Pirate's Cove

If you have to give bribes and “sweeteners” to get everyone to cooperate (at the barrel of the government force), maybe this stuff isn’t that good?

Newsom is running out of climate sweeteners

MONEY BAG: California climate politics are entering their austerity era.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is preparing to unveil his final May budget revision this week with an eye toward cementing his legacy. Broadly, he’ll be helped by an expected surge in tax revenue tied to anticipated tech company IPOs later this year, as our POLITICO colleagues Eric He, Tyler Katzenberger and Nicole Norman reported.

But on climate, he’s confronting an awkward reality Democrats long tried to avoid: California’s ambitious emissions-cutting regulations are no longer generating enough money to soften the political blow.

Since its inception in 2006, California’s cap-and-trade program was sold not just as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but as a machine for generating roughly $4 billion annually for projects lawmakers could bring back to their districts — electric school buses, wildfire prevention, affordable housing near transit, discounts on electric bills, clean water projects and incentives for farmers and drivers to adopt cleaner technologies.

I wonder how much of that money was being spent as intended, and how much ended up going to NGOs and donors and friends as graft and slush money?

That money became the political sweetener that helped sustain support for an otherwise costly and contentious climate agenda, securing votes from recalcitrant moderate Democrats (and even the occasional Republican) eager to deliver tangible benefits back home.

But the sweetener is now running out — leaving Newsom holding the bag. It’s a painful pivot for the likely 2028 presidential contender, who just last year relished rebranding the carbon market from “cap and trade” to “cap and invest” as a nod to the community groups clamoring to spend the program’s revenues.

It was basically a BS program designed to hide how expensive this all is, and now Californians are going to pay for it. More. But, then, the majority of them voted for this cult insanity. Have fun! And maybe they should all give up their own use of fossil fuels.