Californians will vote twice in November on the state’s groundbreaking law to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming - once on an oil company-backed initiative to put the law on hold indefinitely, and once in the governor’s race, where Republican Meg Whitman has promised to suspend the rules for a year.
Governors are normally required to enforce all state laws, including those they dislike. But AB32, which requires the state to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020, has a built-in escape hatch.
The law authorizes a governor to delay some or all of its provisions for up to a year “in the event of extraordinary circumstances, catastrophic events, or threat of significant economic harm.” The governor can renew the suspension if the conditions still exist after a year.
Citing the “significant economic harm” provision, Whitman said in September that she would suspend AB32 on her first day in office.
Wrong for the times
The law “may have been well-intentioned. But it is wrong for these challenging times,” she said in a column in the San Jose Mercury News. AB32, she declared, will drive up energy costs, “will discourage job creation and could kill any recovery.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed AB32 in 2006, responded that the law would create jobs, not destroy them. “Why would we want to go back to the Stone Age?” he asked at a “green jobs” exhibit in March.
He stepped up his criticism of AB32’s opponents last week in an interview with The Chronicle that appeared to target Whitman, his fellow Republican.
“Everyone who talks about suspending (AB32) is actually trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes” and “has the intention of eliminating it,” the governor said.
Brown backs law
Attorney General Jerry Brown, Whitman’s Democratic opponent, is also a fan of AB32.
“Addressing climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, something that California has been a leader on,” said Sterling Clifford, Brown’s campaign spokesman.
He said Brown’s promotion of wind power and other alternative energy sources as governor from 1975 to 1983 showed that “economic growth and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive.”
A one-year suspension in 2011 would come at a critical moment for AB32, the first law of its kind in the nation. The state Air Resources Board, whose members were appointed by Schwarzenegger, is scheduled to adopt regulations by Jan. 1, effective a year later, that would give the law its first teeth - binding emissions limits that would affect everything from motor vehicle fuels to power plants and landfills.
Post-primary stance
Whitman assailed AB32 as a job-killer during the Republican primary campaign. Asked at a debate May 2 whether humans cause climate change, she said, “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”
She has toned down her criticism of the law since winning the primary. Campaign spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said last week that Whitman, during her one-year moratorium, would “bring accountability and strong leadership to the AB32 process so the regulations effectively reduce our emissions while strengthening our economy.”
Pompei didn’t say how Whitman would accomplish those goals, which the candidate had previously suggested were in conflict. And she left the door open to a renewed suspension after the first year, saying Whitman would invoke her authority to delay regulations “until a comprehensive review of AB32’s effects on the economy and jobs can be fully understood.”
The candidate put it more bluntly in March when asked by a reporter if AB32 should be restored once the economy improves. “My thought is no,” she said.
Any suspension is tantamount to a repeal of the law, argued its legislative sponsor, state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills (Los Angeles County), who introduced AB32 as an assemblywoman.
“People engaged in clean technology, alternate fuels and renewable energy need a signal that there’s a market for investment,” she said. “Suspension of AB32 would mean disaster.”
Lawmaker might sue
Pavley also said she would consider a lawsuit if Whitman was elected and carried out her pledge.
She said she had negotiated the escape clause with Schwarzenegger so a governor could suspend the law “in the most extraordinary circumstances … from wars to significant natural disasters.” The “significant economic harm” provision, Pavley said, was aimed at severe and long-lasting financial disruption, not at economic fluctuations.
But the text of the law contains no such limitations and appears to give the governor free rein to order a suspension. Michael Wara, a Stanford law professor who supports AB32, said a legal challenge would probably fail.
“If Whitman wants to roll this back, she can,” he said. “She has to provide a reasoned basis for doing so,” such as the unemployment rate and other signs of economic distress, Wara said.
The voters could take the issue out of the governor’s hands by passing Proposition 23, which would suspend AB32 until California’s unemployment rate, now 12.3 percent, dropped to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says that’s happened three times in the last 40 years.
Brown opposes Prop. 23. So does Schwarzenegger, who describes its sponsors as “greedy oil companies who want to keep polluting in our state and making profits.” Whitman has not taken a stand on the measure.
Article url: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/25/MN3N1EIKOC.DTL
