Todays signing lays to rest the claim by the oil industry and other regulated entities that Californias commitment to climate action is ephemeral, an artifact of a former legislative body, says Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. The California Chamber of Commerce has a pending legal challenge to the tax on carbon known as cap-and-trade, which requires polluters to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases.
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The new bills don’t directly address the future of the cap and trade program, a lynchpin of California’s climate change agenda that has come under criticism.
Already on pace with targets for 2020, the governor signed off on a package of measures that require California to cut emissions by at least 40 percent from the 1990 benchmark by 2030. Brown, who has traveled the world promoting greenhouse-gas reduction efforts, issued an executive order a year ago setting those goals. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, said he supports the idea of cleaner air, but said SB 32 gives too much power to the California Air Resources Board, which has “repeatedly failed to produce basic performance reviews of its climate change programs”. AB 197 changes the game on how we make sure those goals are reached, says Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Los Angeles.
Supporters overcame strong opposition from oil companies and other industry interests to pass the legislation a year after business-friendly Democrats in the Assembly derailed an even more ambitious proposal to limit the use of oil in the state.
California is fully committed for the long term to reducing the greenhouse gas pollution that is creating climate disruption worldwide.
Calif., Gov. Jerry Brown, center, flanked by Senate President pro tempore Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, right, and Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, left, speaks during a news conference prior to signing legislation in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. Fran Pavley, who wrote SB 32. They also question how Democratic lawmakers with a majority in the legislature are using the money generated by fees paid in the cap and trade program. The governor spoke in the park in front of a small audience with the downtown Los Angeles cityscape behind him. “What we are doing is farsighted and far-reaching”, Gov.
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The legislation is likely to continue building Brown’s reputation as one of the country’s staunchest actors on climate-change legislation.
