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ELECTION DAY: Proponents and opponents of California Proposition 23 face off on Tuesday when they vote on the measure, which effectively blocks the implementation of California's 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).
Image: COURTESY OF PAUL JOFFE
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A few years ago California became the first state to pass a law aimed at capping greenhouse gas emissions from major industries and threatening penalties for noncompliance. Opponents of California's 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) have been working throughout the year to defang the measure before it can take effect in January. The showdown between AB 32's supporters and its opposition comes to a head this Election Day, when Californians vote on Proposition 23, a ballot measure written to keep the state from implementing AB 32's provisions until the state unemployment rate stays at 5.5 percent or below for four consecutive quarters.
Prop 23 supporters contend that cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020 places a heavy financial burden on the state's existing industries that will lead to lower profits, discourage some businesses from moving to California and eventually create massive layoffs.
Those opposed to Prop 23 believe that the state's businesses should take the environmentally responsible action of adhering to AB 32's provisions, and that any job losses in the short term will be more than compensated for by employment opportunities in the state's growing renewable energy industry. They also point out that any attempt to meet the ballot measure's employment requirements is a fool's errand—California's unemployment rate in September stood at 12.4 percent.
The Prop 23 campaign has suffered from its own disingenuousness and appears to be losing traction. Earlier this year it was revealed that most of its biggest supporters, and donors, hailed from out-of-state oil companies—in particular Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., both based in Texas. In fact, the millions of dollars these companies put into Prop 23 helped get it on the November 2 ballot. As a result, last week 68 investors that collectively manage $415 billion in assets issued a statement urging voters to reject Proposition 23 (pdf).
Scientific American asked Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Jacobson to weigh in on the debate and the possibility that, if Prop 23 fails, the sentiments behind the ballot measure might resurface elsewhere.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Is Prop 23 still a major issue in the upcoming election? What is at stake if it does pass?
It looks like Prop 23 is headed for defeat according to the latest polls. If it were to pass, it would be devastating for efforts to address CO2 as a greenhouse gas, since California right now is the only state that can control CO2, thanks to a waiver from the EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] allowing the state to do so. Even though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is suing the EPA to try to prevent implementation of California's waiver, other states can now follow California's lead and obtain such a waiver. If Prop 23 passes, however, it is unlikely that other states will implement CO2 controls, since they would feel they do not have a mandate to do so. In sum, Prop 23 would dissuade other states from implementing CO2 controls and prevent California from implementing its own controls, damaging the green tech industry.
Why did Prop 23 (at least at one point) become such a large issue related to this election? Are Californians concerned that AB 32 will cost them a lot of money, in taxes or otherwise?
Proponents of Prop 23 have provided inaccurate information about the effects of air pollution regulation. The financial benefit of air pollution regulation, compared to the cost of such regulation, historically (from 1990 to present) has been four to one, according to the EPA. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) came up with a similar conclusion (and ratio) under the Bush administration.
[In 2003 the OMB reported that "societal benefits" of EPA regulations significantly outweighed costs of compliance between the years of 1992 and 2002. After analyzing the costs and benefits of 107 regulations promulgated by agencies across the federal government, OMB found that total benefits of federal rules were three to five times greater than total costs. Benefits were estimated at $146 billion to $230 billion annually, whereas yearly costs were estimated at $36 billion to $42 billion.]
Why would a California citizen want to vote for Prop 23? What does a voter have to gain by its adoption?
Voters would have been deceived into thinking that Prop 23 will cost jobs. There is little to gain.
If Prop 23 is not adopted, where else might the sentiments behind it resurface? Might Proposition 26 also be an outlet for those opposed to spending the money to cut greenhouse emissions?
Yes, Prop 26 is a related ballot initiative designed to allow industry and others to continue polluting. So long as the oil, coal, gas, biofuels and other combustion industries have money they will continue to spend it in efforts that result in keeping the air unhealthy and climate problems alive with the goal of making more money for themselves.
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12 Comments
Add CommentNO! California Voters Should Not Repeal State Efforts to Curb Greenhouse Gases? California should increase their efforts to curb greenhouse gases to the point it encourages the use of clean energy and clean electric vehicles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSA, I continue to watch with dismay as this venerable publication becomes yet another political opinion piece. The world has far too many of those already. Let SA remain a place where facts speak for themselves. Your audience is quite capable of forming their own opinions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks a lot for this bit of "reporting". And that very informational and helpful expert. What a great unbiased article!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, I hope the voters of California decide they want to continue down the path toward regulating industrial emitters of greenhouse gas. Those of us who live in other states could benefit greatly from all the companies and jobs which will be looking to flee the state.
I just hope California isn't successful when they look to be rescued by other state's taxpayers when they finally sink under the weight of their idiocy.
