Greenhouse gas bill passed in California legislature

The California Assembly on Thursday approved a groundbreaking bill to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, making California the first U.S. state that will meet the Kyoto Protocol.

The bill, AB 32, was forged in a deal on Wednesday between the legislature's Democrats majority and the Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was approved by the state Senate on Wednesday evening.

"Today, we are taking a stand to curb this crisis. We have the will, ability and solutions to slow global warming and encourage technology that can help the rest of the world," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who co-authored the bill.

The bill, passed by a 47-31 vote, will authorize the California Air Resources Board to begin a process of measuring the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases coming from industries.

Once a tally is taken, regulators would set limits for each facility and industry that would take effect beginning in 2012.

Regulators will be able to enforce limits with financial penalties and provide market-based incentives to industry. The bill will also create a new market that would allow industries whose emissions are below limits to sell credits to other companies that exceed their caps.

The 1990-level emissions cap would be the toughest greenhouse gas requirement nationwide. California, the 12th largest carbon emitter in the world if counted as an independent economy, has to cut its industrial emissions by 25 percent on current levels.

"We can now move forward with developing a market-based system that makes California a world leader in the effort to reduce carbon emissions," Schwarzenegger said on Wednesday.

"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an issue we must show leadership on," added the governor, who has made combating global warming the centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

Environmentalists praised the agreement with the governor for providing California with the tools for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But business groups expressed their concern that the requirement to create a system of market-based pollution credit trading was not strong enough.

U.S. President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol to cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions in 2001, and refused to take practical steps to fight global warming at federal level.

However, fellow Republican Schwarzenegger, always a sharp critic of Bush on environmental issues, has bypassed the President and rallied with the state's Democrats for cooperation.

In a separate but related bill approved on Thursday, California is set to prohibit new long-term contracts for power produced by coal-fired plants, at least until such plants can operate with equipment to control carbon dioxide emissions.

Although California does not have any coal-fired power plants, it gets around 20 percent of its electricity from such generators located in other western states. The second bill, SB 1368, is expected to be signed by Schwarzenegger into law together with AB 32.

Both bills were opposed by some business groups. The California Manufacturers and Technology Association announced that such a drastic cap on emissions would drive businesses and jobs from California to other states or countries, while greenhouse gases may not be reduced much globally as a result.

Source: Xinhua