The Senator’s SB 467 will increase electricity and fuel costs onto those who can least afford it and worsen poverty.
By Ronald Stein
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Irvine, California
California Senator Weiner has taken Governor Newsom’s recent Executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles and hydraulic fracturing one step further with his introduction of SB 467 to obliterate the California economy. The bill is so broad and ambiguous that the results of its passage would lead to a total production ban in California and increase energy costs upon those that can least afford it.
With California already having the highest cost of fuels in the country, the wealthy and middle class have more tolerance for expensive energy, but poverty kills and having legislatures pass legislation making energy more expensive on the less fortunate, will worsen poverty.
The Governor is proud of California, despite its dysfunctional energy policies making California the only state in the lower 48 states that imports most of its crude oil from foreign countries almost halfway around the world.
California’s dependency on foreign suppliers has increased imported crude oil from foreign countries from 5 percent in 1992 to 58 percent today. The imported crude oil costs California more than $60 million dollars a day, yes, every day, being paid to oil-rich foreign countries, depriving Californians of jobs, careers, and business opportunities. SB 467 will eliminate in-state production and require the State to increase its monthly imports resulting in expenditures approaching a whopping $90 million EVERY DAY for foreign countries to support the fifth largest economy in the world.
Newsom’s Executive order and Senator Weiner’s SB 467 are forcing increases in our dependency on foreign countries that have less environmental controls than California. SB 467 further reduces oil production by requiring larger setbacks from existing oil production wells, forcing companies to shut down anything within 2,500 feet of a building.
Hopefully, when the bill goes before Senate Natural Resources Committee at a hearing on Tuesday April 13th, it will meet its demise. The bill would result in hundreds of thousands of Californians without jobs, and all 40 million residents being completely reliant on petroleum produced from other parts of the world.
It has been a tough year for everyone during the pandemic, but more so on the lower income portion of the population. As we emerge from an emotionally and financially challenging year, we are seeing that the wealthy and middle-income folks have mostly recovered. The bottom half remain far from it.
This dichotomy is evident in many facets of the economy, especially in employment. Jobs are fully back for the highest wage earners, but fewer than half the jobs lost this spring have returned for those making less than $20 an hour, according to a new labor data analysis by John Friedman, an economics professor at Brown University and co-director of Opportunity Insights.
Exorbitant energy costs make California’s economic recovery from the pandemic even more challenging for the 18 million (45 percent of the 40 million Californians) that represent the Hispanic and African American populations of the state. The median income for Latino households in 2016 was $56,200, $55,200 for African American households, and $96,400 for white households. According to several studies, as many as 40 percent of all Californians cannot regularly meet basic monthly expenses.
In 2019, 57 percent of Black families and 50 percent of Latino families with children were poor in terms of net worth, lacking enough financial resources to sustain their families for three months at a poverty level, finds new research from Duke University.
Governor Newsom’s recent Executive order directing the state to require that, by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California be zero-emission vehicles, will add more electrical charging demands onto a dysfunctional energy program that has already shuttered nine (9) in-state power plants in the last decade.
California, with 0.5 percent of the world’s population (40 million vs 8 billion) professes to be the leader of everything, and through its dysfunctional energy policies imports more electricity than any other state– currently at 32 percent from the Northwest and Southwest and dysfunctionally HOPES that other states will be able to generate enough power to meet the demands of the state.
In addition to the closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and three natural gas power plants in very recent years, the state has five more to shutter in the cross hairs – the last nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon and four more natural gas power plants. The Governor wants to add more electrical charging demands onto an energy grid that would most likely contribute to more rolling blackouts in the coming years.
As much as Governor Newsom and Senator Weiner want to electrify everything with intermittent electricity, they have yet to comprehend that intermittent electricity cannot support:
- The fossil fuel energy needs for the non-nuclear military equipment of aircraft carriers, battleships, destroyers, submarines, planes, tanks and armor, trucks, troop carriers, and weaponry,
- Commercial aviation, with 23,000 commercial airplanes worldwide that have been accommodating 4 billion passenger annually,
- Cruise liners, each of which consumes 80,000 gallons of fuels daily, that have been accommodating more than 25 million passengers annually worldwide, and
- The 53,000 merchant ships burning more than 120 million gallons a day of high sulfur bunker fuel (soon to be converted to diesel fuel to reduce sulfur emissions) moving products worldwide worth billions of dollars daily.
