OPINION — When California families start thinking about their budgets for next year, they’ll need to set aside even more for their utility bills. And more for their commute. And yet more for rent.
Those are some of the immediate consequences of the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) recent decision to undermine California’s Cap-and-Invest program, the state’s signature climate program. Last year, California households received anywhere from $70 to $519 back on their utility bill via the Climate Credit, which is funded out of Cap-and-Invest proceeds. Thanks to new regulations approved by the legislature in August, funding for the Climate Credit could be cut by $1.7 billion between now and 2030.
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That translates to a 17% decrease for the average household and yet another financial burden for California families already struggling to make ends meet.
But the damage doesn’t stop there.
The idea behind Cap-and-Invest is that it limits emissions from major polluters by charging them, generating billions of dollars annually for community investments through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Just last year, state lawmakers reached a deal to invest in affordable housing, public transit, clean water, and air quality projects through the GGRF.
New rules mean there’s not enough money in the GGRF, and those public investments are going away. Transit investments were cut by hundreds of millions of dollars, which has some local officials already talking about service cuts and layoffs. Affordable housing investments were all but zeroed out, which could impact 177 different projects statewide that were counting on GGRF funding. And while legislators reached a last-minute deal to preserve clean air and water investments for this year, they still don’t have a long-term plan to fund programs that replace lead pipes and monitor air quality in disadvantaged communities.
Instead, the money will go toward a new handout to the same corporations that are already underpaying for the pollution they spew.
This year, CARB created a new industry subsidy called the Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive (MDI) and minted 118 million new “allowances” (akin to a credit to emit a certain amount of climate pollution) to fund it. These allowances sit outside the cap structure and have no clear verification standards or guardrails. They’re worth roughly $4 billion and amount to a massive giveaway to fossil fuel refiners and manufacturers.
First Cap and Trade was and is a political caption for getting votes. It never achieved anywhere close to what it was supposed to do.
Second the legislature that is supposed to protect the taxpayer has intentionally created an inflation in the state that is running out of the state the producers….. Why would you want to work and produce in a State that increases the costs of operation?
This article while appearing well intention is a paper cover of the hole in the wall.
Socialism and taxation like Cap & Joke doesn’t work.