California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the most aggressive climate change bill yet in America on Thursday, calling the new SB 32 “far-reaching” and “backed up by the real power of the state of California.”
Brown signed signed the bill in a Los Angeles park, according to the Sacramento Bee. “California is doing something that no other state has done,” Brown reportedly said at the ceremony. ” We’re putting in to law real measures, backed up by the real power of the state of California. This is big and I hope it sends a message across the country.”
The new law is a more aggressive version of former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s AB 32, enacted in 2006, which aimed to reduce carbon emissions in the state to 1990 levels by 2020. That bill created the burly and bureaucratic California Air Resources Board (CARB), which was given authority over seeing those levels achieved.
The new SB 32 requires a massive 40 percent cut from 1990 levels, with a deadline of December 31, 2030. The Bee reports that the new measure gives CARB extended authority to force the extreme reductions upon Californians without setting the parameters of those regulations.
The emissions target is just one piece of what Brown committed the state to achieve in an extremely ambitious multinational climate change pact he signed last year with 12 regional governments in seven countries, including four U.S. states.
That agreement committed each signatory to drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Brown’s office stated at the time, “Under today’s agreement, the signatories commit to either reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 or achieve a per capita annual emission target of less than 2 metric tons by 2050.”
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory staff scientist Jeffery Greenblatt admitted to the Bee that if California halted all emissions the “global warming picture” wouldn’t really change. Rather he said, the reductions would be a political action, aimed at encouraging others to do the same.
The Bee reported that the state of California “is planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a range of emission-reduction programs, from clean vehicle rebates and high-speed rail to efforts to reduce methane from dairies.” Along those lines, the explosively pricey High-Speed Rail endeavor is a legacy project for Brown.
Jon Fleischman previously analyzed SB 32 and several other bills at Breitbart News, noticing the pork inherent in the program:
Two related bills, AB 1550 and AB 2722, set out the wealth redistribution piece of the regulatory scheme, taking moneys collected in fines and through extorting businesses and forcing those funds to be spent in districts represented by many legislators voting for SB 32.
Brown appears bent on forcing cap-and-trade on Californians, stating last month that “they’re going to plead for a market system called cap-and-trade so they can respond in a way that’s more beneficial to their bottom line.” The Bee reported that Brown also lambasted his opponents in Sacramento, calling them “Trump-inspired acolytes,” but concluded that “they have been vanquished” with the passage of SB 32.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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