily adding “rubber stamp” data.
I failed to persuade. Me, WalMart, an industry association of furniture makers — we talked for hours without persuading the experts in California that paperwork no longer “works” as a primary business process.
So, most of us in that industry, at present, are lawbreakers lobbying for waivers and entrusting that the courts, eventually, will rule that we’ve made good faith efforts to comply with an impossible requirement …
I emerged from the experience with little respect for CARB.
I bet that Al Gore is associated with WCI. Trading carbon credits is how he makes his money. Cronyism and corruption?
If this is a law and not an amendment to California’s constitution, legal action would challenge the law as being against that state’s Constitution, would it not?
Follow the money. Somebody is neck deep in graft and bribery.
tonyb says:
July 15, 2012 at 12:42 am
Do the US media or Congress not have the same power to expose this breathtaking piece of effrontery and the two fingers the organisation concerned has raised to the notion of democracy?
The US media is, with some few exceptions, head-over-heels in love with anything described as “green” or any politician described as “liberal.”
Congresscritters have no say in what laws individual states may or may not pass, and Congress itself has passed laws which violate the US Constitution.
“breathtaking piece of effrontery.”
Brilliant description!!!
The question is how many more have been signed into law that is buried in legal speak to deceive the public. The consequence is the loss of representation and abuse of the US citizen by elected officials.
Ditto here; these programs (2 out of the 3; I don’t catch the CBS program) have become worthless, FNS less so save for one pundit … ’emitting sound and fury signifying nothing’ … tuning into NBC or ABC results in a net loss of info rather than any gain or a new perspective; at that point it’s a loss so turn it off … the constant repetition of the same ‘talking points’ going all last week do not make for enjoyable viewing one who has paid attention to the facts. Were it not for George Will I would skip the ABC production entirely. I do enjoy it when the ever-left (Hurricane) Katrina vanden Heuvel from “The Nation” contributes with her substantially altered view of reality; now THAT is entertainment! Alas, David Corn who used to appear just as naturally confused (in his take on ‘reality) and also from “The Nation” (and the left) moved on from that rag to another and is now Washington bureau chief at Mother Jones rag (-er- mag) …
.
The people of California are the ones who have to do something about this. I lived there until 1995 and moved my business out in 2004. There are a lot of very smart people in California but unfortunately the smart ones I know of don’t attention to what goes on in Sacramento.
Anthony, thanks for highlighting this – I’ll tell my California friends and relatives.
Sadly, this kind of legalese stunt is becoming a favourite trick of our political masters. For example, here in Ontario, Canada the provincial Green Energy Act specifically exempts electricity generating wind turbine industrial facilities (aka “wind farms”) from any kind of environmental impact studies (which often delay standard development/construction projects for years), and removes the ability of local municipalities to object. The province have given itself the ability to force wind farms where they want, and if you don’t like it you can pound sand.
On the other hand, the Species At Risk act can effectively block (non-wind farm) development indefinitely if a turtle or bird’s nest (with or without eggs) is found on the property under development.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
It’s simply Canadian style (British) government. Get used to it. We live with it — you can too.
The government gets elected every four years — the dictators change — then we get more of — “the same?” — you guessed it!
It’s no big deal. It’s just that you Americans are so used to “open government” (where you even elect your dog catchers) you have no idea what “real government” is…
We elect hardly anybody, almost every government position is a patronage appointment — Maybe the PRI will move in and show you how it’s really done…
GeoLurking says:
July 14, 2012 at 10:38 pm
MtK says: “November is rapidly approaching. Please, Please support candidates that will work aggressively to end this madness! MtK
GL says: “I don’t have a whole lot of hope for that. People in general, are full on morons, and our elected “officials” do everything in their power to keep them that way.”
GL,
If you’re sitting on the sidelines, the ‘full on morons’ are guaranteed to win. The value of the information presented on WUWT is greatly magnified when we carry it into the mainstream of our lives and communicated to our friends and acquaintances.