Simply put, the goal to “electrify everything” is a de facto energy tax on low- and middle-income Californians that could add more instability to an already proven unstable state power grid.
It is mind boggling that California’s legislature continuously perpetuates greater energy costs onto those that can least afford “energy poverty” as anyone can see the direct correlation between high energy costs for electricity and fuels, and poverty, homelessness, and a housing affordability crisis already impacting the Golden State.
To compound the dysfunctionality, Governor Newsom’s recent Executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 and in-state production of energy will be devastating to the state’s economy and environment, as the Governor wants to add more electrical charging demands onto a dysfunctional energy program and increase reliance on foreign oil.
California’s legislature continues to perpetuate the state’s dysfunctional energy polices and continues to do everything possible to further INCREASE the costs for energy for its 40 million residents which does not bode well for the bottom half making less than $20 an hour. It’s time for the Senate Natural Resources Committee to reject Weiner’s SB 467.
Ronald Stein, P.E.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure
http://www.energyliteracy.net/
So, when are Californians going to rise up against their communist lords and masters and overthrow the single party state???
I suspect not anytime soon. Good luck to sane folks in the PRCa. Glad I don’t live there and I have desire to visit. Oh yeah, all you people moving out of the PRCa, make sure you leave your failed politics behind.
Not while the secular lucre flows.
Don’t be so sure the electorate won’t rebel. California has a very large Latino population who make up a big part of the blue collar workforce. I suspect if these workers start insisting their representatives start voting in their interest rather than those who make the largest political donations, there would be big changes.
I doubt the electorate can rebel, effectively. The jungle primary system in the PRCa is heavily rigged in favor of the leftists. Also, I don’t think the PRCa, like the other leftist states, has free and fair elections. An awful lot of zombies and non-citizens tend to vote for the leftists.
That actually happened in Florida when most of the Cuban refugees became Republicans….
They are in the process of recalling the governor. Maybe that will serve as a wakeup call. But I am amazed how many have been allowing the increase in taxes that has been going on over the years.
Americans had their opportunity to change the inevitable collapse into socialist hell. They blew it. The wrong people werre taking to the streets. Too many were afraid of the change Trumps ideas would bring.
It will only happen when the system fails. Right now, they have a fervent religious belief that these schemes will not only work decently, but bring utopia.
No amount of arguing is going to change that belief system… they won’t accept it until they see it with their own eyes. And they will, eventually. Right now California can skim by by buying power from their coal/gas neighbors if they have a shortfall. Once EVERY state is forced to ditch them, there’s no more borrowing when it hits the regional fan. Eventually, it will sink in the mess they’ve gotten us all into, but will basically be too late.
Never underestimate demrat’s ability to conjure up negative bad destructive laws…back to the USSR…and Joey Biden has a vision for America…a sort of Mexico – Guatemala – El Salvador place. The UK and America and Canada and Australia and New Zealand all have this left wing disaster – too bad at least one cannot be free….free of the left wing disease.
They got what they elected… not complain about so far.
Are you sure about the veracity of those elections?
😀 Not that I know the numbers
I am completely confident that the New Zealand elections were honest – which leads me to the distressing conclusion that the majority of my fellow citizens are, if not stupid, then at least willfully ignorant.
But the Scot Weiner slipped them the ol’ Oscar O’Meyer. Howfer canny.
… but not what they voted for.
Go Green for socially inoculated, intermittent/renewable, redistributive greenbacks.
It doesn’t matter that municipalities in the state have turned themselves into debtors, all they need are “stimulus relief payments” to balance the books, at the expense of the rest of the nation.
“…. can least afford the most expensive energy in the nation.”
Welcome, In the UK we subsidise import of American wood-chip ‘renewable’ fuel for electricity generating, which is polluting in number of ways and far inferior to gas etc. 70% of the UK population can afford to pay these subsidies, but 30% can not, and most of them are old people who have to choose either to ‘freeze’ or ‘starve’ due to this cruel con perpetrated by idiotic policies.
