Pirate's Cove

Is it?

California’s climate agenda is in survival mode

California has spent more than a decade building the country’s most aggressive climate rules. Now, regulators are feathering the brakes as cost concerns reshape climate politics nationwide.

The California Air Resources Board is scheduled to vote on Thursday to approve significant changes to the state’s signature carbon market — changes that environmental groups say would make it harder to reach the state’s ambitious climate goals.

Those amendments would, among other things, provide relief to in-state oil refineries fed up with complying with pricey climate rules. The vote marks a notable shift, and indicates that even here, in a state known for its climate leadership, affordability concerns are forcing lawmakers and regulators to rethink everything from the ground up.

“On carbon, we’re still the biggest player in the world, so there’s a little bit of pressure,” said Sen. Henry Stern, a non-voting member of the California Air Resources Board, in an interview on Wednesday. “This is a moment of so much upheaval. … CARB has made it through, from [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger on, but I don’t know if you can keep doing that. It’s going to be hard.”

Real, or just a deflection?

California’s cap-and-invest program, under which polluting companies must buy a shrinking pool of permits to cover their emissions, has been a key part of its climate brand since it launched in 2013. The program has helped bring emissions down over the last decade, and inspired copycats around the world, while generating billions in revenue for climate projects in the state.

But that program is now under pressure from several directions at once. Oil companies and in-state refineries have hammered CARB over the potential cost of its carbon market at a time when voters are concerned about rising gas prices, and they’ve poured millions into lobbying the agency and lawmakers in past months.

“Moderate” Democrats are also banging the gong of this happening, probably because they are seeing polls that are not helpful, so, the climate cult will make a temporary change before reinstating the full permits when gas prices come down.

Danny Cullenward, the vice chair of an independent committee advising CARB on carbon markets, told reporters on Wednesday that the agency’s proposal “is being presented as a compromise when, in fact, it is sacrificing both of the key goals of the program.”

And while CARB released more details late Tuesday on how it plans to deploy the incentive program for polluters who invest in decarbonization projects, that hasn’t appeased environmental advocates, who argue the agency’s amendment process was rushed, and did not take feedback from concerned organizations into account.

No worries, it will be temporary.