Who could have possibly seen this coming? (via Watts Up With That?)
California lawmakers are turning cap-and-trade into the slush fund critics long feared
For years, critics of California’s cap-and-trade program have lambasted it as a government slush fund. They say that politicians are able to dip into it to fund their pet projects or raid it to fill the shortfall of the moment — as long as they can assert a mildly credible connection between the spending and the state’s ambitious goals to fight climate change.
Well, California lawmakers are about to prove those critics right.
As part of the budget negotiations, lawmakers shelved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial “water tax†that would have raised $140 million a year to help low-income communities finally clean up their contaminated water systems.
Instead, lawmakers plan to fund the much-needed water cleanups with $100 million a year in cap-and-trade dollars — money that is paid to the state by polluters and which is legally required to be spent on projects to reduce the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
So how do leaders justify using cap-and-trade dollars for water cleanups? Newsom’s office said that communities with tainted water need bottled water delivered in trucks that pollute the air. If the water supply is cleaned, that will reduce vehicle emissions.
They could do so much more if the California government and all those who work for it gave up their fossil fueled vehicles. Heck, they could have a referendum that would force all government employees to give up their personal fossil fueled vehicles.
By that ludicrous logic, California could pay for expanded Medi-Cal benefits with cap-and-trade dollars too, because if people have preventive healthcare, they’ll get sick less and drive to the hospital less and produce fewer greenhouse gases.
Don’t give them ideas.
But cap-and-trade dollars are for projects that really reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as replacing dirty diesel engines or capturing methane pollution from dairies. Lawmakers undermine public trust in — and public support for — the state’s climate program when they divert that money to other needs.
They should require that all airports in California close. And those horrible hotels and vacations spots, because people come in fossil fueled vehicles, right?
Anyhow, no one should be surprised that Warmists would play games with the money.
The point of cap and trade is that producers are allocated carbon credits according so a totally arbitrary allocation scheme. Then, as they become more efficient in reducing carbon emissions, they can sell their unused credits to companies that pollute more. Supply and demand of credits determines the price.
So how does the government get any money? They do it the old fashioned way. Taxes on energy. But taxes on energy aren’t a cap and trade strategy.
The other way this works is that companies that go out of business, find that they are creating ZERO carbon emissions and can now sell ALL their credits for cash to companies that still produce stuff, like energy. And all the emissions are just estimates that are assigned by government agencies, which can be changed on a whim, for a price. A corrupt bureaucrat’s wet dream. This is what killed the Kyoto Treaty. The Russian confederation wanted to used their Soviet Union pollution levels as their baseline. Most of those industries collapsed when the Soviet Union did. They, China, and India stood to gain trillions of dollars from the USA based on “agreed to” estimates of fictional carbon production, with appropriate rewards skimmed off the top for the estimators and American negotiators (Ahem… Al Gore).
They had OVER 100,000 requests for a 20,000 seat arena!
Live Streaming – President Trump 2020 Re-Election Rally – Orlando, Florida
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2019/06/live-president-trump-2020-re-election.html