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Californians Reject Suspension of Environmental Law (Update2)
2010-11-03 13:33:31.13 GMT
(Updates results, adds comment from an environmental group
and global warming program details beginning in the second
paragraph. See {ELECT <GO>} for more national election news,
{EXT4 <GO>} for state and local coverage.)
By Simon Lomax and Mark Chediak
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- California voters rejected a ballot
measure backed by oil refiners that would have suspended the
state's global-warming law signed by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Proposition 23 was losing 39 percent to 61 percent, with 93
percent of the precincts counted, according to the Associated
Press.
The vote clears the way for a state law restricting
greenhouse-gas emissions to go into effect in 2012. The law
requires the state cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. It will
require utilities to get almost a third of their electricity
from renewable sources such as solar panels, and create a market
for carbon-dioxide pollution permits.
Proposition 23 was "the largest public referendum in
history on climate and energy policy," said Fred Krupp,
president of the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund.
"Millions of voters have said they see clean-energy jobs
as the path forward through a tough economic climate," Krupp
said.
California's program for curbing greenhouse gases, which
scientists have linked to climate change, "really lays the
groundwork for clean-energy advances in other regions in the
country and potentially for action at the national level," he
said.
National Standard
President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress failed to
pass legislation this year that would set a national renewable
electricity standard and create a federal cap-and-trade program,
in which companies buy and sell a declining number of carbon
pollution permits.
Voter approval of Proposition 23 would have suspended
California's Global Warming Solutions Act until the state
unemployment rate fell to at least 5.5 percent. The rate in the
most populous U.S. state in September was 12.4 percent, third-
highest after Nevada and Michigan.
Supporters of the state's global-warming law, including
clean-energy investors and environmental groups, say it will
spur investment in non-traditional energy production from
sources such as fuel cells, algae, the sun and wind, create jobs
in the renewable energy sector and contribute to cleaner air.
Positive for Solar
They raised more than $30 million to sway voters with
radio, television and print advertising, saying the measure
would undermine the nation's largest solar market and threaten
$9 billion in venture capital investments in the state's
fledgling clean energy industry.
The defeat of Proposition 23 is "certainly a positive for
solar project developers active in the state," said Nathaniel
Bullard, the lead North American solar analyst at Bloomberg New
Energy Finance, the London-based research firm owned by
Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.
California's Air Resources Board, the agency responsible
for enforcing the global-warming law, set a target in September
for utilities to get 33 percent of their power from solar, wind
and other renewable sources by 2020, the most ambitious standard
of any U.S. state.
First Solar Inc., SunPower Corp., BrightSource Energy Inc.
and Recurrent Energy are among the companies that stand to gain
the most because they have large projects with long-term
agreements to sell their power to utilities, Bullard said.
Cap-and-Trade
Next month, the air resources board is scheduled to vote on
whether to move ahead with the state's proposed cap-and-trade
program for greenhouse gases. By 2015, the program would cover
nearly 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from power
plants, factories, refineries and the tailpipes of cars and
trucks, the air-quality agency said in a report last week.
That's more than double the emissions covered by a state-
run carbon market for power plants in the U.S. Northeast and
almost one-fifth the current size of Europe's cap-and-trade
program, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
California may expand that market by persuading other U.S.
states and some Canadian provinces to enact similar cap-and-
trade programs, which could be "linked," the air quality
agency said in last week's report.
Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, Google co-founder
Sergey Brin and James Cameron, director of the world's top-
grossing film "Avatar," donated to the "No on 23" committee,
which was co-chaired by Tom Steyer, founder of San Francisco-
based hedge fund Farallon Capital Management LLC, and former
U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz.
Lowering Costs
Tesoro Corp., Valero Energy Corp. and Flint Hills Resources
LLC, a refining subsidiary of Wichita, Kansas-based Koch
Industries Inc., raised about two-thirds of the more than $10
million that financed support of the proposition.
Proposition 23 supporters said they'll now lobby California
regulators to keep the costs of the global warming law as low as
possible following the rejection of the ballot measure.
The greenhouse-gas limits won't "translate into the jobs
or economic activity" promised by environmentalists and
alternative-energy investors, Jack Stewart, president of the
California Manufacturers and Technology Association, said in an
e-mail.
"Venture capitalists will come to California to cash in on
the subsidies, but the lion's share of the facilities, revenue
and jobs will go to other places, like China, where the cost of
doing business is much more affordable," Stewart said.
For Related News and Information:
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Stories about U.S. and climate: TNI US CLIMATE <GO>
Global emissions data: EMIS <GO>
News about California and politics: TNI CA POL <GO>
--Editors: Susan Warren, Tina Davis.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Mark Chediak in San Francisco at +1-415-617-7233 or
mchediak@bloomberg.net;
Simon Lomax in Washington at +1-202-654-4305 or
slomax@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Susan Warren at +1-214-954-9455 or susanwarren@bloomberg.net.
