Yesterday California approved a landmark global warming plan that would cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a 30 percent reduction. Meanwhile, the state is suffering through a fiscal crisis that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supports the global warming plan, describes as “financial Armageddon.” The same day that California approved the climate measure, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle ran a giant Schwarzenegger block quote:
Every second, the state is losing $470, every minute, $28,000, and every hour $1.7 million and every day $40 million. That is approximately more than $1 billion a month if legislators don’t act [to pass a new budget].
The California Air Resources Board, which approved the global warming plan, estimates that it would actually have “an overall positive effect on the economy” by spurring energy efficiency and technological innovation. However, the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analysis Office questioned that estimate, saying that the evaluation of some costs and benefits was “inconsistent and incomplete.” As U.S. Congress prepares to debate its own climate bill in the near future, expect Republicans to argue that the California climate plan is a financial sink hole; in response, Democrats should note that the benefits of energy efficiency and technology investment will take awhile to materialize. The same could be said of bailing out Wall Street and the automakers, and, so far, that hasn’t stopped us.
