George Rebane
That is the title of today’s (25may10) WSJ editorial summarizing how California’s AB32 act will ravage the state, and drive us deeper into an economic morass. The piece begins –
California, that former land of opportunity, was one of the first states to pass its own version of "cap and trade" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007 when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law, called AB-32, he said it would propel California into an economy-expanding, green job future. Well, a new study by the state's own auditing agency—its version of the Congressional Budget Office—has burst that green bubble.
The study released May 13 concludes that "California's economy at large will likely be adversely affected in the near term by implementing climate-related policies that are not adopted elsewhere." While the long-term economic costs are "unknown," the study finds that AB-32 will raise energy prices, "causing the prices of goods and services to rise; lowering business profits; and reducing production, income and jobs."
Readers of RR and NC Media Watch were made aware of AB32’s damage before our governator signed it into law. Russ Steele has long been our local spearchucker in keeping us up to date about climate change, and the lunacy that its AGW variants are spreading across the land.
California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office now confirms that “leakage” will be one the prime time bombs that this poorly conceived piece of progressivism will set off. Leakage means that the stream of California companies heading for truly greener pastures will become a torrent when the contents of this ersatz ‘green jobs’ crock gets poured over the state. Now only the terminally ignorant and ideologically calcified will remain loyal supporters of California’s continuing decline.
Acknowledging that this disease is about to go nationwide, the editorial concludes –
It should be obvious to Members of Congress that similar jobs and business "leakage" will strike the U.S. in general if federal cap and trade passes. The hardest hit industries will leave the U.S. and relocate to the likes of China and India where marginal costs are lower. The recently introduced Kerry-Lieberman bill all but concedes the point by calling for tariffs on products from countries that don't impose similar energy costs.
In November, Californians will vote on an initiative to suspend AB-32 until the state unemployment rate falls to 5.5%. The rate is now 12.6%, the third highest after Michigan and Nevada, and a state already leading the nation in lost jobs and businesses, home foreclosures and debt doesn't need higher self-imposed energy costs.
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