Despite a testy and drawn-out political battle, the new green mandates just approved by state lawmakers — higher efficiency standards for buildings, more reliance on renewable energy — signal good news for the state’s clean-energy industry.
Current law entitles workers at companies with at least 50 employees to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick parent, child or spouse. Senate Bill 406, by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, would add siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, domestic partners and parents-in-law to the list of family members.
The environmental lobby has tried to turn climate change into a social justice issue even though its anticarbon policies disproportionately harm the poor. Honest Democrats are starting to admit this, as we saw in this week’s stunning revolt in the California legislature.
Anyone who rattled down highways replete with moon craters while traveling on Labor Day weekend knows: The government doesn’t excel at managing roads. A major improvement would be bulldozing a permitting process that delays new public-works projects for up to a decade, and a new report from the nonpartisan group Common Good offers a road map.
The most controversial part of the bill is a provision requiring the state to reduce petroleum use in motor vehicles by 50 percent by 2030. And depending on your point of view, the stakes are these: On one side, the Pope (see Courage Campaign ad here); on the other, enslavement to a Tesla-loving, freedom-hating California Air Resources Board.
“What they’re trying to do is make congestion so bad, you’ll have to get out of your car,” said James O’Sullivan, a founder of Fix the City, a group that is planning a lawsuit to stop the plan. “But what are you going to do, take two hours on a bus? They haven’t given us other options.”
Goods movement, energy, manufacturing and construction provide good-paying blue-collar jobs, and collectively employed 20.5 percent of Californians in 2014, according to the California Employment Development Department. However, because of their emissions, these industries are also among those most affected by climate policies. Losing them and the jobs they create would simply add to the challenges already facing too many Californians.
Arbitrary licensure requirements make it much more difficult for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder – especially women and ethnic minorities – to climb up.
It’s still early to know how the hikes are affecting the job market, but the preliminary data aren’t good. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, Adam Ozimek of Moody’s MCO 2.26 % Analytics and Stephen Bronars of Edgewood Economics reported last month that the restaurant and hotel industries have lost jobs in all three cities. Mr. Bronars crunched the numbers and discovered that the “first wave of minimum wage increases appears to have led to the loss of over 1,100 food service jobs in the Seattle metro division and over 2,500 restaurant jobs in the San Francisco metro division.”
On this Labor Day, it would be fair to say that without public employees, California’s 16.3 percent unionization rate, a bit above the national average, would be more like Oklahoma’s 6 percent.
But it illustrates a dirty little secret of the wide array of tax credits, rebates and other “incentives” that federal and state governments have offered in the name of reducing emissions of carbon and other pollutants: They mostly go to the affluent.
But a centerpiece of California’s long-term campaign against emissions — legislation requiring a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use by Jan. 1, 2030 — has set off a fierce battle here, pitting not only a well-financed oil industry against environmentalists, but Democrat against Democrat. The bill easily passed the Senate, but it is faltering in the Assembly because of opposition by moderate Democrats, many representing economically suffering districts in central California. A vote is expected early this coming week.
“Motivated by this thinking, Washington Carbon, an advocacy group in the state, is now trying to put a carbon tax on the 2016 ballot. Initiative Measure 732 would institute a tax on fossil fuels of $25 a metric ton of carbon dioxide (which translates to about 25 cents a gallon of gasoline). Most of the revenue from the measure would be used to reduce the state sales tax by one percentage point. A smaller amount would be used to reduce taxes on manufacturing companies and to fund a tax rebate of up to $1,500 for low-income working families. The overall plan is progressive and revenue-neutral. If passed, the initiative would yield a tax shift, not a tax increase. That is why some environmentalists are opposed. Rather than rebating the money the carbon tax would raise, they want to spend it on environmental and other government programs.”
Gov. Jerry Brown approved legislation on Tuesday that expands the definition of “Made in U.S.A” to more closely resemble a federal standard for domestically-produced goods in 49 other states.
Gasoline prices in California have been above – way above – national averages because the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance has been hobbled since an explosion in February. And now, a hearing scheduled for Wednesday on whether to allow the refinery to increase operations has been postponed by air quality officials, the Los Angeles Times reports. Exxon Mobil wants to use old air-pollution control equipment temporarily so it can increase production at the same time it reduces other emissions from the plant. But regulators seem unconcerned about $4 a gallon gasoline and want to study how the proposal would impact area homeowners.