You may come across people who defend transportation of wood-chips across Atlantic, but before you take their word it is advised to ask what kind of business they are in.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39053678
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/30/wood-pellets-biomass-environmental-impact
Chris Huhne, ex lib dem MP, liar, convicted criminal, proponent of biomass and manager of a biomass company, greeny and ex grauniad columnist.
Weinerhead’s senate district is South San Francisco, the Leftist of Leftist California Democratic areas. He had criminal Pelosi’s endorsement last November and was able to easily beat out a true 26 yr old fellow Democrat-Socialist who had the Cal teacher’s union endorsement.
note: Two Democrats running against each other in Cal in the General election is now common due to Cal’s “jungle primary system,” a primary system designed to protect incumbents and thus Democrats.
When one looks at who supported his campaign, according to CalMatters(dot)org:
An analysis done of Independent spending shows Senator Weinerhead was by far the biggest beneficiary of the “Other” category in CalMatters’ tally by race. The “other” category of course is where CalMatters lumps in all the Green NGO’s (like Sierra Club) support by billionaires Steyer, Bloomberg, Soros, and the rest of Greenscam criminal cartel members.
https://calmatters.org/politics/california-election-2020/2020/10/california-lawmakers-big-donors-special-interest-independent-expenditures/
So the green lobby helped Weinerhead beat back a challenge by an even wackier Socialist 26 yr old (a better looking version of socialist-nutter AOC) who had the powerful teachers union support. This is just his way to pay them back for that campaign support. This anti-oil and gas bill he introduced will go nowhere based on past similar attempts that quietly died in committee.
South San Francisco is a separate city about 10 miles south of San Francisco itself. I grew up there. It was then a working class town.
But Oyster Point is now Biotech central and the town has likely become more liberal.
Greenies in Cali’ dream of living in the Shire.
I don’t know who to tell you all this, but the mindset of California’s leadership regarding energy is not confined to the Golden State. In Washington, the White House is pondering a law (yes, a law) which would require the utilities in the entire country to be carbon-free by 2035 — just fourteen years from now. The law would require the entire economy to be non-carbon by 2050….
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/268539028/white-house-will-seek-law-to-require-carbon-free-power-from-utilities
“..Seeking alternatives to coal and oil-based energy sources, the Biden administration will propose increased reliance on nuclear energy, as well as carbon capture and storage technologies, said Gina McCarthy, White House national climate adviser, during a briefing with reporters…”.
*******
If they are expecting nuclear to play a major role in this scheme, they had better hope and pray that 4th generation nuclear is commercially viable and ready to go by 2030. (And yes, that would probably include MSRs ColMosby). I don’t think that there is a big appetite for building a lot of current generation nuclear plants across the country between now and 2030.
They are putting the cart before the horse here trying to force fossil fuels out of the picture when only current generation nuclear is capable of replacing them on a large scale. Doing things bass ackwards totally defies logic. The irrationality of all this of course is built on the notion that the climate scare is scientifically sound and requires government action.
I am dying to find out what they plan on coming up with to replace aviation fuel for the airline industry and the military by 2050…if they do at all. And perhaps recharging stations for tanks on the battlefield?
Looking at all of this, I have to remind myself that logic and reasoning has never been a hallmark of politics and politicians, especially when more radical thinkers are in charge.
Oops, don’t know how to tell you this….
When are they going to start laying the hardened, underground cable conduits for the battlefield tank chargers on the future European or Asian battlefield(s)? Would love to see the schematics, unless they’re secret, of course…
In the dreamy eyed world of progressives, SJWs and “climate” change true believers, there will be no need of machines of war. There’ll be lavish abundance of koombya for all.
Oh, that! Why, all military vehicles will come with there own diesel generators … until perpetual motion becomes widely available.
Dear Mr. Stein;
In regard to this sentence:
>> fossil fuel energy needs for the non-nuclear military equipment of aircraft carriers, battleships, destroyers, submarines…
The Navy knows that you need a diesel backup for a nuclear reactor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier
No diesel back-up that I can see.
That’s because it needs a whole ship all by itself, with two-mile jumper cables and a towrope, out-of-frame on your Wiki page?
