BP Agrees to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges Arising Out of Deepwater Horizon Disaster
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that British Petroleum has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and precipitated the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. As part of the plea bargain, BP has agreed to pay the federal government $4.5 billion in penalties, including $1.26 billion in criminal fines. BP has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts relating to the worker deaths abo...
CONTINUE READINGWhy California’s cap-and-trade auction is not a tax
Yesterday, Ann and Cara gave their initial reactions to the California Chamber of Commerce lawsuit against California's cap-and-trade auction. The main thrust of that lawsuit is that the auction (that happens today) is an unconstitutional tax because, according to the lawsuit, AB 32 gave the California Air Resources Board (CARB) no authority to withhold and sell the allowances at auction, as opposed to giving away allowances to industry for free. Ann's first reaction...
CONTINUE READINGWhy Was the Lawsuit Challenging California’s Cap-and-Trade Auction Filed Just One Day Before the Auction?
As Ann posted earlier today, the California Chamber of Commerce has filed a petition for writ of mandate in a California superior court, alleging that the auction of allowances to emit carbon dioxide scheduled for tomorrow constitutes an illegal tax and is not authorized by the California law AB 32. AB 32 requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the Legislature has tasked the California Air Resources Board with making that happen. The ARB has develo...
CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: California Chamber of Commerce Sues over AB 32 Auction
The California Chamber of Commerce has launched the first industry lawsuit against the auction portion of California's cap-and-trade program on the basis that auctioning off allowances constitutes an unauthorized, unconstitutional tax. The complaint was filed today in Sacramento Superior Court and seeks to stop the auction and have the auction regulations declared invalid. The Chamber argues that the Legislature never authorized the Air Resources Board -- the agency...
CONTINUE READINGTime for a California Oil Severance Tax
California's new Democratic supermajority will be sorely tempted to raise taxes and fees across the board, which I have earlier suggested is a bad idea politically. But that hardly means that it should reject new revenues altogether, and the easiest place to start would be an oil severance tax. The oil severance tax works exactly like it sounds: it taxes producers based upon the barrels of oil they take out of the ground. California is one of the few oil producing s...
CONTINUE READINGWhy the GOP Should Embrace Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
There's a lot of discussion these days about how the Republican Party should reposition itself in light of last week's election results. Support for renewables and energy efficiency would make sense as part of a package of policy adjustments -- it would strengthen the Party's appeal to swing voters, women, and younger voters, with only limited fallout among current GOP supporters. Here are some key finding from a recent Pew poll: 70% of independents support increase...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Do You Do With a Supermajority? Be Very Careful!
As Cara observes, California Democrats seem to have achieved the unachievable in Sacramento -- a 2/3 majority, allowing them to raise taxes without permission of the GOP. It's not quite there, because a couple of state Senators were elected to Congress, and as soon as they take their seats, special elections will need to be held for their Senate seats. But they are safe Democratic districts: for the next session, the supermajority seems to be assured.So what should...
CONTINUE READINGMaking Climate Policy While Congress Sleeps
In our system of government, Congress is the institution with the greatest power to address issues of national importance. Unfortunately, Congress has been AWOL on the issue of climate change. The election has made it marginally more likely that Congress might wake up and take action on climate change, possibly even including a carbon tax as part of a budget deal. But the odds still seem to be strongly against any break in the congressional deadlock on this issue. ...
CONTINUE READINGOne Additional Legal Challenge To AB 32: Prop 26
One addendum to my post on new developments and cap-and-trade. I should have mentioned that Proposition 26 -- which tightened the 2/3s vote requirement for taxes to include fees -- may be the basis for another legal challenge to the cap-and-trade program. California voters approved Prop 26 in 2010. Unless Prop 26 is found to be retroactive, which the Emmett Center has previously concluded it should not be, any lawsuit challenging cap-and-trade on the grounds that i...
CONTINUE READINGNew Developments for Cap-and-Trade in California
There's big news for California's cap-and-trade program to control the state's greenhouse gas emissions on two fronts this week. Cara alluded to the first in her post this week about California Democrats gaining a supermajority in both houses of the legislature after Tuesday's election. The legislative development is important because the state legislature can probably take steps -- with a two-thirds vote -- to reduce legal vulnerability about whether cap-and-trade...
CONTINUE READING