Global warming legislation: A warning from California

From a speech on the House floor by California Representative Tom McClintock, on the recently passed Waxman-Markey carbon tax bill:

... Three years ago, I stood on the floor of the California Senate and watched a similar celebration over a similar bill, Assembly Bill 32. And I have spent the last three years watching as that law has dangerously deepened California's recession. It uses a different mechanism than cap and trade, but the objective is the same: to force a dramatic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Until that bill took effect, California's unemployment numbers tracked very closely with the national unemployment rate. But then, in January of 2007, California's unemployment rate began a steady upward divergence from the national jobless figures. Today, California's unemployment rate is more than two points above the national rate, and at its highest point since 1941.

What is it that happened in January 2007? AB 32 took effect and began shutting down entire segments of California's economy. Let me give you one example from my district.

The city of Truckee, Calif., was about to sign a long-term power contract to get its electricity from a new, EPA-approved coal-fired electricity plant in Utah. AB 32 and companion legislation caused them to abandon that contract. The replacement power they acquired literally doubled their electricity costs.

So when economists warn that we can expect electricity prices to double under the cap and trade bill, I can tell you from bitter experience that in my district, that's not a future prediction, that is a historical fact.

Gov. Schwarzenegger assured us that AB 32 would mean an explosion of new, green jobs — exactly the same promises we're hearing from cap and trade supporters. In California, exactly the opposite has happened. We have lost so many jobs the UC Santa Barbara economic forecast is now using the D-word — depression — to discuss California's job market. ...

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