Californians Vote Down Prop. 23, Saving the State’s Upcoming Global Warming Law

Despite scare tactics from oil and chemical companies, by an overwhelming margin on Election Day the people of California voted against Proposition 23, also called the “California Jobs Initiative,” which would have killed the state’s global warming law scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2012.

Now secure, California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, more commonly known as AB 32, will require California’s State Air Resource Board to design and implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels in the next eight years (by 2020).

They don’t know what the 1990 levels are yet, so the law has given the board the job of evaluating “the best available scientific, technological, and economic information on greenhouse gas emissions to determine the 1990 levels.”

As part of designing statewide emissions reduction measures, it will require the board to: minimize costs and maximizes benefits for California’s economy; improve and modernize California’s energy infrastructure and maintains electric system reliability; and maximize additional environmental and economic co-benefits for California.

After the vote, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made the following statement:

The effort to suspend AB 32 was the work of greedy Texas oil companies that wanted nothing more than to keep polluting our state. Today, California voters saw through the smokescreen of these dirty oil companies and rejected their attempts to move our state backwards. 

In California, we are going to continue moving forward with our comprehensive energy policy that creates jobs, reduces our reliance on foreign oil and ensures the California we love will be the California we hand over to the next generation.

Among the opponents of the global warming law were Koch Industries, Inc., a U.S. oil and chemical company, that said, “AB 32 was enacted during an economic boom,” while at the same time acknowledging that the law would “establish a carbon cap and trade scheme, and low-carbon fuel standards aimed at lowering carbon emissions in California.”

As a deterrent to voters, Koch also speculated that if the law went into effect it would result in “significant job losses and higher energy costs” for the state.

Related Article

• Election Day Giving California Voters Choice Over Global Warming Law Through Ballot Prop. 23 

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