An initiative facing California voters in November would suspend the state’s landmark law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until unemployment is 5.5 percent or less for at least a year. It now stands at more than 12 percent.
That law, passed in 2006 as AB32 or the Global Warming Solutions Act, directs the state to enact regulations to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. With national and international policy significance and touted as one of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s crowning achievements, the California law is driving the state’s efforts to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from autos and oil refineries, among other sources of carbon pollution. The oil and auto industries have opposed the law since its inception.
The new measure, which supporters are calling “The California Jobs Initiative,” (see here and here) is being actively supported by Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro. It could introduce new divisions in the electorate as Californians begin to settle on their choice for a new governor to succeed Schwarzenegger, a story on Tuesday in The Los Angeles Times suggests.
“The fight will pit the state’s powerful environmental organizations and clean-tech businesses against the oil and manufacturing industries,” wrote reporter Margot Roosevelt. “It also arrays many conservative political leaders, including the GOP nominee for governor, Meg Whitman, against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican who regards the global warming law as a key part of his legacy.”
Whitman has said she would suspend AB32 for one year, but as of June 23 she had not publicly endorsed the ballot initiative.
Roosevelt’s story quoted Schwarzenegger as saying the measure is “sponsored by greedy Texas oil companies (and) would cripple California’s fastest-growing economic sector, reverse our renewable energy policy and decimate our environmental progress for the benefit of these oil companies’ profit margins. … I will not allow this to happen on my watch.”
That begs the question of what option California voters might support as “the governator’s” watch comes to an end.