California air board OKs cap-and-trade regulations

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday approved the creation of the nation's first broad-based program to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and to begin charging large emitters for the excess carbon dioxide they put in the air.

After an all-day meeting, the board voted 9-1 for the proposal, which will take effect beginning in 2012 and means California is once again moving forward with climate change policy while efforts on the national level have stopped.

... Under the new rules, the number of metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions estimated for California will be capped in 2012 at what is forecast to be emitted that year. Over the next three years, the cap will shrink by 2 percent per year. From 2015 to 2020, the cap will drop by 3 percent per year.

The cap first applies to the some of California's biggest emitters, including utilities and large industrial plants. In 2015, it will expand to fuel distributors. In total, it will apply to 360 businesses at 600 locations across the state.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/16/MN6B1GRO7F.DTL&tsp=1

[Liberty Belle]

1. This will fuel a "Green economy" recovery for California.

The downside though is it will fuel demand for more massive wind and solar farm projects, and powerlinks that aren't needed.

We need to all start demanding locally-generated power such as rooftop solar on public buildings, shopping centers, industrial and office buildings instead of monstrosities that scrape our deserts bare and despoil our wilderness regions.

Read more about what's happening here, including a court order today to halt construction at the first solar farm on public lands: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4662650

Does this look like an appropriate use of our public wilderness lands to you?

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTLjklV0Ev4KYwkB0kvdbvZyBOEQQ-SVYxyrSrvQmqfgjAX2Ff6NA

[ThomCat]

2. Hard caps would have been better.

Instead, now there will be a market for the sale of those emission credits.

If this market takes off and inflates the price of those emissions we will have yet another bubble to worry about.

Investors can make money. But Any Industry that produces emissions could see their overhead driven up by the bubble. The cost to buy their emission credit could suddenly skyrocket because of a financial bubble.

If the cost of the emission cap skyrockets, and the company has to suddenly start passing along massively increased cost increases to customers, then the cost of their product could go up x2, x4, or even x10 pretty quickly with no notice.

What products could suddenly get much, much more expensive? Well, the easier question is what products couldn't suddenly be affected. What products Don't produce any emissions anyplace in the manufacturing process?

Cap and Trade is an invitation for a financial bubble to hold any or every industry hostage at any time without warning.

Does anyone really think this is the solution? What I mean is, anyone who isn't looking to make a profit off of claims to be environmental.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't realize that hard caps on emissions would have been a much better solution?