This is a "must read" from Steve Moore in today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…
The left and its allies in the media in the Golden State are engaged in a high-stakes smear campaign against the groups behind a new ballot initiative, which would suspend California’s incoming "cap-and-trade" energy taxes until the state’s unemployment rate drops back down to 6%.
That ballot measure is looking more attractive all the time. Last week California’s unemployment rate surged to a "modern day high" of 12.6%, according to the U.S Labor Department. Another 110,000 Californians were unable to find a job in March. The incoming energy law, known as AB32 law, is hardly making things better. Though it has yet to take effect, studies and anecdotal reports suggest that businesses are already moving out or downsizing operations in anticipation of higher costs.
But a group called Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs claims that the ballot measure is the evil work of "Texas oil companies." The charge is that polluters and out-of-state interests are bankrolling the initiative. There is definitely out-of-state money being raised. But as Dan Logue, a Republican assemblyman and a cosponsor of the initiative, puts it: "You would think these darn Texans are worse than the guys from the Middle East," from whom we import so much oil.
He also complains that what the press won’t report is that the millions of dollars raised to support AB32 comes from environmental groups and business interests that have a direct financial stake in AB32’s regulations, such as the renewable fuels lobby. And a big chunk of the environmentalists’ money is coming from out-of-state too. The biggest donors to Californians for Clean Energy include the Green Tech Action Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Media reports say this will be the most expensive ballot campaign in the state’s history, with as much as $150 million spent. Why is so much out-of-state money coming in on both sides? Because this is a fight over the future of cap-and-trade. If AB32 — passed by a Democratic legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — is rolled back in California, it could be the death knell of similar measures in other states and in Washington, D.C. As goes California, so goes the nation. And that’s why California is ground zero these days in the fight over global warming regulation.
— Steve Moore
It’s time to dump these costly, onerous AB 32 regulations! Nice quote, Assemblyman Logue!
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:00 am
Somebody tell Don Logue where the overwhelming amount of California’s oil comes from (hint: it’s not Texas). But glad to see he’s out there defending Texas oil interests that have poured $2 million into his initiative instead of the jobs in the fastest growing sector of California employment. I guess the few thousand bucks the Texas oil companies have given to his campaign makes them want to fight more for them than his constituents.
And to set the record straight, more than 87 percent of the funds from Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs is from California.
Conversely, more than 89 percent of the money for Mr. Logue’s initiative is from Texas and Missouri.