Our View: Kicking energy prices up, jobs out
A damning report by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office says the controversial Global Warming Solutions Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will drive up energy prices, force businesses to delay expansion or flee the state and put California at a competitive disadvantage. We're not surprised. We've made that case since the law, Assembly Bill 32, was passed in 2006.
The report, released at the request of Assembly Dan Logue, R-Linda, a harsh critic of AB32, revealed something else equally troubling. The state Air Resources Board, charged with assessing the impact of the regulations it is drafting under the law and will impose on businesses, "has not effectively analyzed economic leakage" that AB32 will create, according to the Legislative Analyst.
"Economic leakage" is a euphemism for industries fleeing California's oppressive regulatory regime for economically greener pastures in neighboring states.
"Despite the potential importance of leakage, ARB's evaluation of economic leakage within its economic analysis of the (air board's scoping plan) is deficient," the Legislative Analyst reported in a letter to Logue.
This means bureaucrats drafting the economy-retarding regulations to be phased in over several years essentially haven't fully considered AB32's potentially harmful economic effects. Since its adoption in 2006, AB32 has been much more about government control and forcing an impractical green agenda on Californians than it has been about the supposed threat of global warming, which for all intents and purposes stopped or began reversing a decade ago.
The Legislative Analyst's "findings are alarming and give significant cause for reconsideration of whether or not AB32 should continue to be implemented in this economy," said Mr. Logue, who is a backer of an initiative for the November ballot to suspend the law until the state's unemployment rate, now at 12.6 percent, is reduced to 5.5 percent.
"The impact of AB32 will be felt statewide, and while the effects may only be 'modest' in certain industries, for many others it will be devastating," Logue said.
Advocates for AB32, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, contend that so-called new "green jobs" will offset jobs lost when companies flee to states with lower regulatory costs. The reality is that so-called green jobs, even though increasing at a relatively high rate, represent a minuscule portion of California jobs. Moreover, many so-called green jobs are relatively menial, and almost all rely heavily on taxpayer subsidies.
Although green jobs reportedly increased 45 percent from 1995-2008, that represented only an additional 4,000 jobs. By comparison, AB32 is projected to result in the short-term loss of 120,000 jobs. Logue, and others citing university studies, say the ultimate price of imposing AB32's greenhouse gas regulations would cost California 1.1 million jobs.
