2008 Woodie Awards
Schwarzenegger taking the spotlight
Global warming bill was passed, but after changes from the shady governor
Myrick, Jael
Issue date: 9/7/06 Section: Editorials
- Page 1 of 1
Gov. Schwarzenegger is receiving a lot of credit for the success of AB32, California's landmark legislation to reduce global warming.
The ironic part of the story is that the governor and his staff actually served as a huge roadblock in the path to making the bill as effective as possible.
While Arnold is doing quite possibly the best acting in his career this year, playing the role of a moderate environmental Republican governor, behind the scenes he and his staff worked tirelessly to make the bill, well, useless.
The major victory of AB32 is that it puts actual caps on greenhouse emissions from power plants and refineries. The governor and his staff, however, wanted a much different bill than what actually passed.
In the backrooms of Sacramento, Gov. Schwar-wzenegger pushed to get a provision in AB32 allowing industries to "trade" with other companies, so they would not have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions themselves. The idea is that if we as a state reduce our gas emissions as a whole, then what each individual refinery or power plant reduces would not be as important.
This idea of "trading" ignores the fact that the highest polluting industries are usually in more economically devastated areas. This would not hold these industries to the same standards as others, meaning those who live in these areas would continue to get the short end of the stick.
Failing to get this provision, the governor then attempted to change the actor who would enforce the new caps. Instead of the Air Resources Board, which generally enforces clean air regulations, the governor attempted to put this bill under the jurisdiction of a non-existent "Climate Action Team," which would have no power to enforce the bill and no accountability to Californians.
Even after losing all these battles, the persistent governor, forced the legislature into including a provision in the bill to allowing companies to get out of reducing their emissions if they could prove it would be to much of a strain on them financially. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and environmental groups accepted this as a compromise in order to make AB32 state law.
So while California's passage of this bill was definitely a victory, media coverage of the success that gives the governor, ignores the work of environmental groups, the speaker and Fran Pavley (the bill's original author), to stop the governor from gutting this legislation.
Jael Myrick is the founder of Standing To Represent Our Next Generation(STRONG), E-mail responses to Chabot_Spectator@hotmail.com
The ironic part of the story is that the governor and his staff actually served as a huge roadblock in the path to making the bill as effective as possible.
While Arnold is doing quite possibly the best acting in his career this year, playing the role of a moderate environmental Republican governor, behind the scenes he and his staff worked tirelessly to make the bill, well, useless.
The major victory of AB32 is that it puts actual caps on greenhouse emissions from power plants and refineries. The governor and his staff, however, wanted a much different bill than what actually passed.
In the backrooms of Sacramento, Gov. Schwar-wzenegger pushed to get a provision in AB32 allowing industries to "trade" with other companies, so they would not have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions themselves. The idea is that if we as a state reduce our gas emissions as a whole, then what each individual refinery or power plant reduces would not be as important.
This idea of "trading" ignores the fact that the highest polluting industries are usually in more economically devastated areas. This would not hold these industries to the same standards as others, meaning those who live in these areas would continue to get the short end of the stick.
Failing to get this provision, the governor then attempted to change the actor who would enforce the new caps. Instead of the Air Resources Board, which generally enforces clean air regulations, the governor attempted to put this bill under the jurisdiction of a non-existent "Climate Action Team," which would have no power to enforce the bill and no accountability to Californians.
Even after losing all these battles, the persistent governor, forced the legislature into including a provision in the bill to allowing companies to get out of reducing their emissions if they could prove it would be to much of a strain on them financially. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and environmental groups accepted this as a compromise in order to make AB32 state law.
So while California's passage of this bill was definitely a victory, media coverage of the success that gives the governor, ignores the work of environmental groups, the speaker and Fran Pavley (the bill's original author), to stop the governor from gutting this legislation.
Jael Myrick is the founder of Standing To Represent Our Next Generation(STRONG), E-mail responses to Chabot_Spectator@hotmail.com
