As previously posted, Judge Ernest Goldsmith of the San Francisco Superior Court issued a tentative ruling invalidating the California Air Resources Board's "cap--and-trade" regulations implementing Assembly Bill 32, the Global warming Solutions Act of 2006. The Judge has now finalized his ruling.
Ironically, the implementation of AB 32 was challenged not by industry but by approximately a half-dozen environmental justice advocacy groups, which alleged that the Board had not adequately considered viable alternatives to a "cap-and-trade" system. The groups complained that the system, which sets an overall level of Greenhouse Gases that industry may emit into the environment, unfairly imposes burdens on low-income communities. The unfairness allegedly arises because, while an overall pollution limit may be set, within that limit companies exceeding their emission allowance can buy credits from other companies and continue existing levels of individual company pollution. The advocacy groups complained that the companies benefitting from such a system are disproportionately in low-income areas and that, while the system may cap pollution overall, the result would actually be to increase pollution in low-income areas.
In a further irony, the Air Resources Board's approach to curbing greenhouse-gas pollution was in part challenged on the basis of another environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA"). As the Judge's final Statement of Decision put it, the groups claimed that the Board violated CEQA by, among other things, "failing to adequately analyze alternatives" to cap-and-trade. The Judge criticized the Board for failing adequately to analyze a carbon-tax alternative to cap-and-trade.
Perhaps, in a take off of the old story, "When Worlds Collide", this sage should be labeled "When Legislation Collides". In any event, you can find the Statement of Decision at http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2011-03/60311754.pdf (Association of Irritated Residents, et al. v. California Air Resources Board, et al., Case No. CPF-09-509562).
Article originally opublished in the [San Fernando] Valley News Group of papers.