The biggest job killer law in the world was the center of this week’s Senate Rules Committee confirmation hearing of Mary Nichols, who has been named by Governor Schwarzenegger to the important position of Chairman of the Air Resources Board.
FR readers may not be aware that Nichols held this position once before — for Jerry Brown when he was Governor! After being a part of the left-wing administration of Governor "Moonbeam" she served as campaign manager for Los Angeles Mayor turned candidate for Governor, Tom Bradley. She worked for groups on the deep end of the environmental wackos list – Natural Resource Defense Council and Environment Now Foundation. But it’s even worse — she was a senior level appointee of former President Clinton in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and was Resources Agency Secretary under the now-disgraced and recalled Governor Gray Davis.
I know – you’re thinking the same thing that I am — that Republicans won the Governor’s seat in California. That’s another story — suffice it to say that working the administration of Gray Davis seems to get you extra "bonus points" to get a job with Arnold — he has hired a lot of Davis "alums" and other Democrats.
We understand that Governor Schwarzenegger has bought off on Al Gore’s big scare — and that he embraces the questionable science behind whether mankind is influencing the temperature of the Earth. We get that. But the Governor also must understand that if the premise is correct, that what we do here in California, relative to the world, will be minor. Should Californian’s and especially California business be burdened to be the social activists for this global cause?
Apparently the Governor thinks so — why else would our Republican Governor appoint a life-long Democrat and environmental activist to implement what will be the biggest boondoggle in California’s history? Why would this “business-friendly” Governor appoint someone who has a track record of pushing regulations that impose costs on business eventually driving those businesses and jobs out of state? Given the precarious condition of our economy, we should be putting people into these key roles who will be slow and cautious, and balance the Governor’s ideological "global" goals against the very real negative impacts of these policies on the standard of living of his constituents.
Why would AB 32 drive businesses out of state? Maybe due to regulatory uncertainty? Or added regulatory costs that you wouldn’t have in other states? The Governor doesn’t want to talk about that, especially when economists estimate that the cost to fully implement AB 32 could reach as high as $511 billion (with a capital B). One only needs to look at recent actions of the ARB to see that this is not such a far-fetched number – ARB’s regulations for off-road diesel vehicles was estimated to cost businesses upwards of $3.4 Billion for only 180,000 vehicles. The Public Utilities Commission estimates that the cost of AB 32 compliance for just the two investor owned utilities is at $15 Billion.
State Senate Republicans have to very able representatives on the Rules Committee, which just last week held a hearing for the appointment of Nichols. One Republican member of the Commiettee is Senator Bob Dutton — who "gets it" in terms of understanding the impacts of AB 32 on businesses and recognizes that the costs to implement AB 32 will impact all Californians. He knows that now during an economic downturn, the last thing the state should be doing is imposing costly new regulations on businesses. His line of questions for Nichols focused on the fact AB 32 isn’t ready and that more time is necessary to make sure AB 32’s implementation doesn’t force companies to move into neighboring states. Ms. Nichols responses were to suggest we continue AB 32’s implementation – as we would expect any hardcore environmentalist to advocate. While our other GOPer on the Rules Committee, Senator Jim Battin was unable to make the hearing, he told me that he, along with Senator Dutton, will be leading the charge to oppose Nichol’s confirmation — hopefully joined by the rest of the GOP caucus.
If we wanted state government to stick it to California business this bad, we would have elected Phil Angelides. It would actually be most convenient if the Governor would just pull this appointment as part of an overall re-evaluation of whether his state-level jihad against carbon emissions is in the best interests of the Golden State.
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