Editorial: How Calif. can fight climate change
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the July 14, 2014, Los Angeles Times.
California’s landmark climate change law, Assembly Bill 32, has created a promising cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases that has put the state on track to meet its emissions goals for 2020, kick-started the state’s green technology industry and generated hundreds of millions of dollars for mass transit and other projects that will further reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Gas prices already have risen by close to 50 cents a gallon since the beginning of the year.
But now comes the harder part for many Californians: In 2015, AB32 will begin to cover companies that produce transportation fuels, including gasoline. That means oil companies will begin paying for the greenhouse gases their products emit, a cost the oil companies say they will pass on to consumers. They say it will amount to an extra 15 cents a gallon.
Gas prices already have risen by close to 50 cents a gallon since the beginning of the year, for reasons that have nothing to do with AB32. The prospect of adding 15 cents more — though it’s relatively minor compared with the overall price increase — is daunting to many drivers. Assemblyman Henry T. Perea, D-Fresno, has introduced a bill to delay the extension of the law to transportation fuels for three additional years.