California Gov. Jerry Brown is set to extend the nation’s most ambitious climate change law by another 10 years, charting a new goal to reduce carbon pollution. “Pavley and legislative leadership, businesses, innovators and investors will have the confidence to keep California ahead in transforming from the old era of dirty fossil fuels to a clean energy economy”, said Adrienne Alvord, western states director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement.
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California manufacturers already pay higher electricity, natural gas and transportation fuel costs compared to the national average, said California Manufacturers and Technology Association president Dorothy Rothrock, warning the new law puts “manufacturing jobs and investments at risk”.
Passed easily by the Democratic-controlled legislature last month (see Daily GPI, Aug. 25), SB 32 and AB 197 were signed by Brown with the legislators at his side.
California’s crusade against climate change started under former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the state’s original emissions-control law, known as AB32. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and Assembly Bill 197, by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, the state is now required to cut emissions at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and invest in the communities hardest hit by climate change.
The legislation also pledges to meet these goals “in a manner that benefits the state’s most disadvantaged communities”, noting that climate change disproportionately affects the urban poor, the elderly and rural populations.
The governor, who has traveled the world promoting greenhouse-gas reduction efforts, issued an executive order past year setting the 2030 goals contained in SB32.
Brown has set an ultimate goal of cutting emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. And while the state has made significant progress towards that goal, the new legislation would require even deeper emissions cuts, as well as extend the timeline of emissions reductions by ten years.
The pair of bills, SB 32 and AB 197, requires the state to reduce carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
Despite pushing the climate goals through, the centerpiece of the state’s effort to combat global warming remains in jeopardy. California’s earlier climate change law, AB 32, mandated a statewide reduction in carbon pollution to 1990 levels by 2020.
The legislation does not specifically address the future of the cap-and-trade program, the centerpiece of California’s climate agenda. In the state’s last auction, about two-thirds of the available pollution allowances went unsold.
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Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, also hailed the legislation as way to clean the air while improving the economy.
