California Waging War On Businesses To Fill Its Hungry Coffers

Gov. Gavin Newsom is vowing to crack down on California’s “smash-and-grab” robberies.

How about stopping the smash-and-grabs he and his fellow Democrats in Sacramento are waging against businesses?

Exhibit A is the lawsuit the state filed on Sept. 15 against six large oil and gas companies. [emphasis, links added]

Attorney General Rob Bonta accuses the defendants of misleading the public about climate change and creating a “public nuisance” by emitting carbon.

He demands they “pay for the costs of their impacts to the environment, human health, and Californians’ livelihoods, and to help protect the state against the harms that climate change will cause in years to come.”

The state also seeks punitive damages for “lying to the public.”

“California taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for billions of dollars in damages—wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells,” Mr. Newsom declared.

The real culprits, as he doubtless knows, are in Sacramento.

Instead of thinning overgrown forests and burying power lines or building more dams to store storm runoff during wet winters, the state has spent tens of billions of dollars on green energy, electric vehicle subsidies for the rich, and a bullet train to nowhere—no offense to the 28,173 inhabitants of Wasco—that may never be completed.

The lawsuit largely launders unsubstantiated claims from green groups that have been aired in the liberal press for years.

But the state stands a chance of prevailing since the lawsuit will be heard in state court, and appeals would go to California’s Supreme Court, six of whose justices were appointed by Democratic governors and uniformly rule for the left.

The apparent impetus for the lawsuit—besides perhaps Mr. Newsom’s insatiable desire for attention—is Sacramento’s irrepressible need for more money.

Lawmakers in June closed a $32 billion budget deficit by resorting to numerous gimmicks, but the state Legislative Analyst’s Office this spring forecast that the state would face $52 billion in shortfalls in coming years.

Electric rates are also soaring—already two to three times as high as in neighboring states—thanks to California’s aggressive green-energy build-out and the need to make equipment and transmission lines fireproof.

Rather than dial back profligate spending and climate policies, Mr. Newsom and his posse are attempting to raid energy companies.

Their smash-and-grab is all the more galling because of their public misrepresentations that green-energy mandates and subsidies will arrest climate change. They won’t. Nor can the state prosper without fossil fuels.

When a wildfire shut down transmission lines in Del Norte County last month, a local utility used 44 commercial generators to power 13,000 customers and distributed more than 200 residential generators. The generators kept the county powered for nearly a month.

“For the first time, an entire county’s electric needs were supplied by commercial generators powering substations, providing temporary electrification for the community,” state Senate Majority Leader Mike McGuire said. “This was a remarkable achievement, all things considered.”

Yet according to the state lawsuit, diesel generators create a public nuisance. …snip…

Companies are leaving California in droves and taking jobs with them.

In the past year employment in the state has increased by a mere 19,900 while unemployment has swelled by 171,100—the most lopsided ratio in the nation.

By contrast, employment in Florida has grown by 297,000, more than 30 times as much as unemployment. Criminals may get away with smash-and-grabs, but politicians can’t abuse businesses with impunity.

h/t Steve B.

Top photo via YouTube screencap

Read full post at WSJ