From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…
How Green Is Brown?
LOS ANGELES — Jerry Brown wants to be governor of California again and is making jobs and industrial revival a centerpiece of his election campaign. Unfortunately for Mr. Brown, these themes conflict with an important piece of unfinished business in his current job as California attorney general.
Mr. Brown has locked horns with conservative activists who are hoping to push a pro-jobs ballot initiative to suspend the state’s global warming law, known as AB-32, until California’s unemployment rate falls to 6.5%, from above 12% today. Polls show that the initiative, which would delay the state’s cap-and-trade energy tax, is viewed favorably by sizable majorities of California voters, who are frightened about the miserable jobs situation in the Golden State.
But Mr. Brown, who was once famously dubbed "Governor Moonbeam," has long marched in lockstep with the radical environmentalists and as attorney general has oversight of the wording of ballot measures. Last month he decided that the referendum on AB-32 would read: "Suspends air pollution control laws requiring major polluters to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming."
The initiative’s supporters are livid. Assemblyman Dan Logue, a Republican from Marysville, fumed: "This looks like he handed this over to the environmental community and asked them to write this summary for them." He objects to the language calling carbon emitters "major polluters," which he regards as inflammatory rhetoric, and tells me in an interview: "When the time comes, we will probably challenge this summary language in court." Mr. Logue adds that he expects to have no problem raising money for the campaign from worried businesses "because the economy is so bad here."
Mr. Brown has been a political fixture in the state for 40 years, but the latest polls show him nonetheless running neck-and-neck with newcomer Meg Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of eBay. It’s hard to see how having to defend a costly cap-and-trade plan will be anything but a downer for Mr. Brown’s electoral hopes. By most estimates, the state’s global warming law would cost California many thousands of additional job losses once it is implemented in 2012.
WSJ’s Steve Moore: How Green Is Brown?
— Stephen Moore