California Needs a New Energy Policy

A famous quote from Virgil’s Aenid 5.231, says, “They can, because they think they can,” comes to mind over the recent headline by the San Francisco Chronicle, “California slashes emissions, hits major greenhouse gas goals years early.” The California Air Resources Board (CARB) on June 11th released data showing California’s greenhouse gas emissions, “dropped 2.7 percent in 2016 (the latest year available) to 429.4 million metric tons.” But these lowered emissions numbers don’t tell the full story and have been disputed by the California Center for Jobs and the Economy in a report titled, “California’s Progress on Greenhouse Gas Reductions: A Review of the Numbers,” for including such factors as favorable weather and job destruction to demonstrate emission reduction.