California doubles down on stupid – Court upholds cap and trade program, new fuel tax coming

From the LA Times and the “let’s double down on stupid” department

A cornerstone of California’s battle against climate change was upheld on Thursday by a state appeals court that ruled the cap-and-trade program does not constitute an unconstitutional tax, as some business groups had claimed.

The 2-1 decision from the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento does not eliminate all the legal and political questions that have dogged the program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

But environmental advocates dismayed by President Trump’s decision to roll back federal regulations in Washington were buoyed by Thursday’s victory, which preserves the only program of its kind in the country.

The court case began four years ago and has been a cloud over the state’s efforts to fight global warming. California has pointed to its cap-and-trade program as an international example of how financial incentives can be used to reduce emissions. Nine states on the East Coast have a similar system, but it applies only to power plants, while California’s program affects nearly its entire economy.


Meanwhile: The California Senate just passed a new gasoline tax, and the California Assembly is expected to pass it today, adding 12 cents per gallon of gasoline to pay for road repairs, because the other fuel tax for road repairs got co-opted for other uses by incompetent Democrats. The excise tax on diesel fuel would jump 20 cents per gallon and the sale tax on diesel would go up four percentage points. Electric cars would pay a $100 annual fee.

Watch businesses fly out of California now…even faster than before.



202 thoughts on “California doubles down on stupid – Court upholds cap and trade program, new fuel tax coming

    • Don’t know for sure, but I imagine that Hawaii has higher gas prices, whether due to taxes?

      • Hawaii is of course moving to 100% renewable electricity so it doesn’t need to expensively import fossil fuel for power stations at least

      • California, one of the states where they keep raising “Gas Taxes” to pay for “Road Repair” but place it in the General Fund, and never use it for road work. California Gas Taxes are a funding farce gathered to repair roads but used to fund nonroad state government pet projects. No wonder the states roads are in suct a bad state

      • “Griff April 7, 2017 at 12:00 pm”

        Population, Hawaii ~1.5million. Population mainland USA, ~350million. See where the problem is with “renewables”?

      • “Hawaii is of course moving to 100% renewable electricity so it doesn’t need to expensively import fossil fuel for power stations at least”

        Of course. Why expensively import when you can produce your own expensive electricity?

        “100% renewable electricity”

        Not possible, 100% of the time. Lights out at Waikiki hotels only way to achieve 100%, 100% of the time. I.e., kill supply, not demand, only way.

        How long before 100% renewable electricity runs into wind/solar demand for lots of land? Hawaiian land is extremely expensive.
        Too expensive for low density electricity production.

      • Griff, Hawaii is indeed moving to 100% renewable electricity. According to their web site, they should finish the transition by 2045. I imagine that fossil fuel will be required until then. But that is only for the next 28 years.

    • @MarkW:

      Believe it or not, California’s gasoline and diesel taxes are not yet the highest in the nation. If the Wikipedia link below is correct, California is seventh highest on the list in gasoline tax and eighth in diesel. Pennsylvania, Washington State, New York, Connecticut, Hawaii and Michigan all have higher state fuel taxes than California. But California will obviously move up on the list with these new taxes on gas and diesel–probably to the top.

      My home state of Wisconsin is 20th on the list and right at the national average.

      • California gas prices vary over a relatively wide range. In Tahoe, it’s closing in on $4 per gallon while in the central valley (90 miles away) it’s between about $2.50-$2.80 and in the Bay area, its closer to $3 per gallon. In Reno Nevada, it’s generally closer to $2.50.

      • IIRC, in the Summer and Autumn, California requires unique, more costly fuel formulations to try to reduce pollution in the Coastal basins. That results in higher pump prices there over and above taxes — which are high also of course.

      • There’s also the extra equipment to try and recover fuel vapors that most of the rest of the country doesn’t require.

      • At my petrol station 1 litter = £1.22 = $ 1.513
        Since 1 US gallon = 3.8 litters, if I am correct, I’m paying equivalent of $5.75 / US gallon.
        In the UK average annual income is around $33k, while in California could be around $62k.
        It looks that Californians should be paying about $10.6/gallon to get where we are in the UK,

      • vukcevic, I wouldn’t go around advertising that people in your neck of the woods are three times as foolish as Californians.

      • With an average annual income of $7k and a price of $0.67/litre ($2.5/gallon), we have a 5.5x higher price than California or 2x higher than the UK relative to the income. And then you rich spoiled first-worlders dare to complain about high energy prices and taxes.

