Unable to overcome fierce opposition from the oil industry and resistance from some Democrats, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders announced Wednesday that they will remove a major portion of an ambitious proposal to combat climate change.
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“The 50 percent cut in fuel consumption was removed, but the bill retains a provision requiring a doubling of building insulation and a boost in the use of power from renewable energy sources”.
Regarding the tax proposals supported by Brown and many other Democrats, Senate Republican leader Jean Fuller said Wednesday that Republicans can’t support higher taxes on gasoline, tobacco or cocktails – a new tax introduced Tuesday that would provide funding for Californians with developmental disabilities – because Democrats have done a poor job managing the state’s surging revenue.
California may still enact an ambitious climate change package of legislation this session, but the oil industry made sure it won’t include the most aggressive feature.
A separate bill, which would have mandated an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from levels emitted in 1990, was also pulled, but the bill’s author, Democratic state Senator Fran Pavley, said she would attempt to revive it before the end of the session.
SB 350 is “an attempt to essentially put oil companies out of business”, Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said in August.
California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill yesterday that would have barred drones from flying within 350 feet above property without “express permission” of the property owners. “We couldn’t cut through the multibillion-dollar smoke screen created by big oil with a bottomless war chest”, he said.
“It doesn’t look like it will” come together this week, said Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.
However, officials from the State Air Resources Board said that existing policies, which have pushed for reducing the carbon impact of fuels, implementing vehicle efficiency standards and pushing for the use of mass transit, are already moving the state’s climate record in the right direction.
The governor said opponents agreed to pass the legislation if he agreed to dramatically scale back its power, but he refused.
Sen. Bob Huff, R-San Dimas, who until recently was the Senate minority leader, welcomed Wednesday’s announcement, saying the oil reduction carried too much unknown economic costs. “As a result of I’m extra decided than ever”, the governor stated.
Brown has campaigned on climate change this year, discussing it with the pope at the Vatican in July. He is expected to attend the United Nations climate change conference in Paris in November.
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He said the intense debate surrounding the legislation may have actually helped the cause of climate change legislation in the long term.
