Bradford Plumer makes the point that state-level climate policy matters in The New Republic:

Renewable standards, efficiency laws, a utility-only carbon-trade system that’s currently operating in the Northeast… And looking ahead, a number of Western states are watching California closely and mulling the possibility of linking up with its cap-and-trade system down the road. Assuming that Congress doesn’t pass its own climate bill, then these states are going to shoulder a good deal of the burden in cutting carbon emissions.

Nicole Allan in The Atlantic repeats the economic-apocalypse claims of Proposition 23 proponents:

Anita Mangels, the campaign’s communications director, stressed that there’s more to Schwarzenegger’s prized AB 32 than just cap-and-trade. “It has a low carbon fuel standard, which would increase gas diesel costs by $4 billion a year,” she said. “Its renewable electricity standard would cause electricity rates to rise. It has green building standards that would add $50,000 to the cost of a home.”

I’m looking forward to getting cites for the first and third assertions by Mangels – particularly curious about the 50Gs for the cost of a home. Seems, for lack of a better word, random. I’ll present it when I have it.

And within that group of intellectuals, some of ‘em are complaining about it. The Union of Concerned Scientists has a new letter out from a group of 118 economists they roped together. It’s presented with a cover page: “The most expensive thing California can do is nothing.”

From the letter:

The current recession and the very high unemployment rate in California present daunting challenges. Some have argued that these economic conditions warrant suspending the imple- mentation of emission reduction policies. We disagree. Delaying action now and waiting for the future before initiating accelerated action to reduce global warming gases will be more costly than initiating action now. Acting now is more likely to limit further environmental degradation, lower the cost of mitigation, and spur innovation in renewable energy and conservation technologies. Furthermore, policies that reduce global warming pollution are likely to provide immediate benefits to the health and welfare of residents by reducing local pollutants.

Now, of course, they’re assuming that governments are going to get around to it sooner or later, and California will be forced in that instance to mitigate its impacts. Is that an unfair assumption?

Oh, and, from UCSB’s Charles Kolstad:

The risk of significant negative consequences of our current emissions path should be sufficient for us to take meaningful action to cost-effectively moderate our appetite for emitting carbon and to spur innovation into carbon-lean technologies. Starting with automobile pollution control in the 1960s, California has been a leader in managing environmental problems. We are better off for it.

…which is apparently a litmus test for how the governor’s race will go. Which again makes climate a litmus test for how the governor’s race will go.

Choice excerpt:

Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate and former eBay CEO, said through a spokeswoman on Friday she “believes the state cannot afford the costs associated with high-speed rail due to our current fiscal crisis.”

She lives in the wealthy town of Atherton, which is ground zero for the anti-bullet train movement because of concerns about the tracks that would run through the tony community.

Nowhere in the article is mention of climate change, or climate policy. But advocates for integrated planning for carbon and GHG reduction argue high speed rail is a big way to mitigate global warming.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology has a pretty good backgrounder on high speed rail as a climate issue – you can even download a report that does a corridor-by-corridor analysis of greenhouse gas emissions savings as a result of high-speed rail.

*Note that the BAB is fictional. Love the reference to Atherton, though, where, yes, Frank Stoltze, I DID go to high school.

The whole thing’s well worth a read. Do that here.

Trounstine & Roberts point out that Prop 23 is starting from a weak position, with a little more than a third of those polled in favor.

But a separate crosstab that the Field Poll ran at our request showed that voters who favor Proposition 23 are supporting Whitman over Brown by 55 percent to 34 percent while those who oppose the measure are supporting Brown by 54 percent to 34 percent – virtual mirror images.

At the same time, and even more impressive: Whitman voters are supporting Proposition 23 by 45 percent to 36 percent, but Brown supporters are opposing the measure by an even stronger 60 percent to 28 percent. These are differences you can call statistically significant.

They also give Barbara Boxer a tip:

The undecideds in the Senate race are opposed to the measure 47 percent to 28 percent – giving Boxer an opening to make inroads among voters who haven’t made up their mind about the Senate race but who know for sure they don’t want to roll back California’s climate change law.

I’m going to start doing a regular roundup of the week’s developments in climate politics. It seems like a good way to keep my head in the game.

This week’s pretty easy – two main developments:

The Field Poll released numbers on the propositions. Looks like voters are skeptical about Proposition 23, which would put AB 32 on hold until the state’s unemployment drops to 5.5% for 4 consecutive quarters (or, you know, until hell freezes over; keep in mind we’re around 12% right now, facing the prospect of a double dip).

PG&E – you know, the guys who wanted Prop 16 to win recently – has decided to oppose Proposition 23 – so, continues to support AB 32 moving forward as it has been.

The rules will apply to all cities whose storm drains empty into the river or its tributaries. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board passed the standards over the loud objections of the cities. They’re claiming that the added responsibility of eliminating bacteria from water entering the river could cost millions to billions of dollars.

