ACTION ALERT! Help John and Ken with their Stop AB 32 rally tomorrow!
John and Ken are going to be doing a big push for our campaign tomorrow, and we need YOU to volunteer to help! The details are below, we recommend you show up at 1:00 before the crowd gets too big and you can get a volunteer assignment.
This volunteering opportunity looks particularly looks fun, and if I didn’t live 400 miles away I’d be the first one there.
Let us know if you are able to help, and be sure that when you get there you tell them you are there on behalf of Suspend AB 32.
Live John and Ken broadcast on Thursday, March 18, 2010 2PM – 7PM
Ayres Hotel & Suites Ontario Convention Center
1945 East Holt Boulevard
Ontario, CA 91761
Event goes from 2:00 PM to 7:00 PM although if you can only help for part of the time, that’s okay too.
Click here to download the Stop AB 32 petition. Click here to join the Stop AB 32 Facebook page. CLick here to see the Stop AB 32 website.
Facts about AB 32
Assembly Bill 32, “The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006,” was intended to protect California from human caused global warming. Whether global warming is in fact caused by humans or by natural processes, AB 32 is ineffective and counterproductive, massively costly to businesses and families, and will increase our state deficit and/or cut services including those related to public health and environmental protection.
Economists estimate if nothing is done AB 32 will:
Cost California up to 1.1 million jobs
Cost the average family $3,857 a year in greatly increased expenses for housing, transportation, food and energy
Cost $49,691 per small business
Result in a total loss of output of $182.649 billion
Devastate budgets of California social services agencies through massive losses in tax revenue
Ineffective and Counterproductive
California produces only 1.4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, so our efforts to address climate change (if even real) cannot be successful alone. AB 32’s go-it-alone approach will impose massive costs on businesses that can be easily avoided by relocation across state or national boundaries.
Common destinations for businesses relocating out of the country include Mexico, China and India all of which have environmental laws that are much more lax than even pre-AB 32 regulations. The end result will be both a loss of California jobs and an increase in worldwide pollution. California climate change policy can only be successfully implemented in coordination with other states and countries.
Massively Costly to Businesses and Families
AB 32 would cost the average family $3,857 a year in greatly increased expenses for housing, transportation, food and energy. A study by Sacramento State University economics professors estimated these costs at $2,048 in higher housing costs due to regulations requiring home builders to use more expensive building methods and mandatory retrofitting of families existing homes. Additionally, families will pay $756 more for transportation (gas and maintenance only), $35 more for natural gas, $124 more for electricity and $895 more for food.
The costs to small businesses would total $49,691 for the average small business with a costly cap and trade system and many new industrial regulations. California is rapidly losing well-paying manufacturing jobs due to a regulatory climate ranked by George Mason University as one of the nation’s least free as well as aggressive efforts by lower taxed and less heavily regulated neighboring states to attract California companies. AB 32’s stifling effect on entrepreneurs could result in the loss of up to 1.1 million jobs.
Increases our State Deficit and/or Cuts Services
The drastic drop in California’s economic output that will result from AB 32 will also result in a drastic drop in revenues for state agencies, including those responsible for providing social services and protecting the environment. Agencies which face cuts of up to 80% under AB 32 include the Department of Public Health, Department of Developmental Services, Children’s Medical Services and Rural Health and Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Even though AB 32 was intended to protect the environment, agencies which stand to see 80% budget cuts under AB 32 also include the Coastal Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, California Conservation Corps and Department of Parks & Recreation. Politicians may attempt to avoid these cuts with massive tax increases that would only exacerbate our economic woes.
Increases Government Control of Individual Decisions
In attempting to protect the environment, the government has given itself an increased role in personal decisions such as where individuals choose to live and what they choose to drive. AB 32 regulations will attempt to force Californians from their trucks, minivans, SUV’s, muscle cars and classic cars in favor of vehicles that are smaller, more expensive to purchase and less safe.
AB 32 furthermore dictates housing decisions. New regulations will make new homes more expensive and will require costly retrofits of existing homes. New houses will be required to be built closer together with smaller yards and fewer families will be able to live near open space and outdoor recreation. The increase in housing costs that will result from AB 32 is estimated at a whopping $2,048.