Get in the game! Get in now! Find candidates you can support and help educate them on both the false aspects and the debatable aspects of AGW. Give them what time and money you can to help them defeat the full on morons! Help them with ‘face recognition’ and defining their message. There are many ways: Post campaign signs. Help with fund raisers. Blog. Tweet. Write letters to Editors and Guest Editorials. Assist with identifying, scheduling, and advertising public speaking opportunities for your candidates within your communities.
But Get In The Game Now! Time is running out!
If not Now, When?
If not You, Who?
MtK
rats ass = rat’s ass (speech recognition fix)
WOW, I guess you can’t allow rational voices in the echo-chamber. I’m wondering what all of the Happy Cows are going to eat when fuel is too expensive to grow feed.
The recent explosion of lost cost, abundant natural gas from shale deposits has produced a revolution is increased natural gas use in the U.S. which has caused CO2 emissions to plummet in 2012 to the extent that U.S. total emissions could be at 1990 levels by years end. This emissions reduction in 2012 exceeds more than 2.5 times the total reduction targeted by California’s absurd AB 32 through 2020 but has been achieved while providing $100 billion per year in market driven reduced fuel costs. Meanwhile California’s AB 32 with its screwball government mandated CO2 reductions and taxing schemes devised by the labotomized thinking of Nichols Air Resources Board will cost those of us who live here hundreds of billions in job killing, economy busting damage. Just another example of how out of control government is here in California.
Or maybe what they’re trying to hide is the fact that many ‘elected’ officials are googlebots?
This will not end well. But then neither will CA.
Crooks in government, again. Maybe you need to start with a recall petition to get rid of your governor. Or even better, I would suggest that people start moving from California and let it sink.
Brian H says July 14, 2012 at 9:06 pm
… “You’ll have to pass it to know what’s in it!” … The Pelosi Principle?
Oh look – sweetcorn!.
“John Silver says:
July 15, 2012 at 12:26 am
“pass it as a law as a rider on a totally unrelated bill of legislation”
That is the most peculiar thing about the US.
It means, you’re nuts.”
~ 0 ~
I remember reading an article about something similar happening in England.
In the 19th century, divorce was only possible by act of parliament. A parliamentary clerk, who wished to divorce his wife, put an addendum on a particularly boring piece of legislation. While nobody was paying much attention, the sentence ‘Mr John Smith hereby divorces his wife, Mrs John Smith’ (or words to that effect) was read into law and he was thereby legally divorced.
I believe the whole act of parliament would have had to be withdrawn to nullify the divorce, and it was allowed to stand. Unlike the sneaky, underhand actions described in this post, the only person adversely affected was poor old Mrs Smith.
That’s fairly nuts too, so it’s not just peculiar to Americans.
BC has somthing similar to this CARB thing. It’s called the “Pacific Carbon Trust”. But in BC we don’t even have a law to ignore that keeps it in check. Arnold and Gordy got together a few years ago and decided on this carb trust crap and trade. We are all such bloody sheep!
actually…..CARB CRAB may accurately describe some eco-zealots…
the possibility of “voice recognition software issues” has added to my list of explainations for these same juxtaposition errors, which had been limited to….dementia, dyslexia, old age and brain farts…
accepting an underlying inter-governmental problem maybe directing errant science….sometimes satire says it best….”Pinata Planet Syndrome”….find and share Truth….
I first came to CA in 1989 and lived in Southern California for about 4 years, then I left and came back in 1996 to Northern California. I’m just about ready to move back to the USA now.
As Roger Sowell notes above:
It is illegal because it does not conform with the California Constitution, Article I Section 3,
Furthermore, All authority under the Constitution derives from We The People:
– as granted by the Great Governor of the world.
We the People reserved all rights to require transparency and accountability under the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution
This includes the right to nullify unjust law.
Greenpeace’s justifications are flimsy compared the State and Federal Constitutional rights preserved to the Citizens.
Thus California Citizens have the right and duty to require access to all meetings of the Western Climate Initiative and to publicize all its proceedings.
Any chance of the Judicial branch declaring this unconstitutional?
Step 1. Get rid of ICLEI and Agenda 21 in the USA
Step 2. Vote out Obama and his Czars
Step 3. Probably vote out Romney and his Czars
Bill Tuttle says:
July 15, 2012 at 7:52 am
tonyb says:
July 15, 2012 at 12:42 am
Do the US media or Congress not have the same power to expose this breathtaking piece of effrontery and the two fingers the organisation concerned has raised to the notion of democracy?
