California passed Monday night legislation extending a cap and trade program that some of the state’s lawmakers believe could raise gas prices on the poorest citizens.
Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s cap and trade bill received enough support in the senate and assembly to pass the proposal and shift the legislation to the governor’s desk. The law extends past California’s 2020 climate measure, essentially gifting the governor a major victory before leaving office in 2018.
Brown lobbied hard for the bill and claimed passing the measure would place California at the forefront of the climate crusade.
“Republicans and Democrats set aside their differences, came together and took courageous action,” he told reporters after the measure passed. “That’s what good government looks like.”
Twenty-eight senators voted in favor of the bill — one more than needed. It also needed 54 votes to survive the assembly; the bill got 55. Only one Republican in the Senate crossed party lines on the measure. Many of the bill’s opponents in the Senate noted that California represents just 1 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Some Republicans even claimed Brown’s push would act as a type of tax on the poor. State Sen. Andy Vidak, for instance, said the extension represents a “regressive” tax that would not substantially impact the climate.
“We could shut down the entire state of California and it would have no effect on the global climate,” Vidak said. His Democratic counterparts complained about the cap and trade extension earlier this month as well.
Democrats worried that the governor’s efforts on cap-and-trade could thrust already vulnerable lawmakers out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Kip Lipper, an environmental advisor to Senate leadership, wrote in an email in May that their lawmakers had “no plans to take up a cap and trade reauthorization bill anytime soon.” Many of them are “gas tax weary” about the possibility of shoving through another vote so quickly after their unpopular move to raise the state’s gas tax for road repairs, he said.
Brown and the state’s Democrats signed the Road Repair and Accountability Act, which imposes 12-cent per gallon increase on citizens, and raises the tax on diesel fuel by 20 cents a gallon. It was not a popular vote.
Some of the gas tax’s opponents contributed waves of signatures for a recall effort against Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman for his support of the tax, and another lawmaker wants to repeal the unpopular gas tax. Democrats have changed some of the rules governing recalls to help supply cover for Newman.
Activists were similarly fired up about the cap and trade measure. Environmentalists, for instance, believed Brown watered down the bill too much to pull in wary Democrats. Some of the provisions within the program allow companies free allowances throughout the next decade.
Still, Brown used his fellow lawmaker’s concerns about the climate and fears of a Trump administration’s possible effect on the environment to gain support. He pushed the issue after President Donald Trump detached the U.S. from the nonbinding Paris climate agreement, a move that activists and Democrats called monstrous.
Brown forged a complex coalition of states committed to approving planks of the deal shortly after the president’s move. He sold the cap and trade measure as a type of bonding agent adhering together all the states concerned about the absence of the Paris accord.
Read more at Daily Caller
Caifornia has become too darn liberal and populated by liberals from Hollywood,L.A. San Francisco Sacramento and the green nuts from the various eco-wacko groups and i live at the very tope of the state here in Siskiyou County and were pretty much are conservatoves
What fun it must be to live in California where this sort of meaningless activity passes for governance. Brown is quite happy to raise money for fighting the non-existent Man Made Climate Change yet he is unable to fund decent water storage systems, the California Pension System because he is terrified of raising taxes.
You then have the idiots who vote for these lefties and think they are doing good for the community while poverty keeps rising and the homeless population in LA and SF just gets ever bigger. What a hateful, indifferent gang of self congratulatory dimwits Brown lords over.
Blurgh!
Rakooi the walking windbag you would give Chicago the Windy city a run for its money you blabbering is poppycock
Well the good news is Brown leaving office . How timely
just before the cluster F he oversaw goes down .
No no Brown stick around you deserve it .
Socialist are such cowards .
Always Spurning Plover….more ugliness.
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The Governor is at least trying to deal with a real problem in cooperation with many other Governors and world leaders.
…
“Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
“WE ARE DEEPLY DISTURBED BY THE RECENT ESCALATION OF POLITICAL ASSAULTS ON SCIENTISTS in general
and on
climate scientists in particular.
All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions,
science never absolutely proves anything.
When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action,
it is the same as saying society should never take action.
For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.
Scientifi c conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human
beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientifi c process is designed to fi nd and correct them.
This process is inherently adversarial?scientists build reputations and gain recognition not
only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the
scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation.
That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did.
But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined,
they gain the status of well-established theories and are often spoken of as facts.
For instance, there is compelling scientifi c evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old
(the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago
(the Big Bang theory), and that today?s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution).
Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientifi c community,
fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong.
Climate change now falls into this category:
There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are
changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.
Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers
are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfi es the evidence.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change,
which involve tens of thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally,
made some mistakes.
When errors are pointed out, they are corrected.
But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:
(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth?s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times,
including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concen-
trations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
Much more can be, and has been, said by the world?s scientifi c societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations
will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the un restrained burning of fossil fuels.
We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid
taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices:
We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky,
or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively.
The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible.
But delay must not be an option.”
COMMENTARY
Published by AAAS
Signatory affiliations are available as supporting material
at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/689/
Moonbeam Brown is a knucklehead and stuck on the stupidity of all liberal Dumb-O-Crats