Hope the rally goes poorly. Here’s a little truth:
LAO fails to cite research to support their assertions (0.00 / 0)
LEGISLATIVE ANALYST LETTER CLAIMING JOB LOSSES UNDER AB 32 DOESN’T CITE ANY RESEARCH TO SUPPORT CLAIMS
BROAD BODY OF RESEARCH SHOWS ECONOMIC GAINS FROM STATE GLOBAL WARMING LAW
A March 4 letter from the LAO to California State Sen. Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto) attempts to cast doubt on the economic benefits of the state’s landmark global warming bill, AB 32. According to Jasmin Ansar, a climate economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Mac Taylor fails to cite any research to support his claims that the state’s economy would suffer under AB 32.
The public release of Taylor’s letter coincides with a statewide effort to gather signatures for a ballot initiative asking voters to nullify AB 32 unless state unemployment drops to 5.5 percent. Two Texas-based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, are funding that effort.
“These economic attacks on AB 32 are baseless,” Ansar said. “There are many independent economic studies that show that AB 32’s clean energy and climate policies will have either a neutral or slightly positive impact on our economy. California has proven time and again that economic growth and environment protection go hand in hand.”
On the first page of his letter, Taylor claims that “on balance the aggregate net jobs impact in the near term is likely to be negative.” This statement is purely speculative. It is not backed up by any research. Taylor devotes the rest of his letter to criticizing a preliminary economic analysis of the California Air Resources Board’s initial plan for implementing AB 32. He then concludes that “it seems most likely to us that the implementation of AB 32 will result in the near term in California job losses.” Again, he presents this claim with no reference to any analysis that would support it.
Taylor’s baseless claims are contradicted by a number of independent economic analyses that find significant job growth potential at the state and national level for many climate change policies:
· Historically, energy efficiency, which AB 32 would expand, has been an economic winner for California. An October 2008 study by researchers at University of California, Berkeley found that California’s energy efficiency policies generated nearly 1.5 million new jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000.
· A December 2009 report on clean energy manufacturing and related jobs by the nonpartisan research group Next 10 found that California job growth in such fields expanded 36 percent from 1995 to 2008. Overall, clean energy jobs represent one of the bright spots in California’s economy.
· An October 2009 Next 10 report concluded that if AB 32 were put on hold, the state would lose $80 billion in gross state product and half a million jobs by 2020. Conversely, implementing a 33 percent renewable electricity standard and a 1 percent annual improvement in energy efficiency would increase gross state product by $20 billion and generate 112,000 jobs.
· A December 2009 Center for Resource Solutions review of several macroeconomic analyses concluded that climate solutions are affordable and that pollution reductions called for by AB 32 are consistent with economic growth.
Failing to act on climate change would be far more expensive than adequately addressing it. Another Next 10 report, published in November 2008, found that the state has $4 trillion in real estate assets, of which $2.5 trillion are at risk from extreme weather events, sea level rise, and wildfires. Climate change will come with a projected annual price tag of $300 million to $3.9 billion for California over this century, depending on how warm the world gets, the report concluded.
http://www.calitics.com/diary/11251/laos-flawed-look-at-jobs-and-ab-32
Vern Nelson you could not be further from the truth and your statements are totally illogical. Green jobs are supposed to increase California jobs by 2 billion dollars Vern. 2 billion? Vern that is just a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket for the California payroll. Do you propose that for every job created in green jobs, 2 will have to lose their job elsewhere in this state. How cruel are you Vern Nelson, do you have no sense of compassion for your fellow man. The California economy is 1.8 trillion dollars Vern and you want to tear that down for jobs totalling 2 billion dollars. You are severely ignorant of the issue.
Vern Nelson’s comments are well intentioned but economically unsound. If AB32 we just another environmental regulation or was just about energy efficiency, he would have a better argument. Unfortunately it is not just another regulation and it is not about energy efficiency. It is about a massive switch in energy and the huge costs associated with it. It is just common sense that a large increase in the cost of energy and everything made in California that takes energy to make will not be good for the economy — and it won’t. It takes about a gallon of oil equivalent energy to put a bottle of wine on your table. Figure the price to go up and go up a lot, and everything else will as well. And we don’t have to wait to find out. We know from the Spanish experience (study by King Juan Carlos University) which reviewed Spain’s 8-year experience with subsidies for alternative public power. Bottom line: every installed megawatt of costly alternative energy cost 4-9 jobs, depending on the type of installation. California will be worse because the AB32 has broader impact.
And the irony is that it won’t make a bit of difference to the environment or the climate. Whereas earlier regulations could be argue that they will improve air quality, AB32 does not. It is meant to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide whic is not a pollutant at all.
If California implements AB32 it will move jobs to China, which makes mosemo
..which makes most of our wind turbines and solar cells. They will add a few more coal plants to do it, and we will have gained nothing on the envirnoment and lost big time economically.