Cap-and-Trade

A few days after the largest oil lobbyist in the state told a legislative hearing that cap and trade is “the most cost-effective way to produce greenhouse gas emissions reductions,” the oil industry is trying out a new way to attack the state program.

California budget negotiations have moved into high gear with the naming of Senate and Assembly members to the bicameral budget conference committee. Leaders of the two bodies named five members each—up from three in previous years—and the conference committee held its first hearing this morning. The committee's job is to find agreement among the three competing state budget proposals before June 15, when it must submit a final version to both houses to be voted on. The final budget agreement must be signed by the governor by the end of the month.

In a wide-ranging conversation at the TransForm/CalBike Equity Summit, Malcolm Dougherty kept right on saying things that advocates are not used to hearing from the director of Caltrans. He reiterated Caltrans' commitment to its goals of  tripling biking trips and doubling the number of walking trips in the state. He said that California is investing more in transit than it ever has before, and he even said there are freeways in the state “that may not be serving their original purpose” and maybe should be removed, using the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco as an example of the improvements that could bring.

The major lobby group for the California oil industry has launched a new, and particularly dimwitted, effort to denigrate California's climate change policies. Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy, or CARE, one of the Western States Petroleum Association's front groups (as reported in Streetsblog several years ago), started a new website that purports to show how the state is wasting its money on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Governor Brown issued his May revision of the state budget proposal, and in terms of transportation, it's pretty much the same story we told in January. That is, he proposes a variety of new revenues, including a “road improvement charge” and higher gas taxes, to fix California's transportation infrastructure.

Last year, Governor Brown called a “Special Session” to prod the California legislature to find solutions to what seemed an intractable problem: how to fund transportation needs in the state. Some bills were introduced, some hearings were held, but the biggest result of all the ballyhoo is a confirmation that the problem is, indeed, intractable.

Transportation funding in California has, as SBCA readers must know by now, reached a “crisis.” Shrinking gas tax revenues, combined with an increasing reliance on local sales taxes limited to specific transportation projects, have left our overbuilt and under-maintained highways, roads, and bridges without enough funds to keep them in a basic state of good repair.

The California legislature is back from spring recess and the process of hearing and arguing about bills is beginning in earnest. In the next few days, Streetsblog California will talk about some exciting bills coming up that may need your support.

TransForm has updated and relaunched its Climate Benefits map, adding new data and a video about California's climate investments. The map now includes a user-friendly “tour” to help people understand and search for data on where California's cap-and-trade revenue goes.