With corporate polluters having successfully blocked comprehensive energy and climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, it is more important than ever that we beat back this deceptive effort funded by Texas oil companies to kill California's clean energy economy.
We consider Proposition 23 the most important race in the country and have made defeating this dirty energy measure a priority this election cycle. LCV and the California League of Conservation Voters recently announced the unprecedented addition of Prop. 23 to the LCV 2010 Dirty Dozen list. LCV named the oil industry-funded ballot measure to its trademark Dirty Dozen program based on its attempted threat to California's landmark air pollution standards and leading clean energy industry. LCV and its sister organization LCV Education Fund have contributed $1.2 million so far to defeat this dirty energy measure.
President Obama has also stated his opposition to Prop. 23, noting that "oil companies and the other special interests are spending millions on a campaign to gut clean-air standards and clean-energy standards, jeopardizing the health and prosperity of this state."
The primary funders of Prop. 23 are Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro, whose California oil refineries are among the top ten polluters in the state. Prop. 23 would let these Texas oil companies and other polluters off the hook -- drastically increasing air pollution and public health risks. Each year, California's air pollution crisis contributes to thousands of premature deaths, hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks, and thousands of trips to the hospital for California families.
Prop. 23 would also kill clean technology jobs, innovation and billions of dollars of investment in California. Since 2005, California clean energy jobs have grown ten times faster than the statewide average, with 500,000 employees currently working in the state's leading clean energy industries. California's clean technology sector received $9 billion cumulative venture capital investment from 2005-09, including $2.1 billion in 2009 alone.
This is the only election this fall where the issue of global warming is squarely on the ballot. If the voters of California reject this Big Oil attack on their health and their economy, it should give a major boost to the national effort to move us forward towards a clean energy future. That's why LCV is working with California LCV to mobilize our members in California and around the country to defeat Prop. 23.
Very few voters have taken the time to read AB32 (the Global Warming Act of 2006) and to understand it was enacted before the facts were known about flawed climate science. AB32 is Not a pollution control Bill, its a passe Global Warming Bill and no one even uses the term Global Warming any more.
AB32 simply needs to strip out the Cap and Trade provision and reliance on Global Warming assumptions and its potentially a piece of leadership legislation. Sustainability, Clean Energy, and Stewardship are great goals but not at the expense of Common Sense.
AB32 needs to eliminate the Cap and Trade provisions 70% of America Opposes, eliminate the unnecessary oversight Fees, eliminate the reliance on flawed Green House Gas assumptions, correct the vague language that will introduce Environmental Red Tape that will do more damage than good, ensure AB32 doesn’t undermine The Rule of Law, and make non-governmental agencies like CARB accountable to the taxpayer for their mistakes.
The Rule of Law can not be allowed to become Rule by Bureaucrats using loosely defined AB32 legislation.
Vote YES on Prop 23, it makes the most sense until AB32 is fixed and we can afford it.
http://8020vision.com/2010/10/25/californias-prop-23-morphing-into-prop-26/
There are some good charts there showing renewable transportation trends in California, and also a list of the major funders of the Props – out of state big oil, etc.
Check out where the growth is in California jobs - it is Cleantech. It's growing about 10 times faster than anything else in the California job market.
As with chips, internet, biotech, etc. California's economy has a track record of outstanding performance when it leads into the future. Cleantech is the latest hotspot of venture funded activity.
AB32 is good energy policy and good jobs policy.
Jay Kimball
8020 Vision
If Green Tech is dependent on people being forced to use it, then it is not a real industry.
Your life depends on gas being available for a decent price why would you be against your own interests.
For more on AB 32 and the attempt to undo it through Prop 23 and Prop 26, see:
http://8020vision.com/2010/10/25/californias-prop-23-morphing-into-prop-26/
There are some good charts there showing renewable transportation trends, etc.
Jay Kimball
8020 Vision
All we need are feed in tariffs, which work all over the world to support cleaning, decentralizing and democratizing the grid.
Taxpayers will spend WAY WAY less than we spend now on Big Solar Boondoggles (we are currently forced to pay $2 billion to $6 billion per!), home and business owners will see a decent rate of return when they invest in their own clean energy and efficiency upgrades, their property values will hugely increase( another big issue in CA), and job seekers will have twice as many jobs as they would get from Big Solar disasters.
Not to mention we would spare millions of acres of wilderness from total destruction for Big Energy profits and save billions of gallons of water a year!
Best of all? The economic stimulus will remain LOCAL, which means MAIN STREET, NOT WALL STREET will benefit from an FIT-supported clean energy model.
So, why are we getting caught in a pointless argument between Big Energy and Big Energy over who gets to kill our planet and rip us off? Why aren't we kicking both of them to the curb and reclaiming our grid?
It's pretty sad when you have to resort to lies to try and defeat a proposition. How will Prop 23 drastically increase pollution? It cannot, because AB 32 is a Global Warming law, which is not even being enforced yet, which goes after greenhouse gasses.
It won't have any effect on global warming, because California barely contributes to global warming.. CARB admits that, and the EPA admits that the US cannot have any effect on global warming, by itself.
As for Prop 23 killing green-tech jobs, we are looking at, according to Berkeley, less than 200,000 jobs in the green sector, when we have already lost over 2 million jobs due in large part to the hostility of California toward business. AB 32 will only make this hostility worse, running even more jobs off.
We have already lost hundreds of billions of dollars in income and revenue due to companies leaving, just this year. There is no way that green tech can replace all of the jobs lost, not even a fraction of them.
The thing to keep in mind is that this is not an either-or thing. Texas has managed to build TRIPLE the installed wind powered electrical generation as California. Texas has done this while remaining business friendly and growing its economy at the same rate that California is shrinking its economy.
The other result is that people get angry. They have been conscripted by their governments into an unwinnable war without end. The bills will rise, but the emissions will not fall. The country will not get cleaner, but its people will get poorer. There will come a point – provoked by power cuts, or by the bill for a cold winter – when we will be utterly sick of being ordered to save the planet, and we shall mutiny." Charles Moore, in the London Telegraph.
California is stuck, like Great Britain, with an out of fashion Climate Law that tries to save the world by impoverishing our utility customers, which includes the working poor, and our financially squeezed public schools. Vote "Yes" on Prop.23.