California set to regulate everything–through Cap and Trade

Citizen’s Journal

The California Air Resources Board, despite comments that it should reconsider amendments to its AB32 Scoping Plan on cutting carbon dioxide emissions, has gone ahead and approved them unanimously. What that means is CARB has rubber-stamped a plan to place the state on a path to cut carbon dioxide emissions in the state to 80 percent below 1990 levels, by mid-century.

Pacific Legal Foundation senior staff attorney, Ted Hadzi-Antich, said the comments submitted by PLF were totally ignored by the board. Ted says virtually every economic sector of the Golden State will be regulated by California’s Cap and Trade Regulation – energy, agriculture, water, waste generation and disposal, natural and working lands, buildings and construction, and transportation.  

Where will CARB get the green backs to pay for the massive regulatory plan? Ted, writing in a recent post on PLF’s Liberty Blog, explains:

“The billions of dollars expected to be generated from CARB’s auctions of carbon dioxide emissions allowances under the Cap-and-Trade Regulation are expected to foot-the-bill for the anticipated transition from a market economy to a centrally planned one.”

The conclusion of the AB 32 Scoping Plan gives a scary glimpse of the future as CARB regulators use AB32 to gain greater control over the economy:

“By expanding on existing policies and developing new ones, we are steadily bending the arc of economic growth in our state in a cleaner, more sustainable direction.”

PLF’s lawsuit contends that CARB devised the auction regulation without authorization from the Legislature. We also argue that because AB 32 was not enacted by two-thirds majorities in the Legislature, as required for new taxes by the California Constitution, the controversial and costly law is unconstitutional.

PLF’s challenge to the Cap-and-Trade Auction regulation, Morning Star Packing Company v. CARB, is pending in the Court of Appeal in Sacramento. Briefing is scheduled this fall.

Visit the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Website and find out more: http://www.pacificlegal.org/

http://citizensjournal.us/california-set-to-regulate-everything-through-cap-and-trade/