5 April 2006Shripps Howard News ServiceTimm Herdt
Five years ago, when backers of an idea to make California the first state to regulate vehicle emissions of the gases that cause global warming, the only lawmaker they could find to carry their bill was a rookie assemblywoman fresh out of a career teaching a junior high civics class in Moorpark.
It was introduced without fanfare and few took notice. It took two years to pass and had to overcome a ferocious lobbying effort by the auto and petroleum industries.
Monday, the follow-up bill was introduced to regulate emissions from power plants and other large industrial facilities. This bill, too, is being carried by that same assemblywoman, Fran Pavley.
But all the other circumstances have changed.
The new bill was unveiled by the speaker of the Assembly at a well-attended news conference. Stories about the legislation were published Tuesday in newspapers from Los Angeles to London.
And, in an apparent effort to prevent Democratic Speaker Fabian Nunez from stealing the show, the administration of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided that Monday would also be the day to release the final report of its Climate Action Team _ a report that calls for mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities.
In case anyone missed that, Schwarzenegger scheduled a news conference for late Tuesday afternoon so that he could personally weigh in.
In five years, global warming has evolved from a boutique issue of concern only to environmentalists to a subject that generates high anxiety among the mainstream media, the broad scientific community, the general public and even large investors who want to know what the companies whose stock they buy are doing about climate change.
The Advertising Council, that powerful Madison Avenue nonprofit that created Smokey Bear, has produced new public-service commercials to call attention to global warming.
Time magazine has a cover story on the issue out this week with the provocative headline: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried."
Documentaries on the subject are being produced. Books are being published and promoted, notably one due out in May entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" that profiles former Vice President Al Gore and his enduring passion for the issue.
A new public opinion survey by Time and ABC News shows that 85 percent of Americans believe global warming is at hand and 87 percent think government should either encourage or require that emissions be reduced.
Combine all this with rising gasoline prices, a world oil supply that has peaked, the flammable political environment of the Middle East and President Bush's call to end America's "addiction" to fossil fuels, and you have the ingredients for political action.
As it happens, there's a group in California poised to exploit the moment.
Backed with funding from Hollywood film producer Steven Bing and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, a group called Californians for Clean Energy is circulating petitions to place on the November ballot an initiative designed to generate $4 billion over 10 years to finance research and development of clean energy sources.
The money would come from an oil severance tax, which California _ unlike other large oil-producing states _ does not now have. Given the oil industry's record-shattering profits last year, that might not be a hard sell.
Californians for Clean Energy was quick to seize on Monday's developments. Spokeswoman Fiona Hutton told reporters that the initiative would provide a "viable and politically acceptable funding stream to implement much of the report's recommendations."
After the Climate Action Team's draft report came out in December, calling for a "public goods charge," or tax, on gasoline, Schwarzenegger was quick to disavow that portion of the report.
If there is to be state funding for research and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it will likely have to come from an initiative.
A business group called Sustainable Environment and Economy for California has already made plain its position. Among its guiding principles is this: "SEE California opposes greenhouse gas policies that are based on new taxes."
Those concerned about California's economy would do well to study the evolving political and social landscape around the global warming issue. If California is out in front now, there could be substantial economic benefits later.
It's a fairly safe prediction that one or both candidates for president in 2008 will make a Kennedy-esque call for a man-on-the-moon kind of initiative to free the United States from its reliance on oil _ both to battle global warming and to weaken the bargaining power of oil-producing countries in the Middle East.
Something will come of it. The train has not just left the station, it's been rolling for five years and is now storming down the tracks.
|
(Contact Timm Herdt of the Ventura County Star in California at www.venturacountystar.com.)
