cap-and-trade

California Adopts Landmark Cap-and-Trade Program

Defying the trend in the rest of the country to ignore the perils of climate change, the California Air Resources Board voted today to establish the country’s first economy-wide cap-and-trade program covering greenhouse gas emissions.  The vote  comes five years after the state passed sweeping legislation — AB 32 — to roll California’s carbon emissions …

CONTINUE READING

California Sup Ct Lets California Continue Its Cap and Trade Work

The California Supreme Court issued an order today that allows the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to continue implementing its cap and trade program. The history here is somewhat convoluted.   The state’s plan (called the scoping plan) to implement the California Global Warming Solutions Act contains within it a cap and trade program.   A group of environmental justice …

CONTINUE READING

What EPA should do with its delayed performance standards for GHGs

On September 15, EPA announced that it would not meet its September deadline for proposing performance standards for greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from power plants. (That is the second delay; this proposal was originally scheduled for July 2011.) Some are asking if this delay is a big deal, and several environmental leaders sent President Obama …

CONTINUE READING

Is Cap and Trade Unfair?

I should probably start by putting my cards on the table.  I’m not really an advocate of cap and   trade as compared with other forms of regulation.  What I care about is getting effective carbon restrictions in place, whether they take the form of cap and trade, a carbon tax, industry-wide regulations, or something …

CONTINUE READING

EPA to Continue Emissions Trading in Place of Clean Air Interstate Rule

With the success of the 1990 cap and trade program for sulfur dioxide (the major cause of acid rain), cap and trade  has become one of the dominant regulatory means to control air pollution in the U.S.  And, of course, cap and trade remains one of the central mechanisms to control greenhouse gases in those …

CONTINUE READING

Pricing Carbon: How Would It Affect the Poor?

We need to put a price on carbon, but there is no reason why we should do so in a way that harms the poor.

CONTINUE READING

California Slowing Down on Cap and Trade

Yesterday, Mary Nichols slipped a bit of a bombshell  into testimony before the California Senate Select Committee on the Environment, the Economy and Climate Change.  She announced that the state’s Air Resources Board is planning to “initiate” the cap and trade program in 2012 but not “start the requirements for compliance”  until 2013.  This effectively …

CONTINUE READING

AB 32 alive and well after final order issued in AIR v. ARB, the EJ challenge to California cap and trade

On Friday afternoon, Judge Goldsmith of the California Superior Court issued his final order in the case pitting environmental justice advocates against the State’s Air Resources Board on the issue of cap and trade (order available here).  We’ve written a lot about the case and about the values conflicts underlying it (see here for access …

CONTINUE READING

Forest Offsets and Fuzzy Math in the Angeles National Forest

I previously posted that Sierra Club wants Governor Brown to re-examine forest offsets under California’s cap-and-trade program. One of the commenters to that post wondered if the plan to plant 10,000 acres of trees in the Angeles National Forest was an example of such an offset. Now I don’t know if that planting would count …

CONTINUE READING

Sierra Club asks Gov. Brown to re-examine AB 32 cap-and-trade

On May 9, Sierra Club requested that Governor Jerry Brown “re-evaluate” the cap-and-trade rule promulgated by the California Air Resources Board.  The Sacramento Bee has some initial reactions and you can read the original letter here.  As noted in our earlier posts, CARB’s cap-and-trade rule has come under judicial scrutiny and its status is somewhat …

CONTINUE READING

Join Our Mailing List

Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.

TRENDING