      • So the cost of all produce will even get higher.. Is no wonder we see more and more produce from other countries on the shelves, they are idiots!

      • Here in Brisbane Australia average cost of petrol is $US3.71/gallon. Average annual wage in Australia is $US61,476 almost same as in California.

    • It just warms my heart to know there is somewhere in the US you can still get $3+/gal gasoline.

    • CA gas prices are through the roof, the highest in the nation by far. It’s $3.99 a gallon for supreme at the local 76. Now there raising the taxes again?? I wonder what the price of gas is in other states?

  1. I thought food taxes were considered immoral, and given that:

    Carbon Dioxide is the base of the food chain

    what should we conclude?

  2. I think this is an excellant court decision to protect our environment.

    This will cut the the amount of warming caused by human caused CO2 by approx .0001C over the next hundred years preventing any catastrophic doom.

  3. The lust for more money is strongest with Dems. It helps buy votes among other things.

    • Government takes money from those who work for a living in order to give it to those who vote for a living.

      • Or, as Van Jones so chillingly put it, “We’ll take the money from people causing the problem, and give it to those solving the problem.”

      • Isn’t it amazing how they always include themselves in the class of people who are “solving the problem”, no matter what the problem is.

      • Or
        “Those who promise to rob Peter to pay Paul can always rely on the support of Paul.”

        Live your life. If you need help, there are those willing to help.
        Both benefit.
        Force the unwilling to help?
        Only those with the authority to force benefit.

  4. You simply fail to appreciate that California’s government doesn’t really care about climate change or any other “social justice” cause. It just wants an excuse for increasing tax revenues in a badly managed state.

  5. Meanwhile CA is spending lavishly on ads promoting tourism for people the world over to fly and drive there.

  6. I don’t fault Brown at all. He’s offering a package and the voters are buying it. If sensible businesses keep leaving the state, the concentration of fools and idiots (unemployed ones in particular) increases, so this stuff will be voted in in perpetuity as far as I can see.

    • An 80 foot coal seam ? That seems a remarkable thickness when you consider that in the South Wales coalfields, where the seams were given names according to the thickness when first encountered, the thickest I have seen is a “nine foot seam”.

      • It’s true and it’s low sulfur coal, which demonstrates just how much the country produces with one and sometimes both hands tied behind its back.

      • “Griff April 7, 2017 at 12:01 pm”

        So you are the product of coal worker ancestry and yet you strive to prevent others from benefitting in exactly the same way. Hypocrisy is strong in this one.

  7. For many years I owned a 1971 Jensen interceptor Mark 2. Beautiful car, Italian designed, hand built in the UK, with an American Mopar 6.3 litre V8. At the time California were pioneering green policies and decreed that all cars (imported and otherwise) had to have catalytic converters and run on unleaded lower octane fuel. The Law of Unintended Consequences of course kicked in and Jensen felt that to maintain sales and exports of the Interceptor, they had to negate the effects of the cat. and lower octane, unleaded fuel on performance by fitting a 7.2 litre V8 engine to the 1972 Mark 3 Interceptor. This of course pushed up fuel consumption meaning that CO2 increased, not a problem then (nor now, come to that), but to counteract the lack of lead in the fuel more benzene had to be added. Yet another breach of The Law of Unintended Consequences; benzene is carcinogenic making it much more toxic than lead. The incidence of cancer worldwide has been rising as other nations have followed California’s lead (including our UK), could this be a major factor?

    California is home to the major film companies and has a Disneyland and other theme parks, this predilection for fantasy seems to have spread to California’s government as well as their electorate, with no lessons learned by either.

    • Removing tetraethyl lead from gasoline caused a serious problem in older engines, valve recession. The lead lubricated the valves. The solution was to use hardened valve seats.


      Wait, what? Benzene is a toxic carcinogen?

      • Why sure, if you give massive doses of it to specially bred mice that were bred to be cancer prone. [Never stated is how much of our normal body’s chemicals are aromatic and how much of these chemicals our bodies make every day.]

        • Brilliant cdquarles, and it answers my question too.

          In fact, according to my 1959 Britannica, benzene was first discovered by Michael Faraday in the whale oil then used for lighting.