Parts of AB32 have already been inacted and it has forced companies to spend 100% of their profits to comply, and for the forseable future they will have to spend all of their profits to keep up with the continuing changes of AB21 which means companies can not grow or give out bonus they are stuck where they are. a prime example is a friends company that spent 100% on new or upgraded equipment would have in the past spent some on new equipment some on new drivers,increased employment, of that equipment and some would have gone into savings but they cant now unless they are a multi-state company that can move old equipment out of the state.One thing not mentioned in the article is that both Germany and Denmark and Spain have had similar programs and they themselves said these green programs lost more jobs then they created so why don't we look at history instead of our governments wishfull thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoccerdad for the win... with such ingenuity as always.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe low information greenie who is fighting Prop 23 is an example of the fools who seem to have forgotten about global warming and still don't get it. The current AB23 not so renewable strategy is one of the stupidest pieces of legislation a bunch of attorneys cum politicians has ever come up with.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe oil industry outside of couple of oil refinery's financing the Pro campaign loves renewable energy standards. It lets them sell a whole lot more filthy radioactive radon gas spewing natural gas. Because of the 75 times as potent as CO2 methane gas leaks all over the pipeline system, NG is actually almost as bad a GHG producer as coal.
Solar and wind are Big Oil favorites as even more NG is sold supplying the needed load balancing with low efficiency fast spooling gas plant. Better, cheaper, less GHG and less natural gas sales to build slow spooling high efficiency CCGT plant instead.
Not so renewables costs start at 50 cents a kwh when they have to start paying for all the grid, storage and natural gas plant costs they are getting as a freebee today. Solar is double that. Big offshore wind producer Cape Wind is 24 cents a kwh going to 34 cents at the current tariff rate no grid, storage or gas costs included. Wind and solar prices have bottomed out and are rising.
Since nuclear power is far more renewable than the current "renewable" set of offerings, is a third the cost at maximum, and actually has a chance of saving civilization from a fast approaching climate peak oil disaster, prominent Green's like Brand, Lovelock, Hansen, Moore, Cameron and Craven have all demanded nuclear excluded by AB23 be included in any RES
The TVA is already using its 5 cents a kwh new nuclear build cost to finance a coal to nuclear transition. Current Asian builds put new nuke costs under 2 cents a kwh and dropping fast.
With AB23 by 2050 California will be bankrupt paying a buck a kwh for wind and solar load balanced by dirty radioactive radon and GHG spewing low efficiency gas plant. GHG free Asia will be laughing at the foolish California voter with their less than 1 cent a kwh nuclear.
Here's James Cameron
" I’m pro-nuclear, yeah,.. as a bridge to a fully sustainable future. I think the waste problem is a 500 year horizon, I think the warming problem is a 10 to 15 year horizon. "
10 to 15 years folks!!!!That's what climate scientists are telling us. The current green movement are defacto global deniers since they don't seem to believe them, loving natural gas and not so renewable technology more than the survival of civilization.
It's irrelevent what California does or doesn't do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCalifornians are way less than 1% of the world's population and a 25% reduction of that 1% (besides it wouldn't be even near 25%)is ZIP.
The measure in California is absolutely insane. It will cost California jobs and revenue, and will benefit the climate absolutely zero. The concept of cap and trade is solely for the benefit of the traders. The fact that some commenter's here support this misguided measure only shows their ignorance or stupidity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomeone, please answer what will be the benefit to the climate of this measure in CA? If you really want to reduce emissions from carbon based products, then build modern nuclear electrical generation plants. The expense of the administration of stupid cap and trade schemes takes resources away from things that would actually be of benefit to America.
Methane is 20-21x more potent..... Not 75.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMethane is 75% more potent in the first 25 years after release then decreases rapidly to hit the 25 times average.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince we are most concerned about the next 25 years, the 75 times stands.
New(er) research by NASA indicates methane's 100 year potency should be closer to 33x CO2. (See www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6895907.ece).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving said that, major human created methane gas sources (in order, using the US as an example) are livestock farming (mainly cows), landfills, natural gas systems, and coal mining. (http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html) It is worthy to note that in the time frame that renewable energy has increased its contribution to the electrical grid, natural gas emissions related to "Natural gas systems" has been reduced.
So it would seem that demonizing solar and wind power via natural gas plants is a null argument. Not to mention, reducing beef consumption and/or finding innovative ways of harnessing the energy of the methane produced by cows would appear to be a worthy cause! One such technology is called an IMUS plant (Integrated
Manure Utilization System).
Quoting the US EPA website:
"An adult cow may be a very small source by itself, emitting only 80-110 kgs of methane, but with about 100 million cattle in the U.S. and 1.2 billion large ruminants in the world, ruminants are one of the largest methane sources. In the U.S., cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere, accounting for 20% of U.S. methane emissions."
Same thing applies to landfills, for which there are plenty of very economical solutions available to either harness the released methane or passively oxidize it to CO2.
Any way about it, it sounds like a lot of wasted energy.
"California produces roughly 1.4 percent of the world's, and 6.2 percent of the total U.S., greenhouse gases."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.climatechange.ca.gov/
You can hardly compare the "less than 1% of the world's population" in California to the same amount of people pretty well anywhere else in the world... the USA consumes about 20% of the global energy production with only ~4.5% of the world's population (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/graphic_data_world.html - 2007 figures, "Shares of world energy consumption in the United States, China, and India, 1990-2035"). Please keep these vast disparities in mind.