The water board gave cities 25 years to achieve standards. Heal the Bay’s Mark Gold says that’s too long. But federal regulators – who earlier this week adopted the position that the LA River deserves fuller protection – said they’d impose limits on bacteria immediately if state officials took no action.

The regional board’s approval sends the plan to the state board in Sacramento. Then federal Environmental Protection Officials sign off on it to make the bacteria standards final.

UPDATE: Check out Rebecca Kimitch’s report from the meeting here.

Even famous people who get Emmy nominations for shows I watched (mostly on Alex Axles Cohen’s couch) for years sometimes have problems with the Department of Water and Power.

Pay him extra! The glasses add 10 grand!

As a journalist, it’s fun for me to think about why he might have been chosen. We did grow up fishing broken transistor radios and hobos out of the creek. But there’s no evidence Lloyd LaCuesta knew that. He doesn’t look like a dirty hippie. He doesn’t sound like a pottery-throwing soft-spoken vegetable-shoed eco-nut. So I’m guessing the smart-guy glasses.

I’ve got a nascent hypothesis about how glasses are to TV reporters what hats are to Alex Chadwick. Which is to say: when in doubt on the vox, pick someone with that particular vein of sartorial taste. They say good stuff.

1. The mayor’s proposing raising BILLS 8 to 28% for two reasons: higher rates, thanks to the Energy Cost Adjustment Factor, and a new “carbon surcharge” to pay for – well, we don’t know exactly. Energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, the mayor said, in a “lockbox.” Why this is different from other revenues, what conditions are on the money…we’re still finding out about that. Generally, they’re saying energy efficiency and renewables.
2. Maybe you’re asking how they’ve been getting the ECAF so wrong that they need to kick it up so much faster now. Coal and gas are volatile markets, perhaps more so lately, but pretty much all the time of late: are they really swinging more wildly now, or is the DWP just catching up all at once as it cleans house? The answer is: there’s a cap on how fast they can raise rates via ECAF. Thursday, they’re gonna talk about lifting that cap.
3. Water and power commissioners will talk about modifying the ordinance that limits ECAF adjustment upward. One justification for it in board documents is meeting the 20% renewable energy goal this year.
4. As for those goals: some of the goals the mayor talks about are state law mandates. Some are political promises made to L.A. by Mayor Villaraigosa. But the state law requirements, like for AB32 and RPS – “renewable portfolio standards” – how much energy is not fossil-fuel generated – can have very real financial penalties attached – up to hundreds of millions of dollars. (That sword of Damocles hangs over utilities heads’ now. If Meg Whitman and Republican legislators get their way, AB32 and some of the Governator’s green goals could get rolled back.)
5. Political green-power goals: Mayor Villaraigosa has vowed throughout his administration to get us to 20% renewable energy by the end of this year. Last summer, he upped the challenge to himself by vowing to make Los Angeles coal-free within 10 years. We still rely on coal for about 43-44% of our energy portfolio now. Those are simply promises the mayor’s made; if the city doesn’t make those goals, no financial penalties attach.
6. DWP already has a Green Power for a Green LA program. 18-thousand people belong to it, and about 700 businesses. Interim general manager S. David Freeman said on KPCC he’d look into combining that program with the new program; that’s the opposite of what I heard at the press conference Tuesday. I was told there that the Green Power program is voluntary, and the “carbon surcharge” is mandatory, so they can’t be combined. But the bottom line is that the current program never really got off the ground, and now the DWP’s demands may have left it in the dust.
7. Around 19-thousand voluntary customers for Green Power. Curious that the mayor says 64% of people (people polled, of course) would be willing to pay (a small amount) more for clean energy. Does that mean something’s really wrong with the Green Power program, or that enough people don’t know about it? Probably the latter. But I think we’ll see from public hearings about how accurate the 64% is when writ large.
8. Now that the DWP board meeting is tomorrow, we’re seeing the first numbers for how they project higher ECAF (with a carbon surcharge like an easter-egg inside it) will affect bills. With residential customers, that answer is dictated by usage. At the low end, Tier 1 users, the information to the board projects a monthly change upward of $1.19-$1.68. For Tier 2, a monthly change upward of $6.61-7.39. For Tier 3, a monthly change upward of $18.86-30.84. (Remember, just to make it extra-impenetrable, there are weather Zones overlaying the tiers, giving a bit of a break to the hot places.) There are far more people in Tier 1 than in the 2 or 3, which is why the DWP puts the average in the $2.50-$3.50 range.
9. None of this explains why Tom LaBonge will pay an additional almost-11 dollars on his 93.16 average monthly bill, which is what he said at the press conference Monday. I talked to the councilman about that; he had just called DWP up to find out. I believe he said he’s a Tier 2 customer, but he may be a thrifty one, of course.
10. What’s city council’s role in all of this? Well. City Council has expressed skepticism about the need to raise ECAF in the past, and has asked DWP to get independent analyses (like the one PA consulting did last month) about ECAF.

Bottom line: I’m v. intrigued by the water and power commissioners’ meeting.