  8. California businesses (well, Bay Area and Silicon Valley, where I have the most experience) will not blink on this. They have so much money, this will feel like a rounding error. They’ve also bought into this stuff hook, line and sinker…they’re all behind this. Also, every single tax and trade scheme gets paid for by INDIVIDUAL TAX PAYERS…either through the consumer taxes, or passed on to consumers through higher pricing. The weather is absolutely perfect; The geology allows for beaches in the morning, and skiing in the evening. The people look at it as the “price of perfection.”

    Not a single business nor person will leave because of this. It’s in their DNA. Why hasn’t Anthony left?

    • Anyone change is likely to small to matter, however the steady drip, drip, drip, of new taxes, new regulations, etc adds up over time.
      Given how far many Californians have to drive in order to find housing that they can afford, this will be a big cost to workers. This means that employers will have to increase salaries in order to attract and maintain top talent.
      This will force a continuation of the already existing trend of CA companies hiring and expanding out of state in order to maintain their profitability.
      Yes, they have their corporate headquarters in CA, but more and more, the headquarters is the only thing in state.

      • Most companies re-examine their cost structure on a regular basis. Especially when they start losing market share.

      • It may be more like the logarithmic frog jumping half the distance to the wall, never gets there, but doesn’t know how close it is.


        Of course, there are those who have “made their’s” that now have the cash to fund their dreams of Utopia.
        Look at the vocal Hollywood elite.
        Both are divorced from reality but seek to force the rest of us to conform to their dreams.

    • I don’t know Anthony’s situation, but he’s welcome here in Utah County.

      Utah is a beautiful place with great mountains and multiple climates to choose from. The state is well managed too.

      See for the current view. I live at the base of the mountain in the background.

    • Your comment made me check how many celebrities who had promised to leave the USA if Trump won.

      I still haven’t found any. I have not checked thoroughly, though.

      Miley Cyrus, no.
      Bryan Cranston, no.
      Whoopi Goldberg, no.
      Amy Schumer, no.
      Lena Duham, no.

      I keep looking.

      • … had promised to leave the USA if Trump won, actually left.

        sorry about the unfinished sentence.

      • Well, they do go there to make films at lower cost than Calif. and working with more talent in a lot of cases.

      • If they’re not going to leave the USA, we should at least encourage them to stay in California. It suits their mentality.

      • MarkW April 7, 2017 at 10:47 am
        Same thing happens every time a Republican wins. Celebrities promise to leave, but don’t.

        One thing I’ve noticed since Obamacare is that there a H*LL of a lot more commercials for different law firms shopping for customers to sign up to sue somebody for something. (Obamacare did not include tort reform.)
        Maybe a few of those law firms could put out an ad or two seeking a class action suit against those who promised to leave but didn’t for “breach of contract” or something?
        That might actually help the health of the nation. 😎

      • Unfortunately, in order to be able to sue, you have to demonstrate that you have been harmed.
        Offended doesn’t count. Unless you are a government approved minority.

  9. What can we say. California has many good things going for it but has run far off course. It’s wealth was not created by following foolish policies. They will eventually correct. Our job is to help where we can and stop the idiocy from spreading.

    • I hear what you’re saying.
      But California got a big influx of druggies in the 60’s and 70’s.
      They’re older now, but they still vote. And they raised a lot those who vote there now. (Except those who came from south of the border.)

    • 50 miles inland from just south of LA to about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
      The rest of the state is sane, it’s just that they are outvoted.

  10. Jerry, since you can Legislate the Weather why not provide Single Payer Fuel and Energy too?

  11. Other California legislation being proposed:
    – A tax on robots to offset job loss due to automation.
    – Not disclosing you are HIV and infecting a partner is currently a felony in CA. A new bill being discussed would make it a misdemeanor. The rational being the current law discriminates against gay people.

    • Are there any proposals for sanctuary cities to protect science process believers and fact checkers of settled climate science?

  12. Oregon’s doing the same sorts of things – we’re currently getting ridiculous (and frightening) bills sprouting up from our totalitarian greenie-activist legislature – as is Washington. Angry spoiled children acting out – defiance against the election, I guess.

    • …rent control throughout the entire state … tenant laws that require a landlord to give 90 day notice and pay for relocation …

      Unintended consequences … rents go up everywhere as a result of the new laws. Good landlords screen potential a lot harder and people without excellent history are relegated to the crappier rentals forever … increase in stratification (which, of course, will need to be solved by more regulations).