The US media is, with some few exceptions, head-over-heels in love with anything described as “green” or any politician described as “liberal.”
Congresscritters have no say in what laws individual states may or may not pass, and Congress itself has passed laws which violate the US Constitution.
Bill it is worse than we thought.
Let’s see. Who is guarding the hen house? We have a system of checks and balances in our government right? Who is getting the checks? Who is determining the balances for what the government spends? The checks and balance system is broken. The federal administration can make rulings that walk like a laws and talk like a laws but they quack like huge regulations, without even a whimper from the legislative branch. The courts who job it is assure constitutionality appear to look for ways to get around the constitution. Thank you, Justice John Roberts. The legislators look for ways to pass laws they want by hiding them with other laws and without reading them. The administrative branches seek to impose regulations with public review and comment providing it meets their political objectives. The mainstream press largely approves of getting around the checks and balances because their objective is to transform our economic system into a progressive system and to destroy the free enterprise system that they are not able to control. Then we have legislative branches that pass laws for special interest groups to secure their vote for re-election and to mitigate any objections to giving up freedoms. It is not surprising that in California, the bell weather State, the bureaucratic regulatory groups such as CARB have tolled their bells for the death of public knowledge of what is being planned to regulate them.
Each of the four estates has maximized their ability to game the system to maximize their power at the expense of our freedoms. Of course we have a ballot box as a control, or do we? If the current presidential election is any measure, the ballot is controlled by an advertising budget in the billions which bombards us continuously with mindless political slogans and video sound bites but delivers no analyses of any substance or free from tons of mud being slung at the opponent. So the voting public is kept in the dark and has to use their own means to discover the truth about a candidate, if they can? Questions are raised but never seem to get resolved. Mean while the candidates character has been thoroughly destroyed by the opposition. Is it surprising that a small percentage of voters turn out for elections?
PaulH says:
July 15, 2012 at 8:21 am
Sadly, this kind of legalese stunt is becoming a favourite trick of our political masters. For example, here in Ontario, Canada the provincial Green Energy Act specifically exempts electricity generating wind turbine industrial facilities (aka “wind farms”) from any kind of environmental impact studies (which often delay standard development/construction projects for years), and removes the ability of local municipalities to object. The province have given itself the ability to force wind farms where they want, and if you don’t like it you can pound sand.
On the other hand, the Species At Risk act can effectively block (non-wind farm) development indefinitely if a turtle or bird’s nest (with or without eggs) is found on the property under development.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
According to Dalton McGuinty rural voters, who generally vote Conservative and oppose windfarms, are NIMBY’s.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/585591–mcguinty-vows-to-stop-wind-farm-nimbys
Urban Liberal voters are to be catered to. So the gas plant is to be built in a Conservative riding hundreds of kilometers from where the power is needed.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/07/12/matt-gurney-ontario-liberals-find-way-to-look-even-worse-on-nixed-power-plant/
“Mary Nichols – leader of a a criminal agency?”
Cap and Trade is a criminal creation, ignited by Enron through Gore et al. imposing it on Kyoto. In Australia, they are ashamed enough of it so they have to hide it as a three year “carbon tax.” The Wall Streeters are currently buying out various “conservative” and “liberal” pundit whores and NGOs to create a fake “discussion” moving towards Tax to Cap and Trade scheme for the USA as a whole. I’m sure Romney and Obama are both on board. In California one apparently does not need such tricks. One can impose the Cap and Trade scam with the lefties barking big approval. The righties shut up when they realize their favorite fantasy corporations are profiting, so they think that is good, or it just confuses their small Ayn Randian minds too much. So they go back to thinking about magical tax cuts or something.
Like with the previous Enron-California scam that cost billions, cap and trade will have to cost even more before the California democratic party gets too embarrassed about its connivance and has to do something to cut off the money flows to its benefactors.
A few days ago, the company I work for announced that it is leaving California. The CEO named Cap and Trade as one of the reasons. Guess I’ll have to get a new screen name.
