California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, spends billions of dollars every year to support its dozens of climate-change programs but has trouble demonstrating whether the promise of the law that spawned them has been kept.
Though a separate state law requires economic analysis of major regulations, there is no requirement for a retrospective review. Environmental authorities calculate projections rather than audit the past, a problem identified by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which is preparing its own analysis for release later this year.
So it has been virtually impossible to tell whether the state’s regulations to reduce industrial emissions, its demand that utilities use renewable energy and its push for residential solar panels have saved consumers money or added costs, driven businesses out or created new ones.
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