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Final Draft of “Scoping Plan” For California Landmark Global Warming Law; Some Flaws Addressed, More Improvements Possible
By Traci Sheehan
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League
Thursday afternoon the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released its Final Scoping Plan, detailing how the State plans to meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction mandate of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The CARB board will review the plan and make any final changes before approving it at its December meeting.
As we reported in July, the Draft Scoping Plan was a positive step forward but like most drafts needed significant improvements before it was finalized. The release of this version marks another important step in the nation's growing fight against global warming. It fixes flaws in the earlier document and strengthens the State's commitment to growing the green economy and generating clean-technology jobs while achieving substantial improvements in public health.
Unfortunately, there are still some holes and problematic policies. Despite a persistent public outcry to strengthen the plan's land use measures, the final version makes only moderate improvements, shifting the emission reduction target from the land use sector from two million metric tons (MMT) up to five. That means land use measures would still make up less than three percent of the required 174 MMT, giving the impression that land use reform is a relatively low priority in the fight against global warming. Hopefully the CARB board will see it differently when they consider approving the Final Scoping Plan in December by increasing the land use sector's emission reduction target and expanding the policy measures that the State will commit to undertake.
The new version also stumbles when discussing how to establish an economy-wide price signal for global warming pollution. It only commits to make polluters pay for ten percent of pollution allowances at the start of the program, which would mean up to ninety percent of those valuable allowances would be handed to polluters for free, a massive give-away that would financially reward the state's worst polluters and undermine our ability to make the substantial investments required to address the causes and effects of global warming. That's especially troublesome considering the hefty profits polluters continue to rake in while the state budget is in crisis and Wall Street is freaking out. We're glad to read that CARB is still exploring these allocation issues and hope that they substantially strengthen their commitments to making polluters pay.
We're still reading through the 100-page document, so stay tuned for more!
Traci Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in California that is the best in the United States. PCL staff review virtually every environmental bill that comes before the California Legislature each year. It has testified in support or opposition of thousands of bills to strengthen California's environmental laws and fight off rollbacks of environmental protections.
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