California Cap-and-Trade Revolt

Jan 12, 2010

Wall Street Journal 11 Jan 2010 California Cap-and-Trade Revolt http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424....on_AboveLEFTTop Ballot initiative that would repeal the Golden State's version of a cap-and-trade carbon tax. This feel-good law to reduce the state's carbon footprint was enacted with great hoopla by the Democratic legislature and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 when the state's economy was growing and the jobless rate was 5%. The law requires that starting in 2012 the state must ratchet down its carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The politicians and green lobbies told voters this energy tax would create jobs—the same fairy tale many in Washington are repeating today. Now the jobless rate is 12.3%, 2.25 million Californians are unemployed, and the state government is broke. So Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue has begun collecting signatures for "The Global Warming Solutions Act," a ballot initiative that would suspend California's cap-and-trade scheme until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5%. He's aiming to get it on the November ballot.....