Initial plan released to reduce California emissions by 25% by 2020

Articles — By forcechange on November 21, 2008 11:31 am

An initial plan to accomplish California’s goal of rolling back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 was released by the state’s Air Resources Board on Thursday.  The plan, which would result in a 25% reduction from current emissions levels, targets businesses and citizens, alike. 

Some of the key proposals include: a statewide cap-and-trade system, an increase in fees on water usage, stricter tailpipe emissions standards, and a mandate that utilities generate 1/3 of their electricity from renewable sources.

In order to enact the stricter vehicle standards, California will have to get permission from the federal government, which until now has preempted the California law.  However, with the departure of the Bush administration, and the weakening of the Detroit auto lobby due to their loss of Rep. Dingell as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as their overall economic sickness, permission is much more likely to be granted.  

Unsurprisingly, criticism of the plan has been vocal, with some denying the severity of the problem, and others arguing that now is not the time to be enacting costly regulations.  But as Obama noted a few days ago, it is exactly in times like these that we must pursue energy and environmental reform.  Otherwise we will fall back into the same old cycle of attention followed by complacency that has been our country’s mantra on these issues for the past 40 years.