      • Liberals complain a lot about this stratification, then retreat to their gated communities.

  13. I really love California. From Tule Lake to San Diego it is just great. As long as there is money there, and there certainly is a lot of money, all will be fine. The cash keeps pumping up both incomes and taxes. If I may, using the pump metaphor, when they pull a bubble watch what happens. That happened in the mid to late 80’s and unfortunately for those who are now working hard in the fast lane to keep up with rents, or mortgage if they are lucky, they have not seen this kind of event. Remember the heavy Japanese investments that went bust? Well, the Chinese are into that game right now, and Russians. Those that remember that time are now in Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Texas and Colorado. I wish I had a nickel for every California tag I see show up in these states. But, California will be alright, for a while.

    • It’s fine as long as you don’t look too closely like at the victims that leave or those being systematically priced out. Maybe the tourist level of consciousness is best.

    • Well yes, until they run out of Other People’s Money (OPM).

      Also, I don’t know about Calexit, I think the rest of us should expel California. Make it their problem. Then they can have all the immigrants they want.

    • Here (SF bay area) it’s the Indians as well as the Chinese (not so many Russians) bringing in the $$

      • Was watching cricket a month or two ago, streaming Indian overage of Australia v India. Peppered with adverts in strong American accents selling employment and accounting services in the Bay area. At first I thought they had hijacked that term, the realised they were pitching to California. They must be thick on the ground there.

  14. And yet California was boycotting travel to North Carolina because of bathroom legislation that gave a majority of the state’s residents a measure of continuing comfort in personal privacy in public.

    Now NC has a great reason to boycott CA.

    How about this, CA, … a public bathroom tax? … I bet you’d be okay with THAT. Straights, undecideds, gays — everybody pays — no possibility of discrimination there.

    I’m not done — how about a public-building breathing tax? — you know, to help defray the cost of climate control inside public buildings (i.e, heating, air conditioning, monitoring building-materials outgasing).

    I’m still not done — CA is not only a state with a high degree of crowding, but also is now a state with a high degree of intellectually challenged individuals in law-making positions.

    Okay, I think that ‘s it. [Imagine that Beach Boys music was playing softly in the background as you were reading all the previous words.]

    • You left out the “cheering at sports events” tax to offset the amount of CO2 expelled when fans denounce the referee and his family, the other team and their families, the other teams fans and their families, Santa Claus … oh wait, that’s Philadelphia.

  15. The only thing California courts are going to find un-Constitutional is businesses trying to leave California. After all it’s hard to pick your pocket if you leave the area of the pick-pocketer.

  16. If one were to measure CO2 emissions from industrial efforts, measure CO2 emissions from non-hollywood transportation, and measure CO2 emissions connected to the production of hollywood intertainment (which would include emissions from rediculously large mansions, any flights within the state, and all in and out flights taken by any member of that industry), there might be some backlash. I have a hunch that hollywood intertainment folks should rightly bear the brunt of CO2 taxes based on a percentage of gross income. Then pay it by taking it out of paychecks so these idiots understand what it is like to have your pocket picked.

    • Co2 from Hollywood is probably minimal as most the jobs have left the area/state due to high cost unions. Vancouver BC and New Zealand are major hubs for filming these days. A big contributor of Co2 in Hollywood would be vehicles transporting drugs being moved around Hollywood. With the writers strike looming I’m guessing Xanax will be in “high” demand soon.

      • It was London for awhile. The other 49 states can no longer afford tax credit giveaways to the directors and producers since those same states have been hammered in their budgets by Calif. policy reach that was forced over the rest of them. Mfg was largely illegal under Obama except in legacy sites where it was already taking place as outdated factories.

  17. Wasn’t there a song about this with lyrics like:

    Clap for the Taxman
    He gonna raise your taxes high
    Clap for the Taxman
    You gonna pay him ’til the day you die

    • I like the Beatles song, ‘Taxman’

      (from memory)
      Let me tell you how it’s gonna be
      1 for you, 19 for me.
      If 5 percent should seem to small
      Be grateful I don’t take it all

      That was when the wonderful Labour party raised the maximum tax bracket to 95%, and still didn’t have enough of our money. It did generate whole new industries of tax-deductible leisure activities, though, like ‘team-building’ retreats.

  18. If we built Trump’s wall so that it walled out CA as well, as some have proposed, it could keep all those intellectually challenged individuals from infecting other places. But then, no, many of them could probably simply fly over.

