California’s AB23 – a litmus test for climate law

WashingtonExaminer …The ballot initiative also has the power to reverse one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature environmental accomplishments. In 2006, he signed the Global Warming Solutions Act, a Democratic bill that requires reduction of greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels over the next decade.

The law, AB32, is a cornerstone of the environmental legacy the Republican governor is trying to leave and is scheduled to take effect in 2012. The California agency overseeing air regulations has already started working on the rules to implement it.

Proposition 23 calls for a postponement of AB32 until the state’s unemployment rate, now at 12.4 percent, falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for a year — a feat that has happened just three times over the last 30 years, according to state statistics.

Charles Drevna… wrote that a defeat for the initiative “could energize environmental fanatics around the country and in Washington to match California’s destructive policies with their own versions of AB32.”

Oil companies have contributed millions to pass Proposition 23 campaign, with $6.5 million coming from three sources: Texas-based Valero Corp. and Tesoro Corp., which have contributed $4 million and $1.5 million respectively; and Flint Hills Resources of Wichita, Kan., a company owned by David and Charles Koch, which donated $1 million. The Koch brothers have attracted media attention recently because of their contributions to Republican and tea party causes.

Schwarzenegger has registered his own frustration with the oil companies as they have poured millions of dollars into the initiative. In a September speech to the Commonwealth Club in Santa Clara, he said the companies were acting on “self-serving greed.”

Unlike many environmental showdowns, this contest does not draw a straight line between environmentalists against businesses.

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