Earth to Governor Schwarzenegger: We Are In A RECESSION.
Times are TOUGH. People are OUT OF WORK.
Those who are working (and certainly those who aren’t) have LESS MONEY TO SPEND.
So it is certinly not appreciated when you sign legislation that sounds nifty but has the practical effect of making this state a more expensive place to live, work or run a business.
I think that it is remarkably tone-deaf of you to praise the California Energy Commission for passing new expensive and onerous regulations while you proudly boast that you veto "job killer" legislation.
Guess what, in your press release today, you are praising job killer regulation.
At some point, you need to come to terms with the fact that your aggressive agenda to cause people to consume less energy and emit less carbon comes at a significant economic cost.
If you want to "feel good" — donate your own carbon credits and go buy your own more expensive energy-efficient big screen television. But it is wrong to force everyone else to jump through your hoops so that can hang with Al Gore and Van Jones, and feel good about yourself.
Just STOP.
(By the way, this just addresses the practical negative effects of this policy agenda. We don’t even get into the more important ideological issue whether whether state government SHOULD be passng these kinds of regulations.)