  19. I guess they will now be raising taxes on the trucks being used to haul in LPG to Calif. in making up for shortages there and lack of pipelines. In fact Calif. invented the method of dragging out pipeline applications for decades as the guide for Obama and Hillary.

  20. Thoughts from a Cali native this. The dems were hoping with the election of clinton to impose a Cali style system of one party rule nationwide. It would’ve been amnesty and voting rights for all. We dodged a bullet there. This new gaz tax and the soon to come vehicle registration/fees tax coming are estimated to cost $400-500 per year per person with a car. This will hit the low income hard, very hard. Not sure if there are enough people who are still paying attention to get this repealed or better recalled ala Gray Davis. The dems have done a fabulous job flooding the state with low wage, low IQ, low public interest and high public assistance population. They can literally pass just about any hairbrained law they want. Guv Moonbeam if you can believe it has been the adult in the room which is scary.

    • I have a term for government and economic practices that encourage low-IQ, high-entitlement-minded, low-wage-employment, eroded-work-ethic, high-violence communities — thugonomics

      Maybe I’m being harsh – I dunno.

      • Sounds right to me. Using Atlas Shrugged as a user manual rather than a cautionary tale.

  21. I have only been to Cali once to evaluate an employment opportunity.

    Beautiful place to visit, but it would have been like taking a 25% pay cut to move there with the taxes compared to Florida.

    Would I go back? I don’t think so……

  22. I recently read somewhere that California pays more per mile of road repair than just about every other state and still has some of the poorest quality roads in the country. Can’t remember where I read that or I would post the link. I suppose they wanted to make sure they maintained their position as number 1 on that list.

    It almost seems like a source of pride for left leaning states to have the highest cost for “insert anything here” and still have standards of living that bearly equal the rest of the country.

      • It’s easy to keep your taxes low when most taxes are being paid by people who don’t live there.
        Otherwise known as tourists.
        Florida has a similar advantage.

        • California has its share of tourists as well. The problems here are an overblown bureaucracy, an idiot for a governor, a far left state assembly that has no sense of fiscal responsibility and too much illegal immigration which over-taxes the entitlement system which Moonbeam wants to increase further by turning California into a ‘sanctuary’ state.

      • MarkW on April 7, 2017 at 12:43 pm

        It’s not the total number of tourists that matters, it’s the ratio of tourist to native.

        MarkW, what d’you think Californian La-La-Land is living on.


    • You don’t know the half of it. A stretch of highway 99 in the in the central valley has taken about 7 years to complete(about 50 miles long). Within a year they were repairing large sections of asphalt and now the road is worse than it was before they repaired it. The inefficient use of money and supervision will only be exaggerated by increasing the fuel taxes!

      • 7 years? Amateurs!

        The M3 in the UK has been being repaired since I left in 2001, and I don’t know how many years before.

    • Our local radio host did a segment on the cost difference. Cali pays almost 4X as much per mile than the national average. $4.09 vs roughly $1.00!!! If you’ve ever seen Caltrans at work you would understand. Just recently something like 3500 Caltrans employee’s were busted for not even showing up to work yet collecting pay. Seems golfing for real big distraction from doing their jobs. They’re the epitome of a bureaucracy existing to exist. Downsizing is NEVER an option only adding more staff. Hence these folks at times have literally nothing to do. Back when the Northridge earthquake took out the I-5 and some other freeway infrastructure Caltrans was bypassed and the work went to private contractors who got the freeways opened and running ahead of schedule and under budget!!! The work took weeks instead of years.

      A great example of the ineptitude of Cali is the Eastern Bay bridge that took 12yrs to build and will cost in the end $12 BILLION for a 2.2miles!!! Try and wrap your head around those numbers.

  23. I think they might have finally done it. The legislature may finally motivate a large portion of the low to moderate income people in the state to leave. Californians already pay a $0.75 per gallon premium on fuel and between new fuel taxes and cap and trade “fees” that premium is set to rise to at least $1.00 per gallon. Since the vehicles people drive regularly probably consume 50 gallons of fuel per month and most households have more than 1 vehicle, you are looking at >$100 per month premium just for driving in the state. Couple that will rents that already consume 30-50% of people’s income already (and its only getting worse) I suspect this may be the straw that breaks the back of the working class.

    • This comment is dead on right. Beautiful state ruined by tax and spend with disregard politicians.