Diesel back-up is required in case of emergency if nuclear power has to be reduced or shut down, so the vessel maintains the continuous electricity supply required for safety of crew and essential operation of facilities. For military vessels it is essential precaution in case of enemy inflicted damage so the crew and vessel can be sailed out of danger zone to safety.
One of the most intriguing issue is “why does irrational movement gets the funding, attention and other forms of support from the establishments including those that they tar and would like to eliminate ?” Correctness not just political correctness is a question of perception. How does the rational movement reacts to the irrational movement?–they try to rationalize it by putting all those scientific and real world data to counteract the irrational movement that 97 per cent of the people does not understand and since the 97 per cent does not understand the math, the methodology, or the scientific process they became suspicious that the rational movement is trying to fool them. Take the earth hour as an example–it is all showmanship. One hour without electricity. How does the rational movement react– they criticise it by putting all the data from the grid that people dont think much of the show and may even experience his nieghborhood well lighted during that particular hour but the media reports otherwise, shows map of the world without light. So the person who have little interest on the earth hour feels guilty of ignoring the show and will just join in if he remembers it. Why not take the same approach? Why not organize a oil free week so that the working class will realize and react in the same way some the london tube commuters will react to the irrationality. Get down from the ivory tower of computers, statistics, math, data handling, scientific methodology and down to the real world. Use the same techniques as the irrational movement to get the media and the funding. Organize blockage of petrol delivery trucks on the highway, block the gas stations, block the oil terminal, block the coal mines, block the coal power plants, get the engineers and operators of coal fired plants to support the power stoppage. Not an earth hour but an earth week (too long?) .Will the irrational movement join?
What our governor is doing is making it easier for foreign powers to buy up everything in this state. He is also helping to depopulate the state as well by making it more difficult for people to survive here. California is really an oil producing state yet it has to import fossil fuels. If the state really wanted to cut CO2 emissions they would try to keep our nuclear plants working and gradually replace ageing fossil fuel burning power plants with nuclear power plants but they are not doing that either. So far, all that California has been doing in the name of fighting climate change will have no real effect on global climate.But we here in California do not need to worry because all of our problems will be solved as soon as the high speed rail system between Bakersfield and Fresno is put into service. After the novelty wears off I would expect that few would ever ride it. Most people going between those two towns would just drive and if they were really in a big hurry they would fly. Neither Bakersfield nor Fresno are on the shortest route between LA and the Bay Area. I assume that most of the power for the high speed rail would come from fossil fueled power plants. All of our hydro based power is spoken for.
Thank you, Ambassador Stein!
As a fourth generation Californian I was very reluctant to leave the state, but after almost ten years of living in freedom I am reluctant to go back; even with all the friends and family there!
Due to the control of the state government by the teacher’s and prison guard’s unions there is little chance of the new People’s Republic of Commifornia correcting it’s course any time soon! All of the politically correct nonsense we see around the country has been beta-tested and implemented in Commifornia, so until there is a major breakdown of the electrical grid or a natural disaster the people there are going to have to bite the bullet!
I’m sure a lot of former residents would love to come back and help restore the state if the criminals and sociopaths could be rounded up and isolated from the rest of the populace. Maybe the cities and counties of SF and LA could be fenced off from the rest of the state and used as medium security prisons? A two-term limit would be good; one in office, one in prison!
The Mama’s & The Papa’s sang a song called “California Dreaming” over 50 years ago about being safe in L.A. And now look at the dreams of America’s children —>
gringojay,
I am a devout Groucho Marxist! I believe the world is always in need of more humor, and I would never want to join a club that would have me as a member!
The California Dream has morphed into the Commifornia Nightmare!
From a Declaration we all know or should do…
[W]henever any Form of Government becomes destructive of [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, … [W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
As much for California as for the present US regime.
You can add to the “Declaration”:
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” (Emphasis added.)
From: First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln, Monday, March 4, 1861.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_First_Inaugural_Address
In the left margin, scroll down to between (144) and (145).
Call it what it is. A racist, White Supremacist attack on people of color. Maybe that will get their attention. Unfortunately, they don’t do math.
…burning more than 120 million gallons a day of high sulfur bunker fuel (soon to be converted to diesel fuel to reduce sulfur emissions)…
but don’t those high sulfur emissions over the ocean reduce global warming?!?
