Gov. Jerry Brown is set to extend the nation’s most ambitious climate change law by another 10 years on Thursday as California charts a new goal to reduce carbon pollution. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, respectively.
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The new legislation will “impose very severe caps on the emission of greenhouse gases in California, without requiring the regulatory agencies to give any consideration to the impacts on our economy, disruptions in everyone’s daily lives or the fact that California’s population will grow nearly 50 percent between 1990 and 2030”, the California Chamber of Commerce said in a statement. Jerry Brown signed two measures Thursday that make the nation’s most advanced climate laws even tougher, overcoming opposition that once imperiled his goals.
By placing this goal into statute, Pavley said, the bill “sends a clear, unequivocal signal to entrepreneurs and innovators that California will remain the place to invest in the 21st century economy”.
The Democratic governor chose an urban natural park on the edge of downtown Los Angeles as the setting to sign the legislation, SB32, into law.
Brown, a Democrat who has traveled the world promoting greenhouse-gas reduction efforts, issued an executive order past year setting the new 2030 goal.
AB 197 calls on the state to focus its pollution-reduction efforts on “disadvantaged” communities and to increase public oversight of climate programs.
It will “keep California on the move to clean up the environment”, Brown said before the signing.
Despite his action, the state’s best known emissions reduction measure remains in jeopardy.
California has always been on the cutting edge of statewide climate action - in 2006, the state legislature passed a landmark law that mandated the state cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, the first law of its kind in the United States.
The Western States Petroleum Association also opposed the climate bill. They say trying to cut electricity-sector emissions will raise energy prices and hurt low-income and minority communities especially hard. “It’s a success story”.
Brown has said the legislation could provide leverage to convince businesses to support an extension of cap-and-trade, which requires polluters to pay to offset carbon emissions. That’s why extending our emission- reductions goals is so critical.
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The legislation doesn’t address the future of the state’s cap-and-trade program.
