California voters overwhelmingly repudiated big oil's attempt to scrap the state's landmark global warming law, AB32. The cleantech industry's first all-out campaign prevailed against corporate interference and proved that voters want something done about climate change. In a state with the country's third highest unemployment rate, voters think renewable energy creates jobs, not destroys them. The cleantech community raised three times the funds as did the polluters, which led to the resounding rejection of Proposition 23.
The victory lays the groundwork for clean energy advances in other states and eventually at the federal level as it represents the largest public referendum in history on clean energy and climate policy.
The victory is bittersweet, however, because voters passed Prop 23's evil twin, Prop 26, which would de-fund AB32 along with all polluter fees that aren't passed with a two-thirds majority vote. Read the NY Times article.
When the California Air Resources Board launches its cap-and-trade program in 2012, they are planning to give most of the permits away for free, against the advice of an expert panel and the EU's experience in implementing their program. Oil refiners and other polluters lobbied the agency to auction only a "very small" number of permits when the program starts because of the same old line: it would impose unnecessary short-term costs.
What to Expect Going Forward
Much of the focus going forward will be pushing the Obama Administration and Congress to use the Clean Air Act to cut greenhouse gases and jump start investments in clean energy, and to support strong climate financing at the upcoming United Nations climate talks in Cancún.
Cap-and-Trade will have to be accomplished slowly and deliberately by cobbling together states and regions. Major environmental NGOs say their focus for 2011 will be on forming more state-led initiatives like the Western Climate Initiative.
Passage of California's AB32 could pave the way for a cap-and-trade system that would cover most of the U.S. West and the largest Canadian provinces. Add to that the existing 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) on the East coast, and a proposed Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord (MGGRA), and the majority of the U.S. would be covered.
On the federal level, Republicans will require it be their way or the highway. Democrats will have to give huge handouts for nuclear and fossil fuels in order to make any gains for renewable energy; that didn't work in the last Congress, so it's doubtful much headway will be made in the next. Rather, the administration will rely on the EPA, DOE and other relevant agencies to get the job done. Those agencies will be subject to very unfriendly congressional oversight as well as attempts to de-fund initiatives and block their work through the courts.
