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Katy Grimes

California Attempts to Regulate the Sale of Gas Under Cap-and-Trade

On Monday, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers announced the introduction of theAffordable Gas for California Families Act,legislation to exempt transportation fuels and natural gas from the California Air Resource Board’scap-and-trade program.

“We struck a nerve!” Patterson told me. Patterson said he was surprised at the media response, and how many in the media did not know the gas tax is starting Jan. 1 – next month.

Patterson is working on issues like… Read More

Katy Grimes

Lawmakers Propose Exemption For January Gas Tax

California, the state obsessed with being first at everything, is aiming to add another first to its record books — Not content to be the first state in the country to tax the air we breathe, California will be the first in the nation to impose a cap and trade tax on transportation fuels.

In response, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, and Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers, announced Monday, the introduction of theAffordable Gas for California Families Act,legislation to exempt transportation fuels and natural gas from the California Air Resource Board’scap-and-trade program.

The move afoot by the radical left to strip Americans of their cars under the guise of environmentalism, knows no bounds.

With the second highest gas taxes in the country, and a flailing cap and trade program, whose only trading partner is Quebec,California is already paying the price.

While the rest of the country is currently enjoying lower gas prices, Californians will be faced with a hefty new… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Air Board Postpones ‘Giant Climate Change Coalition’ Carbon Auction with Québec

Wednesday the California Air Resources Board announced the first joint cap-and-trade carbon credits auctionbetween California and Québechas been postponed due to “technical difficulties.” Some carbon followers say the new auction will be scheduled in the next three working days.

Under AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, the 2006 legislation signed into law was to supposedly lower the state’s carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. CARB recently added to the carbon reduction plan the goal of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, because California already reached 1992 levels just with technological advances in autos, as… Read More

Katy Grimes

Tampering With CA Open-Government Laws

The California Legislature, run by a Democratic Supermajority, is noodling Open Meeting laws – again.

Two years ago, I wrote about how theCalifornia Air Resources Board, with help from Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, figured out a way to exempt itself from the state’s open meeting act, yet another blatant example of California Democrats doing whatever they can to operate in secret.

Government Code 11120, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, is explicitly exempted in the language of budget trailer billSB 1018. ”That was the final nail in the coffin of transparency,” a Capitol staffer commented.

Currently, AB 194, by Asemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, would allow local agencies, city council and county bodies, to adopt “reasonable regulations” to limit public comment, including time limits. However,According to Campos in January,… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Air Resources Board – No Legislative Oversight, No Rules, and Nothing to Stop It

The California Air Resources Board is a state agency completely out of control. With no oversight by the Legislature, as the California Constitution calls for, Mary Nichols, ARB Chairman, is setting policy on behalf of this regulatory body, for the entire state.

ARB Goes It Alone

The ARB has taken a great deal of liberty, particularly with its interpretation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. TheARB devised a cap-and-trade system whereby it holds a quarterly auction program “requiring many California employers to bid significant amounts of money for the privilege of continuing to emit carbon dioxide — or be faced with closing their doors in California, laying… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Air Resources Board New Plans Kill-Off Market Economy

If you haven’t read my two lengthy columns earlier this week about the recent Senate committee hearing about how to spend the Air Resource Board’s cap and trade auction revenues, take the time to do so – Part l is HERE, and Part ll is HERE.

They exemplify what takes place inside the State Capitol every day, and show how policy is made.

I transcribed exactly what was said at the four-hour hearing on climate change policies, with Senators deciding how to spend the anticipated $3 to $5 billion a year taxed on California businesses who have been deemed polluters by the California Air Resources Board.

The billions of dollars expected from the CaliforniaAir Resources Board’scap and trade auctions areexpected to pay for the anticipated transition from a market economy to a centrally planned one. Yetnothing in… Read More

Katy Grimes

Is the ARB bringing California to its knees through regulation?

California used to be the fifth largest economy in the world. Today, we have slipped to ninth place. Many say this decline is self-imposed throughdetrimental tax policy, and even moredestructive state regulations.

As such, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 should have been called the “Bring California to its Knees Act of 2006.”

Under the control of Mary Nichols, the California Air Resources Board has been in total control of implementing AB 32,… Read More

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