    • Cali’s take dwarfs whatever amount the oil companies make on a gallon of gas. The hypocrisy is deep here in Cali. They “hate” fossil fuels but they love the cash.

    • Let’s treat the (legal) evacuees with respect and dignity, unlike the The Grapes of Wrath migrants.


      Gasoline taxes harm the poorest segments of society most. You can’t raise gasoline taxes and legitimately claim you care about poor people.

  24. The decision is only good until 2020 when they have to vote on it and it would require…. by state law…. a 2/3 majority vote to pass. Californians historically don’t pass tax increases. They are big talkers until its’ their money on the line.

  25. So what do these idiots think they are going to get for this money well spent? How naive and stoopid are these leftists?

  26. California’s green insanity, high energy prices, high taxes and far left politics is why I’m moving my business to Reno. Besides, I can get twice the house at half the price of my 60 yr old, tract house in the Bay area.

  27. Gasoline is one thing. Energy tax, ala cap and trade, takes CA businesses completely out of the competitive markets, even in CA. Thus, I predict an “import carbon usage tax” for all goods sold in CA by non-CA businesses.
    One wonders if the Feds will step in and quash this based using the Interstate Commerce Clause. Otherwise, CA will have set itself up as a defacto independent nation.

    • Folks who deal in tangible goods are going to quickly discover that it’s cheaper to set up a distribution center in Nevada, for example, and fill all orders by mail, even with the shipping charges. Want a 4×4 junction box ($1.50 or so) for that home repair? “We can have that to you next Thursday, or overnight it for $10.”

      • Retailers could set up systems like Wal-Mart’s, where they have very little stock in the store, but a constant stream of delivery trucks keeping them from running out.

      • It never ceases to amaze me how many people with no skin in the game, believe themselves to be experts in how other people should be running their businesses.

      • “…it’s a liability on their balance sheet.”

        Say it again: “…it’s a liability on their balance sheet.”

        Now say they don’t have any skin in the game.

        Now go look in the mirror and say both phrases again, one right after the other. That look in the mirror is either one of confused ignorance, or defiant liar.

  28. “California doubles down on stupid”

    You repeated yourself.

    When we read the word “California”, we already know its going to be about something “stupid”.

    Hopefully they will break away from the other 49 states and start their own country.

    Then the rest of us can watch them fail without having to bail them out.

  29. Californians elected these jackasses, they can eat it. Don’t forget to re-elect moonbeam at the earliest opportunity. If you want to talk about doubling down on stupid look no further than the California electorate.

    • From what I’ve recently read, Gov. Moonbeam is their last tenuous connection with reality. The next guy, who looks like to be elected, is one of them; should be interesting.

      • Yes. Groomed and anointed. An elite of the highest class and Socialist of the highest order. It would take a mass epiphany for California to turn Conservative. The sad truth is there is so much money generated in California no one could do any wrong because the level of awareness stops stops at their cell phones, in the overpriced homes, and overpaid jobs. Bought and sold, everyone. They respond very well to virtue signaling because they have non morals of their own. The Left will never allow the state to secede or split because it would ruin their electoral college vote.

  30. Well, reading all this, I can only envision a new national park called The California State Dessert — wide expanses of unoccupied buildings, force by mass migrations — oh wait, this describes some small California “cities” already … on weekends. Only this would now expand to all days of the week for all cities, large and small.

    “Before” and “after” pictures would be subtitled, “This is California” – “This is California on taxes — Any questions?”

    A government addicted to taxes is a taxaddict. CA, the first step is ADMITTING that you have a problem.

  31. Apparently the liberal democrats in California just love paying out more in taxes. But paying out more in taxes will not change global climate. Modeling studies show that the climate change we are experiending is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. The way things are going here in California, in the near future we will have to buy state permits to exhale.

    • What you will find is that most of the liberal Democrats in California, as well as everywhere else in the country have no interest in paying more taxes. They always vote to have other people’s taxes increased.

  32. California’s solution to their pending bankruptcy is delay the day by charging
    the great planet saver carbon tax but it won’t work because politicians are far more proficient at spending other peoples money they don’t actually have . Imagine if interest rates went to 6 %. California would be fully insolvent in a shorter time that Mini – Al changes his pool water .
    California can keep the music playing by flooding the economy with low wage illegals
    and charge a carbon tax which pulls some revenue from the underground economy .
    The rich will keep driving their Rolls and the poor / middle class get screwed as usual .