How in the heck can Newsom’s executive order be constitutional?!!!!
Funny how you’re all crowing about Socialism. What you’re seeing, without realising it, is Crony Capitalism in action. Money being funnelled into the pockets of big businesses.
Yes, Socialists love crony capitalism, it is one of their favorite tools for collapsing economies while enriching themselves..
” The median income for Latino households in 2016 was $56,200, $55,200 for African American households, and $96,400 for white households. According to several studies, as many as 40 percent of all Californians cannot regularly meet basic monthly expenses.”
Marchism is the only answer-
BLM founder is branded a FRAUD after buying a $1.4 million home (msn.com)
MLM. My Life Matters.
A common misconception is crowdsourcing is attributable to social media when it was Marx all along. True capitalism is simply transparent and voluntary but you can see the ever present temptation of crony capitalism moving to the left.
Germany’s energy system – Energiewende – is reportedly on the verge of collapse.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/09/05/renewables-threaten-german-economy-energy-supply-mckinsey-warns-in-new-report/?sh=61db6cf58e48
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/04/green-energy-an-existential-threat-to-german-economy-declares-supreme-auditors/
Is California trying to get to oblivion first??
When will the west’s politicians realise the obvious:
If you replace all your reliable energy with unreliable energy, your system will be unreliable.
Ah …, yes and this too
Biden looks to appoint special envoy to k1ll Russia-Germany energy pipelinehttps://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/07/biden-envoy-nord-stream-2-479706
Some familiar names in there, all linked to Ukraine. Victoria Nuland was the state department official that picked the pro-western Ukraine government after buying the Maidan protesters with US State Department funds – remember the ‘fu€# the EU’ leaked phone conversation? Hochstein was the star witness called in to clear Biden of any wrongdoing over Hunters involvement in Ukraine’s Burisma company. Looks like the preferential jobs are going to those that Biden owes a favour to, doesn’t it?
Putin is not taking kindly to the Biden’s initiative, and may be ready to test Biden’s devotion to Ukrainian cause by massing Russian troupes on its border.
It might get hot, I do hope not.
It won’t on the Russian side. Putin knows Ukraine is a poisoned chalice to whoever holds it, currently USA, and won’t do a thing. Ukraine, on the other hand, is making a living out of crying wolf to get free handouts – if they were seriously threatened they wouldn’t be selling off new and improved tanks to international customers whilst keeping refurbished 60 year old ones for their own troops. Putin may or may not be putting troops near the border for Russian amusement but I strongly doubt they are going any closer to Ukraine. Although Ukraine has crossed aircraft and, possibly, troops into Russia before now to try to provoke an incident so who knows how crazy it might get.
Does any of this really matter? I assume that if the bill goes through and Newsom survives any recall that the out-migration of the middle class from California will simply continue at greater speed. Increased out-migration was one of the great political pressures which brought down the former Republic of East Germany and brought on the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing collapse of the USSR.
Good. CA people getting exactly what they deserve. Harder! Harder!
These politicians keep getting voted into office…………………..
For you Monty Python fans, Weiner (et al) needs his own Dennis Moore episode and theme song:
He gives to the rich
And steals from the poor!
Weiner dee, Weiner dum.
Dumb, dumb, dumb….
“Green” energy, with all its subsidies, tax credits, and rate hikes, is the biggest transfer of wealth, from the poor to the rich, since the Mongol Empire.
“within 2,500 feet of a sensitive receptor, or a greater distance set by a city, a county, or the division.”
So local governments can set whatever distance they want.
And if I’m understanding Section 4 correctly, it pretty much shuts down ALL extraction permits as of the end of this year.
Will this hurt Newsom in his recall election? Only if the media can keep this under wraps until afterwards.
The goal of electrifying CA and requiring only new cars to be EVs to be sold by 2035 while decreasing power supplies is about controlling the populace. We see that electricity can be shut off and on whenever the provider decides to. And guess who will be telling that provider when to do so – Democrats in political power.
And the left wants people out of their cars.
What a better way to do that by mandating electric car driving and then shutting off the power to those electric cars at will.
The whole EV push is not about cleaner air and less CO2, but about Democrat government control over the freedom of those they rule over.