California voters defended their landmark climate law by rejecting Proposition 23 yesterday, ending questions over whether the state’s 2006 legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions would be suspended until the state unemployment rate fell by more than half.
While election results in the rest of the nation make the outlook for federal climate legislation dim, yesterday’s vote in California solidifies the position of the state as the country’s bastion of the clean energy economy, whose outsized GDP will unavoidably influence policy and commerce across the nation as its climate law gets implemented.
Some 61 percent of voters rejected Prop. 23. While pre-election polls indicated they were likely to turn down the controversial ballot measure, which was largely funded by out-of-state oil interests, the overwhelming defeat has advocates thrilled.
“It’s clearly a strong victory for clean energy in the face of scare tactics in a weak economy,” said Steven Maviglio, a spokesperson for No on 23, the coalition that campaigned heavily against the referendum. The defeat, Maviglio told SolveClimate News, indicates voters believe California can have both “a strong economy and a clean environment.”
In other California races, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came out swinging this election season when his signature Global Warming Solutions Act (also known as AB 32) was threatened by Prop. 23, will be replaced by Democrat Jerry Brown, who defeated Republican Meg Whitman 54 percent to 41 percent. Senator Barbara Boxer (D) was elected to a fourth term, besting Republican challenger Carly Fiorina with 52 percent of the vote to Fiorina’s 43 percent.
These results make California distinct nationally. In Washington, the GOP took the House and nearly took the Senate. Republicans picked up 10 governors’ seats. An anti-incumbent mood, Tea Party activism and disapproval of President Barack Obama’s performance all factored into GOP victories.
It’s not the first time California has bucked the trend—and when it comes to climate legislation, advocates said, that’s a very good thing. They foresee national implications for the defeat of Prop. 23, which they characterize as the largest public vote on climate legislation in U.S. history. More than 9 million Californians cast a vote on the ballot measure.
Its defeat has awakened a “sleeping giant,” said Wade Crowfoot, West Coast political director for Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which co-sponsored AB 32 with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “The people who defeated this are the new face of energy.”
What It Means for California: Clean Energy Agenda to Take “Quantum Leap”
Crowfoot is referring to what Maviglio calls a “well-financed and broad” movement to defeat Prop. 23. “We built a long-lasting bipartisan coalition: environmentalists, small businesses, Republicans, venture capitalists, municipal officials,” Maviglio said.
“Well-financed” is clear: with $31.2 million in the coffers, No on 23 outspent Prop. 23’s supporters by 3 to 1, a margin the Yes on 23 campaign attributed to brazen self-interest by wealthy venture capitalists who “apparently felt their millions would be better invested in defeating a voter initiative that would have postponed additional subsidies for green tech, instead of in green industries themselves,” the campaign said in a statement released after the polls closed.
Governor-elect Jerry Brown, who served two terms as the state’s governor in the 1970s, promoted a detailed clean energy jobs plan during his campaign and has said he supports the Global Warming Solutions Act, which sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Broad public support combined with AB 32’s policy muscle “positions California very well to take a quantum leap forward for clean energy,” Crowfoot said. “We’ve made clean energy a mainstream issue here.”
What It Means for the Country: California as Bellweather
Mainstreaming clean energy in the national mind is what Seth Kaplan sees as the bigger potential for the Prop. 23 defeat. Kaplan is the clean energy and climate change program director for the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advisory group that helped 10 northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states develop the nearly two-year-old Northeastern Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade program.
After the collapse of climate legislation in Washington this summer, the action has skirted back to states and regions, said Kaplan. “It’s where we were a few years ago when we started with RGGI,” Kaplan said. “And that’s where we are again.”
Kaplan sees the influence of California, the world’s sixth biggest economy, in other states, especially in Massachusetts, which passed its own emissions-cutting Global Warming Solutions Act in 2008. He also noted that California has been a leader in energy efficiency, and that states like Illinois and Arkansas are now heavily promoting the energy-saving tactic. Through the Recovery Act, the federal government has also poured money into energy efficiency, giving billions to programs.
“If there’s inaction in Congress, then other states will continue to march forward like we are, and eventually we’ll have a climate in the capital for climate legislation, because businesses won’t want 50 climate regulations,” said Maviglio.
“California has a history of innovating markets: the personal computer, the Internet, aerospace….We also have a history of incubating environmental policy: energy decoupling, appliance standards and more recently tailpipe emissions standards,” said Crowfoot.
That’s why what happens in California will not stay in California. When it comes to developing markets and influencing national policy, Crowfoot said, “California has been ahead of the curve.”
Air Resources Board: AB 32 Implementation Moving Forward
Despite the election season drama, AB 32 is on track to meet the deadlines set by a 2008 Scoping Plan, or roadmap, created by the California Air Resources Board (ARB), the state agency charged with installing the new regulations.
Uncertainty about the potential impact of Prop. 23 did not slow down the process this year, said Stanley Young, an ARB spokesman. “We will continue implementing as we have all along, and have not delayed any measures,” Young told SolveClimate News.
Drafted in 2006 as a 13-page bill, the Global Warming Solutions Act now comprises some 70 policies that have been developed to meet the law’s emissions goals. A number of “early action” measures have been put in place since 2008. Some 20 in all must be adopted by ARB by Dec. 31, with more to come in 2011. All measures must be in effect by Jan. 1, 2012, Young said.
Most immediately on the agenda is the agency’s proposal for a cap-and-trade program, which provides an overall limit on the emissions from sources responsible for 85 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Now in a public comment period that began Nov. 1, the cap-and-trade proposal must be approved by the ARB in some form by Dec. 31.
See Also:
Battle Over California Climate Law Will Have National Ripple Effect
CA’s Clean-Tech Potential Draws Venture Capitalists Into Fight Against Prop. 23
CA Student Delivers Prop. 23 Debate Challenge to Koch HQ in Wichita
Oil & Industry: Connecting the Dots in the War Over California’s Greenhouse Gas Law
California’s Landmark Greenhouse Gas Law Comes Under Attack