Yesterday, July the 14th, we had a wonderful family reunion. We toasted to 14 Juillet 1789. Charles De Montesquieu also came up in conversations.
Unfortunately, California has been a “model state” for corruptocrats around the nation for decades.
And they made sure they’d keep getting elected by making the climate so business-hostile that large numbers of productive people left the state.
I guess they figured on a Federal Bailout, because the money went with the productive people.
1. Drive out the productive people.
2. The dependent remainder will vote for you in droves because of your promises.
3. Figure out where to get the money.
Step the is where the plan usually falls down.
CARB established the Western Climate Initiative, Inc. as a non-profit 501C3 incorporated in Delaware, to act for California, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. http://www.wci-inc.org/
Some WCI documents are meeting minutes are public.
It offers whistleblower protection. and an audit committee.
Be warned:
Western Climate Initiative, Inc. http://www.wci-inc.org/
is a separate organization from
Western Climate Initiative http://www.westernclimateinitiative.org/
and has different members.
You know,every time I hear of this either here in Canada,the US,OZ,or any other so called free country,I am reminded of that old saying…..we HAVE to pay our leaders and elected officials so much money and perks to attract the best for the job. To which I reply BS. If they were so darned good,the private sector would have snapped them up long ago.Although this may not hold true in Californicated,as the DemonRats have chased virtually all private business out.
Merovign says:
July 15, 2012 at 1:19 pm
“1. Drive out the productive people.
2. The dependent remainder will vote for you in droves because of your promises.
3. Figure out where to get the money.”
“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
The biggest “pollutant” in So. Cal is the billions of pounds of rubber dust from tires and belts of vehicles.
A passenge car tire will shed about a pound of rubber from the tread before wearing out. Don’t know about 18 wheelers, but rubber dust from them is probably enormous since these trucks are on the road 24/7/365 and there are zillions of them.
Zinc used for galvanizing steel contains small amounts of cadmium. The zinc in various catalysts used as as accelarators for synthetic rubber production also contains cadmium.
Heaven forbid that Mary N. learns about this.
Black carbon dust from rubber and asphalt is probably the main reason the eastern US is heating up in recent times. Synthetic rubber and asphalt dust do not degrade when exposed to sunlight, oxygen or microbes. Once in the enviroment these are there forever.
Much of this dust eventually ends up in the Arctic as a component of cryoconite, the brownish-black mineral dust that forms the varves in Arctic ice. This mineral dust speeds up melting of Arctic ice.
In regards Anthony, “…an electric official of the school board” is far more accurate.
REPLY: Yeah I was a real lightning rod on that board – Anthony
doing my part to spread word of this travesty too.
http://www.theconservativevoices.com/forums/topic/48411-california-air-resources-board-cap-and-trade-program-circumvents-state-open-meeting-law/
David L. Hagen says:
July 15, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Whoa, that sailed right by me.
RGGI has something similar, and uses an unconnected company, http://www.worldenergy.com/ to run their auctions and perhaps the allowance market. RGGI is just one of many clients. They’re based in Worcester MA and their westernmost offices are in Texas, so perhaps they aren’t set up to handle the WCI auction and market.
So, things may not be quite as nefarious as they first appear, but boy, is this going to cause a lot of confusion!
It looks like WCI, Inc is going to be much more strongly coupled the WCI than World Energy is to RGGI, Inc, (which is not a state agency, but does have board members from state governments). The home page says:
How the heck is THIS legal????
“a rider in the 100+ pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law “
“How the heck is THIS legal???? “a rider in the 100+ pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law “
It is legal with the same precision as “ObamaCare:” not read in its entirety by anyone “voting FOR;” not even seen until the day before the vote, and signed into law by someone knowing it was never read. And thus just upheld by a Supreme Court in an attempt to prove itself unworthy of the name.
The West Coast states are the most adamant about creating state level, draconian, energy pinching GHG regs. Ironically, in this negative PDO mode these same states are the ones incuring the worst effects due to the cold.
They need money from somewhere for the Bullet Train to nowhere (with nobody on it).
Notice how quickly the spending vultures gather to feed on the Cap & Trade billions?