  33. “Watch businesses fly out of California now…even faster than before”

    Well that’s one way to reduce California’s carbon emissions. Feature or bug?

  34. California is becoming a rug. And not even a 60’s shag rug at that. It’s flat, it’s blasé, totally predictable, every thing is beige, nothing new, stuckness in conformity. They think they are in a bubble of enlightenment – and the are. But the “enlightenment” is that of Psycho Synchronicity. That “are” superior because they “know” they are. That are “Californians” after all…. THEY are one.

  35. California’s plan can’t work unless the rest of the nation (and world) do it too. And then it won’t work after that.. And it isn’t evenneeded to work. But other than that, it makes irrationality feel good.

  36. The real problem facing Cali is the gargantuan unfunded pension liability that CALPERS and STRS have created. Last year CALPERS readjusted the yearly asset growth rate to 7.0%, down from the 7.5% rate that they had been using. This is still far too high considering that the actual CALPERS asset growth rate last fiscal year was a measly 0.6%.

    If one adjusts the expected growth rate to a more realistic 3.0%, the CALPERS and STRS unfunded liability is between $750 BILLION and $1 TRILLION. This gargantuan shortfall is being hidden by the totaly unrealistic 7.0% growth rate assumption.

    Meanwhile in Sacramento, Guv Moonbeam McCowfart is overseeing the payment of ultra-cushy benefits to illegal immigrants, blowing 10’s of billions on building a high speed rail system from nowhere to nowhere on the east side of the Central Valley, borrowing many 10’s of billions more for reservoirs that were not built to store this season’s rainfall as California stiffs agriculture to pour trillions of gallons of fresh water into the Pacific.

    In fact, neither this season’s rainfall nor the drought are historic. There were both much larger and more devastating droughts as well as much more intense periods of rain in the 1800s. These are well documented in newspapers from that period. These same stories also recorded that native American tribes knew of California’s drought/flood cycle from their oral history. The only thing that is unprecedented in California is the immense stupidity of the far left politicians who rule the state.

    • No, that is wrong in many ways. Using a snapshot number like one year return against the 20 or 30 year growth assumption for returns is not appropriate. Yes, the systems made some stupid investments that were probably politically directed and there was some corruption along the way on the Boards and executive director. But no 3.0% is not reasonable for a long term assumption for returns. They just need to stop the politically correct investment strategies, corruption, and other bad choices.

      • They need to stop giving out unrealistic pensions. The pension spiking. Too early of retirements. Healthcare for life. It’s insane what they allow public sector unions to get away with. If they averaged 10% they couldn’t fund their promises. Pension payments from cities to Calpers etc… are growing exponentially. Within 5-10yrs it’ll be a choice (court ordered no doubt) between keeping the lights on fire and public safety or making pension payments. The cities of Vallejo and Stockton are just the tip of the iceberg.

  37. Just don’t ruin California then leave and go to another state and implement the same taxes expecting a different outcome if you ruin your state,stay in your state and reap what you sow dont run away

  38. Sobaken commented: “…. And then you rich spoiled first-worlders dare to complain about high energy prices and taxes…..”

    Don’t worry. They are trying to turn us into a Socialist state so we can share your misery.

  39. How about a wall around California ? Try to keep those remaining businesses in and the ultra left wing flakes from polluting other States . The carbon tax has nothing to do with saving the planet it is to cover gross government incompetence and tap into a new vein of tax revenue , It won’t work though . Compound interest , constant new debt and now Federal dollars being withheld should just about do it .
    They elected Moonbeam and you get what you pay for .

  40. Governor Brown doesn’t care about California. He only cares about himself. If he cared about climate change, lack of water, budget problems, or the environment, he’d consider illegal aliens are bankrupting California. Instead, he continues to fuel his buddies who need illegal alien cheap labor while the illegals destroy our schools, drain or funds and suck up our water, deplete our resources and overload our criminal justice system.

  41. Isn’t that lovely. A group of government bureaucrats – judges, in this case – who say that some tax is okay.
    Remind me again how government judges are paid?
    This reminds me of my city council members granting them their own raises.
    To put it bluntly, governments – ALL branches of governments – do not care one iota whether AGW / Climate Change is valid or not. They could not care less.
    They see a cash cow and they go for it big time.
    It’s the money, folks. It’s only the money.

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