California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006

Once upon a time, California was the go to state. The place where people would go to make their fortunes. The Golden State, with sunshine, movie stars, beach parties and open roads. Over the years though there a disconnect has occurred between the elites and the middle class, as well as a growing underclass that seems to wind up locked into underclass status. There are a myriad of reasons for this evolution, and one of the big reasons for this has been the ever increasing amount of regulation that the governing entities require.

One of the more recent regulations that California has decided to implement is AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_32_bill_20060927_chaptered.pdf

While there is certainly a "Yay us, we're a leader when it comes to solving Global Warming" element to this, the act itself seems to rest on the premise that by mandating emissions control to revert back to 1990 levels by 2020, entrepreneurs will come up with new and cost effective methods of doing so while at the same time continuing to increase growth and development in the state.

However, the legislation doesn't require growth or development in the state, and in fact seems to encourage significant lifestyle changes on the populace. Given that greenhouse gases, CO2 in particular, are a component of mammalian LIFE, this can have a very sweeping impact on all sorts of industries.

Most people think of vehicle emissions and power generation (coal burning electric plants) as the specific targets of this sort of legislation. While those entities are certainly in the crosshairs, any company that emits greenhouse gasses can be regulated. And that can certainly mean the raising of livestock.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4789554

Now, it may in fact be possible to drastically reduce livestock emissions, but the research cost alone is likely to cause a competitive disadvantage, and odds are that reduced emission farming techniques will result in a competitive disadvantage when compared to methods that do not require reduced emissions.

And unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that such a competitive disadvantage will be in play for any industry that California entrepreneurs choose to engage in. This is leading to a stratification in the society, where those that have made their fortunes are able to live quite well, while those that are seeking their fortunes find their way up to be more and more difficult. And those in the middle find themselves squeezed in a vicious race to the bottom, as the middle class shrinks and an even more vicious cycle of reduced tax revenues that and cutbacks in public safety and services such as fire, police, and prisons, followed by schools since cuts in those services will most likely lead the voting populace to accept tax increases. At least until the point where the voting populace simply WON'T accept further tax increases.

The tax limit may have been reached, at least for the time being with the general economic climate in California being so weak , and while CARB has yet to go into effect, if it does, it will simply add to the regulatory disadvantage that potential businesses will see If they consider setting up shop in California. And really, why is it that California's leaders want to put the economy in California at a disadvantage?