Cap and trade is alive and well in California.
“The California Air Resources Board today adopted the final
cap-and-trade regulation, putting into place another key element of the state’s
pioneering climate plan,” CARB announced in a press release dated October 20,
2011.
The move comes just over four years after former Republican
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law AB 32, the California Global
Warming Solutions Act. It also comes less than a year after voters in the state
overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 23, which would have suspended AB 32, by a
margin of 61.6 to 38.4 percent. Outside oil interests spent millions trying to
pass Proposition 23, but still lost.
It should be interesting to see how the presidential
candidates respond to the news. While opinions on global warming vary among the
Republican contenders, most have spoken out against cap and trade on the
campaign trail – including those who once supported it.
New Hampshire, home to the first in the nation presidential
primary, is one of nine states still participating in the Regional Greenhouse
Gas Initiative cap and trade program. Current GOP frontrunner Herman Cain, a
climate skeptic, has been a vocal critic of RGGI, calling it a “hidden tax” back in June. Recent efforts to repeal the program in New Hampshire have been linked back to Americans for Prosperity and other special interest groups supported by the fossil fuel industry.
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