Robert Collier's articles

For California, indisputably the nation’s leader on climate policies, 2011 is likely to be a year in which the state comfortably widens its lead. From auto emissions standards to the construction of solar and wind farms, California is expected to take major steps forward.

The first step will be decidedly backward, however. Soon after he is inaugurated today, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to solve the state’s unprecedented $25 billion budget deficit by making deep, across-the-board spending cuts that include vital climate-related programs such as subsidies for mass transit.

Still, the state’s climate policy backers are hopeful.

“Jerry Brown has been visionary and consistent on this issue, especially renewables, since the 1970s, so we have high hopes,” said Sen. Fran Pavley, a Santa Monica Democrat who spearheaded the state’s strict auto emissions rules.

She noted that the chair of the powerful Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols, held the same post during Brown’s previous time as governor, from 1978 to 1983, so California will enjoy in 2011 an unusual level of political continuity for climate and energy policies.

California’s environmental bureaucracy took a series of huge, grinding steps forward last week, approving several measures that make the state an unquestioned world leader on climate policy. Exactly where that path is leading, however, remains unclear.

The state Air Resources Board and the Public Utilities Commission voted last Thursday and Friday to adopt a cap-and-trade system, approve a subsidy program for energy efficiency by major utilities and finalize regulations against diesel soot from trucks. In all these steps, what was left to do later is almost as revealing – and important – as what was done.

As politicians around the nation become increasingly hesitant about taking action against global warming, California is pushing ahead this week with two much-awaited steps that will have broad implications for climate policies at home and elsewhere.

The decisions by state regulators in separate meetings Thursday amount to the grand unveiling of California's climate strategy after years of debate and exhaustive policy-crunching.

The Air Resources Board is scheduled to answer the central question of the state's previously announced cap-and-trade emissions program – whether the largest polluting industries are to be given emissions credits for free, whether they must buy them at auction, or some combination of the two.

The Public Utilities Commission will decide whether to grant large subsidies to the state’s utility companies for cutting their customers’ energy use even though those savings appear to have been far less than projected.